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BRODY HAND (3 of 7) |
They put us in the back, and so we were late
getting out and we fell out of town. Lieutenant Bell, Dego, the
other man, and part of the machine gun squad got killed that night
in town. I had landed in a tree. I was standing on one leg. My chute
was hanging me in the treetop, so I reached to get my knife to cut
the straps loose. I was jumping around, and jerking, trying to get
around to my knife, which was strapped to my leg. I shook loose
enough that I could get both feet on the ground. By then I could
unbuckle my chute, which was real hard to do because I was real
tight hanging that way. But I got out of it. We had the little
crickets, clickers, to notify each other with. As soon as I got
loose I could see which way the planes were headed. We knew which
way we had to go without thinking. We just had to follow the way the
planes went till we got to where we could find something that we'd
recognize. Of course at that time we had no idea whether we were
going out of town, or where we were headed. We were just getting out
of there, fast as we could. Of course we'd gone through a lot of
sand tables, planning, and work on where we were supposed to go, who
we were supposed to be with, and what to do.
My job was to blow up a bridge on the Merderet River. Along the way,
I picked up three or four other men: Bob Harper, Neal Connigan [Cornelius
Connaghan], and Bob Nobles. We headed out in the direction that the
planes were headed, northeast, until we came to a road. About the
time we reached the road, we heard a motorcycle coming. We went on
across the road and went for up to three or four hours, walking,
running, hiding.
Just at the break of day, we came around a fence to where a pair of
gates opened up into another small five or six acres between
hedgerows. At this time we noticed that it was getting light. We saw
some movement and we just froze right where we were. There was an
open gate on this side of the hedgerow and an open gate on that side
of the hedgerow. At the far end of the opening was a white one story
building approximately 30 feet by 100 feet. We decided that must be
where the German officers were staying. We stood there a few minutes
in the shadows. We didn't want to shoot anybody, didn't want to
cause any racket or any noise because the Germans had us
outnumbered. There was quite a group of them bivouacked and bedded
down.
Then the Germans started coming up out of the foxholes everywhere.
Back to our right, as we eased around, a German sentry was standing.
We tried not to make any noise or attract him as we crossed the
road. I was standing there with my back to the gate watching the
sentry. He was walking guard there. So I motioned to the guys come
on back and go the other way. Well, the sentry saw us. About that
time he took a shot at us. He grazed my thumb and hit me in the
side. I cut loose with the 45, picked him up and laid him down. We
had no more problems there.
We went on back the way we came, doubled back. I didn't know I'd
even been hit till we were running. We ran some distance, probably
two or three miles. As it was beginning to get light, we hid in a
little group of woods and a small drain ditch and spent the day in
this area. Bob Harper said, "There's blood on you. Let me see." I
pulled my shirt up. He took off his first aid kit and put a bandage
around me. I wasn't bleeding bad. I just barely got hit. It didn't
go inside. It just skidded off my Thompson and that's when it hit my
thumb, going across the top of that Thompson sub I was holding. So I
was real lucky, it didn't ruin the gun and it didn't ruin me as far
as that goes. So he tied me up and we went on.
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