Gunslinger

E Company, like all units in the American airborne divisions, had been trained as a light infantry assault outfit, with the emphasis on quick movement, darking manoeuvres and small arms fire. On 2nd October the company had been moved to a 5 kilometre wide “island” that lay between the Lower Rhine on the north and the Waal River on the south. The cities of Arnhem, on the Lower Rhine, and Nijmegen, on the Waal, marked the eastern limit of the 101st Division’s lines; the small towns of Opheusden on the Lower Rhine and Dodewaard on the Waal were the eastern limit. The Germans held territory north of the Lower Rhine and west of Opheusden and Dodewaard.

The Island was a flat agriculture area which was below sea level. 7 metre high dikes, wide enough for two lane roads, held back the flood waters. The sides of the dikes were sometimes steep, more often sloping so gradually as to make the dikes 200 or even 300 feet wide at the base. Crisscrossing the area were drainage ditches. The Company drew its rations from the British, and the men were not impressed. The men hated the oxtail soup.
“It looks like grease with bones floating in it”, O’Shea had remarked the first time he had tried it. The tins of bullied beef and heavy Yorkshire pudding were also hated, and the men took to throwing everything together in one pot and adding vegetables that they managed to scrounge from the countryside.

The company arrived at night to relieve the British 43rd Division. They were taking over a stretch of front line that had been held by a full division, which was over 6 miles in length. British soldiers met the company in Zetten and escorted them to their new positions.
“What’s it like up there?”, Brian asked.
“It’s a bloody rest position, mate”, came the reply from the soldier standing close to him. Brian looked at the numerous craters from 105s and 88s and looked sceptically at the British solider. The craters looked a little fresh for his liking. After three hours of marching, the Company reached its destination, which was a clump of houses nestled beside a huge dike. The area was littered with dead animals, burned houses, and empty machine gun belts and ammo boxes. This was no-man’s-land.

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On 5th October Somerville sent Butler on a patrol with orders to occupy an outpost in a building near a windmill on the south bank of the dike. With Butler were Dana, and Privates Smith, Holmes and Morris.

When the patrol reached the road, Butler told Smith to go the top of the dike and look things over. When Smith reached the top, hugging the ground, he saw an unexpected sight, which was the outline of a German machine gun set up at the point where the road crossed the dike. Behind it, in the dark, he could just make out a German preparing to throw a potato-masher grenade at the patrol. Simultaneously the other members of the patrol heard German voices. The German threw the grenade as Smith called out a warning. Other Germans pitched grenades of their own over the dike. Dana was hit in the neck with piece of shrapnel, Morris was blown to the ground by a blast of shrapnel that left thirty two wounds on his left side, face, neck and arm. Butler and Holmes suffered minor wounds.

They had run into a full company of SS troops. After the skirmish, the patrol fell back and began to retreat the kilometre back to Somerville’s command post.
“Come on, Morris”, Holmes kept repeating. “We’ve got to get our asses out of here.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming”, Morris replied as he trudged along with the assistance of Dana and Butler.

At 4.30am the patrol got back to the command post.
“We’ve got penetration”, Butler called. “Where road meets the dike.” Somerville immediately organized a patrol, consisting of a squad and a half from 1st platoon, which was in reserve, plus Sergeant Daniels from Headquarters Company with a radio. Butler ran to the barn where the rest of his men were sleeping.
“Get up! Everybody out! The Krauts have broken through. Get out of bed!” Brian woke up, grabbed his rifle and moved out. He noticed Dana being tended to by Brouchard and hurried over to her.
“Are you alright?”, he asked her.
“Yeah, got pinked in the neck with some shrapnel but it’s just a graze”, she responded as Brouchard taped a bandage on her neck. She then trotted over to join the patrol.

Somerville and the 15 man, plus woman, patrol moved forward quickly along the south side of the dike. As they approached the SS Company, he could see tracer bullets flying off toward the south however the firing made no sense as they all knew that there was nothing down that way. He stopped the patrol and decided to make his own reconnaissance.

Leaving the patrol under Sergeant Daniels’ command, Somerville crawled to the top of the dike. On the north side he saw that there was a 1 metre deep ditch running parallel to the dike which would provide some cover for an approach to the road. He returned to the patrol, ordered two of the group to stay where they were as rear and right flank protection and took the remainder up and over the dike to the ditch on the north side. The group then cautiously moved forward down the ditch toward the road.

200 metres from the road, Somerville stopped the patrol and moved forward alone to scout the situation. As he neared the road he could hear voices on the other side. Looking to his right, he could see German soldiers standing on top of the dike by the machine gun position, silhouetted against the night sky. They were wearing long winter overcoats and the distinctive German helmets. Somerville was about 25 metres from them. He crawled back to the patrol and explained what he had seen.
“We have to crawl up there and make no noise. Keep low and hurry. We won’t have the cover of night much longer.”

The patrol got to within 40 metres of the machine gun up on the dike. Somerville told each member of the patrol an assigned target, either the riflemen or the machine gun crew. Somerville whispered to Felton to set up his 30 calibre machine gun and concentrate on the German MG 42. Behind Murphy, Pagliaro and O’Shea set up their 60mm mortar.

Stepping back, Somerville gave the order to fire in a low calm voice. Twelve rifles barked simultaneously. All seven German riflemen fell. Felton’s machine gun opened up, and Pagliaro and O’Shea dropped a mortar round smack on the German machine gun. Sergeant Daniels from Headquarters watched in awe, astounded at the heavy accurate fire delivered at the enemy.

The patrol began to receive some light rifle fire from across the road. Somerville pulled the patrol back down the ditch for about 200 metres, to a place where the ditch connected with another. He got on Daniels’ radio and called back to Johnson to send the remainder of 1st Platoon, and the section of light machine guns from Headquarters Company.

As the patrol waited for the reinforcements, Sergeant Whitecross stood up to shout out to the men to spread out. Three Germans hiding in a culvert that ran under the road fired a rifle grenade. Whitecross slumped forward. He was the only man hit; a chunk of steel went in his shoulder blade and came out through his heart. The survivors opened up with their rifles on the Germans in the culvert and killed them in return.

While they waited for the remainder of the platoon to come forward, the sun came up and it was now full daylight. Somerville sat a little way away from his men as he thought of strategies. When he returned, he found that the reinforcements had arrived and he now had thirty men. He called Lieutenants Ryan and Kennedy and Sergeant Butler together and gave his orders.
“Butler, take the third squad to the right. Kennedy, take the first squad to the left. I’ll take the second squad right up the middle. Ryan, put your machine guns between the columns. I want a good covering fire until we reach that roadway. Then lift your fire and move up and join us.” He told Butler and Kennedy to have their men fix bayonets.

As his subordinates went off to carry out his orders, Somerville called the 2nd squad together and explained the plan. When Somerville ordered to fix bayonets, Dana gulped and Brian gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. On Somerville’s signal, the machine gun began laying a base of fire, and all three columns started to move as fast as they could across the 200 metres of level but soft field between them and the road, doing their best to keep low.

At this point, Somerville had no idea how many German were on the other side of the road from the dike, which was just high enough to block his view. However, the Germans also did not know how many Americans were coming. Inexcusably, after losing their machine gunners and riflemen in the first volley, they had failed to put an outpost on the road or up on the dike.