The leader of the Belgian Maquis, a notary called Guinle, wore his white armband proudly. Thanks to him and the other members of the White Army, we'd escaped the ambush. He kicked the bullet-ridden bodies of the Rexists-Belgians for Hitler-to make sure they were dead. Then he put his boot on the neck of the priest and ripped off the black cassock, revealing an SS uniform underneath. The bullet-riddled coffins were empty. As we were thanking them, two of the Belgians started to argue vehemently. Threats were exchanged. Guinle had to keep them from striking each other.
"Sometimes," Guinle explained to us, "our differences endanger our country's actions. You see, Belgium is home to two peoples, the Dutchspeaking Flemish and the French-speaking Walloons."
It was the first but not the last time I'd hear the wonderful name "Walloon."
On the outskirts of Liege, enemy artillery fired on us from some old brick buildings attached to a watchtower. The complex turned out to be an insane asylum. Retreating SS troops had taken it and were using the mad people as hostages. One well-aimed American bomb would have blown the place off the map of Belgium, but targeting civilians, especially crazy ones, was out of the question for the Allied command.
The key to taking the asylum was a White Army agent posing as a madwoman inside. She was a mythic figure in the Resistance. In the name of Belgian sovereignty, she'd sabotaged German troop trains, masqueraded as a nun to halt a German convoy, and posed as a chambermaid in a fashionable hotel to slash the throat of a German general in his bathtub. She'd even shot her own husband when she discovered that the sonofabitch was secretly a member of the Rexists. This lady had balls. Her code name was Walloon.
A local priest got word to Walloon that we were planning an assault. At the appointed hour that night, we snuck up to the back of the asylum. Walloon had already slit the throat of the SS lookout. She threw down a rope. Silently, we climbed up on the roof, then followed Walloon down a spiral staircase and hid in the kitchen.
Acting like a nutty ballerina, Walloon danced round the SS soldiers in the dining room and got their full attention with her barely covered ass. We jumped them and cut them down with our bayonets. Just then, a Nazi officer walked in and started firing at us with his Schmeisser. Walloon hit the floor as we shot him. All hell broke loose. Meanwhile, the priest was letting the rest of our outfit into the asylum through a side door. The battle moved from the kitchen, through the wards, and down into the laundry room. Inmates dove onto the floor to stay out of the way of ricocheting bullets.
A madman named Rensonnet found the SS officer's Schmeisser, picked it up, and thought he could act as normal as the rest of us by pulling the trigger. It was a game for him. First he fired at pots, pans, and dishes, delighted with the racket. Then he starting shooting fellow inmates. One of our sharpshooters had to kill Rensonnet with a bullet through the heart. The crazy inmate was smiling when he died, happy that he could kill just as well as sane men.
When the fight was over, all the SS were dead. We'd lost five men. The asylum returned to its everyday lunacy. We stayed there that night, planning to push on at dawn. One of my buddies got an invitation from Walloon to pay a visit that night in her sack. The young soldier hesitated, because the lady was quite a few years older than him. He took me aside to ask what I thought about the liaison. For Chrissakes, I told him, who cares if the lady's face had a few wrinkles, her body was ready and willing. I told him to think about Benjamin Franklin.
"What the hell does Benjamin Franklin got to do with it?" he asked.
"Old Ben once wrote a letter to a young punk just like you," I said. "He recommended older gals. Said they were clean. Wouldn't get pregnant. Didn't have diseases. Said they'd teach you tricks you never heard of. Best of all, they're very appreciative."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah! And if you're worried about her face, old Ben had one last piece of advice: `Cover her head with the American flag and shoot for Old Glory!' "
"But I like her face," said the soldier.
"Then stop acting like a schmuck and go to her," I said.
He did. In Walloon's arms, he was a man, not a soldier. Walloon, the legendary Resistance fighter, was a legendary lover. She inspired lusty passion. He gave her everything he had and then some. After all, it could have been his last lay. Tomorrow, maybe he'd stop a bullet. Tonight, he nestled his head against Walloon's warm breasts and remembered he was still alive.
