Mulan, Nana, and the Popster

Satan’s Gift

Sergeant Ben Taylor’s Experiences during World War II with Patton’s Third Army.

This is an account of a portion of former United States Army Technical Sergeant Benjamin Weatherby Taylor’s experiences during World War II.  Sergeant Taylor fought during campaigns in Normandy, Northern France, Belgium, the Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Czechoslovakia.

Sergeant Taylor shared this personal slice of history with me, his first cousin, in June of the year 2000.  These events occurred over fifty-five years before the telling. This chronicle is in Ben’s own words. Consequently, the author does not intend this work to be of academic quality, but a way of honoring the man who contributed so much to his country and to this family. 

Ben was born B. W. Taylor in the Bradfield’s Chapel Community of Morris County near Daingerfield, Texas, on December 4, 1917.  As did many young men and women of his era, he remained at home on the family farm and took part in the farming process.  Times were hard during the depression years, and survival of the family was paramount.  It often took an entire family just to provide food, shelter, and the bare necessities for living.

While visiting a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, I recall listening to the national news on a battery operated radio in my Aunt Valary's farmhouse during the late 1930's.  Valary and Ben Taylor were Ben's parents.  She lived in fear that war would break out and her sons would have to leave home to fight.  Once she said, "Old Japan will get us into this war."  She proved to be prophetic.     

The Selective Service Draft Board located in Mt. Pleasant, Texas drafted B. W. Taylor into the military.  His induction occurred on March 7, 1942.  Ben, along with other members of the 90^th Infantry Division, would spend the next twenty-seven months preparing for the landing at Utah Beach on June 7, 1944.  During the induction process, authorities would not accept the initials B. W. as his name.  He chose to use his father’s name, Benjamin Weatherby Taylor, for military purposes and does so to this day.… ES

Training

Texas/Louisiana

After being drafted, I reported for duty on March 6, 1942.  I had to pass the physical before being inducted on March 7, 1942.   If you did not pass your physical, you went back home. 

At twenty-six-years old, I was the oldest member of my group of draftees.  The reason the draft board chose me later was because I worked my Daddy’s farm, and I was necessary to its operation. Then the need for soldiers increased and the rules changed. 

Many of my fellow draftees were from Morris and the surrounding counties.  Sam Black was from Morris County.  The Black family had three boys in the military at that time.  Roland Lyle was another fellow I remember.  He was from south of Daingerfield, which was the county seat of Morris County.  Lyle got out on a medical discharge.  He never went across.  Clyde Polland, a boy from Daingerfield, was another.  When he went in for his physical, the sergeant asked him who sent him.  He said local Selective Service Board 42.  The sergeant told him he was going home.  He had asthma and emphysema and could not have made a soldier.  

They split us up after basic training in Mineral Wells, Texas.  Some members of our outfit went to California.  Sam Black was one.  Some went to the Air Corps.  I was sent to Camp Barkley in Abilene, Texas, and by that time I didn’t know anyone in my group.  Later on, I ran into a man from Mt. Pleasant, Texas, in Titus County. His name was Dick Langston.  We served in the same platoon all the way through.  Dick passed away a few years ago.

We spent about two years in Camp Barkley.  I was in a heavy weapons company that included mortars and machine guns.  I fired a mortar.  I was in the 90th Division, which was the Texas/Oklahoma Division, but boys from other states were in there as well.  We wore a shoulder patch with a red T/O.

I was in the Heavy Weapons platoon, which was the third platoon of Company D.  We were in the 358^th Regiment of the 90^th Division.  Our platoons consisted of six squads of fifty or sixty soldiers.  Company D had about 250 men.  There were two rifle platoons, a machine gun platoon, and a heavy weapons platoon, which consisted of 81 mm mortars.  An anti-tank platoon guarded the First Battalion Headquarters.  Sometimes, the Heavy Weapons platoon served on the front line as forward observers.  Other times, our mortar positions were as much as a quarter of a mile behind the lines.

In addition to Ranger Training, our Division trained for jungle warfare, mountain warfare, and desert warfare. During training exercises, we crawled in the mud, water, and under barbed wire.  We scooted on our backs under the barbed wire.  We crawled through muddy culverts and swung across creeks on a rope with our combat pack.

Once we were out in the field on the Hanker Ranch near Abilene, Texas.  I developed an abscessed tooth, and they took me to the hospital in town.  They didn’t just pull one tooth.  They pulled two teeth, and they would not stop bleeding.  I had no way back to my outfit, so I hitched a ride with a kitchen truck.  They took me back to Camp Barkley, but I was still eight miles from my platoon.

They were in need of guards at the camp, and an officer assigned me to guard duty with my bleeding teeth.  I spent two days and nights on guard duty, mostly in the rain, before I could get back to my outfit.  When I finally got back, I found out I was AWOL.  However, when I explained my predicament, they took me off.

We were in training with the 45th Infantry Division before they shipped out for the invasion of Sicily.  Officers asked for volunteers to join the 45th.  A little guy from Greenville, Texas, named Pemberton volunteered to go.  He looked very young. 

Some that went with the 45th got battlefield commissions.  One of the Sergeants in our outfit was given a battlefield commission during the European campaign.  He made Captain.  Another sergeant made Lieutenant Colonel after going to Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia.

One of my closest buddies was a guy named Yandel.  Another was Bill Dotson from Oklahoma.  They were cousins.

We never knew who was a saboteur. There were times when I was on leave in Abilene that people would ask how many soldiers were at the Camp but I would never tell them.

Another time at Camp Barkley, my superiors assigned me to CQ, which was in charge of headquarters.  The job was mostly answering the phone.  Officers came in and out. 

During my time as CQ, a solder went AWOL.  The authorities caught him and returned him to his platoon.  A captain ordered me to have the soldier at headquarters at 8:15 the next morning.  That night the duty officer pulled me off the CQ job.  I informed my replacement to carry out the order of the captain, which was to deliver the deserter.  Unfortunately, he forgot.  He came to get me the next morning as I was standing for roll call.  He said he was sorry about forgetting, and that the captain wanted to see me at headquarters. 

I was green and did not know how to protect myself in the army at that time.  The captain really chewed me out for dereliction of duty and offered me a choice between a court marshal or company punishment.  I chose company punishment which consisted of reporting three times for three days.  It didn’t bother me at all.  Unfortunately, the soldier who forgot his order lost his life early in the war and the captain involved received serious wounds.

