by Dean Hughes
“Yes. Here’s Grandma. She wants to say hello to you.”
And so it began. Grandma and then Uncle Everett, and then cousins and more aunts and uncles, Grandpa, all of them asking the same questions, and all of them yelling as though they thought they had to give their words a boost to slide them through the lines all the way to Virginia.
Eventually Dad got on the line. “Merry Christmas, Son,” he said. “How are you doing?”
“Is it okay that I called? It was collect.”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. How are you?”
“All right. You know—a little homesick today.”
“Well, that’s only natural. We’re missing you and the other kids an awful lot. Are you keeping up your standards, Gene?”
“Sure. I can’t get to church very often—not our church anyway. But I go to services on base.”
“You aren’t letting those marines influence you in the wrong direction, are you? You’re keeping your speech clean, and you’re not smoking—or any of those things?”
“Gee, Dad, is this my stake president’s interview?”
Dad laughed. “That’s exactly what it is.”
“Well, I’m doing okay. I called my M-1 rifle a bad name the other day, but it had it coming. It smashed my thumb.”
Dad laughed again. “I’m sorry for the interrogation,” he said. “I know I don’t really have to ask. Well, we’d better not make this last too long. Here’s your mom.”
“Gene?”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Oh, honey, it’s so good to hear your voice. Tell me the truth—are you okay?”
“Sure.”
“What are you doing today?”
“I’m just . . . well, it’s been kind of a hard day . . .” The one thing he had told himself was that he couldn’t cry. He swallowed, but he couldn’t get any more words out.
“Oh, Gene, I’d give anything to have you home for a day or two. Do you think you’ll get leave after your time out there?”
But Gene couldn’t answer. He was crying hard now, holding the mouthpiece away, trying not to let her hear. “I don’t know,” he managed, finally, to tell her.
“Everyone is gone this year. It’s so hard. It’s just so hard.” And now she was sobbing too.
The two of them spent at least a quarter of a dollar that way, but Mom did manage to say, in time, “I’m sorry, Gene. I’m sorry. We’re all fine. And we’re going to get through this and look forward to the year when we’re all back together.”
“Okay, Mom. I’d better get off the phone now.”
“We pray for you every day, Gene. For all of you.”
“I pray for everyone too, Mom. I love you.”
“Oh, Gene, I love you, too. Just say good-bye to Beverly. She hasn’t had a chance to talk to you.”
But Gene only managed to say, “Hi, Bev,” and then he was sobbing again. And poor Beverly, who had always loved Gene so much, could hardly get a word out.
Chapter 20
By March of 1944 everyone knew that the invasion of Europe had to be coming soon. Alex’s regiment had trained all winter in England, but a new intensity was emerging. On March 23, two battalions made an inspection jump into a drop zone in southern England. From a specially prepared grandstand, Winston Churchill watched along with Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, and the new commander of the 101st, Maxwell Taylor.
As soon as Alex hit the ground, he collapsed his chute, shed it, and raced to a parade ground to fall in for inspection. While running at full speed, all the paratroopers assembled their rifles, which had been broken down for the jump. In a matter of minutes, over a thousand men had jumped, landed, and hurried to the formation. Alex had to believe that all the dignitaries were impressed.
He stood at “parade rest” and waited, and before long he saw, out of the corner of his eye, Churchill and the generals walking along the formation, stopping occasionally, talking to this soldier and that. And then the entourage appeared before Alex’s platoon. General Eisenhower stepped up to a soldier at the front, in the first squad. “Where are you from, soldier?” he asked.
“Oregon, sir,” the soldier answered, with more volume than seemed necessary. He was a man named McCloskey.
“What did you do before the war?”
“I was a student, sir. At the University of Oregon.”
“So how did the Oregon and Oregon State football game turn out this year? I didn’t hear.”
“I’m sorry to say, sir,” McCloskey said with a laugh, “Oregon State came out on top.”
Eisenhower laughed too. “Well, Oregon must have sent its best boys to the war.”
