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Up McCarthy (2) McCarthy (3) McCarthy (4)
 
"We Bailed Out on The Enemy

Nazi Jeep Speeds U. S. Paratroop
Raid on Bridge German

Intruders Quickly Liquidated by Rapid
Carbine Fire; TNT Blast Was Loud, Unexpected

 

This is the fourth in a series of first person stories describing the thrilling experiences of Lt. Justin T. McCarthy, of East Orange, N. J., and other paratroopers in the recent parachutist mission to the vicinity of Avellino, Italy. Previous Installments of this first person story have told of the landing, the first brush with the enemy and the beginning of the attack on the bridge.

ON THE ITALIAN FRONT, Nov, 2 (INS) ---  We were all set for the job, but I wondered about those Heinies in the house as we moved down the lower part of the bank. Still, If anyone moved in the house, or came down the road, one of my men would see him.
   And we had protection from above. Major Dudley had set up three groups of our troopers on the high ground, where they could cover us with fire. That at least was comforting.
   We had carefully worked out all our plans. Jeanes was to get out on the bridge surface with his pack-full of TNT, and five others were to hand him bags which they would fill from the bank with earth. The bags would be used for tamping the explosive. And the men at the ends of the bridge would supply protection. I was to supervise. That was the theory.
   We climbed down the bank Into the gully by the bridge and crossed it and flattened ourselves against the Wall Jeanes and the men who would fill the sandbags and I. The sandbag fillers started to work, clawing dirt from the bank.

Prepares for Blast
   Jeanes jumped up on the edge of the bridge and out to the middle and climbed over onto the pavement. He began looking hurriedly around for the best place to plant his charge. He took off his pack with the demolition kit in it, ripped the fuses out and went to work placing the charge.
   Just then one of our groups started firing from the top of the hill. A little German jeep was coming down the road on the side of the bridge where the house stood, and our men had opened up on it. The jeep pulled over to the side of the road while those red tracers slanted down towards them,

and some of the men jumped out into the bushes. Jeanes froze still In the road where he'd been working. The pavement was white concrete and he was indelible against it. The firing was still angling down from the hill, and now, it was being answered. I ducked my head down behind the parapet.

Speed Urged
   I motioned the men filling the sandbags to hurry as fast as they could.  I took the bags they had filled and threw them over the wall of the bridge. . Another German car came up and started spraying machine gun fire at us. And then everything seem to break loose.
   Concrete fragments splattered me from the wall of the bridge, where bullets were marching up and down, ripping pieces loose. Tracers zoomed down at an angle from higher ground somewhere and smacked into the bridge across the road and ricocheted right back over my shoulder.
   I didn't know whether Jeanes had finished placing and tamping his charges or not. I wondered if he had been hit.
  Our two guards at one end of the bridge jumped down and started running up the stream. We weren't going to leave till the guards at both ends of the bridge had left, but the firing was still pouring down onto the bridge and cascading around from, one side to the other and out into the open.

Vaults Wall
   Jeanes got .up, vaulted over the wall, and said something that sounded like "Let's go!": he jumped down into the stream bed and started running down the creek. I thought he hadn't finished planting the charge and I was about to stick my head over the wall to see when I heard the other two guards from the other end of the bridge splashing up the stream. It was a good thing I hadn't stuck my head up at that moment and taken time to look because I might have had my head blown off. Jeanes had planted the charge all right and it was just about to go.
   When I heard all the men going I jumped down into the stream too and started splashing along behind them. "Wham!" everything blew up and got light and warm behind me, with a loud crash and blast. I thought it was a grenade going off and thought things were getting really tough. But it was the bridge blowing up.
   We turned out of the stream and scrambled up the steep bank and got around a sort of corner where we could work our way to Lieutenant Sherman's bunch of men. They were in the base of a high tension tower, where they were partly protected by the steel work.

Still Firing at House
   The men on the high ground were still firing Into the house when we began our climb up to join them. But Jerry had been quieted down considerably. And one of our scouts saw a Heinle truck come down the next morning and take six dead and two wounded from the house.
   We also succeeded in holding up traffic for a considerable time. That road was the only supply route the Germans had In that area. But the worst part of that night's job, for us, was still coming. It was the long hike, uphill, back to our mountain area.
   For the next few days, we just stayed around our area, so pooped out and so hungry that we could just about move.
  We managed to buy a cow from some Italians, and they cooked one leg of it for us, with potatoes and macaroni, but there wasn't very much when divided among 60 men.
   A few nights later we heard pretty good Information from the Italians that the American Fifth Army was getting close to us.
   We decided to find our advance lines. We had to hike about 15 miles and it was rough. When I got there my feet were like raw hamburger. Blood was just oozing out of my shoes. And we were all hungry.
   But the American division was all set for us with American food! --- and honest to goodness coffee! We soon got over being hungry, although it took a while to gain back the weight we'd lost.
   It took a little longer to get over being jumpy. When you've been living right in the middle of enemy territory as we had your nerves get increasingly worse. And we had been out there a good long time, nearly two weeks all told.

[article series appeared in The Tennessean, Nashville, TN, between Sun, 31 Oct 1943 and Monday, 3 Nov 1943]

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