What’s Behind that Battle Star

Hugh W. Evans

All the glory, laud, and honor May fall 'round our shining armor That only rotting cloth doth be,

But this is not for what we fought.

THE individual stories that have had their source in our recent war are infinite. Every man and woman can recall at least one moment of fear, uncertainty, joy, or emotion that has been aroused because of some incident which occurred during the last six years. I am only one particle in this mass that has suffered and fought through a world war, yet I can recall many times when my emotions seemed too enormous for this particle to contain. Every time I see a battle star on a campaign ribbon I wonder what that particular star cost, what stories are behind that tiny piece of bronze on that kaleidoscopic ribbon. I wonder, because I know what that small piece of metal cost us. The story that follows is a partial description of what one bronze battle star meant to the men of Company “C” of the 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment. It is limited, unfortunately, to one individual’s point of view and scope of action—in reality only an infinitesimal portion of the whole.

Around the latter half of February in 1945 our company started its long foot journey up toward the small Italian village at the foot of Mt. Belvedere, which later became known to us in the army vernacular as “Queercola.” We had already had our introduction to battle through combat patrols and line duty on a quieter, more mountainous sector of the Italian battle line. We had been in Italy, however, less than thirty days. As we trudged up the snow- powdered road, the men were talking about home, experiences they had already had in Italy, and the numerous stories, both funny and grim, of their training at Camp Hale and Camp Swift. The talking did not last long, though, because the grade was steep for the loads we were carrying. Then, too, Jerry was out ahead somewhere, and noise was liable to mean a shelling. As the silence of the universe seemed to sink in our bodies, all that was left to tense the ear was the rhythmical monotonous thud … thud … thud of a platoon out of step. Our eyes followed the mammoth beams of light focused from far down across the valley on the German positions on the prominent mountain ridges to our front. These lights were used to blind the Germans so that they could not observe what was going on in the valley below them. Our thoughts followed these lights.

Queercola turned out to be muddy and unpleasant even on this beautiful crisp moonlit night. It had the bad symptoms of intermittent shelling. We didn’t have much time to look around before the company was quietly dispersed into the various houses and barns throughout the village. Soon all that one could hear was the very faint metallic clicking of machine guns going in place. Our mission, we had been told, was to hold this forward outpost on the 5th Army line and to do a great deal of patrol work along our sector to feel out the German lines for a division attack on Mt. Belvedere and the surrounding ridges. Three attempts had already been made to take this key position, but all had failed for different unpredictable reasons. Now it was our turn. It was our first major battle. It was to be our birth as a combat division.

We spent the next five days mostly waiting and thinking. We had made intensive plans for a thorough patrolling program, so as to find any weaknesses in the German lines, but orders soon came from higher up that no patrol work was to be done. A blind attack was to be made because it was believed better to surprise the Germans rather than, by extensive patrol activity, to give away the fact that something was going to happen. Because of our company commander’s initiative, however, we did have some opportunity to feel out parts of the Jerry line. A small group went up through the Brazilian sector to our right and were able to reach a point at the edge of our battalion’s objective without receiving fire. This fact gave us all quite a bit of encouragement.

On the fifth day of our occupation of Queercola we were given the order to pull out that night and to move to an appointed bivouac area just under the noses of the Jerries who held our objective. Our movement was made very quickly and successfully early that evening, and most of the men were now prepared for the worst. Immediately after we had pulled out of Queercola, another unit moved in, but because they made a little too much noise, the village was shelled. This incident made us all the more quiet. The next day we spent improving the foxholes we had dug the night before, separating the equipment we were going to carry with us from that which we were going to leave behind, cleaning our guns, getting our “K” rations, and receiving last minute orders and plans. I was sent back to rear supply depot to pick up some white phosphorus grenades. That trip back was like a propaganda movie shown for the purpose of building up a unit’s morale. From the moment I left our area until I reached the supply depot, which was about two miles behind our positions, I passed field after field of ammunition. This sign of massive preparation gave me a feeling of the support we were to get. It made me proud and fearful to realize that we were to be at the very head of this tremendous supply of munitions and equipment. When I returned, I told the men about what I had seen. Encouragement began to l>oom in their eyes. They talked for a while about what we would do to those damned Jerries, but this talk soon stopped because reality was staring us straight between the eyes.

All of us, except those on guard, rolled into our blankets and snuggled together in our holes as soon as it became dark that night. It was cold, but our bodies shivered from more than the physical cold. Not many slept or even rested, for at midnight we were to start our move toward our battalion “I. P.”

