Chapter Fifteen
YYYGerman soldiers with grenades and machine gun,
doing the best they can.
Company B, 344th Tank Battalion, The Argonne Forest, France
The sun dawned on a thick fog blanketing the Argonne Forest. Hank had to lean close in to make out the details on their French map, fighting both the poor light and his own fatigue. It had been a long complex operation just to get the battalion out of the St. Mihiel salient and into the vanguard of the 35th Division for the beginning of the Meuse Argonne offensive.
Between combat losses and tanks broken down or inextricably mired in the mud endemic to France’s rain-drenched autumn, Hank could only field eight tanks. The surviving crews of lost tanks joined the cobbled platoon they’d commandeered from a disorganized battalion.
Now they advanced through heavily forested and hilly terrain with visibility down to conversational distance, pausing every few hundred yards to verify their location and direction of travel.
Unless Hank was mistaken, they were within a mile of their next objective, the village of Cheppy, which meant the chances of meeting resistance approached certainty. They’d spread out from their column formation into a wedge an hour ago. Their lateral dispersion had made controlling movement a greater challenge, especially with the vegetation and intervisibility lines of the hills and ravines. However, the formation mitigated their chance of taking mass casualties from concentrated artillery fire.
Three other men stood at the back of Hank’s lead tank with him. Major Brett, Colonel Patton, and Patton’s orderly, a PFC named Angelo, all gathered around the map.
“We’re headed in the right direction, Sereno,” Patton said, confirming Hank’s own estimate. “You head back and grab the rest of your battalion and see if the 35th will cut us some more infantry for the attack. Hank and I will continue to reconnoiter.”
Major Brett headed south, back to where Companies A, C, and D were waiting. Hank and his men pushed onward in their tanks, gasoline engines sputtering, treads churning French grass and mud as they wove in and out between the trees. And always the tall, ramrod straight figure of George S. Patton marching before them through the fog.
As they advanced, the sun rose, extending Hank’s field of view deeper into the fog. Twenty minutes into the march the straight lines and right angles of man-made construction, or at least the remnants of it, took form in the distance. As they drew closer to the hamlet it became apparent that most of the structures were dilapidated, roofs caved in, walls missing, glassless windows staring like empty eye sockets amidst the stones and rotting timbers.
Hank peered intently, searching for any movement, any sign of life, but nothing stirred amongst the ruins. No protruding rifle barrel or glinting binocular lens betrayed the presence of Germans. It couldn’t be . . . Cheppy controlled one of a handful of crossroad intersections in this section of the Argonne—surely the Germans had left some kind of force to contest it—
The dark recesses of the stonework sparked with dozens of muzzle flashes. German machine gun rounds lanced out at Hank’s company, pinging off the armor of the tanks, sending up splashes of mud and water. Hank crouched low behind the Renault’s small turret. Most of his dismounted troops hit the dirt and started returning fire.
Colonel Patton wasn’t one of the lucky ones. He doubled over as if taking a hammer blow to his abdomen and crumpled to the ground. From behind one of the Hotchkiss Machine Gun tanks on the right flank, the skinny figure of PFC Joe Angelo sprinted out through the sheets of German machine gun fire to where Patton lay. The brigade commander had his 1911 out now and, though sprawled on his back, was firing away at one of the machine gun nests. Angelo got his arms under Patton’s armpits and dragged the tall officer back to a shell crater.
Hank banged on the turret with the butt of his pistol. Sergeant Kowalski popped the hatch on the rear of the turret, the gray-headed NCO looking askance at Hank.
“Kowalski, get us between the colonel and those MGs!” Hank shouted.
Kowalski nodded and rebuttoned the hatch. The tank rolled forward, but fifty meters shy of Patton’s position it plunged into an unseen bog, burying its tracks. The driver gunned the engine to try to break free, sending up a shower of mud that coated Hank instantly and only buried the tank deeper. Hank managed to keep his perch and banged on the turret hatch again.
“TELL HINES TO KNOCK IT OFF,” Hank screamed. “And get out of there, we’ll dig the tank out later!”
The treads stopped, and even over the machine gun fire, Hines banging on the inside of the driver’s compartment was audible. Hank jumped off the back deck and was instantly calf deep in mud. He waded around to the front where Kowalski was already struggling against a hundred pounds of mud to pry open the driver’s hatch. Hank joined him on the hatch, muscles straining to pull it open wide enough for Hines to escape.
