Read Online Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II by Belton Y. Cooper - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Belton Y. Cooper
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and a plywood box installed to carry my combat loss report and other ordnance documents and maps. I kept a thermite grenade next to the box. In the event of impending capture, I planned to pull the pin on the grenade to set all of the documents on fire, then abandon the Jeep.
After waiting a little while longer and seeing no signs of a convoy, I decided we had to take a chance and run the gauntlet—the name we had given the area between division forward and division rear—which varied in width from a few miles to maybe forty to fifty miles. The distance from this road junction to the battalion area in Isigny was about ten miles. The road was straight and narrow and had trees on both sides.
We drove in the middle of the road at top speed, which for the Jeep was sixty-five miles an hour even with the governor taken off. To estimate the center of the road, Smith looked up at an angle of approximately thirty degrees to see the sky between the trees. I looked straight ahead down the center of the road and at the shoulders to see if I could detect anything. After a while, our eyes became accustomed to the darkness, and we were amazed at what we could see even without moonlight. We were no longer concerned about meeting any American trucks on the road, only about the possibility of meeting Germans.
After we had gone about five miles, I saw a light piercing the darkness approximately a quarter mile away. The light was arcing slowly up and down, similar to a railroad signal. Smith slowed down. At the same time, I removed the safety on the .30-caliber carbine, which I had previously taken out of the rack on the windshield. We knew that no American soldier could be dumb enough to shine a flashlight in this area; we would not even dare light a cigarette on the beach at night without first getting into a covered foxhole. It must be Germans.
Fortunately, we had rehearsed what we might do in a situation like this. Smith would slow down. If he could see clearly that the road was not blocked, I would open fire and he would accelerate as rapidly as possible to try to get away. If the road appeared to be blocked, we would hit the ditch on the right side of the road, I’d pull the pin on the thermite grenade, and we would jump over the hedgerow and try to get away.
As we approached the source of the light, it went off and I could see the bows of a GMC truck against the starlight. I figured that the Germans had captured the truck and killed the crew and were now trying to get a Jeep. I could see shadowy figures in the dark by the side of the truck. As one of the figures slowly approached the Jeep, I realized that he could not see us well either. I slowly raised the carbine to my shoulder and started to pull the trigger.
When the figure was about ten feet from the Jeep, I heard him say, “Hey, soldier, y’all got a tire tool?”
No German could imitate a deep Southern drawl like that.
“What in the hell are you doing shining that light, soldier?” I demanded. “Don’t you realize the Germans have dropped paratroopers along this road?”
“I ain’t heard no such report,” he replied. He said his truck had a flat tire and he had no tire tools, probably because they’d been traded to the navy on the LST for slabs of bacon.
“Sir, you mean they done dropped them paratroopers way back here?”
Before I could reply, he hollered to his buddy and they jumped into the cab of the truck and took off down the highway, flat tire and all. I was in a cold sweat as I realized that I’d come within seconds of killing an American soldier.
Major A. C. Arrington was shocked when he saw the first combat loss report. “The Germans are chewing the hell out of those M4 tanks,” he said. “They’re no damn good. Cooper, you tell Captain Roquemore to forget the regulations and to cannibalize every vehicle he can to get those in the VCP running.”
He was glad to hear that the captain was already doing this on his own initiative. Arrington
After waiting a little while longer and seeing no signs of a convoy, I decided we had to take a chance and run the gauntlet—the name we had given the area between division forward and division rear—which varied in width from a few miles to maybe forty to fifty miles. The distance from this road junction to the battalion area in Isigny was about ten miles. The road was straight and narrow and had trees on both sides.
We drove in the middle of the road at top speed, which for the Jeep was sixty-five miles an hour even with the governor taken off. To estimate the center of the road, Smith looked up at an angle of approximately thirty degrees to see the sky between the trees. I looked straight ahead down the center of the road and at the shoulders to see if I could detect anything. After a while, our eyes became accustomed to the darkness, and we were amazed at what we could see even without moonlight. We were no longer concerned about meeting any American trucks on the road, only about the possibility of meeting Germans.
After we had gone about five miles, I saw a light piercing the darkness approximately a quarter mile away. The light was arcing slowly up and down, similar to a railroad signal. Smith slowed down. At the same time, I removed the safety on the .30-caliber carbine, which I had previously taken out of the rack on the windshield. We knew that no American soldier could be dumb enough to shine a flashlight in this area; we would not even dare light a cigarette on the beach at night without first getting into a covered foxhole. It must be Germans.
Fortunately, we had rehearsed what we might do in a situation like this. Smith would slow down. If he could see clearly that the road was not blocked, I would open fire and he would accelerate as rapidly as possible to try to get away. If the road appeared to be blocked, we would hit the ditch on the right side of the road, I’d pull the pin on the thermite grenade, and we would jump over the hedgerow and try to get away.
As we approached the source of the light, it went off and I could see the bows of a GMC truck against the starlight. I figured that the Germans had captured the truck and killed the crew and were now trying to get a Jeep. I could see shadowy figures in the dark by the side of the truck. As one of the figures slowly approached the Jeep, I realized that he could not see us well either. I slowly raised the carbine to my shoulder and started to pull the trigger.
When the figure was about ten feet from the Jeep, I heard him say, “Hey, soldier, y’all got a tire tool?”
No German could imitate a deep Southern drawl like that.
“What in the hell are you doing shining that light, soldier?” I demanded. “Don’t you realize the Germans have dropped paratroopers along this road?”
“I ain’t heard no such report,” he replied. He said his truck had a flat tire and he had no tire tools, probably because they’d been traded to the navy on the LST for slabs of bacon.
“Sir, you mean they done dropped them paratroopers way back here?”
Before I could reply, he hollered to his buddy and they jumped into the cab of the truck and took off down the highway, flat tire and all. I was in a cold sweat as I realized that I’d come within seconds of killing an American soldier.
Major A. C. Arrington was shocked when he saw the first combat loss report. “The Germans are chewing the hell out of those M4 tanks,” he said. “They’re no damn good. Cooper, you tell Captain Roquemore to forget the regulations and to cannibalize every vehicle he can to get those in the VCP running.”
He was glad to hear that the captain was already doing this on his own initiative. Arrington
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