Father Maloney came up in his Jeep to do Mass for the men. The driver of the Jeep, a Catholic kid, acted as the altar boy and if he needed help, one of us would pitch in. When we saw the Jeep come up, we had to separate to walk toward it, you couldn’t bunch up. One shell comes in, it could kill up to eight men. So we had to stagger, we all knew to do that, any soldier in any infantry organization knows to do that.
It was snowing, and Father Maloney gave us a pep talk, “You guys are doing a good job for your country, you’re heroes, it’s a pleasure to be your spiritual guide, and I’m proud to be part of the 506th.” He used the hood of the Jeep as an altar, and we knelt in the snow to get communion. Skip Muck was kneeling by me. He was a likeable, funny guy, and Irish and short like me. I got my wafer and he got his, and Father Maloney ended the Mass saying, “God bless you, good luck.” In the Catholic faith, when you receive communion and you die, you automatically ascend into heaven. So as we walked away, I said to Muck, “At least if we die, were going to die in a state of grace.” Muck said, “You’re right, Heffron.”
We knew where the Germans were, they knew where we were. The snow was deep, and moving through it made a lot of noise, and we were slipping and sliding through it. They could see and hear us, and they were always sending shells over trying to break through, but they couldn’t do it. The weather was a problem for them, too. They had a lack of ammo and fuel and the same problems we had. But they were in houses, we were in the ground. They also had winter clothing. We had GI gloves; they were no good. They were wet, if you lit a fire to dry them, the krauts would start throwing artillery. So you threw your gloves away. We were given two burlap bags apiece for our feet. Our boots were already waterlogged, and after you walked around with the burlap for a while, the burlap got wet and froze, and got heavy with snow and ice; it was like walking with cinderblocks on your feet. But we knew never to take our boots off. You couldn’t get them back on because your feet swelled up. It’s not like you could ever dry your socks and boots anyhow, everything was full of snow. When you moved an inch, wet dirt and snow dropped down your back, down your front, down your pants, everywhere. It was awful.
We spent a lot of time on outpost, and if you were on outpost during the day, you had the open field in front of you, and you could see the German V-1s flying over, probably headed to London or Coventry. They sounded like a motorcycle or freight train, and moved parallel to the ground about two thousand feet up, and you thought, “Keep that flame lit, keep that flame lit.” When it went out, the motor stopped and it crashed and exploded. We also saw the V-2s, they were supersonic stratosphere jobs, they went straight up into the heavens, like a streak of light. We didn’t worry about them, they weren’t landing on us, but those V-1s made us sweat a little.
I was usually on outpost at night, and one night I was with Al Vittore from Pennsylvania; he was my assistant machine gunner. He was a few years older than us, a good guy. I shared a foxhole with him. We were out there every night. One night Sal Bellino from Brooklyn came running out into the forest to our outpost in his bare feet, in the ice and snow. What happened was, 3rd Squad was sent out on forward outpost every night, and since we had two-man foxholes to take up less space for artillery bombardments—but also for body heat—Sal figured he’d spread out a little in one of 3rd Squad’s empty holes. He took his boots off and settled in when a Tiger Sixer tank pulled up and fired an 88 at his foxhole. Somehow the shell overflew the ditch and missed him, and he bolted into the forest. That was the end of Sal for a while. He ended up in the hospital with a very bad case of trench foot. That was December, he came back in August, that shows you how bad it was. Trench foot was a big problem for a lot of the guys. The doctors told us, “Take your boots off and rub each other’s feet.” We said, “Let them try it, with the krauts out here. They’re crazy!”
That same night, we came back from outpost and Al said, “I’m gonna hit the sack.” We were tired and cold and hungry, and we got back to the foxhole and tried to sleep. It wasn’t easy to face the night. Living in the ground night after night, in five below zero, the wind whipping through at thirty to forty miles per hour, no bark on the trees, no leaves to protect us. It was very eerie. The snow would drop down your back, it was itchy, and you shivered all night. Finally I dozed off and was lying on my side, and I felt this heavy object come over my leg. I thought the lumber we had over the foxhole to protect us had fallen in on me. But it was Al’s leg. I punched him in the side with my elbow. I said, “Yo Al, what are you doing?!” He said, “Oh, Babe,” and he looked at me and said, “Oh, I’m all right,” and he fell asleep again. So I fall asleep again, and a few seconds later, he’s got his hand inside of my shirt! I gave him a shot in the belly and said, “You son of a bitch, what the hell are you doing?!” He said, “Oh, Babe, Babe, I was dreaming of my wife!” I said, “Well, you ain’t gettin’ nothing here!” They didn’t use this story in the movie. They want everyone to think we’re all American boys!
