Rambling Anecdotes

[4V50 Gary]

Don't mess with Smitty

Rosie, a tomato picker of Mexican descent caught the eye Private E. Smitty who asked her out to the opening of the New Moon Bar and Grill of Brawley, California. It was the bar's opening day and it was decorated with streamers, balloons and had party favors. Best of all, opening drinks were on the house. Anticipating a festive time at the opening, they went with high expectation for a night of dancing and partying.

But the New Moon Bar & Grill burned down on opening night.

"Our boys on the 'Port Watch' dragged back into Camp. They had all witnessed the fire and told us the ruin was complete. I noticed Smitty was one of the few not expressing regret of the demise of the New Moon Bar and Grill. I asked Smitty, 'You don't seem to share the sorrow over the New Moon loss?' Smitty seemed hesitant but replied, 'That bartender told me to 'get that s**** b*tch out of here and across the tracks where she belonged.' I left but before going I threw a match into the waste paper basket of the head (toilet.)' Smitty cracked a broad smile and said,'He didn't have to say that. I like Rosie and he really hurt her.' After this confession I always paid particular attention when Smitty appeared to be getting upset."

The author was to witness another of Smitty's git even event later.

 

[4V50 Gary]

The other Smitty story:

"My friend E. L. Smith (of New Moon's fire fame) and I were involved in building crates and frames for shipping desks, gun sight and other items that had to be carefully protected in transit.

Smithy was placing 2x4's around a field desk. He seemed to be having difficult driving nails into the very hard lumber.

When out of nowhere, an irtate Major grabbed Smithy's hammer and snapped, 'What kind of a dumb son of a bitch can't use a hammer properly?' Smithy and I stood back as the Major proved he could wield a hammer. As he was putting on his exhibition of hammer proficinecy, I felt I should have told the Major that Private Smith did not take criticism very well. As he returned the hammer to Smithy, he stated the desk being crated was his and that it was 'an old English Army field desk used by many members of his family.' He stated it had to be crated to assure it did not move while in shipment.

The Major departed as quickly as he appeared. I saw in Smithy's eyes that look I saw when he returned from the New Moon's Bar and Grill's demise.

Smithy now entered into his work as a man possessed. He kept repeating the Major's last words, 'not move while in shipment.' He would lay a 2x4 across the 'old english army field desk' then drive a six inch spike trough the 2x4 into the mahogany top of the field desk. After appying six to eight spikes into the desktop, he administered a like number to each side and the bottom, continuing his chant, 'no movement in shipment.'

As we left for lunch, Smithy assured me that the desk would not move in transit. He reveled in the fact 'there are times when one gets a great deal of satisfaction in a job well done.'

I am certain the Major's questioning Smithy's family lineage drove Smithy's enthusiasm."

From Still a PFC by Eugene Peterson. It's a hilarious book. I suspect the Major was a New England blue blood used to mistreating the little fish.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Ike promotes a soldier

After returning from Normandy, the 101 was being rebuilt and medals were awarded to paratroopers who distinguished themselves. Among one was Private Lee Rogers from Aberdeen, Washington. Eisenhower was present to present the medals.

While only a private, Rogers found himself and other survivors pinned down. All their non-coms and officers had been killed or wounded leaving them leaderless. Rogers rose to the occasion, organized the men around him and destroyed a machinegun. Afterward they slew a score of fallschirmjagers. Ike pinned the medal on Rogers and shook his hand. Afterward an impressed Ike turned to 101 Div. Commander Gen. Taylor and asked if he, as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe could promote Rogers on the spot. Taylor didn't object and so Rogers marched off the parade ground as a corporal.

Corporal Rogers celebrated by going AWOL and went to London town where he celebrated by quaffing pints of beer. He was picked up by the MPs and returned to camp drunk. Lt. Col. Charles Chase took one sniff and demoted Rogers on the spot back to private. When Col. Sink who commanded the 506 PIR learned of it, he was shocked. "You can't bust Ike's own corporal!" Chase stood his ground and Rogers remained a private.

