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Upstarts
grin and knew not fear. He got the same sharp physical pleasure out of combat
that an athlete gets out of playing football. Was a machine gun nest holding up the
advance? "Come on, Bill, let's go up and get them out of the way."
His theory was that if his men were afraid to tackle a job, the best way to get them
over it was to go out himself and show them how easy it was. Needless to say, his men
idolized him, and he immediately became a legend. Beck's temperament matched his
exactly. Both of them had an enormous store of nervous energy, and a boundless supply
of luck.
He and Beck made an operating team that couldn't be stopped. Beck was a natural
born salesman, and he immediately and effectively sold the entire 1st Battalion on the
value of artillery in general, the superiority of the 915th in particular, and the infallibility
of Wilmer T. Beck. their personal representative, especially.
As I mentioned earlier, we jumped off at dawn every day and fought until dark.
One of the first things Pond did was to ask permission to stop in the mid-afternoon (they
weren't making any progress anyhow) and resume the attack at dark - just the time we
always stopped and "buttoned up" for the day. And he did not want an artillery
preparation.
The Germans, who knew Americans never fought at night, had gone to bed when
the 1st Bn advanced quietly, and by the time they woke up and realized what was going
on, the 1st Bn was lodged on top of Hill 122.
The Germans counter-attacked, but Pond climbed a tree (I don't think Beck
suggested it) and personally called for artillery fire from us, directing it until he had
drawn a nearly full circle of fire around his position. He was using his own radio, a short-
range job carried on the back, with a two-foot whip antenna, to call directions to the CP
of the 359th Regiment. I happened to be at the regimental CP at the time, and I forwarded
his messages by phone to our Fire Direction Center. After one of our volleys, Pond
commented, "That one bent my antenna!"
Later, I pointed out to Lt Beck that conducting artillery fire was not the job of an
infantry Bn CO. "Where in hell were you?"
"I lost my radio and wire crew in the dark, and I'd gone back after them. That's why Pond had to
use infantry radio."
Considering that on my own attempt as a LnO I had lost all communication in
broad daylight, 1 couldn't be too hard on Bill Beck. This was his first experience, and he
didn't let it happen again. Besides, Pond wanted him as Liaison Officer, and right then
Pond could have anything he wanted.
Beck had a request too. He wanted forward observers from his former battery, B
Btry. to work with him and the 1st Infantry Bn. It made sense to have a team accustomed
to each other, so from then on, 1 assigned B Btry FOs to the 1st Bn, A Btry FOs to the
2nd, and C to the 3rd. It would have been more symmetrical to have A with the 1st, B
with the 2nd, but it worked the way we did it.
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