At this place, Barracks Bag Tanner was getting in or out of his fox hole when he twisted his knee and dislocated the knee joint. He was holding his knee and leg and groaning. He wouldn't let anyone near him to help. I wouldn't have known how to get it back in gear. The Medics came and he fought them too. I saw them load him up into a conveyance of some sort with him clinging to his leg to make dam sure no one moved it. I have trick knees now and I know what he went through then. I know how to get mine back in joint and I know now how to avoid dislocation.
You don't know what lonesome is 'till you get to marching for hours on an empty gut! I am pleased to know now that our commanders were most of the time so correct in ordering battle plans. How could they know where the next german attack would be held? One of their ways was to send some one out and bring back a live prisoner for interogation. Someone like Carl Wyatt from Texas.He was one of those the Colonel counted on. He brought Wyatt into head quarters and said, "I want a LIVE one or a warm dead one tonight". Carl Wyatt from "G" company sneaked across the line and as quiet as a mouse would slither into a German soldier's foxhole and with a sharp knife under his throat would bring him in for interrogation. The shoulder patch provided some information. Other information would be extracted somehow by one of our German speaking G2 men. I can't remember his name exactly but I think his name was Brumberg or Blumberg. The info provided was compiled from different interrogators and a decision was made where to move the reserve troops. Ordinary GIs like myself went with the tide and flow doing our duty in the best way we could.
The Anzio stalemate lasted from the January 22nd landing date until May when we broke out. That's a long continuous battle. The German side was firmly dug in. They were dug in with trenches in World war One style linking one outfit to another. They had pill boxes made of concrete by the time we broke out. The Hills over looking our forces were bristling with artillery pieces plus the rail road guns. The fields were pock marked with shell holes. There were still farm animals roaming surviving on the grass in the meadow like terrain. Those animals were in varied stages of walking wounded. I saw many animals with legs dangling from the knee down. The bone ripped apart by a shell or a mine. It was a gruesome sight alone just to see that phase of war. I should also tell you that now and then the cooks would feed us meat of those animals--like shoe soles. But welcome.
Near the Command post somewhere in the tall grass was a dead animal in the late stages of decay. The odors were bugging the officers and men at the dug out. They needed a detail to bury the stinking animal. Who would be called to head the detail? You guessed it! I was called. I took several others with me. This wasn't going to be easy. The stinking animal lay where grass grew tall. It was up to your shoulders in height. There were no directions to follow to locate the animal so I resorted to the old 'Hound dog Trick". I sniffed just like a hunting dog. Checking out directions and going towards the worst stench. It worked! There lay a giant cow all bloated and stinking. We dug a big hole next to the body estimating the depth necessary. But we under calculated. The hole was only about 3/4 deep enough. It was too late now to take the cow out and redig so we did the next best thing, we covered the body with dirt from the surrounding area. It wasn't easy to do. We were doing all this work at night. All the time waiting to get shelled. The mission finally was accomplished. No more stench for the officers' dug out
Unrelated to burying dead stinking animals was the order to pick up dead German bodies. We had to make a special trips to where we were stashing ammo for the breakout. A German patrol came through the lines one night and was engaged by our GIs with great success. There were eleven bodies to pick up. A squad of our platoon took a jeep up to as close as was possible. We had already a near full load of bodies with one or two yet to go. They were laying near a bridge up a muddy trail. The corporal said to me, "Take a man and go get them, but watch out! One German has a German Luger in a holster. Be careful when you take it out, it might be booby trapped". I took Mullins with me. Sure enough we found the two bodies close to the bridge and almost into the drain ditch. It was not as dark a night as others and when accustomed to the darkness one could clearly see the holster on the Jerry's belly. The Jerry was in full regalia uniform. Quite clean as he appeared to me in the night. As if he might have been a new recruit on the German side. I wanted that Luger in desperation. I bent down close to see if there were any wires attached or any form of igniters. I was satisfied that it wasn't Booby trapped so I dared to lift the flap to finally get my Luger, only to see the holster empty. The GI who shot the Jerry probably grabbed it. I surely don't blame him. Of course I was disgruntled but the body had to be
loaded on the stretcher. We did that in routine manner, always hating to touch dead bodies. How do you grab them? You just have to get 'numb' and grab at the uniform or belt and tug and roll the body if it isn't too badly mutilated. Often times a body is mangled so badly that you needed a shovel. I hated that like poison.