Once, during our final training, we were on a firing problem with mortars.  We had three mortars in the platoon and a crew for each one.  Our crew had a number one gunner, a number two gunner, and a number three gunner.  They all trained for the same things but each had a special job.  The number one gunner was responsible for the gun sight.  The number two gunner checks out the bipod.  The number three man checks out the stove pipe or barrel of the mortar. 

The target was a wooden square made of boards about one thousand yards down range.  After we got the mortar set up, our Lieutenant came around to inspect the position.  The Lieutenant told us we would be next to fire, and then he noticed that we didn’t have a gun sight.  Unfortunately, the number one gunner forgot the gun sight and had left it in camp.  Then he looked at me and asked, “Taylor.  How are you all going to fire this weapon?”

I answered, “Sir, we are going to fire it in degrees of turns of elevation and turns of traverse.” 

The Lieutenant said, “You had better be good.”

We figured out how many turns we needed to get there in that short length of time.  I asked my sergeant how far he thought it was to the target.  He suggested that we start off at 1,000 yards.  I suggested that we make turns all the way down to the bottom and then back a few turns.  I made sure that the weapon was set up correctly. 

We were allowed three shots with dummy shells.  We fired the first shot and it was long.  We made a few more turns on the second shot which fell short.  No other team had hit the target even with gun sights.  I made our last adjustment and ordered the firing.  The shell hit the target and knocked it down.  We were supposed to be experts with the mortar, and I guess we were, even without the gun sights.    

We moved from Camp Barkley and went to a camp near Leesville, Louisiana, for two months of maneuvers.  It rained a lot, and the water got high.  We almost had to swim out. 

We returned to Barkley in either November or December, and found that the contractors had built us new huts.  Previously, we had six man huts with a tent top.  They took several of them and put them together into barracks.  The whole platoon could stay in one barrack.

There was a man named Frank J. Westmoreland in our Company.  During maneuvers, he and several other people from the six squads, formed a group and called them the seventh squad.  Westmoreland was the self-appointed section sergeant.  He would send some of his men to a nearby farmhouse to get eggs and others to build a fire.  Then they would make egg and pickle sandwiches, and sell them to the soldiers.  I bought them when I had the money.

Once during a training exercise we had a tactical problem that allowed no fire and no smoke.  Lieutenant Wise was a tall man, and I saw him coming across the field.  I knew what he was there for.  The seventh squad had slipped off and built a fire to boil eggs.  As he walked by me he asked, “Taylor, what is that fire doing down there.  This is supposed to be a tactical problem.” 

I denied any knowledge of the fire.  He said, “Go down there and put it out.”  The seventh squad had run back into the woods and hid behind a log.  I put the fire out as ordered, and when the seventh squad came out of hiding, I told them what had happened.  Nobody complained about me putting out the fire. 

Frank Westmoreland was a fast talker.  Later in Europe, we would roll out telephone lines to our forward observations posts from the gun positions, so that we could communicate.  I was on one end, and Frank was on the other.  Someone tapped into our line and said, “You might as well surrender.  The rest of your outfit has already surrendered.”  I said, “Listen fellow, and if you want to fight just get started.”  At first I thought it was the enemy.  Then I started to listen carefully and it sounded like somebody in my outfit.  Finally, I figured out it was Frank B. Westmoreland.  He was always making jokes.

Later, in Europe, Frank P. Westmoreland knocked out a Tiger Tank with an M1 rifle and captured the crew.  After that, they sent him back home to train other men. 

Training

California/Arizona

In September, we went to Camp Granite near Needles, California, for desert training.  We traveled by truck convoy to.  During our training the temperature would get up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit during the heat of the day.  At night, it would go down to about 40 degrees. 

There was not much vegetation in the desert, but we broke off some switches for our little stoves.  There were six men to a tent.  We went to bed without any fire and saved our kindling for the next morning.  We went to bed with two blankets under us and one on top.  At about 10:00 pm, we would have to get up and use two blankets on top   We nearly froze to death.

While we were out West, we went to Arizona for mountain training. During that winter, the coal miners went on strike, and we had no way to heat water.  We were never able to take a bath.   All of our water came out of canals from the Colorado River in California.

Once, about half of our crew was on kitchen KP.    As a result, I had to carry a bunch of extra heavy equipment.  I was carrying a 45 pound mortar base plate.  About the time, we got to where we thought the kitchen was going to be, we were just about exhausted.  I tripped and fell.  The base plate fell on my shoulder.  I could hardly walk for about three weeks.  I was sent to the aid station for a rubdown twice a day.  During the third week they sent me to the evacuation hospital.  There was a picnic table and a sergeant told me to crawl up on the table.  He poked around on my shoulder asking me if it hurt.  I told him no that my injury was on the inside not on the outside.  He said not to worry; I had just taken a little cold.

New Jersey

We left California on 28 December, after four months of training and went to Ft. Dix, New Jersey.  Two feet of snow fell while we were there. 

While we were waiting to ship out, we took gas training.  My gas mask was faulty, and I got gassed during training.  I did okay with the tear gas.  It was hard, but I managed to stay the five minutes.  After we breathed clean air for awhile, we were sent to a tent that had the real gas in it.  It caused me problems for about two months. I felt like I had pneumonia.   My left lung is still weak as a result of that bad gas mask.  I don’t know how I got over that.  I guess I had the true faith. 

I never did go to the doctor.  I always stayed on my job.  I had yellow jaundice overseas.  They gave me a volunteer chance to go back to the hospital and be treated.  About half did.  I didn’t go.  I wanted to stay with my buddies.  I made it anyway.

We had to pull a parade in front of General George C. Marshall in the snow.  The parade ground was not level, so we were sliding around while we were trying to march.  I told my buddies that we would not pass the review.  But we did and we were ready to go overseas.   

Then we left Ft. Dix for England on the ship John Erickson.  After three days at sea, we had to turn around and come back to port because of engine trouble.  We stayed three more days on the ship while it was repaired.  We were forbidden to go ashore. 

After the repairs were completed, we had to wait for another convoy.  The German Wolf Pack submarines were thick, and there was security in numbers.  We had to go around by Northern Ireland before we landed in Liverpool, England on Easter Sunday, 1944.  The crossing took 18 days.