Gen. Taylor later informed Ike about his corporal. Ike turned red and laughing, promised Taylor never to intercede for a promotion on behalf of a soldier.

Rogers jumped in Holland and again demonstrated his prowess on the battlefield and became a sergeant. This time he kept his stripes.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Kids, don't try this at home

[O]ne of our men on guard duty, simply as a joke, took his rifle and dragged his rifle butt rapidly along the outside of the corrugated metal surface of the Nissen hut in which our company cooks were sleeping. Inside the hut it must have sounded like machine gun fire. The door burst open and all the cooks in their 'long johns' came running out into the cold wet night.

 

[4V50 Gary]

The irony

"....Mr. Pollack, my representative and sole importer of my products into England, regularly spent his holidays there. On his way there he visited me to take holiday money from his commission account. He is Jewish and emigrated to England in 1938. Since he had not yet been naturalized whent he war broke out he was put into an internment camp as an enemy German. He was confined there during the entire war, and when the war ended he was transported to an internment camp in Germany to be denazified."

What irony and stupidity. Taken from page 89 of Gods of War by Hans Woltersdorf.

 

[4V50 Gary]

From Lt. Moisey Gitmanovich

Born in Odessa, Moisey Gitmanovich volunteered for the Red Army on the first day of the war and attended officers' school where he graduated and became a platoon commander.

"I had my observation hole, and I had three or four such holes [that I was in charge of]. At night I walked between my stations to check how my soldiers were doing. One time I went, and there was quite a distance between them, about four or five kilometers. There was a snowstorm and I lost my way. Fortunately, I kept close to our trenches through the snowstorm. I just lost my bearings. It was a blizzard, I couldn't see anything, and suddenly, I was getting shot at. I got down on the ground. I was get[ting] shot [at] and I could hear someone yelling curses in Russian. I understood these were our guys. I answered. They said, "Deserter!" And they grabbed me and led me to their commander. Obviously, defection was a punishable act, execution. [They] started questioning me. I started explaining, telling them what happened. They wouldn't believe me: why would I go out in a blizzard? There was nothing I could do to prove [my innocence] to them. And then I remembered that, after all, I'm a Jew, and, forgive me, but I took off my pants to show them that I'm a Jew. They all started laughing and they said: Germans kill a man with that badge. And that's how they let me go."

 

[4V50 Gary]

Soviet style road rage circa 1943?

This involves a T-34 tank commanded by Gennady Aizenshtadt.

Gennady Aizenshtadt - "I had a young driver in my crew. The hatch would open when he drove. One time we were traveling and the tank was weaving from side to side like this. Someone was following us in a car and wanted to pass, but we kept getting in his way. My driver could not see what was happening behind him. He eventually got in front of us and stopped us. A captain or a major got out, drew his pistol . . . and killed him."

Interviewer "—The tank driver?"

Gennady Aizenshtadt - "Yes, the tank driver. There were two women and a young man in the car with him. I ordered my tank crew to open fire and killed them. When we arrived at our destination, I reported on the incident and did not suffer any repercussions."

Available here (I read the transcripts since I don't speak Russian): https://www.blavatnikarchive.org/item/2327

 

[4V50 Gary]

Your patriotism sucks

In the Great Patriotic War, the Soviets really played up their propaganda and within a few days of Germany's invasion the song, The Sacred War, was composed. It is still played today in Russia before that big parade in Moscow. If you guys watched any documentaries, you probably heard it before. http://youtu.be/viUnzgXPrDg

Well, at one hospital the wounded learned the war was over. They sang neither that song nor the national anthem. Thankfully SMERSH was not summoned.