Mooney and I finally trudged down the muddy path lugging the German on a stretcher to where the jeep trailer waited. It was already stacked high with bodies. We didn't want to have to make a second or third trip. When Mooney got up to the trailer he put the handle of his end of the stretcher up to rest on the trailer then he scooted out from between the handles leaving the other handle drop! The stretcher is not made rigid, it's just a couple of poles and some canvas--it will twist and dump and that's what it did! I stepped around quickly to try to catch the falling stretcher but I was too slow! I was pinned down in the mud with a dead German body on top of me. I was steaming with anger, cussing Mooney out for being so confoundedly negligent. He was hidden in the darkness somewhere. Others helped me struggle in the mud to get out from under a dead German. The squad was morbidly smirking much to my discontent. That load of bodies nearly got all of us killed. Rudolph Smith was the driver that night. He ran into a cow and smashed the jeep front end somewhat. Would you believe that he had to make out an accident report?
We were making a racket as we ground away in the mud.
The German artillery observers knew we had to be at a cross roads at a point in time, so shells started to rain in on us. We came to the cross roads under heavy fire and hurriedly unhooked the trailer. We unloaded unceremoniously by plainly dumping the bodies into the borrow pit. That's the worst treatment we ever gave a dead German. The Graves registration Officer could find them whenever he made his rounds. The Jeep driver named Rudolph Smith was from Tacoma. We became closer friends. It was Mac, Smitty, Pee eye and me most of the time. Once Smitty and I were given sort of an R&R by allowing us to stay with the big 6x6 ammo truck driver. I truly forgot his name, but he resembled the dapper woman chaser GI in the Beetle Bailey cartoon strip. He wore a thin mustache and was able to shave often in his location behind the lines a few miles. He was still in range of artillery and was very vulnerable having a load of ammo in a dump and on his truck. From there we did see an ammo dump get hit by German artillery fire, but the luck went with us and we didn't draw any fire as I recall. For some reason or other I became a bit "goofy" after getting better acquainted with Smitty. When you share the same fox hole for a few days and smell each other's farts for a length of time , you become what we called, (pardon the expression) "asshole buddies".
I began trying to imitate "SNUFFY SMIF" of the funny papers. Most likely because Smitty's name was Smith. We began then to toss back and forth hillbilly sayin's. like "Howdee Lum?" Howdee Zeke or Zeb or Clem. Quite soon we were talkin' entirely in hillbilly lingo. It made us laugh and laugh as we spoke out of the side of our mouths with as much accent as we could muster. You had to make a special facial contortion to utter words in Hillbilly style. It was the
biggest laugh when a Lieutenant stopped by and we kept up the conversation in Hill talk. He joined in which doubled us up in laughter. He had a head start! He was from the south! I don't recall his name. So from then on, till the end of the war, we spoke in Hillbilly just for the fun of it.
One of our Platoon was named Robert Brese from Oklahoma a half Cherokee. He weighed about 130 pounds and wiry. He had a prominent set of ears. They fit his stature. When he got drunk it seemed that his ears drooped a little. He was a mean bugger when he drank and would fight anyone for hardly any reason. He was one hell of a good soldier in spite of the drinking part. He remembered grudges when he got drunk and he became very violent. He had special talents we felt, because he was half Cherokee.
Once we were out on a usual detail taking ammo and supplies as far forward as we could. The supplies were for the time when we'd finally make our break out. We were in a newer area, unfamiliar to us. In tall grass and in a sector where the breakout would finally be made. I remember a cave in the ground where there were many rooms. It was occupied by signal men and other head quarters men. Out side not far from the cave was a drain ditch into which we were to stash ammo and supplies.
We became lost. Disoriented. No one knew the way to our destination. I thought I could find a way, so I left the group to scout. I was somewhat afraid I could walk into the German lines and or to get into a mine field. The grass was tall here too. I was on a trail through this tall grass when I heard footsteps. I squatted in the grass and waited till the body came within a few feet. I whispered loud, "HALT"! and the person froze! It turned out to be a line man member of one of the other companies but he knew the way. I then went back to the group to tell them I knew how to get to our destination, but they chose not to hearken to me. Instead they asked Breeze, the half Cherokee, to find the way. I just muttered a "Humph" to myself. Brese said, "I'll find us the way if you don't f--- wi' me". Those were his very words! His Indian instincts went to work. They
were in the direction I found anyway. On one of these trips, the Germans sent over one of their "secret weapons". It was a small miniature track laying tractor loaded with TNT. It was battery operated and controlled by a long cable. They must have had a long cable! Or we were closer to them than we realized. I wonder what Anzio actually looks like in the daytime?