“I’m sure that’s true, sir.”
Alex couldn’t believe he was this close to Eisenhower, and to Churchill, who was standing back just a little, wearing a big black overcoat. Eisenhower, at this point, turned to the prime minister. “Anything you would like to ask?” he said.
Churchill asked, in his familiar raspy voice. “Well, son, how do you like England?”
“I like it very much, sir. I enjoy English history and literature. So it’s a memorable experience for me to be here.”
Churchill nodded and removed the big cigar from his mouth, held it between gloved fingers. “We’ll get you back home just as soon as we can—so you can go about your studies.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The dignitaries walked on by. General Eisenhower glanced toward Alex, even seemed to make eye contact with him for a moment. Alex liked his smile, his confidence. This was the man in charge of the coming invasion. It was an imposing responsibility, and yet the general seemed very much a regular fellow. Now Alex was impressed.
During the next few weeks the training continued to intensify. The 101st made several training jumps, all of them at night. It seemed obvious that the airborne troops would land in the dark, and it was rather a frightening prospect.
Alex wondered how the Brits must feel about all this activity going on around them—the noise of airplanes at night, the movement of troops in trucks. All of southern England was filling up with soldiers now, the towns and roads constantly clogged with Jeeps and trucks and artillery, the pubs filled with hard-drinking boys. There were hastily built barracks in some areas, tent towns in others, and many of the troops were even bivouacked in English homes. The families had to feel pressured into this, but the women had a way of becoming “mums” to the soldiers, and in spite of the recklessness of all these young men, seemingly everywhere most of the British accepted them well. “After all,” one old fellow told Alex, “we know you don’t want to be here either. Every one of you will be putting your life on the line—as much for us as for yourselves.”
Alex knew at least part of what the English were feeling. Early in the year the Germans had begun a bombing campaign on London. The “little blitz,” as some people called it, was not as intense as the constant bombing Londoners had experienced in the blitz of 1940 and ’41, but people were weary, and they hadn’t expected this new round of raids. London operated amazingly well, considering what the people had gone through for so many years, but everyone was ready for the invasion and what people hoped would be a quick end to all the terror.
One night in April, Alex’s squad was scheduled to make a night drop near the coastline. A major exercise was to take place, and Alex knew that Captain Morehead wanted his company to come through this time. The truth was, the previous night drop had resulted in too much confusion. The first challenge was merely for the soldier to find his own unit after he hit the ground. Then a bridge or imaginary gun emplacement was usually designated for squads or entire platoons to locate and attack.
What troubled Alex was that Sergeant Foley struggled to read a map correctly, or lead out in the dark, and yet he was quick to take offense when anyone—especially Alex—tried to give him advice. He was a big guy, imposing, and a little older than most of the men, but he made decisions too quickly, probably trying to appear decisive. Twice now he ha
d led his men in the wrong direction and then wandered about before he got them to their target, very late. Both times it had been Alex who had finally given him the advice that had gotten the squad where it needed to be, and Alex had felt the resentment.
When Alex jumped into the dark this time, he felt the usual momentary disorientation until his shoulder harness snapped him straight, and then he caught a glimpse of the stars overhead. What followed were those few seconds of quiet, with only the whistle of air through his parachute and the occasional expletives of some paratrooper struggling with his lines. But then the ground—a black presence not clearly defined—rushed up at him. He felt the jolt on his feet and into his knees sooner than he had expected, and he tried to roll forward, but as he did, his shoulder struck something hard. He was stunned for a moment, but he tried to roll over and get control of his parachute. The wind was billowing the nylon, and his harness was pulling hard on the shoulder he had just injured.
Alex got up and fought with the lines until he managed to collapse his parachute. Then he released his harness and worked the straps free from his left shoulder. But his right arm would hardly move, and he feared that he might have broken a bone. It took all his effort, and some force against the pain, to slip the other side of the harness off. By then, however, he was fairly sure that nothing was broken. The pain was in the muscle, and the joint seemed to function all right. He thought he had probably just bruised himself.