At noon the hospital chief, the lieutenant colonel of the medical services, lined up the hospital staff and invited the patients whoever could stand. The chief congratulated us on the victory and said: "My dear friends. We have received the most prised decoration—we survived." And suddenly one wounded soldier without an arm started singing the Katyusha song. We joined in and afterwards we asked: "Why did you start singing "Katyusha"? Why not the national anthem? Why not "The Sacred War"? And he said—he was older than us by about ten years—he said: "Guys, this is a pre-war song but this song was with us throughout the war. It told us about the loyalty of our wives. So it's impossible not to think about them today."

Sweetheart and wives over socialism.

Here is Katyusha (I had to look it up) https://youtu.be/7J__ZdvsZaE

I'm finishing up looking for images for my book on WW II sniping & snipers.

Source for anecdote: https://www.blavatnikarchive.org/item/5307

 

[4V50 Gary]

Snipers annoy the 36th Infantry Division

The following incident involved the 36th Infantry Division (Texas).

"It was the story of two GIs from one of our other regiments who, during the fighting on the Riquewihr-Mittlewihr area, had fallen on some fairly lush days when they found a wine cellar fully stocked with rare old wines. For them the war had stopped for a while as they sampled the various vintages and compared notes on them.

At that time, Colonel McGrath, of the moustache, had taken command of one of our battalions. One day he called m in a great stir over the fact that sniping had driven him into the basement of the home where his CP was loated and he wanted to know what the hell the regiment was doing to round up the snipers.

'Well Mac,' I said, 'we're getting the same treatment. The trouble is that the sniping isn't localized. Yesterday, supplies to one of the other battalions were held up for almost 3 hours and the graves registration officer was pinned down under his jeep for an hour or more.'

'You get those bastards, hear?' McGrath yelled.

Several days elapsed with more reports of snping being made to our headquarters in Riquewihr. Finally, we began to see that the pattern of sniping emanated from a vineyard just outside of Riquewirh. We hastily put together a task of force of two TDs, infantry, and mortars to take the vineyard under fire.

As we did, all kinds of fire was directed from the center of the vineyard to targets lying anywhere around its perimeter. The TDs opened fire and sent a number of their 3in shells screaming into the vineyard. Mortars joined in the cannonading and the infantry, formed as skirmishers, started their walk through the low vines.

The battle reached a crescendo and I took shelter behind a shed near one corner of the vineyard. I could see GIs, on their bellies, working into the spot from which the hostile firingg was coming. Suddenly all shooting stopped and I could hear voices exlaiming rather loudly over something.

Shortly, our men caame back - escorting two GIs who had' been on a drinking spree for over a week. One was short and swarthy, the other tall and stoop-shouldered. They hadn't shaved for a week or ten days and they were grimy with dirt.

I later learned from the men who had finally captured the snipers that the two had dug a circular trench inside the vineyard and had stashed in it, not only German weapons and ammo, the use of which completely fooled us, but a very large supply of wine.

Each of the men was brought before General Stack, then temporarily commanding our regiment, and while he managed to maintain his usual icy and acerbic mien, I caught him, once, covering a smile with one hand.

'I tought I'd have to laugh right out loud,' he said as we recounted the story when I met him on my G-1 rounds. 'That tall GI didn't care about anythingg we were telling him about the seriousness of his and his buddy's actions. He kept looking at the wine bottles we'd taken from him and you knew that his one care in the world was to get back to them.

To make the story complete and save it from becoming another tale of disaster, it should be noted that during the ten-day fusilade of snipers' bullets, no one was scratched, which says something about the capacity of the men to fire their weapons. If anything occurred, later, to cause the two snipers to regret their daliance with the bottle, I never hrad of it. They probably received minor company punishment.

The officer in charge of the task force that rounded up the offenders told us, after the men were led away, that he had heard them greet the GIs who'd come after them with the following statement:

'Where the hell have you been you jerks?' We been fightin' the Germans for a week and no one came to help us. We been fightin' and fallin' back, fightin' and fallin' back. What kinda army is this, anyway?'"

