Introduction

Drafted

Operation Torch

Conversation Part 1

Sicily

Conversation Part 2

Anzio

Breakout

France

Germany

Austria

Conversations Between my Fart Sack and the Great Unwashed Part Two

Salerno: September 1943

"Oh! Great Unwashed you have found me. I have been so frightened with all that noise from bombs and gunfire. Where are we?"

"Sac, don.t be so upset, the Germans are not after you, why should the want a sack that has been slept in for ten months without a change of sheets? The division landed on a beach south of Salerno, Italy and we are now near Battipaglia just off the beach.

"Why are you concerned? You were under a pile of sacks and barracks bags in the back of a truck and could not see what the noise was all about, like I did.

I was on an LST that had its decks jammed with troops waiting to hit the beach when a German plane flew directly over the ship and let go a bomb that landed 100 feet or so on one side of the ship. Then he pulled the string and another bomb landed in the water just off the other side. He took out of dodging bullets trying to put him in the bay for his fatherland. A Navy gunner shot the cable off a barrage balloon and it went skyward. If one of those bombs had hit this ship they would still be mopping up blood from the bay. Me and a few guys from the 10th Engineers just got off the ship and were headed up the beach when Jerry pulled another raid strafing the beach. If you don't believe me I have a photo where you can see I was so rattled, I lost my helmet."

This picture appears in Life's Picture History World War II, 1950, on page 187 taken on the Salerno beach by the US Coast Guard. I am the guy without the helmet!

"Oh! Great Unwashed, it sounds like those Jerry planes are after you and they may get you one of these days."

"Sac, I just heard that we had 381 killed, 1298 wounded and 146 missing in Sicily."

"Great Unwashed, why does it rain all the time? I am damp and you put your old wet dirty combat boots and wet clothes in me to keep them warm for another cold wet day. You unzipped me and sewed a wool blanket inside. What's the matter? You are cold, wet and smell like an old goat."

The Division put out a call for guys that had experience with packing everything on mules. The mountains the division had to fight over had few roads and few trails. Mules proved the only way to provide troops with necessities. Bill Mauldin shows a bit of its humor. I thought about this but — but..]

"Sac, you gotta take the good with the bad even if it has all been bad. The other day they hauled us up to the front and showed us around. One of the line companies was being used as infantry, I met a tall young lad that had cowboyed in Montana and he showed me around. They were bunking in a cistern. The "Eytes" build them to catch water when it rains but it was dry and clean. It was dug in the ground ten feet or so and it was round 12 feet or so across.

"It was a pretty good fox hole, I thought, but a few days later the Jerries lobbed a mortar shell into the cistern, killing my cowboy friend. It hit him dead center, which saved the lives of several of his buddies near him. Montana lost another cowboy, and I lost what could have been a buddy.

"Another time we moved to an area just outside a village which was on the slope of a hill. We no more than got settled when shells began to land a few hundred feed beyond our tents. There was a German observation post in town that was ordering the gun to fire on us. It is a bit annoying when 88's go over your head and land a couple of hundred feet beyond. After a while the shelling stopped."

Sac, I am going to sew another blanket in your interior. Why don't you have a built-in pillow so I don't have to roll up my wet pants up or bunch up my wet field jacket? We have a tent stove but nothing to burn in it. A No. 10 tin can full of gasoline helps, but it is not good for heat. I have been overseas a year now.

Crossing the Volturno: October 1943

"The other day our guys sure did a good job of crossing the Volturno River and pushing Jerry to the Cassino line. After 59 days of continuous combat and 683 dead, 2,412 wounded, 120 missing and 12,959 non-combat casualties since landing in Italy we are being returned to Naples. Many of the non-combat casualties were victims of trench foot. There were 7,536 personnel returned to the Division from the hospital."

Capt. Orlo Olson, First Lt. Maurice L. Britt, and PFC Floyd K Lindstom will get the Medal of Honor in Naples.

"Oh! Great Unwashed we have suffered from these battles but there is no rumor we may go home."

"Sac, It's a new year and we have been trained and readied for another, D-Day and another battle on January 22. The reinforced Third and the British First divisions have been chosen to hit the beaches at Anzio and Netuno to try to break a stalemate at Cassino."

"I'll see you on the battlefield."