The Germans had a big open field to get to us, and they’d come over with their tanks. They couldn’t get through the forest where we were—the trees were too closely packed. So they drove the tanks to the edge of the trees and fired 88s, then they’d back off and come back with more. The shells would hit the trees, explode, and shoot shrapnel everywhere, lot of guys hit from one shell. Treebursts, we called them. Made the trees a good ally to the Germans. The trees acted as a coordinator with these shells. We might not have had as many wounded and dead if not for those trees. The forest started to get bare real fast, it started to look like a bunch of toothpicks.
After we got shelled one day, I ran over to the area that was hit and Sal Bellino was lying facedown not moving at all. This was before he got evacuated for trench foot. I asked, “What’s the matter?” He said, “I’m hit, my back.” I think the shell hit the trees, and a branch fell and hit him in the back. But he looked okay, so I smacked him, and he jumped up and there was nothing wrong with him. He got scared. He got whacked by a bunch of trees and it scared the hell out of him.
We had no Air Force with us. They couldn’t fly until the weather cleared. If we had them, we would have kicked the Germans’ asses and got the hell out of there. There wouldn’t have been a Bulge. Hitler knew what he was doing. He knew there was nobody on the front lines, they were all going to Japan.
About a week in, we were almost out of ammo. We could see the German trucks bringing ammo and supplies to the Germans, we could see all the German activity over in Foy, but we couldn’t do a damn thing about it. We were lucky, they thought we had more than we did, or they would have gone through us like a dash of salt. They had tanks, artillery, SS troops. Aggressive, cocky sons of bitches, those SS. All we could do was stay and fight and repulse them, and they’d run. We stood our ground, that’s it.
Around that time, the cold, the chaos, the casualties, the exhaustion, the feeling like you’re left there to fight the whole German army yourself, a couple guys here and there were starting to get fatigued, mentally. Not many, but a few. You could tell a guy had enough when he walked around in a daze.
Mentally, physically, we all felt bad. We were dirty, hungry, exhausted, weapons weren’t up to par, you couldn’t use them like you wanted to, we were living like animals. You thought, Maybe I’ll be lucky, maybe a shell will come in and hit me, and this will be over. But you knew you had a job to do and you did it. Some guys, you saw a change in their demeanor. We all started to feel it. We felt pushed as far as we could go. You knew a guy was done when he had a blank stare. You couldn’t say anything to him. He didn’t pay attention to you. When the officers saw a guy that was gonna go, the only thing they could do was try and get him off the line. Winters was good about getting those kids off the line if he saw it. Sometimes they came back later and were okay. Then you had a lot of guys you just never saw, like an officer from Philly, a lead officer, I won’t say who he was. I don’t mean Dike. If he had a chance not to be out front, he wasn’t, simple as that. All the time I
put in the line with Easy Company, never saw him. There were a few like that. Top officers.
I never felt it. Fear was something that was with you all the time, but you ignore it. People all around you are getting killed and wounded; if you stop and think, you’re not going to do your job, and you’re dead. You walk through the fear, or it’s going to be worse. I didn’t think, I didn’t analyze, I didn’t let anything get to me. I did think, Jesus Christ almighty, how the hell am I going to hold off this German army? I had days where I wanted to get the hell out, that’s all. We all had them.
A situation like Bastogne, you feel helpless. Where’s the rest of the Army? Where’s the ammunition, where’s the food, where are the clothes, what the hell is going on? You felt like you were left there; if the enemy doesn’t kill you, you’ll freeze to death. We were angry at the Army. But we had no idea of the magnitude of what was going in, that up and down the line everybody’s fighting, not only us. You don’t know you’re in the middle of the largest, bloodiest land battle in history. You find that out later.