Around him, however, he was hearing other men, the grunts and profanity. Men were crash-landing into rocks, not into the grassy field that had been the intended target. Alex rolled up his parachute, and then he stumbled toward a man who was down on the ground, moaning. “Who’s there?” Alex called out.
“Campbell,” the voice said. “I’ve hurt my knee.”
“Can you get up?”
Campbell cursed. “Yeah. Just a minute.”
Alex had taken hold of Campbell’s shoulder, but the man was resisting for the moment.
“Hey, over here,” someone was yelling. “Foley is down, and he’s not talking.”
Alex left Campbell and worked his way toward the sound. He could see a little better now, as his eyes adjusted, and he spotted two men, hunched in the dark. “He’s moaning, but he doesn’t seem to hear me,” one of the men said. Alex recognized Rizzardi’s voice.
“Don’t move him,” Alex said. “Let’s make him as comfortable as we can and then get a medic over here.”
“Alex, I think he’s hurt bad,” Curtis Bentley said. “It looks like he hit his back on these rocks.”
In the next few minutes the squad gathered, but the men were a group of walking wounded. Almost everyone had slammed an arm or leg into the jagged rocks. “I’m bleeding like a stuck pig,” Lester Cox told Alex. “My leg is sliced wide open.”
“We’re all sort of banged up,” Alex said, “and we don’t have a squad leader. Where’s McCoy?”
“Right here. I can’t walk very good though. I twisted an ankle.”
“Do you need to stay here and wait for the medics?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know. I guess not.”
“Well, then, take over.” McCoy was the assistant squad leader.
“I am taking over. Lay off, Thomas; you don’t have to tell me what to do.” But he was quiet for a few seconds before he said, “Does anyone know where we are?”
Silence followed. The sky was unusually clear, with the stars out, but the waning moon didn’t offer much light, and in the damp cold and the dark—and now, with all these injuries—no one seemed exactly gung-ho to get going. Alex had already been thinking things over and had an idea what had gone wrong, but he didn’t want to push himself into the lead.
Duncan called out, in his blaring voice, “The wind was taking us east. We must be east of that grassy area we were supposed to hit.”
No one disagreed. “Okay, that sounds about right,” McCoy said, slowly and with no confidence.
Alex couldn’t let this happen. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think they had us jump a little too soon. We’re closer into the shoreline than we were supposed to be. That’s why we’re into the rocks.”
“Come on, Deacon,” Duncan said, “you don’t know that for sure.” But he sounded half-convinced.
“That’s true,” Alex said. “But it makes sense.” He decided to say nothing more.
No one said a word. McCoy obviously had no idea what to do. “Let’s look at the map,” he finally said. Each man carried a simple map of the area. Alex already had his out, but he decided to let McCoy make the decision. He sat and rubbed his shoulder—and waited.
Someone found a match and lit it, and everyone gathered around McCoy. The match didn’t last long, but Huish took a look over Huff’s shoulder and said, rather tersely, “See, that’s where the rocks are—along the coast. Thomas is obviously right.”
No one would have admitted it, but everyone knew Alex and Huish were the men most likely to know what they were talking about. “Okay. That’s probably where we are—south of the target,” McCoy said. “Let’s head north.”
“What I’m looking for is a pub on this map. And I can’t find one. Maybe ol’ Deacon can figure that one out.” This, of course, was Duncan’s way of backing off from his first opinion, but it also showed a change of attitude. At times Duncan was almost friendly with Alex, even if he made fun of him every chance he got.
“Strike another match,” McCoy said, “and I’ll take a look at my compass.”
“McCoy, just look at the sky,” Huish said. “There’s the north star right there.”
“Well, yeah. Right. Let’s move out, men. We’ll send someone back to get Foley as soon as we make contact. My ankle is feeling better. Are you guys all right?”