Our attack was to begin a couple of hours before dawn. In other words, we were to carry out a night attack on a division scale, which means superb organization and timing on the part of the higher-ups. A night attack also requires trained troops because men must not fire their rifles, must keep quiet, and need skill in keeping contact. We had been keyed to this high pitch in all our training. We were ready.

I saw our platoon runner dodging through the low brush and trees towards our headquarters. I got up and rolled my blankets and stuffed them in my rucksack. Before twenty minutes had passed, we were all loaded and on the move. We carried all our equipment for a short distance, and then deposited it in platoon piles along a small mountain trail where the Alpinis and their mules could pick it up and bring it on to us after the push.

As we turned off the small road and began our move straight up the mountain, nobody spoke. Nobody wanted to speak. Our minds were too filled with thoughts and fears. We were dressed in our wools and combat boots, and carrying in our mountain jackets or hanging from our belts, grenades, extra ammunition, and two meals of “K” rations. I had for a weapon a machine pistol, but there were only two of these in the platoon. Most of the men were carrying “M 1” rifles. We had also within easy grasp our shovels and bayonets. Our company was in the lead and was stretched out in a long thin line with a good five yards between men. There was a small moon in the sky that gave us enough light to keep this distance. However, we never saw more than one man ahead and felt quite alone. Half the battalion was behind us, and the other half was moving up a couple of hundred yards over to our right. Everything was to be done on an intricate time schedule.

We moved in this manner for approximately half an hour, when suddenly on our left a German “burp” gun1 opened up. Before we could think, we were on the ground and frightened. That was the first fire, and as yet we could not judge where it had come from or how close it was. The fire stopped and I wondered why we did not start to move. I could just see the man in front of me lying in the shadow of a tree. Soon I sensed that the line must have gone on, so I moved up to this man and discovered that it had. For a second he had frozen, and the column had moved out. Now he had lost sight of the man in front of him, and he was afraid to go on. Anger overpowered me because I realized contact had been broken. That meant only a small part of our company was up ahead alone, and the greater part of the battalion was behind us waiting to be led up. I moved ahead of this man on a half-run, and he followed. Going straight ahead for a short distance, I came upon another man lying on the ground. Falling beside him, I asked in a whisper if he had contact with the man in front of him. He nodded his head, and my heart slid back in its place. The gun on our left kept firing, and soon a small fire fight began off in the dark, but by this time we had become accustomed to the sounds and kept on moving.

Our movement became surer and more steady as we climbed up the steep ridge towards its top. When we had reached a point about half way to our objective and nothing serious had happened, our confidence began to flow again. That was the last confidence we were to know. From then on, we would know what an attack meant.

A tiny whir suddenly rose to a scream and ended in an explosion. We all fell to the ground. They were shelling us ! Had they heard us ? … Did they know where we were ? Before we could answer these questions, shells began landing all over the side of the ridge we were ascending. It soon became apparent that the Germans were laying in patterns of artillery fire. The shells would climb up one draw and then “ladder” down a ridge. They didn’t know where we were, but they were shelling all possible routes of approach to their positions. All we could do was to keep moving forward, and hope. Soon they had bracketed in on both sides of us. Our area had to be next.

Shells started to land below us. I knew that they had to be landing among the men of the company behind us. The barrage worked up the hill rapidly. I heard the unmistakable sound of a shell that was destined to land very close. I hit the ground, and the muscles in my buttocks and the rest of my body were so tight that I thought they would pull apart. Shells fell in and around us; and dirt, rocks, powder, and smoke filled the air while shrapnel whined over us. I kept telling myself to relax, that my chances were pretty good. I kept asking God only to let me live. A shell burst right in front of me. I was sure it had killed the man where it burst. I ran to him. He was unable to move and had his fingers dug into the hard frozen ground. He wasn’t hit by any fragments but was paralyzed from the shock of the explosion and his fear.

When the shelling moved off momentarily, word was passed up the line that the shelling had wiped out a squad in the third platoon —two dead, six or eight wounded. One could hear the plaintive calls for “medic” from different points around in the darkness. We were at the fringe of the woods just about two hundred yards below the enemy lines. Tracers from the Jerry automatic weapons were now streaking and snapping over our heads like weird rocket- propelled fireflies. Shells dropped in among us every minute or so. The company commander and the platoon leaders got together near where I was lying to plan the final phase of the attack. I hugged the ground as closely as I could, shivering from cold and excitement, and trying to relax.