 

[4V50 Gary]

Not a sniping story but some things were done right. A rangefinder was brought in to confirm the distance. A gun was set up ready to engage. The target had established a pattern. This incident took place in the Western Desert near El Agheila (450 miles from Tripoli and 700 west of Alexandria).

The El Agheila position was direct in front and facing us about 700 yards waay were Italians with a stiffening of Germans. Due to the supply problem, orders were given that ammunition could not be fired unless attacked. After a short while the Italians began to realize this and started to take liberties. One day, before the heat haze occured, an Italian climbed out of his trench, raised his hand in the Fascist saluted and shouted, 'Viva Mussolini.' Turning his back to us, he dropped his pantaloons and squatted to answer the call of nature. We obseved with surprised interest. The next day, this fearsome Italian soldier gave a repeat performance. This was going too far for Frank Dillon and he said, 'We're not takng that!' The following day our range-taker, Chris Shambroook ensured that we had the correct distance, and Frank expertly laid his Vickers on the correct spot. Being good soldiers, we had some spare ammunition. As we waited, a jeep pulled up and out got Brigadier Douglas Graham, the Officer Commanding 153 brigade. He immediately wanted to know what was going on, so the situation was explained about trying to teach this Italian a lesson and also that we had some spare ammunition. He said, 'All right, but you had better not miss!' Our Italian did not let us down. He jumped up to what was to be his third performance and although he did not know it, his finale. When he began to exalt his love for Il Duce, Frank made final adjustments to the Vickers. Suddenly, the Brigadier's telephone began to sound, but he ignored it! The Italian duly dropped his trousers, Frank fired a short burst and the Italian fell headfirst into his trench. The Brigadier laughed and congratulated us. A wound in the bottom is not generally considered life threatening, but the next time that Italian used the toilet, he would have to decide which hole to wipe. When the Brigadier returned the call from HQ, they asked why he had not answered. He said, 'I was busy watching my men shoot an I-tie up the arse!'

 

[4V50 Gary]

Comrade Sergeant, may I have the last page of your newspaper?

The train stopped at a small station and we disembraked. The guards permitted us to walk over to the nearest field to relieve ourselves. One could tell that many people must have previously used this field as a latrine. It was not a pretty sight. I noticed that the Sergeant was reading the Russian newspaper, PRAVDA, so I approached him.

"Comrade Sergeant," I asked, "would it be possible to have the last page of your newspaper?"

"Oh, yes?" the Sergeant looked up at me, flipped the paper over in his hands and then studied the last page. "Why do you want the last page?"

"I'm needing some toilet paper, if you don't mind."

The Sergeant glared at me before shouting.

"You want my newspaper?! You want to wipe your ass with PRAVDA?? What are you, some kind of counterrevolutionary?!" Get out of here!!"

We all used the grass that was growing in the field...

 

[4V50 Gary]

War time expediency and Filipino guerilla handloading during WW II:

"For the primer, we used sulphur mixed with coconut shell carbon. Later we were able to get hold of some antimony and add it to the mixture. Then it worked 80 to 90 per cent efficiently. Our main source of powder was from Japanese sea mines that we would dismantle. We'd mix in pulverized wood to retard the burning because mine powder is too violent for a rifle bullet. It took us blowing up about five rifles - blowing off the firing pins, the extractors, and the bolts - to find out about that."

 

[Shane Tuttle]

How would you like to have been the one behind those rifles?

 

[4V50 Gary]

It only gets worse before it gets better Shane.

"All measuring was done rudely, by thumb and by guess and by God. You'd pour the powder into the cartridge with a little homemade funnel sort of thing until you thought you had enough. Then you'd put the piece off the brass curtain rod into the cartridge and crimp the cartridge around it with a pair of pliers. Presto, you had a bullet. Each bullet had to be tested for fit because all our cartridges had been fired once or twice before. We'd load and extract each bullet. If the shoulder was too big, we'd crim it down. If it was too small, we'd say that was fine."

