 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
Chapter 8
Gravelotte
This time we had not stopped for lack of gas. We were stopped by the German
Army. Our holiday in the Champagne country had given them time to prepare and take a
stand on a line anchored by a semicircle of forts protecting the city of Metz. These forts
were not part of either the French Maginot Line or the German Siegfried line, but were
much older than either.
The 359th Infantry, which we supported as usual, halted with their front line in a
little wooded valley, which looked up a steep hill on the far side. The hill was marked on
the map Fort Jeanne d'Arc. We couldn't see any fort: nothing showed from the outside
but a few ventilator shafts, and they were carefully camouflaged. There were embrasures
from which they could - and did - fire artillery at us, but they showed only when actually
firing, then closed heavy steel doors. Inside, I understand, was a maze of burrows lined
with reinforced concrete and steel doors so that if one burrow should be penetrated by an
enemy, it could be shut off from the rest. A tough nut to crack, and we never cracked it.
Never even tried.
[A mile or so to the south was another one, Fort Driant, which the 358th Infantry
did attack in a long and costly action.]
We stopped so abruptly that the 359th had to commit its reserve battalion to save
it from a counterattack, and then did something rare, though not unheard of. They made a
combat unit out of the regimental Headquarters and Service Company, composed, as the
stock phrase went, of "cooks, clerks, and jerks." I went up to see the Company
Commander and bring him a Forward Observer, just in case. He looked shaken and
worried. "I'm a hell of a good supply man," he said modestly, "but I don't know anything
about fighting!"
Fortunately they didn't have to fight, and by the next day they were back at their
regular jobs, and a good thing too. Their work was as essential to operations as that of a
rifleman.
Sometime in the first few days I walked up through a loosely wooded area to the
sector of the 2nd Bn, 359th Inf, in the bottom of the little valley I mentioned before. I
made contact with our LnO, Captain Maurice Smith, and the Infantry Bn CO, Major Dull.
The woods were thicker along the bottom of the valley, and our troops couldn't see much
of the opposite slope - not even Fort Jeanne d'Arc, which all but leaned over them. Not a
pleasant situation, somewhat reminiscent of the Foret de Mont Castre.
On my way back to where I had left Joe B. Davis and the jeep, I had to cross a
clearing about the size of the Santa Fe Plaza. Just before I reached the middle, someone
with a rifle started firing at me. The first round landed a little behind me. No point in
turning around and going back to the cover of the trees, so I kept on ahead. Walking.
That probably saved my life. The next two rounds were in front of me, where the
sniper thought I would be if I ran for it. By the time he realized that I hadn't, and adjusted
for a walk, I had panicked, and was running full out, so that the next shot was behind me.
101
|
 |
|