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Upstarts
The story is a tangled one, which has bothered me for fifty years. Only recently did I hear
anything like a complete account from an eyewitness, and even now there are unanswered
questions in my mind. However, this seems to be generally what happened:
Sometime on the fifteenth of June, 1944, probably late morning or early afternoon, 1st Lt
Ross Novelli of C Battery went out to be a forward observer with one of the rifle companies of
the 3rd Battalion, 359th Infantry. He stopped at the 3rd Bn CP to get directions and a quick
briefing on the situation up ahead. The infantry battalion commander, Lt Col Lawrence, told him
that the two leading rifle companies were well out ahead and out of contact with each other and
with other elements of the battalion. Since there were a lot of unoccupied (and unexplored) little
fields bounded by hedgerows between them and the CP, Lawrence recommended that, instead of
rushing up forward, Novelli wait until things up there got consolidated and the infantry CP
moved ahead. That way he would have a guide to the company location and some well-armed
companions in case they ran into by-passed German troops.
Novelli heard no firing to indicate that the forward companies were actually fighting, so
he decided to take Col Lawrence's advice. While he waited, listening to the radio transmissions
from the infantry companies, both Col Costain and 2nd Lt Ralph Schmidt (FO from A Battery,
915th) arrived in jeeps.
Costain listened to Novelli's report, then started on foot along a narrow road leading in
the direction of the front lines. He said little or nothing, but his actions seemed to indicate that he
intended to go forward without waiting for the infantry.
Corporal Max Shaffer, Costain's radio operator, followed him, and after a slight
hesitation, because they had received no orders to either come along or stay behind, Schmidt and
then Novelli decided to follow too. Soon they were joined by a Lt Ben Respass, a friend of
Novelli's who commanded the I&R Platoon of the 359th Regt, and Sgt Ray Jackson, also from
the I&R Platoon. Respass, a former professional football player nicknamed "Tufty," took a light
machine gun off its tripod and carried it along.
The road ended abruptly at a T intersection, and Costain continued ahead on a foot path
which led through an opening in a hedgerow and into a field about fifty yards square and covered
with chest-high grass. The others followed, spreading out so they would not make a single target.
As soon as they were all into the field, a German machine gun (or two?) opened fire on
them with its characteristic rapid-fire sound, unlike the "typewriter" noise of an American
machine gun, and they hit the ground, thanking God for the high grass. The hedgerows concealed
the machine gun even while it was firing; they could not locate it by either sight or sound.
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