England

I first saw General George S. Patton in England.  When our officers announced that we were going to hear our new Third Army Commander, you could have dropped a pin and heard it hit. 

We had on our combat gear when we heard him speak.  He said, "we were about to go to France.  We were not going over there to visit.  We were not going to play.  We were not going to take their food.  We were not going over there to fraternize.  By God, we were going over there to kill Germans.  When we finish, those of you who are living can go back home." 

He did not speak very long.  That was very near the time we sailed for Normandy. 

We moved out to a British line of fortifications close to a port.  I never did know exactly where.  There was a British barracks on a hill.  The bombs were falling nearly every night.  I don’t know if that was the flying bombs, long range artillery, or just bombers.  We boarded the ship on the day before we shipped out.    

Combat

Utah Beach

Our whole battalion boarded the cruise liner, the Queen Mary for the channel crossing.  We had to be at a certain place in the channel before the tide went down or we would have foundered.  We could see some ships leaning over a bit because they were sitting on the bottom.  One ship hit a mine and the soldiers had to land without weapons. 

The first invasion wave landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day.  We landed at Utah Beach the second day. 

We climbed down the ropes on the side of the Queen Mary into the landing crafts.   The boats took us as close to shore as possible.  When we left the barge, the water was about chest deep.  The man in front of me was carrying the tube to the mortar.  He stepped off the barge and into a shell hole.  He went underwater and came up without the tube.  No one said a word.  He took a breath, dove like a dew dapper duck, and came up with the tube.  Then he walked out on the beach. 

The weather was cool and the beach was calm.  The Germans did not know we were coming, but we quickly ran into static.   A German unit was on maneuvers in the area and began shelling our positions on the first day.  The training stopped and the war began.

That first night our non-coms informed us that the Germans had left suicide men behind with razors.  They were going to hide in clumps of bushes and wait until we were asleep to cut our throats.  Sentries actually caught one about 30 yards from my foxhole.  After that, we were ordered not to sleep.

 I hardly slept for two weeks.  I went to sleep once during the day and dreamed I was home with my parents, brother, and sisters.  It was a wonderful dream until the enemy sent in a barrage of artillery and spoiled it all.  It was like going from one world to another.

Combat

The Hedgerows of the Cotentin

Another incident happened during this time. The sergeant told me to go back, find the ammunition dump, and check on our ammo supply.  We were about five miles from the beach.  The vegetation was heavy with a lot of little bushes.  I looked and looked but couldn’t find the ammo dump.  I went back to our position and just as I got there, the Germans threw in an artillery barrage.  I headed for my foxhole, but a big old guy from Arkansas named Elsy Johnson beat me to it.  I was out of luck until I noticed a muddy bank three or four feet high with a muddy hole behind it.  I jumped into the mud hole, only to find that it had no bottom.  It was a well, so I just put my head underwater until the barrage let up.  I never did touch the bottom.  I got out and started to my foxhole, and another barrage started.  I dove back into the well and waited out the second barrage.  When I could finally get out I was soaked and freezing to death.  I started to shake from the cold and went back to the aid station to get some dry clothes.  They found me a pair of blood soaked pants.  Then the medics gave me a tablet that knocked me out, and I got a good night’s sleep.  I wore those bloody pants for a week.  They were officer’s clothes.

After things settled down, I asked Elsy why he got my foxhole, and he said because someone else was in his. He came up to me later and said, “Taylor, I want to show you something.”  His helmet had two holes in it about two inches from the top.  A piece of shrapnel had entered one side, hugged the helmet liner, and came out the other side.  It should have gone right through his head but it did not.  It was a miracle.

Sometimes we would stay in the same foxhole for two or three days, and then we would move up.  There was some rain but not a lot.  We were not supposed to drink any water out of the local wells.  There were many little apples in France, and we often had to get moisture out of those apples until the water reached us.

Our first objective was about ten miles from shore.  It was hill 122.  A spotter could see the ships in the English Channel from the top of that hill on a clear day. 

We began moving from hedgerow to hedgerow.  That part of France was made up of hedgerows and so was part of Germany.  The hedgerows were around small pastures and fields.  Sometime we could see through them and sometimes not.  We had to deal with the hedgerows all the way across Normandy.  We never really knew which ones hid the enemy and which did not.  Sometimes we had to go up the side of a hedgerow to avoid crossing an open field. 

We reached to about 500 yards from the top of hill 122.  Some soldiers continued to advance as we set up our mortars.  I got on the telephone and hooked up with our sergeant at the forward observation post.

There was an enemy observer in an old building out there in the woods.  He directed in three shells.  The first one landed in the bank right in front of me and knocked dirt all over me.  I told the forward men over the phone to start digging in.  Another German shell landed right in the middle of our guns and blew out a four foot hole.  The mortar fell in the hole.  Comillio Gonzalez was laying down in the hole on his back yelling for help. 

A jeep just happened by and I called for help to get Gonzalez out of the hole and back to the aid station.  That jeep being there was another miracle.

Bill Dotson lay on the side of the shell hole with a piece of shrapnel through his wrist.  He passed out on me, and I took out my handkerchief, used water out of my canteen, and wiped his face with it.  I thought he might be dead, but he came to.  Then I began to put a tourniquet on his arm.  I took out my handkerchief and wrapped it around his arm.  We were always taught to use our spoon to tighten the handkerchief but my spoon would not slide in the wet knot. The trainers didn’t tell me you couldn’t slide a G.I. spoon through a wet handkerchief.  I bruised his arm and finally got the spoon in but he was still bleeding.  I told him to put his thumb over the hole and get on the jeep, so that they could get him help.  

Both men are still living.  That’s another miracle. Soon a Sergeant came by and told us that they had taken care of the German observer.

When it came time to advance to the top of the hill, our Sergeant told us to be careful to watch on both sides and behind us because the Germans had dug their foxholes on the downward slope of the hill, and some were still there. 

All I had was an M1 rifle.  I lost two rifles over there and two mortars.  We lost one mortar taking hill 122.   

We went to the top of the hill but the Germans had captured some of our tanks and turned them on us.  One soldier named Daugherty got both arms shot off.   

After we took hill 122, we came to a place called the Isle of the White Witches.  It was named for snow troops in white uniforms, and some of the vehicles were white.  There was only one road into the area.  Two companies went down the road and we had orders to move up.   There was only one way to get in there from our side, and our battalion commander was moving up.  When he got about two companies in there, the Germans waylaid them with tanks.  Our boys were in an old roadbed, and the Germans were mowing them down.  We were just about to follow them. 

