Shooting Gallery
Heroes Remember
Shooting Gallery
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And, so, anyway, we got into this building. I'm on the ground
floor, the Captain goes up to the second floor, I was up to the
second floor, but had to come back down. I was very leery
because they were shooting through the, one of these hallway
windows, you know, that illuminate the stairway. And there was
a, a, you know, a Bunsen burners, what do you call that, like a
laboratory thing on the ground floor, all laid out next to the
windows, and you know with taps and all this thing like a chem
lab, and so the infantry men were firing through the windows at
the, at these Germans that were trying to get out of this slit
trench and go over the embankment towards the river, so it was
like a shooting gallery, you know. So we were shooting, they
were shooting and one guy said to me, he said, "What are you
gonna do with that Bren gun?" He said, "Are you just sitting
there doing nothing?" He said, "Get that thing up here and if
you don't," he says, "I'll, one of our guys will get it up here
and get it into action," you know. So I said, "I can't use this
Bren gun until I'm ordered to use it," you know. So, and I said,
"We're not being attacked so I can't use it." "Well," he said
"You better go ask your Captain." So I, I went upstairs and I
said to the Captain, "Do you, these guys want me to use the Bren
gun and they're threatening to take it from me and use it
themselves, if I don't." So he says, "Sure," he says, "Join
in," you know. So, here we are, two of us with these Bren guns
sticking through the, just back of the windows, you know, firing
at these guys. Now, it was just like a turkey shoot. It was
just, you know, shoot these, every time they ran out and tried
to get over the bank, we're, we're firing at them, you know, and
I was very good with a Bren gun, very good, and, and so, this is
going on and we're thinking, you know, "This is stupid. A
chemistry lab, you know, is this like a," it was just like you
would picture in a shooting gallery or something. I thought it
was crazy. Then all of the sudden, "Kapow!" With the
Panzerfaust, they hit the side of the wall right where we were,
you know, just right next to us. Blew the whole wall in, you
know. So we were covered with rubble and everything, you know.
So, none of us were hurt, thank God, but that was it. We got
out of there and went around the, somewhere else,
I can't remember, but they finished that off pretty quick!
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