Air Planes in the Morning
Heroes Remember
Air Planes in the Morning
And these buzz bombs were going over and they're exploding and
the guns are firing at them, you know, and there's this metal
raining down, plankety-plank, off the top and everything, you
know. And finally I said to the guys, I said, "Listen, I got a
couple of bottles of scotch beer," cause we were given one
bottle of beer a month. Officers got a jug of whiskey or
something, but we got a bottle of beer. But it was big bottle,
a quart. "I'll go out," I said, "I got them in my kit in the
truck." So I said, "I'll go bring ‘em in, we'll drink the damn
beer. Try, maybe that'll give us some warmth, you know." So I
went out and I got these, my case, you know, it was a metal
case. It was hard. I just dragged it in quick cause this
stuff's flying all over and got in and opened it up, took out
the beer bottles and damn, they'd frozen and they'd cracked and
all the alcohol had drained out! So it was a big
disappointment. But then we went down there and the only thing
we saw of the Battle of the Bulge is,
do you remember in the movie, the weather broke...
Interviewer: Yeah.
The Germans fighters finally came up? And we were up in
this barracks on the third floor and all of a sudden, I heard
this terrible roaring of air planes, you know, in the morning, a
beautiful sunny day. And these Messerschmitt, I think they were
110s, I think, Messerschmitt ME 110, I think it is, very radial
engines, you know. They look like a Harvard Trainer, but much
more powerful, and black, you know, crosses, and they were
flying right in next to our window. You could look in the
cockpit and wave at the pilot. So, jeez, we got out of there in
a hurry, I'll tell you, cause they didn't attack us. I guess
they were after the air fields, you know. So, anyway, but they,
they were looking at us right out of their cockpits as they flew
past the, the castle, you know.
Of course, we all tumbled down the stairways and run like the
devil for the basement or protection, you know, because we
thought we were gonna get strafed, but we weren't, but that's
all we saw of the Battle of the Bulge from our point of view.
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