That night some of our boys escaped the trap by crawling in the mud through a slew by the side of the road.  When they reached our lines, they told us that Major Ahern had surrendered the battalion. 

Of course, the Major thought he had to do it.  Apparently, he had not sent out patrols ahead of his troops.  If he had done that, he might not have walked into the trap.   Another guy, named Burt, made it back, and said he threw a white phosphorous grenade into the Germans and escaped.  Burt was lucky that time but not so lucky later on.

A lot of German soldiers surrendered.  Usually when they did, they came out with white flags.  Once, about two hundred Germans near our position wanted to come out.  Some had wounds, and some just wanted to surrender. 

Our regimental Chaplain always stayed with our battalion.  He was Chaplain Hamilton from Ft. Worth, Texas.  He was a heavy set fellow.  The officer asked for volunteers to collect the prisoners.  Chaplain Hamilton volunteered, took some Red Cross Ambulances into the German position, and brought back the wounded Germans.  Other prisoners followed them out, and pitched their weapons into a pile.  We took a 1.5-ton truck full of weapons.  

On the first day we surrounded the Germans, there was an old grey horse pulling a buggy going around in circles.  The next day, the old horse was still going around in circles.  When Chaplain Hamilton went down there to bring out the German wounded, he turned the horse loose.  The Chaplain died about five years ago.  I never did know whether they gave him a presidential citation for that or not, but they should have. 

During this time, we were in our foxholes in a strawberry field just before we were going to take St. Lo.  We were waiting for the Eighth Air Force to bomb the town.  We waited and waited and finally, the field commander told us to just go ahead and take the town without the bombs.  We got in there about dusk, and then the Air Force came over and dropped about six bombs in the strawberry field where we had just left.  We quickly shot some identification flares and they stopped bombing immediately. 

The Air Force grounded that particular wing of the Eighth Air Force for making that mistake.  A vet named Bob Sheaffer, here in Greenville, Texas, was a bombardier in that Wing.  I met him in downtown Greenville one day and asked him if he remembered the incident.  He did.  I can’t blame the Air Force people.  Many mistakes resulted from bad information, and I will not cast the first stone.  It was never easy for the Air Force.  I saw three or four bombers fall out of the sky.

Twenty-four hundred planes took part in the saturation and napalm bombing of St. Lo.  One hundred eleven Allied soldiers died and 490 suffered wounds by friendly fire.  ES

One day we dug into our positions in an apple orchard.  The Germans threw in a phosphorous shell, and several soldiers' yelled gas.  The officers did not like to carry their gas masks, so one yelled, “No, no, it can’t be, because I don’t have a gas mask.”  He wasn’t trying to be funny.  Fortunately, it was only smoke.

We had already suffered heavy casualties, and we received some reinforcements at that time.  One of them was my future wife’s brother.  I didn’t know either of them at that time, but he was in my battalion.  His name was Jesse Smith.  He had a brother named D. Smith in the service at the same time. 

They brought the new people together and gave them a lecture about not picking up things that might be mined.  They could look around but were warned not to touch anything.  There were some houses across the road and some of the new replacements wanted to go over to take a look.  I went with them, and soon one of the new guys spotted a shiny object, and he wanted to know that it was.  I told him not to pick up anything, that it might be booby-trapped.  His curiosity got the better of him.  He picked up the shiny object and shook it.  It blew his hand off.  The lecture had been about 30 minutes ago.  He was sent to the hospital.  His training was wasted.

Combat

Operation Cobra

Then we got behind the German Seventh Army and met the French Moroccan Troops near the Seine River.  I believe that it was a tank unit.  Our officers told us that we had friendly troops on our right after the breakout, but they were not friendly.  We didn’t meet any friendly troops until we met the French Moroccans.  The word was that the Moroccan Troops were highly trained. 

We crossed the river, made the breakthrough, and ran off from General Patton for a couple of days.  We made one hundred forty miles in three days.  

When we first landed in Normandy, I was attached to General Omar Bradley’s First Army, and we spearheaded for his army for several weeks.  After we broke out at St. Lo, we got into General Patton’s Third Army, officially, on August 1, 1944.

That is where we beat the German Seventh Army.  We were up on a hill behind the Germans, and the British were on our left.  The French were on our right.  We bottled up the Germans in the Falaise pocket, and most could not get out.  Some made a breakthrough and got out. 

One day as we were advancing, we passed a long car with a cloth top sitting by the side of the road.  Our officers told us that it belonged to Field Marshall Rommel, but I cannot be sure.  About this time a German plane released what everyone thought was a bomb.  I yelled hit the deck, but the bomb just bounced around and turned out to be a belly tank.

We often had to deal with German aircraft.  Sometimes they would shoot and sometimes not.  We always dove for our foxholes, when one came over.  We were in hedgerows during the early part of the invasion, and we did not think anyone could see us from the air.  Two planes came over.  At first I thought one was a P-47.  I rose up and waved.  When they saw us, they banked the plane and there was the swastika.  I knew I had made a mistake.   I said, “Boys, they are going to be back soon.”  But they didn’t.  I guess they were out of ammo.

The 90th Division did not actually liberate Paris.  Eisenhower allowed the French unit to do that for political reasons.  However, we marched through Paris on our way to the new front.  We went right by the Eiffel Tower and crossed the River Seine.  

In the area of Northern France as we were approaching the Rhine, the officers told us that retreating Germans were hiding weapons so that they could infiltrate back and attack from the rear.

We received orders to search out any likely hiding places.  I had a nose for hidden weapons.

Once we were searching a farm and found some guns hidden in the barn.  There was another small outbuilding which was used for storing smaller farm implements.  There was a horse drawn hay rake stored against a wall.  I noticed that the ground looked like it had been smoothed over under the rake.  I told my men to pull the hay rake out of the building.  We only had to dig about eight inches before we found a box of rifles.

Later, we set up a command post in a farmhouse.  There was a small garden near the house.  I was looking around a bit when I noticed that the surface of part of the garden was different.  I investigated and found a satchel of military maps.  Even today, I don’t know if the guns and maps were hidden by the Germans or the French.             

