two hours because of all the traffic, most of it also heading for the front lines. Several times his lonely Jeep was shunted aside by MP’s in favor of columns of trucks and tanks that had greater priority even though they were all headed in the same direction. This gave Jack an opportunity to look around and be shocked by the level of destruction. Except for the attack on the LST, he’d never seen war before and, in particular, a pilot was usually insulated from its effects.
Although the heavily cratered roads had been patched, there were still enough holes and bumps to shake his spine as the Jeep, driven by a thoroughly disinterested private named Snyder, lurched its way forward. Pushed off the road were the carcasses of numerous charred vehicles, almost all of them German. From the stench emanating from a number of them, their occupants, now thoroughly cooked, remained inside. Graves Registration gave American dead a high priority. Nazis could wait until hell froze over, and Jack was okay with that.
The road was dirt and narrow, hemmed in by dense hedgerows that Snyder said were called bocages by the locals. Along with Snyder and Morgan, the Jeep carried mail and Jack had a sack of it on his lap. Snyder’d hinted that the mail was more important than Jack was.
Morgan had picked up enough to know that the hedgerows had been a most unpleasant surprise for the Americans. Centuries old, some said they even dated to Roman times, the hedgerows were upwards of fifteen feet thick at the base and half a dozen feet high. They were topped by trees and hedges that added to the problem. They originally defined each farmer’s generally small piece of property and were often separated by narrow roads. Vehicles simply couldn’t bull their way through the hedgerows and men had to squeeze through extremely narrow openings in the foliage; thus, a handful of Germans could and often did hold up large numbers of Americans. Snyder mentioned that some tanks had been fitted with bulldozerlike contraptions that enabled the tank to slice a path through the hedgerow. He added that the 74th was a cherry regiment, virgins who had never seen much combat. Wonderful, Jack thought. He was one more virgin.
As they neared their destination, they passed numbers of parked American tanks and other vehicles. Morgan knew enough to recognize the squat and stubby M4 Sherman, and the smaller Stuart. Their crews were working on them in obvious anticipation of moving into battle, and the sounds of artillery were now quite distinct. This did not bode well, Morgan thought.
They also passed a number of antiaircraft batteries, their guns pointed toward the sky and their crews lounging about on the ground. Either U.S. radar was that good or it was testimony to the fact that the Luftwaffe was pretty well wiped out. He hoped it was both.
Finally, the Jeep pulled up in front of a nondescript tent. Jack took his gear, thanked Snyder who simply grunted, and entered. Inside was a desk and a couple of chairs. A lieutenant colonel sat behind the desk.
“Sit down, Captain. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Jim Whiteside and you can call me either colonel or sir, and I’m the executive officer of this regiment.”
Morgan sat as directed. Whiteside seemed affable enough, but he also looked a little strained. He was a short, stocky man in his mid-thirties and had thinning red hair.
Jack had only been with the 74th for a few minutes and already the culture shock was huge. Obviously, instead of planes and bombers there were large numbers of tanks, half-tracks, artillery, trucks, and Jeeps. And, where there was a degree of cleanliness kept in the air corps because of the need to keep plane engines clean, such was lacking in the 74th. Men were covered with dirt and grease, and Jack felt hugely out of place in his new fatigues.
Whiteside leaned back in his folding chair. “I’ll be blunt. You are not what we expected or wanted. We need an officer familiar with armor and they sent me you.”
Jack was about to comment but the colonel shushed him with a wave. “I know it’s not your fault. Somebody at the depot saw we had a captain killed and thought we needed a captain to replace him, when what we really need is an officer of any rank with a solid knowledge of tanks and armored warfare. Just a typical snafu, right?”
“Yes sir.”
“At any rate, you’re here and we’re gonna make the best of the situation. Now tell me candidly, why did you leave bombers?”
Jack told him what had happened, how he had frozen, and how he felt he was over it. “I’d seen a lot of trainees die, someone said ten percent are killed in training, but this time it finally got to me.”
Whiteside was shocked. “Ten percent dead before they even make it to the war?”
“Yes sir.”
The colonel shook his head. This was news to him. “Well, I guess there are no minor accidents in an airplane. Not like a tank bumping into a tree. Hell, the tree would likely lose. We’ve lost men killed and injured in training, but nothing like ten percent.”
“Of course, sir, there’s also the thought that we have more than enough bomber pilots and planes?”
“What?” Whiteside said incredulously. “That better be somebody’s idea of a joke.”
“Sorry, sir, but it isn’t. There’s a feeling among air force brass that the Nazis are on their last legs and that victory is just around the corner, so a lot of pilots and trainees are being declared superfluous and transferred to other branches. Obviously, top brass doesn’t talk to me, but there are rumors and nobody’s disputing them.”
“Shit.”
“It gets worse. The air force thinks they’re running out of targets.”
“Bull-fuck and double shit,” Whiteside said, his face reddening. “Why don’t they come and ask the guys who are trying to clear Nazis out of the way? They want targets? Hell, I’ll give them a dozen just a few miles away.”
Whiteside again shook his head. “Jesus, what a war. Well, here we are, and, even though you don’t know diddly about tanks, I have no choice but to put you in charge of Headquarters Company B, the position held by your predecessor. You’ll be in charge of setting up the regimental headquarters when we move and for security at all times. The CO is Colonel Stoddard. He’s at division getting orders and you’ll meet him soon enough.”
Whiteside looked through some more papers. “You a college graduate?”
“Not quite, sir. I made it through three years at Michigan State College in East Lansing, Michigan, before I got drafted.”
“Life’s a bitch,” the major muttered. “I ran a hardware store in Cleveland.”
“May I ask what happened to the guy I’m replacing?”
“What happened shouldn’t have. I wrote a letter to his family saying that his Jeep struck a mine and he’d been killed instantly. Of course it didn’t happen that way. He saw a dead kraut officer and tried to take the dead guy’s Luger as a souvenir. Unfortunately, the body was booby-trapped and your predecessor lost his arms and his face. And he didn’t die instantly. He screamed for two hours before medics got enough morphine in him to shut him up. Permanently. Rule number one for rookie officers is don’t go souvenir hunting. I’ll have someone take you to your quarters and you can meet Captain Levin. He’s in charge of Headquarters A Company.”
Morgan was dismissed but had a point to add. “By the way, Colonel. Maybe you don’t want to wish for close-in bomber support.”
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t matter what propaganda they’ve been feeding you, but bombers can’t hit anything accurately from high up. If you’re within a couple of miles of the target, you’re in more danger than the krauts.”
“Shit.”
“Frankly, sir,” Morgan said wickedly, “the safest place to be when bombs drop is right at the target.”
First Lieutenant Phips did what he was told. In the middle of a clammy and rainy night, he gathered the crew of Mother’s Milk and they were taken away in two trucks while he rode in the back seat of an army sedan. The trucks were buttoned up and there were shades on the side windows of the sedan. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought that the army didn’t want anybody to see him.
And why not? He was a pariah. On finally making it back to base, he’d had his ass chewed up down and sideways for having broken formation; thus putting both himself and others at risk. He’d endured it because he knew his superiors and peers were right and that he’d committed a major wrong.
Even worse, one of his men had been killed and likely as a result of his stupidity. Phips had been told in no