War is, plain and simple, hell. Every move we made, we had no idea what was going to happen. But, as a sergeant, you had a responsibility over the men. My theory was this: I couldn’t care less if they loved me or hated me, I did the best job I could do to get them out alive. Your actions speak for themselves.
The men who weren’t in leadership positions, they could let their guard down, some cried. In Bastogne your tears would freeze. I did more praying then anything else. We saw a lot of bad things. There’s nothing you could do to change the situation or bring people back to life. There’s nothing, you feel helpless. You feel bad. You curse everything, and it makes you madder. I had my private thoughts about each and every man. But until you’re not being chased by Germans, you don’t have time to reflect. You just reflect on keeping the damn Germans out and killing the sons of bitches.
None of us wanted to be there. But some people can handle it better than others, whether it’s a matter of sensitivity or emotional stability, I don’t know. We had a 2nd lieutenant who was with us a few days, then he got his first taste of combat, and the next day he took a weapon and blew his hand off. Was he yellow? Some would say yes, but I don’t think so. If you make it into the Airborne, how can you be? Men in the Airborne show a lot of courage just getting through training—they make many jumps at night, and it takes courage to go out of a plane at night. If they showed any signs of weakness, they wouldn’t be there. Anyone who makes it into the paratroopers, you have to respect that man. I think that lieutenant couldn’t handle that he sent some guys to their deaths even though he was only following orders. Seeing your buddies blown to pieces before your eyes can do something to your mind.
My younger brother Jack served on the San Jacinto, a small carrier in the Pacific. One of his fellow crewman turned and said to him, “Boy, it’s hot up here,” and then disappeared over the side of the ship. And this was after a battle. If he was a coward, he’d have done it before the battle or even during. The battle had been fierce and their sister ship, the Princeton, had just been sunk. I think the pressure got to him.
In our platoon, Bill would constantly make the rounds and tell us, “I’m here to get you guys home.” He was no bullshitter. He meant what he said, and he was only my age, but he had that kind of knowledge and authority about him that we all trusted him. It gave you a little mental boost.
About two days before Christmas—at the time we didn’t know what the hell day it was—the weather cleared, and our air force could get in. We knew the German air force was practically wiped out. We learned before Normandy they couldn’t concentrate in a way that was going to do you harm. It was the Allied air force that made the invasion so successful, so when you heard planes, 99 percent of the time you knew they were Allied. Well, when the weather cleared, the Allies got thousands of fighters and bombers ready to go. We were given panels—giant orange and red panels, about four-by-twenty feet, with stakes in them, and we put them out at nine in the morning, positioning them all around our lines so the air force can tell us apart from the Germans. We heard the first P-47s come in, we saw them overhead, and they started shooting at our panels, and by the count of ten, the panels were destroyed. When the next wave of planes came, and there were no panels to put out, we were scared as hell. We took cover. The planes came down shooting at us, strafing the woods, everything. They must have figured out where the Germans were pretty fast, because after that, they had a field day blasting the Germans.
Later more planes came, dropping supplies, food, ammo by parachute, in boxes and bags. The Germans started shooting at them, so the planes were going up, down, right, left, dodging the fire and dropping the supplies wherever they can. They got dropped all over—sometimes behind German lines, or right in front of you but you couldn’t go out to get it or you’d get your head blown off.
We were so happy to see our planes flying overhead. They tried to find open fields for their drops, and if you happened to be near it—five yards, ten yards, a hundred yards away—you ran out to try and grab what you could. But there was always somebody that issued the rations; everybody got fed. If you were on outpost, they brought it out to you.
We hadn’t eaten for about twenty-four hours, and each man got two boxes of rations. The K rations had brown crackers wrapped in cellophane. I hated those crackers, so I asked Mike McMann if he wanted them, and he didn’t, so I threw them away. We all went back to the platoon area, and later on, news came over the walkie-talkie that we should go easy on the rations since we may not see more food for a while because of the weather. In the pitch dark, I walked back to look for those crackers. I found them in a shell hole and headed back to my squad. Those crackers weren’t so bad after all.