Taking prisoners was not an easy thing to do.  Sometimes, Germans would want to surrender and would come out with their hands up.  Then other Germans would open up on the men who went out to take charge of the prisoners. 

Once, we approached some barracks and got into a heavy firefight.  I was walking through some woods, and I did not actually see this, but I passed the barracks a few minutes later.  The Germans had held up a white flag to surrender.  Our soldiers started walking across open ground to take charge of them and the Germans opened up again.  They hit one of our older soldiers.  Our guys started shooting their M1’s from the hip and proceeded to kill all of the Germans.  It was over by the time we got around the corner. 

The commanding officer came up and asked for some prisoners for interrogation.  The sergeant said, “Sir, there are no prisoners.”  The officer said, “Do you mean with all of that shooting, you don’t have any prisoners?”  The sergeant repeated, “Sir, there are no prisoners.”  The officer started to walk away then he turned and said, “That’s the way I like to see it.” 

It was during this time that a tank was crossing a small river on a log bridge.  About half way across, the bridge gave way, and the tank fell about ten feet into the river.  It buried nose down in the water.  I don’t know what happened to that tank.  It was not always a good idea to be around a tank.  They drew a lot of fire and a soldier wants to keep a low profile.   

Soon the first aid men took out our wounded Captain Jackson and another wounded soldier who was a former deserter.  He ran off while we were in the states, and the sergeant had to go find him.  That was the way it worked.  If a man ran off, his sergeant was deputized and he had to go get him.  He would take another solder with him, and the sheriff would hold the deserter until they got there.  The wounded solder was an ex-convict from Missouri.  As they were taking him out, he said, “Boys, give them heck.  I won’t be back.”  When the former deserter got back to the aid station, he wanted to know if the bullet was German or American.  He was afraid an American had shot him in the back.  

Combat

The Maginot Line

There were many instances of bravery.  One outfit was in crossfire across the Moselle River.  They had a Colonel who drank a little but was more like a regular soldier than most officers.  He ordered the troops on our side of the Moselle River to lay down covering fire and he swam across, rounded up the men on the other side, and led them back across the river.  His superiors tried to take away his commission for doing that.   They told him he was not supposed to do things like that.  He was supposed to send somebody else to do things like that.  He told his superiors that he only went because he needed the information the other men had.  I think he did it to save the men.

We crossed the Moselle River to take Fort Koenigsmacher.  It was the most important element in the Metz Fortress.  We went to the left of Metz.  Another Battalion was on our left and another was in reserve.  Our Battalion had to cross at night in boats, one squad to a boat.  There was a gun turret in the Fort which covered the river.  The plan was for our combat engineers to set off satchel charges, throw them in the Fort, and put the gun placement out of action.  Everyone got across except my squad.  They failed to send the boat back for us.  We were left in an open pasture beside the river.  We had to get across before daylight or be sitting ducks for the German artillery from the high ground. 

We had the radio on our side of the river.  I asked the radio operator if he was talking to the sergeant.  He said yes, so I asked to talk to the sergeant.  I said, “Sergeant, why don’t you send a boat back for us so that we can get across this river?” 

He said, “I can’t.  I’ve go to go with the captain to the company Command Post.” 

I said, “As soon as it gets daylight, they are going to plaster this side of the river.  We are going to do something soon.” 

He said, “Wait until I talk to the Captain.” 

I waited and soon he came back on.  He said, “The Captain said they are putting a pontoon bridge in about a half mile down the river.  They are building the bridge in the dark and should be about finished.  You can cross there.” 

I told our people to move out and not to waste any time. 

As we got about half way to the bridge, the Germans dropped the first shell on the riverbank where we had been standing.  Then they landed one near us and then one way over us.  We made it to the bridge, but they lacked about two more sections to complete the job.  They said it would take about thirty minutes.  When the pontoon bridge was finished, we crossed.  I told the boys not to walk in the trails and to walk single file so as to avoid mines.  We did not stop until we reached our outfit, which was right under the muzzle of that gun turret.  I often had a hard time getting things done but I always got it done.  

There was a large tunnel under the fort to bring in railroad cars or mules to deliver supplies and ammunition.  After we threw the satchel charges in the fort, about two hundred of the enemy tried to escape through the tunnel.  They threw their weapons away, and one of our Battalions captured them all without firing a shot. They got a Presidential Citation.  We lost a couple of men taking the Fort and we got nothing.  The entire Regiment should have shared in the citations.

The Germans had barracks inside the fort near the guns.  The guns themselves were in high turrets.  After we got in I noticed that there didn’t seem to be much of a ladder to climb up there.  I don’t know how they got up to shoot the guns. There were tunnels going from one fort to another.  I found some canned food where the tunnels intersected.  I think it was horsemeat

One of our casualties in this battle was the soldier named Burt who escaped the German trap in the Cherbourg Peninsula.  He was machined gunned and had numerous wounds.  The medics were told not to give him any water because of the kinds of wounds he had received.  As they were taking him across the Moselle, he dipped a handful of water and drank it.  Then he died. 

One night while we were in the Metz area, I was on guard duty.  During the early hours of the morning, I saw a white, ghost-like apparition.  It would appear every so often.  I was determined to find out what it was, and when it got daylight, I investigated.  It was a pile of rotten potatoes giving off some kind of gas.  You never know what you are going to run into during wartime.

The Battalion interrogator was from Belgium.  At one time he was in the German Army.  He didn’t like Hitler so he made his way to England and became an asset for the Allies.  He had a trick he played on the soldiers he was interrogating.  Whatever rank they held, he would assume the same rank.  He kept a set of insignia for each rank and changed them when needed.  A German soldier would refuse to speak with anyone under their rank.  

Once when we pulled back for a little breather, our leaders decided that we were not getting enough exercise, so they had us lay down our packs so we could do some calisthenics.  I was carrying a forty-five caliber side arm and an M1 rifle.  An ammunition carrier was next to me, and he was carrying a carbine rifle.  After we finished the calisthenics, he accidentally dropped his carbine.  It discharged, hit the gas chamber on my M1, and then the bullet went through the elbow of another solder and came out his face.  The wounded soldier’s name was Cashmere.  He was severely wounded but lived through it. My rifle was ruined.  

I once did some poetry for the Stars and Stripes.  Any soldier who wanted to compose a piece and put it in the Stars and Stripes could do so.  I can’t remember all of it but here is some of it:

It was in the month of early June.