At Liege, we found that the retreating Panzer divisions had blown up the bridge over the Meuse River. To hold their position on the opposite bank, the Germans had moved in an "88," their biggest artillery piece. We had to take it out so that engineers could build a pontoon bridge for our outfit to cross. I was picked to be on a five-man advance patrol that was sent far upstream in a rubber dinghy late one night.
Silently, we paddled across the river and ditched the boat on the other bank. Meanwhile, Battalion launched some dummy landing craft straight across from the enemy position. They headed out into the Meuse in full view of the Germans, guided by rudders that had been roped down, propelled by outboard motors whose throttles had been revved up and set with chewing gum. Stuffed potato sacks with steel helmets at the bow and stern looked exactly like dogfaces hunkered down in the dark boats. The Nazis began blasting away at the phony landing craft. Like cats, we moved through the brush toward the flank of the German artillery position. The decoys worked perfectly, giving us the split-second jump we needed.
First, we bayoneted the lookouts. Then, we tossed grenades at the artillery crew. Once we made sure they were all dead, we attached satchel charges to the big gun and piled on its own shells for the icing on the cake. The charge was set. We scurried away along the riverbank. The explosion and ensuing ball of fire that consumed the Nazis' 88 lit up the night, our own Fourth of July fireworks show, only a few months late.
The swift-moving tide of Allied might had, by this time, liberated most of France and a good part of Belgium. The Nazis had been driven back within the Reich, seeking the protection of their vast system of forts and pillboxes that extended from Holland down to Switzerland, the famed Siegfried Line. A helluva lot of journalists and generals had talked about the Siegfried Line without ever having seen it. By September ii, we were camped near Herve, Belgium, and I saw it for myself on a reconnaissance patrol that day. In a letter to my brother Ving, I described it:
I'm on the Siegfried Line, Vingo, and I guess Wagner is turning over in his grave right now. Know what the line really is? It's a con tinuous series of emplacements extending along the West Wall of Germany, containing reinforced pillboxes for machine guns, antitank guns and open earthworks for heavier artillery. They become greater, denser in depth. The concrete installations are 20-30 ft. high, some ranging to 3 stories, with steel, then reinforced concrete. Walls and roofs, 3, 5 or 7 ft thick, in some cases more.
The Big Red One's job was to tear a hole in the Siegfried Line and push through to Aachen, the German border city that had become a symbol of resistance to the Allied invasion and therefore defended with fanatical fury. Like in Sicily, the desperate homeland equation had taken effect. The closer we got to the enemy's turf, the more zealously they fought the invaders.
As I jotted down in my journal later, the essential breakthrough happened at 0545 hours on September iz. In the endless rain, our outfit was moving cautiously through a foggy forest, every man's mouth shut tight, his ears and eyes wide open. We'd been sent out to destroy some of those monolithic pillboxes and attack a stubborn Wehrmacht position. In the dark, cold dawn, the fog got even heavier, closing in on us like a thick blanket. We couldn't see a damn thing, but we could hear German voices in the distance. Each dogface grabbed the shoulder of the man in front of him as we inched forward step by step. Radio silence had been imposed. Every cracking leaf, every creaking limb, every cawing bird made us hold our breath, clench our teeth, and grip our rifles with tense fingers. The unseen border was breached during that treacherous advance. We'd invaded Germany.
By blowing a few pil
lboxes and destroying some light artillery, we'd pierced the Siegfried Line. Just as quickly, we were forced to fall back when the enemy counterattacked. Their heavy artillery pounded our position with uncanny accuracy, causing many casualties, then their tanks and infantry swarmed in to push us back, turning the Big Red One from attackers into bitterly besieged defenders.
