by David Thibodeau
In connection with dedications for Korean War memorials, the complaint has been repeated often that the Korean War is the "forgotten war." They are still showing reruns of MASH on TV after all these years, with Hawkeye, Radar, and the whole cast. I don't remember any TV shows about World War II.
The truth is, except in the memories of those who were there, all wars are forgotten. The reality of them is masked over with false romanticism that portrays combat as adventure, thrills, even fun.
It was in July of 1944 that we were involved in the hedgerow fighting in Normandy. It was my turn to go "up forward" as the expression went, to join the forward observer section for our 105 mm howitzer battery, up with the rifle company during the Avranches battle. The section was made up of a lieutenant and two enlisted men who carried the radio and battery pack. Every morning the infantry "jumped off to attack the Germans in the next hedgerow, after the artillery had hammered them a few minutes. It was like running a drive in deer season, except there were a lot more deer, and the deer had rifles, machine guns, 88's, and mortars, and were wearing soldier suits. This one morning we jumped off and made it about 80 yards to the next hedgerow. There were two dead Americans in a foxhole there, their riddled helmets inclined together like two maudlin drunks singing "Auld Lang Syne" on New Year's Eve, only they were dead. They were the high-water mark of the previous day's attack.
The Germans had pulled back, so we proceeded a couple of hundred yards more, coming onto a farmyard strewn with dead Germans, killed by our artillery fire. One chunky German with his legs gone was sitting in a wheelbarrow. His friends were going to wheel him to safety, but when he died, they left him.
Finally the rapid fire of German machine guns stopped us in a sunken road, and everybody stayed down. Enough for one day.
We hugged the ground, some even crawling for protection under a tank that was sitting there.
Everybody took what cover he could except a major, who stood erect, holding a map, gesticulating and pointing. All the rest of us guys were hugging the dirt, as 88's and small arms fire made exposure lethal.
Some of the 88's were coming in real low, just over our heads. You don't hear them coming until it's too late to duck.
Happily for me, my three days up forward were up about that time, and the relief guys came to take our place in the hot spot. As we went back, we saw what the target had been for some of those low-trajectory 88 shells. An 81 millimeter mortar crew of three men about 100 yards back of the sunken road had taken a direct hit. Their dust-covered bodies were spread out in star formation. They looked like they had been there forever. About 300 yards back we came to an aid station, with wounded men on litters waiting to be evacuated. One man, lying on his back, his intestines exposed from his waist down, was clawing at the air in a kind of dog-paddle, and saying, "Help me, Jesus. Help me, Jesus."
I heard the next day that the major who was standing up fearlessly with his map got a German bullet right through his brain shortly after my partner and I went back to the battery.
These memories and many others like them will stay with me for my lifetime, but then will be part of the oblivion of forgotten wars.