When our ship anchored to the ocean’s tune. 

Off the rope and into the barge.

Towards the shore we pushed hard.

Contact with Jerry was made.

Then the digging of the spade.

The war of Europe was on.

I wrote this in October of 1944.  We were on the front for ninety days and finally got a breathing spell.  I used to compose a lot of stuff.  I wrote some songs but I didn’t publish them.

Combat

The Siegfried Line

When we moved through the Siegfried Line, we ran into the Screaming Mimis.  Those were the rockets with sirens on them.  It would make the hair stand up on your head.

We crossed the Rhine at the western edge of Cologne.  We found one bridge that we could use.  Just before we crossed, we took a small town one evening.  we took a small town.  Two small roads entered the town.  They joined, made a circle, and then one road led out of the town. 

There was about 150 Germans hidden in the woods and we passed them by.  We didn’t know they were there.  It was about 10:00 pm, and it was dark.  We had our guns pointed toward the Rhine.  The next morning, the Germans attacked from the rear.  The only American killed was my future wife’s brother.  He served in my Regiment on an anti-tank gun. 

The Germans had a Tiger Tank leading the attack with about five half-tracks filled with infantry.  They had Red Cross markings on the vehicles.  The Tank came around to our position and shot at my buddy, Dick Langston, from Mt. Pleasant, Texas.  The shot hit the side of the building.  Bricks fell on Dick and knocked his helmet off.  He put it back on and kept fighting.  We were pinned down in the garden by the tank but we had a shooting battle with them.  I told the men that it was every man for himself.

 There was an iron fence around the garden and if we tried to go over the fence, the German infantry would shoot us.  If we stayed in the garden, we had to deal with the tank.  About that time, the Tiger Tank came around the building about twenty feet from me.  I did not have anything that would knock it out, so I was helpless. 

I stepped through a window on the back of the building about the same time a German soldier came in the front door.  One of ours gunned him down. 

One of the half-tracks started down the road.  We had a bazooka team behind a building on our left, and they knocked out the half-track.  We went back outside and I went around to the anti-tank bazooka team that had knocked out the half-track.  There were two enemy soldiers dying near the vehicle, and the half-track was on fire.  Since it blocked the road, we captured the rest of the half-tracks, and the Tiger Tank as well.  We got the whole bunch.  The battle only lasted about 20 minutes.  

Then we went forward and took the buildings. One of them was a bank.  On the second floor of the bank were bedrooms.  I was the forward observer, and we needed to avoid any obstruction in order to use the radio antenna.  We carried the radio to the second floor so the antenna could stick out the window.  It was dark by then.  The Lieutenant hit the bed and informed us that he was going to sleep.

During the night, the Germans counterattacked.  Since we were already zeroed in on the road, I called for creeping fire with the mortars.  I told them to be sure that the gun settings were accurate since the Germans were right on us.  They were attempting to take our buildings. 

I creeped the fire toward our positions until shrapnel was hitting our building.  I knew I couldn’t call our fire in any closer, so I reversed the creeping.  That broke the back of the counterattack and things got quiet again.  The next morning we went out to check the situation.  We found a wounded German crawling down the road and we captured him.  

During our time in combat, we fought the SS.  They wore a brown uniform and many of them were very young.  They were probably Hitler Youth.  Some were fifteen or sixteen years old.  The SS left some who were even younger, behind as a rear guard to hold us back.  We captured some kids who were no more than ten years old.  

When the Germans broke out in the Battle of the Bulge, we had just crossed the Saar River at Dillingen, Germany, a manufacturing and meatpacking town.  The Germans destroyed the bridge over the river, but we got across.

At that time, I had a high fever and a heavy cold. We stayed across the river without a bridge from 8 December to 16 December.

That was the coldest winter there in 50 years.  Most of the time we were sleeping in our foxholes, but we would get inside when we could find a place. 

To make conditions worse, the river flooded and snow got over three feet deep.  The creeks were frozen.  The roads were frozen, but that was to our advantage.  The Germans had mined the roads heavily, but the mines did not work because of the ice.  

We went down one road that winter on jeeps, because we were out of ammunition.  The combat engineers took out forty mines after we used the road.

One soldier named John Smith was furloughed back to the states to see his family.  He told me and some more guys, “I already have my shipping orders, but I am afraid I am not going to get to use them.  I sure do hate to cross this river.”  John was a nice looking fellow who resembled Randolph Scott.

After we crossed the Saar River, our major obstacle was a pillbox that was giving us trouble.  One of our tank destroyers found a spot in a saddle between two hills.  The range was perfect and we knocked out the pillbox.  A few German soldiers lived through the barrage and were able to escape.

Next, we took a group of farm building on the edge of town.  A few of us stayed in a house that night.  I was in the bedroom next to the kitchen along with John Smith and another soldier.  I sat down with my back against the wall.  Another soldier was sitting on the bed.  John Smith was leaning with his back against a chest of drawers. 

A German sneaked up to the window and opened fire with a burp gun.  I heard John Smith fall.  He did not answer when I called his name. 

There was a medic in the kitchen, and I told him to help John Smith.  It was pitch-dark and we could not use lights.  The medic crawled in and checked him over with a little red flashlight but could not find any blood or any wound.  The only thing that made sense was that he was shot in his open mouth or maybe had a heart attack.  Also, the Germans were using wooden bullets that splintered.  He could have been hit with one of those.    

The combat engineers threw a rope bridge from one high point to another.  That was our only way across the River.  Every night the support troops moved food and ammunition across the river by the rope bridge.  In order for us to get the supplies, we had to go right by an enemy pillbox. 

I worked a litter every night.  The sergeant placed me in charge of the operation, since I was the only one who could find my way in the dark.  One night we made thirteen trips.  Each round trip was about a half mile over rough ground.  We never knew if our load was wounded or dead, so we had to keep them out of the water.  The medics gave the wounded pills to knock them out for the trip. 

There was a stream on the way to the pick-up point.  Sometimes the water was under my arms, but other times it might be over my head.  After the third night of transporting people by litter, I told my sergeant that when he chose my helpers to pick tall men, so that they could cross the stream easier.  Only once did I know whether my litter carried a live soldier or a dead one.  He died before crossing the river. He had been machine-gunned.

 When we would get to the stream crossing, I would stop and get on the back of the litter.  When my helper felt the bank on the other side, I would push him on up the bank.  When he reached firm ground, he would pull me up.