Enemy numbers dramatically increased. Instead of combats against fifty German soldiers, now there were hundreds of them to face. Mixed in with battle-hardened German soldiers were the young soldiers of the Volksgrenadier Divisions. For Chrissakes, some of them were only twelve years old, or younger! Captain O'Brien of Cannon Company sent this message back to HQ:
This may sound funny, but it is serious. We just captured 4 children, the oldest one isn't over 7 years old. They were firing into one of my gun sections. One was using an M-i, loaded the wrong ammunition, and blew the end off the gun.
It was hard to feel sorry for the youngsters, because, like their elders, they were aiming between our eyes. Still, the presence of kids on the front lines was disturbing. They didn't even know why the hell they were there. Once captured, they were sent to POW camps, just like other prisoners. All they wanted to do was go home to their families. They would discover that their families, like the entire German nation, would pay dearly for Hitler's transgressions. American bombing squadrons were already bringing the whole world's wrath relentlessly down on the German Fatherland.
In battle after battle, the Siegfried Line started to crumble. Ridiculous rumors circulated that the enemy was demoralized and about to abandon. That kind of misinformation was dished out by army brass sitting on their asses back at HQ. It made men on the front feel pretty bitter. All our dead and wounded were proof enough that the Nazis showed no sign of surrender. Whenever they pulled back, they'd dig in, fight like mad to hold their ground, then come back at us with a vicious counterattack.
One of the exasperating and little-known facts of this period was that gasoline, spare parts, ammunition, food, and medicines for U.S. troops were running out quick. Hell, the beachhead that we'd first established on the sands of Normandy had rapidly telescoped to the pillboxes on the German border and was tricky to keep supplied adequately. What about Eisenhower's promise to the First Infantry Division back in England? We all joked about it. All we had to do was take Omaha, and somebody else would "carry the ball" from there. That goddamned beachhead extended from the English Channel and probably went right up to Hitler's front door. As battle-tested troops, we had to carry the ball.
To make our predicament even more maddening, the enemy had an almost impregnable position outside the nearby town of Verlautenheide, on Crucifix Hill, so called because of the huge cross that surmounted it. From there, a German observation post could see every American movement, at least during the day. That explained why their artillery poured down on us with such amazing precision. Holy shit, one dogface moving out of his foxhole would invite several rounds from Nazi guns as large as 88s!
In my movie The Big Red One, the sergeant and his squad are ambushed below a gigantic crucifix, where a furious battle has taken place. German soldiers, lying in wait for the American patrol, plant themselves among the corpses and charred tanks strewn across the plain. There's a helluva shot from the point of view of a German radioman who's climbed up the crucifix to coordinate the ambush. He hides behind the crossbeam, where a war-beaten figure of Christ-along with my camera-looks down on the battleground.
The scene was based on the terrible shellacking we took around Ver- lautenheide, thanks to that Nazi observation post on Crucifix Hill. For my film, however, I transported the cross to Soissons, because the place had a special significance to Big Red One veterans. As the graphic and emotional centerpiece of my yarn, the crucifix and its ravaged Christ fit. The image of a battle guided by a man behind a cross, high above the field of combat, would always be with me, triggering nightmarish truths about the bewildering and brutal nature of war itself. Nothing was sure. Nothing was sacred. Death rained down without notice or design, blindly killing everything in its path. A bullet, a bomb, or a shell from out of nowhere would tear your head off. Usually it had been fired by the enemy. Sometimes, somebody fighting on your own side had pulled the trigger.
For those lucky enough to survive it, war turned your deepest convictions upside down and inside out. Life was supposed to be precious. Every human being was supposed to be valuable. Yet all around you were the corpses of people killed in a conflict they hardly understood, lives wasted in intolerable ways and unthinkable proportions. What could those young men have accomplished, if only they'd survived? It was enough to drive you crazy. Many soldiers did go nuts. If you retained any sanity, you never thought about time the same way again. You were grateful for every moment of existence you were granted, and you didn't want to waste another split second on bullshit.
Eating slop was a dismal routine. When it was raining, we ate and drank rainwater We tried having stimulating conversations to try to forget what use were ingesting, to take us back to the great past. What subjects did we discuss? The girl back home? Allied strategy? Liquor? Philosophy? Nope. Socks! Elevating, no?
