I sensed, rather than saw, somebody at my side. It was my runner, Santos Garcia. Santos pointed out that I Company, on our left, had broken and was running to the rear. So I decided to stop what was left of L Company and sent them back. I told Santos to go find the Jumper and tell him what had happened. (I later learned that Santos lost a leg on the way back.)

            Just after Santos left, two mortar shells dropped nearby. Fragments from the first one hit me in both knees and I can recall seeing my feet outlined against the gray sky as I was thrown in a near-vertical position onto my shoulders when a second shell managed to deposit a fragment in the right cheek of my fanny—all this in a matter of seconds.

            I was not really calm—probably just in the first stages of shock—but seemed to have a feeling of resignation. I decided to try to take stock of where I had been hit and attempted to remove the canvas pants I was wearing over the wool pants. I got the pants as far as my knees and was unable to go any further. However, I didn’t have the strength to raise them again. By inadvertently sticking my finger in it, I discovered a large hole in my inner thigh, caused by the first bullet. Though my knowledge of anatomy was limited, I thought this should be near a main artery. But since there didn’t seem to be excessive bleeding, I decided to concentrate on crawling.

            By this time, I felt that the only reason the Germans hadn’t finished the job was that they were laughing too hard to shoot accurately. It must have been quite a sight to see a shavetail crawling with his back end high in the air and his pants around his knees.

            About this time, I heard a voice at my left. It was Sergeant Jack Scannell, checking to see what the situation was. He asked me what my problem was and I said I was hit but that he would just draw fire to me by trying to help. Jack told me to “Go to Hell” and, after sending his men to the rear, slipped off his pack and rifle and crawled over to me.

            We decided that going straight back to the woods was out of the question, since there was absolutely

no cover. Our burning tanks had created some smoke so we headed toward a small mound to our left.  Jack,

with his five-foot-six, 135-pound frame, somehow hoisted my 200-plus pounds on his back and ran, bent

double, until the whistle and sap of the German machine gun bullets indicated that they were getting close.

Then he hit the ground and pulled me along for 10 yards or so until he figured that he had thrown them off

target. He repeated that process about five times before we reached our first objective.

            We took a breather at what appeared to be a protective mound, which turned out to be a pile of

horse manure.  Jack pointed out that this pile was not going to help us for long since he could see shells

going through a farm house about 500 yards to our left.  We continued in this same manner from the

manure pile to a frozen pond, a distance of about 100 yards.  The weather was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit

and cloudy—a typical Alsace winter day.

            When we reached the frozen pond, Jack found a piece of telephone wire and wired my hands together.

Treating me like a sled, Jack towed me over the ice, running, slipping and sliding in such a manner that he

seemed to be dodging the bullets. The pond ended at a gravel road about 200 yards from a house. We

crawled across the road where Jack again got me up on his back and ran toward the house.    

            We’d traveled about 50 yards when I felt that we had been hit by a freight train. Jack flew through

the air and landed about 15 feet away. I was sure he was dead. I called and asked him if he was all right.

After several seconds, he turned over and said, “Yes, I guess so. But how about you?” He crawled back to

me and was shaken at what he saw. All he could say was, “Damn!” Had I not been in my first stage of shock,

the view of my torn bicep sticking through the sleeve of my coat would have been far more frightening to me

than it was. Then Jack asked me if I ever prayed. I assured him that I had been working quite hard at this for

the past two hours.