We fired our weapons during the day.  Then I worked all night carrying our dead and wounded down to the river and bringing supplies and ammunition back.  That did not leave much time for me to sleep.  I was like a walking corpse, and so was everyone else.  We held our side of the river for eight days and nights with no bridge.

*****

The Battle of the Bulge was not going well.  We received orders to pull back and defend Belgium. When it came time to leave our positions, our mortar was so hot, we could not take it down.  We took the gun sight off and left it behind.  We had two tanks across the river, so we set them on fire and left them behind as well.

We evacuated over the rope bridge in single file.  We had to be very careful not to shake the bridge, or we would have all fallen into the river.  As a result of our efforts in Dillingen, Germany, we were all decorated with a Bronze Star for heroic service.

After we went back across the Saar River and set up defensive positions, we found a pillbox nearby.  Our objective was to take some men and one mortar and attempt to capture the Germans in the pillbox after dark. 

I went with the mortar.  I do not know why since I could not see to fire it.  As we were making our way to the pillbox, one soldier tripped a mine.  He was wounded.  Then we captured the pillbox.  We fought a lot at night.  Half the time we did not know where we were and could not see what we were shooting at. 

The 300 radio is heavy and difficult to carry, so the radiomen swap out carrying it.  Once, we came upon a house sitting atop a hill.  We put the radio in there, and the house became the company command post. 

A German civilian kept hanging around the area.  Someone called him to lunch, but he didn’t go.  While no one was paying attention, the old German sneaked inside the building and stabbed the radioman in the back with a pocket knife.  The young radioman was not disabled.  He took the knife away from the old man and called for help.  A Military Police Jeep drove up, and they arrested the German.  If the German had just behaved himself, he would have had no trouble.

While we were still in our defensive positions, my Captain sent word that he was taking me to Paris for Christmas.   That was on the 23rd of December, 1944.  I sent word back that I would just stay with my buddies on the front.  He sent word back that he ordered me to report for the trip to Paris, so I reported.  We were on the front for 90 days before being relieved. 

We boarded a truck, and the drivers took us to a tent camp where we would spend the first night.   As we were putting up our gear, orders came down that we were going back to the front.  They said that the Germans had dropped a bunch of paratroopers in France.  We got ready to go back to the front and then they told us that the trip to Paris was on again.

We got to Paris the next day about 1:00 pm.  They put us in a nice hotel, and we got a pleasant bath for the first time in a long time. 

About bedtime, we heard machine guns firing.  Of course, we hit the floor.  I looked at one of my buddies and said, “I thought we were getting a break from the war.  I thought we were 200 miles from the front.”  We did not know there was a 9:00 pm curfew in Paris, and if you were out after that, you were shot.

We had a good night’s sleep in a comfortable bed.  I didn’t even get out on the streets of Paris.  The next morning, we were scheduled to return to the front without Christmas dinner, but one of the Red Cross ladies convinced the convoy commander to wait until 1:00 pm before leaving, so that we could get Christmas dinner.  We had dinner with a large group of war orphans. 

We were mostly farm boys and knew nothing about how the French ate their food.  The waiters brought out dessert and we set it aside and waited for the real food.  We waited and waited.  Finally, a waitress told us that we were supposed to eat the dessert first in France.  It didn’t take us long to eat the dessert.  Then they brought the real food.

*****

Combat

The Battle of the Bulge

When we returned to the front, we relieved the 36th Division and moved to an attack position less than a mile from Belgium.  The 36th had been trying to retake Belgium for over a week.  We were in Bastogne, Belgium, within three days and relieved the paratroopers there.  We dug in through eight inches of ice to keep from freezing and to avoid the artillery.

*****

One night we were going to take a small town after dark.  We had one company on one side of the road and another company on the other side.  A German horseman started coming down the road toward us.  We were instructed to be very quiet and allow him to proceed.  The guys in the other company must not have heard the order, because they opened fire.  They were shooting at us as well as the German.  I had on a pair of army gloves, and one of the bullets ripped a hole in my glove and creased my thumb.  That was close.  We had to be careful not to get shot by our own soldiers.  Even though our leaders had information, there were still situations that came up where soldiers were in the wrong place and shooting at the wrong people.

*****

We went through the Ardennes Forest and the Bavarian Mountains.  We went around Frankfort and Cologne.  When we reached Cologne, we approached from the North and only found one bridge in our sector that wasn’t blown.  We were about five miles from Cologne and I went down to this bridge.  The city was bombed to pieces.  We walked across the bridge and could still hear artillery shells exploding in the distance.

American troops bypassed Berlin because Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to let the Russians take it.  The Germans had been to the gates of Stalingrad, and the Russians wanted revenge. That was a mistake.  We should have taken it ourselves.  Later on the four powers divided Berlin into sections and the Russians built the wall.  

*****

One night we were about a mile from Reichsdorf, Germany, near the Czech border.  The road ran for about a half mile up to the top of a hill.  As a forward observer, I moved up the hill to my intended position.  About half way up, a German machine gun nest pinned us down.   We were all on our bellies.  I was next to the radioman.  He inched over toward me and I moved over toward him until I could reach the radio. 

I told the gunners to fire a couple of rounds so that we could zero in on the machine gun nest.  They fired a couple of rounds, and I gave them firing orders.  They knocked out the machine gun.

After we took a building at the top of the hill, we learned that it was a bank.  During peacetime, people lived on the second floor, so there were beds. 

We found bales of German Marks, but we could not spend them.  They were printed during Hitler’s time.  I brought six back home with me, but I lost them.  

After we captured the town, I was on guard at an outpost.  We received warning that an enemy patrol would come that night. 

The other guard was a guy named Clampett.  He had a terrible smoker’s cough.  After we were at our position in the woods, he coughed constantly.  I told him that if he did not control his coughing, the Germans would spot us right away and go around us.  Sure enough, they did. 

When they entered the town, another set of guards halted them.  The Germans shot the gun out of the guards hand and got on through.  Since we were aware of their presence, everybody was on the lookout for the infiltrators.  Another unit found and captured them the next morning.

Combat

Austria

Hitler was from Austria.  When we reached Austria, there was a place called the Eagles Lair, which had been Hitler’s secret headquarters.  We called it the Crow’s Nest.  When we were in the area, many of the men rode up to the place, so that they could see it.  I cared nothing about seeing anything that Hitler had, so I did not go. 