Alex didn’t want to say anything more, but he was worried about Foley. “Wouldn’t it be better to get on the radio and call the medics in?” he asked.
“I guess we could.”
“I think he’s hurt bad,” Curtis said. “The back of his head is bleeding.”
“How are you doing, Cox?” Alex asked.
“I need a little help with my leg,” he said. “If I can get it bandaged, I think I can walk all right.”
Alex had watched Cox change a lot over the past year. He had been a brash, arrogant kid in the beginning. But as the real battle got closer, most of the guys had dropped their big talk.
Alex got out a bandage that was tucked in his leg pocket. He quickly cut away Cox’s trousers with his knife, and then he wrapped the wound. Rizzardi was the radio man, and he got hold of a medical unit, but then it was Alex who got on and told the man how to locate the site. He told the medic they would leave someone with Foley to look after him and to help the medics find him. “Who’s going to stay with Foley?” he asked McCoy when he got off the radio.
“Oh, let’s see. Maybe you should.”
But Huff, McCoy’s good friend, said, “Thomas had better come with us, Dale. He knows where we’re going.”
“Hey, I know where we’re going.” But Huff turned and said, “Cox, you stay here. You’re cut up anyway.”
McCoy spun toward Huff. “That’s enough of that. I’m in charge here.” But he didn’t change the order.
The men moved out to the north. They found the grassy drop zone about a mile ahead. And beyond that, they found the road they were looking for. By then they had located a rock fence, shown on the map, and they knew that they needed to head a little west to reach the intersection. Duncan didn’t say anything to Alex, but he told Rizzardi, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I knew we had to be east of our target.”
At the intersection McCoy told Pozernac and Gourley, two recent additions to the squad, “You guys set up your machine gun emplacement over there.” He pointed to the northwest corner of the intersection.
Alex couldn’t believe it. The sun was beginning to glow in the east just enough to allow some sense of the surrounding terrain. Alex stepped over to McCoy and said, softly, “They
won’t have a view of the whole intersection there. They need higher ground.” He pointed to the opposite side.
“Look, if you think you know everything, you do it,” McCoy told Alex.
“Never mind,” Alex said, and he walked away. But he noticed a few minutes later that the MG team was setting up where Alex had suggested.
There was nothing to do after that, but when Lieutenant Summers showed up, he seemed relieved to find the squad in place. He looked over the machine gun emplacement and said, “Good job.” And then he asked, “Where’s Foley?”
McCoy stepped forward. “He’s down, sir. We got dropped in some rocks. He’s hurt pretty bad, we think. We called in medics and left a man with him.”
The lieutenant cursed. “Where is he?”
“South of here a couple of miles. The medics might have picked him up by now.”
Alex knew it was at least three miles, but he didn’t say so. “Stay put. You’ll be picked up in the next hour or so,” Summers said. He climbed into his Jeep and drove away.
The squad was picked up by a troop truck not long after daybreak and then hauled back to Aldbourne. They ate a quick breakfast and were allowed a little sleep, since they had been up most of the night, but then the platoon was called together, and Lieutenant Summers reviewed the exercise. He wasn’t pleased.
Most of the men had missed their drop zones, which was not their fault, but it had led to problems. The flat area north of the coast had offered little in the way of landmarks, and some of the squads had gotten themselves badly lost. Summers told the men that Captain Morehead had chewed him about the panic and absence of discipline, the lack of initiative to make the best of the situation. “When you men don’t do your job, I hear about it,” Summers told the men. “And I don’t like that. But one of these days this is all going to be for real, and then it gets down to men losing their lives because someone else didn’t do his job. That’s not going to happen in this platoon.”
Toward the end of the session, held in a Nissen hut that was entirely too full of men—and smelled it—Summers told the platoon, “We had a few casualties. Sergeant Foley broke his back and sustained some head injuries. I don’t know whether he’s even going to make it. Private Alex Thomas has been promoted to sergeant, and he’s going to take over Foley’s squad. I want to see Sergeant Thomas as soon as we’re finished here.”