It only gets worse and sometime later I'll continue the story.

 

[4V50 Gary]

The story continues:

"Getting the right measure for the mixture was Kuizon's business [Kuizon was the son of a pharmacist]. It was all trial and error. When there was an error, the cartridge would blow up the gun. Powder flashes would come out between the bolts and burn his hands. One morning he broke three rifles in succession, burning his hands three times and jolting his shoulder so badly his toes ached.

"'Sir, I do not like this work, sir,' he admitted finally. 'I will put the rifle on a table sir, and test by long distance, sir.'

"Finally we managed to dragoon an apothecary's scales and after a few more tests 'by long distance' no more rifles blew up. Using this ammunition was haard on our buns, but it worked and killed a Jap to beat hell. The boys liked them because mine powder gave the bullets so much power they never had to figure windage."

The above was from Ira Wolfert's American Guerilla in the Philippines and is based on the experience of Lt. Ilif David Richardson, USNR. There are other things like distilling alcohol for vehicle fuel, restoring telegraph lines by straightening out barbed wire and using soda bottles for insulators, printing currency (they had a jeweler who engraved - they didn't have to worry about counterfeiting because no one else had paper), improvised uniforms, etc. A book like this would be banned by an authoritarian government.

 

[4V50 Gary]

GI goes to the Aid Station for a bullet wound. Luckily it had only grazed his leg and the doctor cleaned the laceration, sprinkled sulfa powder over it and taped it up. The Doc then suggests he sees the dentist about the tooth. The GI had tried to see the dentist before but the drunk told him to go away.

"The dentist was the same drunken idiot I had gone to in Cologne. Now he stood waiting for me eagerly with a foot-powered field drill in his hand attached to a pedal stand operated by a very young assistant.

"He looked in my mouth and snorted in exasperation. 'You have an impacted wisdom tooth. Why didn't you come sooner? Have you been grinding your teeth?'

"'Yes,' I said, 'But only when I'm being shot at.'

"'Well, I can't do anything until the swelling goes down,' he added.

"'I did come in when it wasn't swollen and you sent me away. Don't you remember?'

"He laid down his drill in disgust. 'Why should I remember you? You guys all look alike when you come in here. Come back when it's not swollen,' he slurred.

"'If I do, you'll just tell me I'm faking.' He looked away as he waved me to the door, at which point I boiled over. 'If you don't know what the hell you're doing, you better get a dentist in here who does, you god damned drunken idiot.'

"His face was now purple with rage as he spun around screaming, 'Get the hell out of here, Corporal. I'm reporting you for insubordination.'

"'Lots of luck, Jerk. You don't even know who I am. We all look alike, remember?'"

With that the gallant corporal departed. The PFC who was the pedal pusher rushed after him and offered him a bag of ice which the corporal accepted.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Disband the cavalry.

During WW II a guerilla unit decided to raise a cavalry unit. They weren't going to to charge the enemy or anything hollywood glamorous like that. Instead the horses were used for increased mobility. The trouble was that the enemy could aways detect their presence. Horse apples are hard to hide and if the unit stayed in any area, you could smell them.

Rather than be destroyed, the cavalry unit was disbanded and the horses went to the farms/ranches.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Sunshine patriots/guerillas or Please be on the right side of history

"Most odious of all were the "parasites' and the "peso patriots," swines who had been pro-Japanese early in the war but turned pro-American when it became obvious the Allies would win, scoundrels who had done nothing more strenuous than wait for MacArthur to come and save them but who now strutted about waving pistols, seizing food, bellowing at "civilians," and telling everybody what fierce guerilla fighters they had always been, all the while trying to exchange their worthless Japanese currency for U.S. dollars. One American guerilla observed glumly that the whores in Manila had contributed more to the Allied cause than these "sunshine patriots" because the whores had at least put thousands of Japanese soldiers in hospitals with venereal diseases."

From Lapham's Raiders: Guerillas in the Philippines 1942-1945, page 196.