Rounds pinged off the turret and hull of the bogged tank. One uncomfortably close miss sent a spall of metal shards across Hank’s face, slicing his right cheek open. Hank cried out in pain and his grip slipped on the hatch just as it started to give with a massive sucking noise. He flopped backward into the mud.
Hank’s left hand shot to his cheek involuntarily and came away bloody. The cuts burned but his face didn’t seem to be sliding off his skull, so he ignored the wounds and pushed himself out of the muck to a crouch—he did not stand straight up with rifle and machine gun bullets flying back and forth across the field.
He stumbled toward the tank to help Hines out of the tank but motion out of the corner of his eye drew his attention. He whirled to see two men in muddy field gray uniforms tromping as fast as they could through the mud toward him. Each had a bundle of grenades lashed together under their arms—improvised anti-tank charges. The massed grenades would be enough to punch through the Renault’s light armor plating, and more than enough to reduce Hank and his men to scattered viscera.
His 1911 cleared leather in a heartbeat. Hank aligned the pistol’s front sight post on the chest of the nearest man and—BLAM—miss, he’d yanked the trigger rather than pressing. He realigned, taking a deep breath to try and steady his hand—BLAMBLAM—the nearest German dropped into the mud, two .45 caliber rounds punching holes in his thoracic cavity and blowing blood, bone, and lung tissue out his back and into the mud. Hank tracked right with the pistol and fired again, emptying the remainder into the man.
The German fell, but not before he hurled the conjoined grenades like an Olympic shotput. As the bundle of high-explosive arced toward him, Hank turned and dove to tackle Kowalski and Hines.
“DOWN!” he screamed.
The linked grenades detonated in the mud next to the tank’s right track, throwing up a geyser of mud. The concussion rippled through Hank’s bowels and reverberated painfully off his eardrums, but the mired tank’s hull blocked the grenades’ killing fragmentation. Hank rose unsteadily to a crouch, grabbed a handful of Kowalski’s tunic and shouted at him and Hines to follow. He led them around to the back of the tank as German machine gun fire resumed.
With shaking hands, Hank changed the magazine in his pistol while he assessed the situation. Without artillery, the German fire wasn’t having much effect on his tanks, but their stone emplacements were holding up against his tanks’ 37mm cannons and Hotchkiss machine guns. His own dismounts seemed to be huddled behind the tanks, providing only sporadic rifle and light machine gun fire against the Germans. In their stone redoubts, it was impossible to estimate German casualties so far.
Boy, we could really use some of those 75 mm guns right now. Note to self, mixed teams in the future?
The action on his 1911 slid forward with a clack, chambering a round. Hank grabbed Kowalski’s shoulder and pulled him close to speak.
“I need you to get back to Major Brett. Tell him we’ve got German infantry and machine guns in at least company strength fortified in stoneworks at the crossroads, we’re down one tank and Colonel Patton is wounded. Tell him we need reinforcements fast. Low crawl until you hit the wood line, then move as fast as you can, got it?”
“What are you going to do, sir?” Kowalski asked.
“I’m going to see if Colonel Patton is still alive, then I’m going to focus on killing these Germans. Go.”
Hank didn’t wait to see if Kowalski and Hines obeyed, but instead started crawling toward the shell hole where he’d seen Angelo drag Patton. Along the way, he snatched the bandolier of grenades the dead German had intended to throw at his tank. He sprinted in zigzag patterns, then dropped to crawl for a few feet, only to hop up again, then slid like he was stealing third base into the crater.
Angelo was packing a bleeding hole on Patton’s left butt cheek. The colonel looked over his shoulder at Hank as he dropped down into the muck with them.
“You look like hell, Thornton,” Patton said, in between grunts of pain.
“Yes, sir, you seem to be having a day yourself.”
Patton chuckled.
“Apparently the Boche decided I wasn’t a big enough asshole so they blasted me a second one. What’s our status?”
“Seven tanks operational, one man wounded, sir—you,” Hank said.
“Two wounded, Hank, it isn’t like you cut yourself shaving.”
“Right, sir, the Germans don’t appear to have anything heavier than machine guns and grenades, but they have some improvised anti-tank charges.” Hank held up the grenade cluster.
Angelo finished securing the bandage to Patton’s rear.
“All right, sir, best I can do,” Angelo said. “I wouldn’t go trying to ride a horse or nothin’ any time soon.”
“Thanks, Joe,” Patton said. “Help me up.”
Hank and Angelo helped get Patton off of his stomach, then propped him up so he could see over the lip of the crater to evaluate the battlefield. Patton was a heavy man, but between them, Hank and Angelo managed.
