We had a terrific battle with them and ware firing point blank at about 200 yards. They had a company of about 100 men we only had 67 men and 10 of these were on the road block. We battled back and forth for about 2 hours. Col, Shanley came up and said he'd send a platoon around the right flank. I remember we were up on a hedge-row and I was looking over and a mortar shell hit just in front of the position and I felt pieces of dirt hit my lips. Lt. Pollet had his rifle resting on the hedge-row and an automatic pistol zeroed in and filled the rifle with dust so he had to take it all apart and clean it. They kept working down the road and placed a lot of mortar fire on the road block we had. They held up a little too long before withdrawing and we lost 5 men killed. A little later two tanks came up and one of our .50 cal. machine guns knocked out one of them. We thought they were getting ready to attack so we sent back and had anti-tank rifles brought up. We were all set for an attack. When they started firing mortar. I have never seen such accurate rifles. They started at one end of the hedge-row and came right on up. We lost another man killed' and several wounded. Many men were hit by shrapnel. I had a piece in a pack of' cigarettes and also one through my gas mask. We withdrew back up to hill 30 and put up a defense. This was on D+6 and most of us were taxed and about starved.
A patrol had gotten through from across the river and knew we were there. The Col. told us to hold up until they came over. At this time we ran into Col. Munlley who had just gotten in, Hs had about 5 men with him, I went down to talk to some of the wounded men and it was a pitiful sight to see. About 70 men laying in a field and the doctors could not do much for them. They didn't have any food and all they could get was a little broth and milk which they bought from the French. Capt,
[George L.] Montgomery a Medical Officer had a very disgusted look on his face. That is one of the biggest difficulties of an Airborne Mission. We were cut off, and had no transportation to evacuate the wounded.
Finally, the 5th Division came across and ambulances and jeeps came in and took the wounded back. That was surely a grand sight to see. Rations came also and. we had the first food we'd had in about 3 days. Lt. Grabbe and I were together and Lt. Williams and Lt. Daly were together. Later we heard the troops were coming over and setting up on the other side of the river. Later the same day, the rest of our company came across the river and we were united for the first time. Lt. Wilde was in charge of the group and to my disappointment found that quite a few of the platoon was missing.
Sgt. Bundy was killed. That was a great loss to the platoon because he was such a fine fellow and was liked so well by all the men. He was the platoon Sgt. He was found in the water with two bullet holes in his head, so probably was killed coming down. Also learned that Corp. Latimer had come through the roof of a house and had been bayoneted by the Germans. Also Pvt. Cornbread, the little Indian boy and Pvt. Morris and Siccone
[Saccone] had been drowned, Sgt. Judefind, another of my best non-coms was missing, Also P.F.C. Hutchinson
[Hutcheson], Pvt, Posadas and Pvt, [Donald R.] Sholtz were missing. It is my belief that they were either captured or drowned in the river. Capt. Greary and Lt, Quaid were also missing and later we found that they had been killed. Lt. Quaid had raided a pill box and the Germans had surrendered and were coming out with their hands up. The fourth came out firing a smizer and killed him, You could never trust the Jerries. We found out later that Capt.
Greary had been taken prisoner and was in a truck convoy going back to a prison camp when our planes strafed the column and killed most of the occupants of the trucks. One man escaped and told the story, Sgt. Judefind was on that truck.
Sgt. Cerny came up and he had been with Lt. Quaid and was shot through the hand and it was infected pretty bad so he had to be evacuated. It was a great loss to lose all of these Non-Corns. After the BN. got assembled and also the regiment, we started out on our first mission as a group. We were to go to Pont Auny to set up a road block. Before we moved out Capt. Dress was sent down to take over the company. He was
S~3 in the BN, He was. Company Commander once before down at Blanding and for some reason we never got along so well. Why, I don't know, but the feeling was mutual.
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