Eggs Off a
Woman's Belly
19
Pushing through the breach in the Siegfried Line, the stage was set for the final assault on Aachen, the first German city we'd attack. Aachen had enormous strategic and symbolic importance for the Nazis as the gateway to the Reich and the ancient citadel of Charlemagne. Thirty-two kaisers had been crowned in the Aachen Cathedral, and every single one of them was buried in its catacombs. Aachen was situated in a rich valley, surrounded by wood-covered ridges that bristled with enemy mortars, artillery, snipers, and machine guns. The plan was to surround the city in preparation for a coordinated invasion, so the nearby towns of Munsterbusch, Eilendorf, and Stolberg had to be taken. One by one, they fell, but in each one we ran into heavy resistance.
In Munsterbusch, every room in every building was contested. As we were cleaning up the town, a solitary sniper opened fire from the upstairs window of a large private home. I don't know what the hell I was thinking about at the time, but I didn't take cover fast enough. One of those Nazi bullets missed my ear by an inch. I think all the pounding day in and day out from enemy artillery shells was driving me batty, dulling my powers of concentration. One of our sharpshooters instantly fired and brought down the sniper on his first shot. We ran into the house and up the stairs, only to find a voluptuous young woman lying on the floor, buck naked, her hand still on her rifle. She was wet from the bath we'd interrupted. Blood was pouring out of the bullet hole in her chest, and scathing curses came from the delicate lips on her beautiful mouth. She died with hate in her eyes for the American invaders of the Fatherland.
"We should never have shot a girl. It's downright un-American," said a young soldier, his voice trembling.
"It's her or you," said our sergeant. "Take your pick." Then, turning to me, he barked: "You were daydreaming, Fuller. She almost got you."
I was furious with myself because I'd been so unprofessional. I was even madder at our sharpshooter. Why couldn't he have just wounded the sex goddess? That way, we could have interrogated her. I wanted to know why such a beautiful gal wanted to die for Hitler.
"You cost me a good character for my book," I said to the marksman. "But thanks for saving the author's ass."
There was no denying it, I'd let my guard down, like a wetnose. If I wanted to survive, it could never happen again. Luck was always welcome, but still an undependable ally on the battlefield. Observation, cunning, speed, discipline, and concentration were much better friends. Wetnoses proved me right. They'd been brought in by the hundreds to replace all the dogfaces killed or wounded in Belgium to get us up to full force before the Aachen campaign. On paper, the regiment had the required numbers. But those young soldiers were thrown onto the battlefield without enough combat experience. Some were fearful, freezing under enemy flare drops instead of taking cover
from the bombs and shells that surely followed. Some were proud, forgetting caution in their show-off eagerness for a medal. Some were rebellious, hating discipline and orders. Some were cynical, not giving a damn. Some were unfocused, lacking the mental edge to avoid being killed. Some were still squeamish about killing the enemy. Who were the first soldiers to go down? Sadly but unsurprisingly, the wetnoses.
Stolberg was a typical infantry cleanup after being practically knocked level by our artillery. Nazi soldiers fought back from cellars, sewers, and tunnels, ambushing our men as we moved through the town's streets. We'd come to realize that no matter how much you bombed a German town, registered artillery on it, kept it raked with cross fire, lobbed mortars into it-whatever was the state of destruction of crumbling buildings and ripped-up roads-infantry had to be sent in to take out each Nazi defender. That meant you had to make sure you killed them. A wounded Nazi was like TNT, with so many underground places to hide in. If he could still move his trigger finger, a Nazi could score heavily for his side, shooting one, two, three of your guys in the blink of ein auge.
We still had to take Verlautenheide, the possession of which by the enemy had cost us so heavily. At 0400 on October 8, the Eighteenth Infantry pushed toward Crucifix Hill while the Sixteenth created a diversionary attack with mortars and artillery. By daylight, Crucifix Hill was finally occupied by the Big Red One.
A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking Page 20