Don Bennett's War - Chapter 32

Chapter 33 - Field Hospital < - - - next

Don Bennett's War

Chapter 32 - Hit by an 88

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Editors note: Company C, 411th Infantry Regiment, officially crossed the German border north of Climbach at 1:05 PM on the 15th of December 1944. Along with Companys I & L, These were the first American soldiers in the Seventh Army, in fact, in the entire 6th Army Group, to enter Germany. In just one month from its initiation into combat, The 103d Infantry Division had proven its mettle and was now spearheading the drive of the 6th Army Group into Germany. In that short time they had earned a reputation as crack mountain troops and that reputation was being tested again in the Hardt Mountains.

About 4:30 p.m., we halted temporarily in the woods on a brow of a hill. I had just leaned against a good sized tree when "wham!" a shell hit a small tree about 12 feet to my right. I was lifted up and dumped on the ground at the base of the tree. I felt an immense numbing pain in my right arm and when I looked at my arm and couldn't see anything below my elbow, I reached down with my left arm and found my right arm bent backwards underneath my body. I pulled my arm around and saw the holes in my jacket with some of my bone and flesh on the edge of the holes. In the meantime, I was half screaming, half crying from the terrific pain from my arm, and I could feel urine running down my leg, the flow of which I could not stop. I could not stop crying and yelling till about 15 minutes after the medic arrived, who got there a half hour after I was hit. He was busy helping others hit from the same shell. As he lay there bandaging and splinting my arm, Meairs came back to where I lay and tried to calm me. The medic gave me a shot of morphine to ease the pain, put a tourniquet on my arm, and made a splint for my arm out of branches and bandages. About this time the rest of the company moved on by us and the platoon sergeant of the weapons platoon told me I was lucky to get hit and now I could go back home while he had to keep on fighting. Meairs told me that four others were hit by the same shell, one hit in the upper leg, one in the back, one in the abdomen, and one in the left arm. The one hit in the back was in pretty critical condition, and the one in the arm was to later lose that arm by negligence in not removing the tourniquet often enough. With the help of Meairs and a squad sergeant from our platoon, I made my way down a hill with two other wounded to the road down which the German tanks had gone a few hours previous. They asked me if I could walk back up the road with their help, or if I wanted to wait for a stretcher. I told them to use the stretchers for the more seriously wounded and slowly walked up the road. We passed one of our tanks with the track knocked off, and other tanks behind it stalled because the wrecked tank blocked the narrow road. About dusk we came to a jeep and we were put on it and started our bumpy dark journey back to the battalion aid station. At the aid station (one doctor and aide in a lonely French house - dark outside but one bright light inside), my arm was given another dressing and I was put on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance with three others and started off toward the field hospital. By this time I was only semiconscious, in which state I was in until the next day.

The ambulance trip took hours (how many I could not fathom), but I remember one incident clearly. The wounded German underneath me complained to the driver that I was bleeding pretty badly and it was dripping on him. He thought the driver should look at my bandage, but he didn't stop. The rough ride had loosened my bandage, but it was soon fixed up when we arrived at the collection station where I was put in a big low room with many other wounded on stretchers. There an aide came around checking on us. When he came to me, he called the doctor over to where I was. The doctor adjusted my dressing and quietly but cheerfully told me I would be all right, and would be back in the States in six weeks. We were taken on a little further (how far or how much time had elapsed, I had no idea of), and placed on an outside covered platform. There they gave us a little to eat and had our first penicillin shots. Penicillin was not too refined as yet, and the type we had really carried a wallop. We made our last trip by ambulance to the field hospital and arrived there around three in the morning.

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