Near Misses

Early on in Sicily, I think it was our first encounter with the German soldiers, and they were setting up on high point looking down on us and lobbing mortar shells on us. So we, we had to get them away from there so we could proceed. Lieutenant Swan again and myself and three other guys were told to go up this hill and clear the hill and, which we did. And when we were going up this, and it was fairly steep hill, we spread out in single file sort of thing and advanced. And they were shooting at us like crazy and we were stupid and we, you know it was like, still like training, we kept going. We captured three Germans when we got to the top and they said "You guys are crazy!", says, "Why didn't you take cover? " But we didn't have that much sense to do that. And we were very lucky then. But after we had taken these soldiers and sent one guy back with them, the German prisoners I should say, we were still trying to find out where this observation post was and finally they opened up at us with a machine gun again. And one guy got hit, and I don't remember where he got hit. And the two of us grabbed him and was trying to carry him. And we were going back up the hill and they were shooting from down here, they had a clear view on us and I was on the left side of the guy. But anyhow, you know, we have these ammunition bandoleers, they call them, over our shoulder and one shell hit it and ripped it right off of me and I didn't get hit again. So you know, you have so many, many close shaves that you know, you wonder when, when the next one's going to get ya. Earlier on, there was two of us standing in a building looking through a window watching the Germans set up a machine gun that we wanted to shoot them, and the officer says "No, get the guy with the PIAT gun." That's an anti-tank weapon. And I never did figure out why he done that. But anyhow, I was standing with my back up against the wall looking out and I got this strange feeling and I jumped away and a burst of machine gun bullet went right where I was standing. So you know this is why I say sometimes you wonder if there isn't somebody looking out for you, cause that happened so, so many times during twenty-three months of war that you are almost convinced that you have a protector.