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Upstarts
I was involved in an episode which made a bad situation worse. Each of the
[human] computors in a fire direction center was equipped with a graphical firing table
(GFT), which looked like an oversized slide rule. [Slide rules are now obsolete, I am told,
but may still be found in museums.] GFTs were used to convert range (distance) on the
ground to elevation (the amount of angle above the horizontal of the howitzer tube).
Since range also varies with the charge, which I discussed earlier, there is a separate
slide to insert into the GFT for each of the seven charges.
I was duty officer one night while we were still in the Normandy hedgerows, and
just before daylight we got a call for fire. I sent for the FDC personnel, but saw no reason
to wait for them to arrive before commencing to fire. T/4 Devlin, who was on duty with
me, read the data from the firing chart, and I took over as computor for one of the
batteries. I might be slower than a regular computor, but I surely understood the
technique involved. I alerted the battery, computed the fire commands, read them to the
battery exec, and waited for the "On the way." Devlin held the phone that connected us
with the FO.
When "On the way" came, I repeated it to Devlin and he relayed it to the
observer. A few seconds later, he turned pale. "My God, sir, it landed right on top of
them!"
About that time the FDC arrived in force and pointed out to me that although I
had called for Charge 4 in my commands to the battery, the Charge 5 slide had been in
the GFT. Consequently, the elevation was too low and the rounds had landed short.
Clearly I was accident-prone with respect to Charges.
We called the observer and told him that the error had been corrected, and did he
want to continue firing the mission?
"Hell, no!" was the shocked reply. "I just talked the company commander out of
shooting me!"
Luckily no one was hurt, but the 359th Infantry was justifiably incensed. Col
Bacon, their CO (commanding officer) mentioned it at a meeting called by the division
commander. "I intend to court-martial the officer responsible for this!"
Brigadier General Devine, the Div Arty commander, bristled. "See here, Bacon, I
can take care of disciplining my own people without any help from you! When things
like this happen, I give the officer responsible a good stiff fine as a reminder not to do it
again. If that doesn't teach him, I'll consider court martial or getting rid of him."
Col Bacon was mollified, especially after he was told who was guilty. He knew
and liked me. The fine was $200 this time, and it was quite a while before I drew any
money, because most of my pay was allocated to my wife to feed and lodge the family. I
don't remember just how much I drew for myself, but it was no more than $100 a month,
I am sure. Fortunately, there wasn't much to spend money on.
However, I was as popular with the infantry as a polecat at a picnic for some time.
Not long after that episode, I was up at the front, talking to an infantry officer Major Bob
Booth, then of the 1st Bn, I believe - when a situation came up which seemed to call for
artillery fire quite close beyond the hedgerow that marked the front line.
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