Combat

Czechoslovakia

Just before we reached Czechoslovakia, we were moving up an overgrown country road and we were in a column.  Normally, we would spread out, but this time we were in a column, and we stopped for some reason.  A jeep came up the road and stopped about 10 feet away.  It was General Patton.  He had on his pearl handled pistols.  He asked why the column stopped.  A soldier told him he did not know.  The General said he would God damn sure find out and ordered his driver to continue.  We were on the move in about five minutes.  Soon the General came back down the road.   

After we crossed over into Czechoslovakia, we were going up a road there.  A machine gun jeep pulling an ammunition trailer passed us and started around a curve in the road.  The jeep held about six machine gunners.  We often used jeeps to move our mortars and ammunition.  They ran over an anti-tank mine and it cut the jeep in half.  The wheels were blown off and the trailer was blown loose.  It fell in the hole made by the explosion.  The men were blown into pieces. 

I knew the driver.  His name was Simons.  He told me earlier that his Daddy was in the First World War and was killed on the last day of the war.  Simon told me that he knew if he made it until the last day, he would be killed.  He didn’t make it until the last day.

A little later we were waiting for orders.  There was a farm house nearby and some of our guys heard hens cackling.  When the hens would cackle, a soldier would head for the hen house and get the egg.  The Czechs depended on the eggs for their food so when the hens cackled, they ran to the hen house before the soldiers could get there.

We took a general merchandise store there.  The store was filled with clothes and shoes.  It was a nice store and had a large picture of Hitler on a high wall. 

We met the Russians in Czechoslovakia close to Plzein.  One of the rifle companies freed a Russian who appeared to be about 17 or 18 years old.  He stayed with them until the war was over.  The Russian soldier was a husky man and the bottoms were worn off his shoes.  They asked him now that the war was over, what was he going to do?  He said, “I am Ruskie.  I go back to Russia.”   They told him that before he left, he could get some nice clothes.  He nodded his head but before he got any clothes, he scaled the wall and took down every Hitler picture in the building.  Then he got a pair of shoes, new clothes, and headed out the door.

There were some White Russians trapped between the Russian lines and ours with their horses and buggies.  Nobody wanted them.  We wouldn’t let them through and they were afraid to go back to Russia.  If the Reds got them, they sent them to Siberia.  

There were many battlefield commissions.  We lost all of our officers early in the campaign.  Just before we left for Europe, a bunch of staff sergeants were added to our ranks.  Many of them became officers as our regular officers were killed or wounded.  One in our platoon led us and was given a battlefield commission.  I became platoon leader during our time in the Army of Occupation.

Army of Occupation

During camp in the Army of Occupation, our platoon was housed quite a ways from the parade ground.  We had to run in order to get there for morning roll call.  Most of the outfits were housed right around the square, and they were ready before we received roll call notification.  I complained to some of the officers, but nothing changed.  We had to run for roll call for about three months.

During this period while we were in the Army of Occupation, we received cigarettes issues about twice each month.  We had a ration card for cigarettes and other things.  We would put our stuff in our barracks and go to lunch on those days.  When we returned, the cigarettes had disappeared.  We noticed that two guys never showed up for lunch on those days, so we started watching them.  We followed them and found out that they were selling the cigarettes on the black market not more than a block up the street.  There was a German couple and an Italian couple living there who bought the cigarettes. 

I served in the Army of Occupation after the war and one of the most difficult things I ever had to encounter occurred during this time.  We were in Germany and we were guarding a hospital.  It contained wounded German Soldiers.  It was more or less a convalescent home. 

Even though I was a non-com, I had to stand guard duty.  One guard was on the gate and the other was near the front door.  The officers inspected us every day. 

One day a sergeant gave me an oral order that no one was to enter or leave without a pass.  A woman passed out of the building without a pass, and the guard at the front door did not stop her.  When she got to the outside gate, she was going to walk right out.  I challenged her and told her she needed a pass to leave.  She couldn’t understand what I said.  Then the other guard asks me what was the trouble.  I told him anyone who came in or left needed a pass.  The woman tried to leave again and I fixed bayonet with the intention of stopping her.  I didn’t want to shoot her but orders were orders.  She finally began to back up a bit. 

Then the German Commandant sent a pass out for her to leave.  I looked at the pass, which was in German.  It did not mean a thing to me, but I allowed her to leave.  As a result of this episode, the authorities quickly canceled the standing order for everyone to have a pass.

A member of our outfit spoke Czech.  A couple of Czech girls approached us, and they made us an offer.  They agreed to make a rhubarb cake, if we would furnish the sugar.  Sugar was hard to come by, but we managed to get our hands on some. We all enjoyed the cake.

We eventually lost about twenty-five percent of our company.  During the early part of the war, several of our officers and men, including my number one and number two gunners, were wounded and sent back to a hospital. After they recuperated, number one, Bill Dotson, came back to the platoon but number two, Comillio Gonzalez, was sent back to the states on a plane.   The plane never made it home.  All aboard were missing over the Atlantic.  They started to send me back by plane, but then they decided that too many were going down.  I am grateful for that. 

We went home on the ship New York Victory.  It was laying on its side in the English Channel, and we had to wait for the high tide to board.  That was the longest wait of my life.  We boarded and then went out before the tide went down.  It took us eight days to reach New York Harbor where a tugboat with a band met us.  We went up the Hudson River to Camp Shanks.  Everyone who had a weapon had to register it with the customs agent.       

Legacy

These days I sleep no more than two or three hours a night.  I relive those days in my mind and can’t sleep.  I can’t get if off my mind.  When I was raising a family, I got away from it for awhile, but it came back.  I think about men right beside me getting killed, explosions, fighting at night, the cold, the wet, and even going without a weapon in a combat zone.  But the United States is still free so I guess it was worth it.

The United States Army awarded Sergeant Benjamin Weatherby Taylor an Honorable Discharge on October 23, 1945 at Camp Chaffee Arkansas.  He subsequently married, produced a substantial family, and spent the majority of his life working as a carpenter in Greenville, Texas where he resides at the time of this writing..

The horror of World War II, or of any war for that matter, represents Satan's gift to humankind.  Deliberately imposing such suffering and destroying so many live for the sake of power and greed can only originate with the darkest angel…ES