 

[4V50 Gary]

German goose thief

Stealing was a punishment crime in the Whermacht. When a member of his guncrew brought in a goose, there was no complaint and all shared in its consumption. An angered sergeant from the victim unit swept through, found the feathers and bones and demanded the gun commanding private's name. He was soon summoned to regimental HQ.

"Gefreiter Bidermann, I have here a report regarding a theft. What was stolen?"
"A goose."
"And who is responsible for this theft?"
"I am a responsible."
"And from exactly where was it stolen?"

Bidermann's hesitation to answer that unexpected question told the Hauptman (Captain) that his mind was racing for answers to protect his guncrew. The Hauptman then began to lecture him on the need for discipline and that theft cannot be tolerated. The Captain would forward the report with a recommendation for punishment. Each word from the Hauptman struck Biderman like a shot from a spandau. Then the Hauptman rose from his chair and smiled.

"Take a seat, Gefreiter Biderman," he said with a more humane tone. After Biderman sat, the Hauptman produced a bottle of schnapps and poured one for himself and Biderman and for the adjutant. They drank to the company and after a few rounds, Bidernman was dismissed.

The Hauptman did process the report with recommdendation for punishment. However, concurrent with it was an observation that a Fiseler Storch had landed nearby and that a number of officers had descended upon some sheep, scooped them up and carried them back to the Storch. The registration number came back to Corps HQ. The good Hauptman also recommended that the officers who stole the sheep should also be punished. In the end, no one was punished.

From In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of The Eastern Front, by Gottlob Herbert Biderman. P 99-101.

 

[4V50 Gary]

Who touched my honey and the case of fragging w/in the SS

"Who took the honey out of my jar!?"

Oberscharfuehrer was angry and his squad was lined up and standing at attention. Everyone knew who the thieves were but no one said a thing.

"Muller 17 and I looked at each other, and then stepped forward." They knew their entire squad would be punished if the responsible culprit didn't step forward.

They were given punishment exercises which included crawling through the mud, climbing over the haystack, running around some houses and so on. Worse was they were given the night watch that interrupted their deep sleep. That was to change. On Nov. 1, 1942 they in Ukraine and near villages with Germanic names like Marienheim or Gustavsfeld.

They saw Russian messenger dogs that scurried between the villages. Someone started shooting at the dogs but missed. This caused the Russian soldiers in the village to return fire.

"Muller 17 (so named because there were so many Mullers that each Muller was given a number to distinguish him from the others) and I hit the ground, then suddenly Muller 17 pointed in front of us and said: 'Look, there lies Oberscharfuehrer Scrhamm.'

"I looked in his direction and saw the one who had tormented our lives over the past few days.

"'Shall I shoot him through his legs?', Muller 17 said with a big grin on his face, and before I could say or do anything he aimed and shot.

"Nobody, except me, saw him do that.

"The bullet went right through the leg of Obserscharfuehrer Schramm.

"With all that shooting around us, nobody would ever know we did this.

"Shortly after the shot, we heard somebody shout, 'Two volunteers to get Obescharfuehrer Schramm out of there.

"Muller 17 and I looked at each other, we grinned, and volunteered to transport Schramm out of there.

"When we reached him, I could see the bullet went through his right thigh."

They put Schramm on a tent canvas and dragged him on the ground 20 meters back before they could safely lift him and carry him to a motorcycle sidecar.

But wait, there's more.

"Months later, when he came back to our unit, his attitude completely changed. In his mind we were the ones who saved his life, when he was wounded. Nobody else volunteered to get him out of that firefight, only the two of us did, and we got his eternal gratitude for that. Never again did we have to do night watch, never did we have to do dirty jobs or dangerous assignments."

So much for fragging within the SS.

Sharpshooting and sniping stories from my recent research may be found here:

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/a-collection-of-bedtime-stories-or-sharpshooter-sniper-tales.36853/page-20