Within what was actually only a few minutes, but what seemed like a couple of hours, the platoon leaders had received their orders and had returned to have them carried out. The moon had set now and, except for the intermittent flares of light caused by shell bursts, it was pitch black. Our platoon was told to keep contact, and that we were to move straight ahead. In the confusion caused by the darkness, casualties, and platoons criss-crossing through each other, again the unit of men in front of me lost contact. Knowing the orders, I headed straight up the bare slope, running and hitting the ground whenever I heard a shell coming. What was left of the platoon followed. Going only a little way, I passed a wounded man from the platoon; he pointed out to me on the skyline the silhouetted hill the platoon had headed for. Advancing another sixty yards, I ran into our platoon leader, who gave me hurried orders and went oft" into the dark. I joined a group of men on the reverse slope of a steep rise and gave my men the order to dig in with the men already there. Night was about over, and I knew that we were going to have to act quickly if we were to hold our position, then go on to take our objective.

After a short talk with one of the sergeants, I learned more about the situation. Up to this time, I had been bringing up the rear of the platoon. When I believed I knew what was happening, I returned to the fringe of the woods on a dead run to look for the company commander. Somehow, now that responsibility was placed on my shoulders, and there was something to be done, fear left me for a while. I found our company commander, and both of us went back up the slope, running, crawling, and hitting the ground until he could see where our platoon was. Then he left to give some orders to another unit. In those last thirty minutes or so before dawn, while the sky was beginning to lost its blackness, everything began to move. Organization began to revive. I moved up and down the slope two more times during that period and helped to point out routes of approach for our battalion’s heavy thirty-caliber machine guns which were moving up onto our positions, and collected a few more men. By sunrise, our positions were pretty well held. Our mixed company was gathered in two separate spots to the front and to the right of the last Jerry stronghold on our objective. From where I was I could just see the heavy thirties being put up about a hundred and fifty yards to my right on the crest of a knoll at the top of the ridge. Within a few minutes these guns were putting a deadly accurate and steady fire on this last German position. I left my group of men and headed for these guns, running in the defiladed areas and crawling where there were gaps in the protecting rise.

Upon reaching the vicinity of the guns, I came upon Bob. my platoon sergeant, who had been riddled through the chest by a machine-gun burst. He was still living. Another man was kneeling beside him holding his yellowish-green hand. Seeing that he had a sucking wound, and not being able to think of anything but to put an air-tight bandage on the wound, I ripped the back out of the pile jacket of the kneeling soldier and began to make such a bandage. Before I had finished, I looked up at Bob’s eyes and saw that he had died. I felt his pulse to be sure, and all the kneeling soldier said was: “He begged God to let him live. He kept saying: ‘Oh God. Please not now. Please not now!’ ” Bob was twenty. I got up and left, my eyes filled with tears of anger. He was the first person I had seen die.

I returned to my men after locating through the sights of the machine guns the exact German positions. As I was peering over the top of the rise, I saw two men who had been trapped under this last enemy position start to crawl in front of it. I realized that the Jerries were not manning that gun at that moment, so I got up and ran across the dip and slight rise to the two men. I called when I got up, and some men followed. We received no fire. When I reached the crawling men, we heaved grenades at the points where we thought the Jerries were. All of us were so angry we didn’t speak. Finally I jumped over the last little rise and dropped in the first of the German positions, landing on two dead Germans.

For the next ten minutes I just kept moving, throwing grenades and firing my machine pistol. In that time all of us cleared out this last enemy position. The last Germans, who got up and yelled kamerad, I held with an empty gun. The toll in Germans was about eight dead and twenty captured. Our objective was taken.

When Company “A” had moved on beyond this position and had started their long and costly job of knocking out the Jerries’ flank, I went back over the ridge to rejoin my company. I met one GI going in the same direction, and as we passed a dead American soldier who had had the top of his head blown off, he said: “That’s my brother,” and just kept on walking. The cost had been very heavy.

When I found the second platoon, the platoon leader told me that I was in charge. Everyone was digging in, and I went out to locate anyone else I could find from our platoon. I passed the company commander, who was sitting up on the ground wrapped in a coat. He had had both legs badly broken by a mine explosion, yet when he saw me he asked how we had done. When I had answered saying that we had knocked the — Germans off the mountain. he smiled and said: “Nice going!” I turned my head away and walked off weeping.h

After finding two men, I returned to the platoon and helped dig in with my platoon leader. The shelling started again. As 88’s screamed over our heads and headed for the valley below us, we all crammed ourselves into our holes and our minds were completely blank. It was noon.

I said in the beginning I would write a brief story about what one bronze battle star meant to me. I cannot. It is a matter of record, however, that for this action and for similar combat during the next six weeks, each man of the 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment received his first bronze battle star.

Perhaps now you can understand why my eyes always turn to count the battle stars worn by an infantryman.

1 Machine pistol.