Even after the drop we were still short of everything. They didn’t give us enough ammo for the machine guns or the rifles. Nothing to keep us warm, at least I didn’t get anything. Neither did Babe. Babe remembers getting K rations. I don’t even know when I ate, how I ate, or what I ate. We were so damn cold and frozen that my priority after staying alive was keeping warm. Sometimes I’d realize, hey, I haven’t eaten for a day or two, I’m hungry. I looked around and grabbed whatever I could. Somebody always had something and they shared it.
It was hard to find fresh water, everything was frozen, so you had to go looking—if we could’ve built a fire and melted the snow we would have had water, but we couldn’t, we’d give our position away. One day I told Babe to grab a jerry can, and I grabbed one, and we went to look for water. We walked up to a stream, it wasn’t frozen too bad, so we started chopping the ice to get to the water. After we filled our cans, I noticed down the bottom of the stream there were brains in the water. Men’s brains. Heads with brains. Oh man, oh man! I said to Babe, “Don’t say a damn word, just throw the goddamn water in the thing and let’s get the hell out of here.” You’re in one hell of a mess, you can get killed any minute, you’re gonna care about the water? You’re gonna die any day, you’re not worried about water.
I looked down at the bottom of the stream and thought, Jesus Christ. When we first came upon the stream, we saw a helmet laying in the snow, with a hole right through the center of it. A soldier nearby said it was a guy from I Company, he got hit when the planes were strafing us earlier. He said, “Yeah, a P-47 came down strafing and he thought this kid was a kraut and he opened fire.” Sometimes the guys would wave at the planes figuring they’re Allied planes, and they’d get shot at by friendly fire. The lines were never consolidated long enough. It wasn’t the pilot’s fault. My assistant machine gunner, Al Vittore, waved at them one time, I said, “You son of a bitch, get back here! You can’t be waving at these guys! He said “It’s a P-47.” I said “I don’t care!” The plane peeled off and gave us a burst. I dove into the hole, and he dove in on top of me. He ain’t the only guy that was told and still did it. You feel so proud it’s your planes, you want to wave to them. They don’t know who the hell you are.
We got b
ack to the platoon with the jerry cans; Bill said, “Line up, we got fresh water.” What were we gonna do? We needed the water, and we got it before the stream was frozen over. After that, you weren’t getting water anywhere. I never mentioned it. Nobody ever said, “Don’t that water taste funny?” I drank mine. Bill kept hollering to the guys, “Put those goddamn pills in there so you don’t get malaria from the water.” We had sulfanilamide pills. We used them all over the European Theater.
The thing about lighting fires, little fires were smoldering everywhere, so it wasn’t necessarily a telltale sign. During the day some small fires were lit, but not often. We were able to make coffee using Sternos. It’s a little can about two to three inches deep, you take the top off and put a match to it, and it makes a little blue flame, so you could take some snow and make some coffee. Most of the time we drank the fluid in the Sterno, it had alcohol in it, so we took a swig. I don’t know what the hell it was, but we drank it! It didn’t kill us, did it? Funny, but true. So we didn’t have to light fires, the Sterno would make whatever we wanted to cook. If you had a tea bag you could make tea, or we melted chocolate. That was a treat. And how!
We had no idea what day it was. It was just another day of trying to push back German patrols. Mike McMann said to me, “Hey, Heffron, ain’t tonight Christmas Eve?” I said, “How the hell do I know?” He said, “Take a look in back of us.” Here the krauts were bombing the city of Bastogne. We found out later they bombed one of the hospitals. Mike said, “Christmas Eve, ain’t this nice?”
We got a message that day from Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, he was our acting division commander, he’s the one Babe was next to at Mass in Mourmelon. The Germans sent McAuliffe a letter asking for the 101st to surrender because they had us surrounded. We knew we were surrounded. It was the same as if we jumped in there. We’re always surrounded, you understand? So we can do the job. Any other infantry unit would have had to surrender, like those kids running scared when we came in. That’s why we always said, “They got us surrounded, the poor bastards.” They surrounded the wrong goddamn outfit.
Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends Page 17