“All right, let’s get back down,” Patton said. They slid back down to the bottom of the hole.
“Hank, that MG nest at the southeast corner of the hamlet—concentrate fire on it, close in with one of the tanks, then clear it out with grenades, then work your way east to west across the village.”
“Here, give me the grenades,” Angelo said, reaching to take them from Hank.
“It’s all right, I can—”
“Captain, no one’s questioning your guts, but throwing grenades into machine gun nests is private’s work.” Angelo grinned. “Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of chances to get your ass shot off running around telling everyone what to do.”
“Listen to the man, Hank,” Patton said. “I can’t run around giving orders; command your company, boy.”
Angelo wasn’t wrong. Machine gun fire kicked up plumes of black mud in his wake as Hank sprinted from tank to tank, and from man to man, relaying the plan and repositioning them to execute it. It took him nearly thirty minutes running around under enemy fire to get his men organized for the attack.
Finally, he and Angelo fell in behind the rightmost tank with the bulk of the company’s dismounts. This time, discretion tempering his valor, Hank walked behind the tank as it advanced rather than riding atop it. The tank’s Hotchkiss machine guns were deafening; it kept up steady bursts of fire as it approached the squat stone MG nest.
Even with the tank closing and pouring 8 mm rounds into their position, the Germans continued to shoot back. Two of Hank’s men went down, wounded. He dared not stop the tank’s advance, though.
“Keep it tight behind the tank, men!” Hank screamed. “We’ll come back for them after we’ve cleared out the Boche!”
The rounds sparking off the Renault’s armor came slower and fewer as they approached within fifty yards. The stone building they were assaulting now obstructed the enemy’s field of fire from the other MG nests. At less than ten yards, the tank stopped, continuing to fire. Another German sprinted from around the back of the stone building, clustered grenades in hand. Hank leveled his pistol and fired twice, dropping the grenadier cold.
“Angelo, you’re up,” Hank shouted. “Everyone else, covering fire.”
Hank leveled his own pistol again and started sending .45 rounds into the nest’s firing slit alongside his riflemen and the tank’s Hotchkiss. They kept their fire to the left side of the bunker as Angelo ran up to the right side, stripped a stick grenade from the rig Hank had given him, paused for four heartbeats, then chucked it into the stone building.
The grenade detonated a half second later with a THOOM. Fire from inside ceased immediately. Hank led his men to the entry door on the rear of the position. They found only dead and horribly wounded Germans inside the nest. One gut-wounded man screamed as his blood and intestines oozed through his fingers. Hank’s men stripped away weapons and ammo quickly and brutally. Without a medic handy, the Americans allowed the Germans to perform first aid on their wounded men with rifles leveled at them.
Hank grabbed a dirty and shredded linen blanket from one of the German’s cots and hung it out the firing slit to visually confirm that they’d cleared this bunker so his gunners could shift fire to the next objective.
Two more men went down, one dead, one wounded, clearing the next bunker, but mere seconds after Angelo’s grenade detonated inside the second nest, the remaining Germans in Cheppy ceased firing and started to stagger out of their fighting positions, hands held high, weaponless, shouting, “Kamerad!” at the top of their lungs.
Major Brett arrived with the battalion’s remaining twenty-six tanks mere minutes after the surrender. After assuring that his own wounded were receiving treatment and that his dead were being gathered for movement to the rear, Hank went to Patton’s stretcher where Major Brett was conferring with him as he was loaded into the field ambulance.
“Sereno, you’re in command of the brigade,” Patton said. “Stay on Compton, he’s too damned passive. Thornton, damn fine work today, son. Don’t let the brigade go soft while I’m gone, I’ll be back soon as they sew up this extra orifice!”
As the doors closed on the ambulance, Brett turned to Hank, looking with frank appraisal at the slashes the spalling had left across his cheek.
“Looks like you’re going to have some fine dueling scars, Hank,” Brett said. “Go get them cleaned out and patched up. We’ve got a solid hour before we get refuel and rearmament. Don’t want you going to down to infection.”
Hank complied, searching out the brigade aid station. He thought back to the comparative ease of their attack into St. Mihiel. Hank still thought that Patton was right, the war was nearly over, but if this is what the Germans were like in the last minute of the fourth quarter trailing insurmountably, what had they been like in 1914?
The young officer looked at his dirty, exhausted, but determined men. They’d fought like wildcats today.
Ole Jerry was probably a lot like us.