Louie #6
(Battle of the Bulge December 1944)
(He told me this story around 1956 –I was 9)
Surrounded by Krauts at Bastogne,
The 101st stood alone.
Asked to surrender they answered “Nuts!”
Patton turned north to kick a few butts.
Me: What’s a
nine millimeter?
Louie: The
Germans used nine millimeter pistols their Lugers were nines. We carried 45’s. I tell you I liked the 45 a lot more than
those nines. The nines had a longer
range then the .45 and the bullet moved faster.
But you could shoot someone with a nine in the shoulder say and the
bullet would go right through him and he’d keep coming and get you. Hit someone in the shoulder with your .45 and
they got knocked back and down. It was a
stopper.
Me: What about a 50 caliber machine gun?
Louie: If you hit someone in the shoulder with a 50
caliber round his shoulder would be torn off. It tore a body apart. Hit with a 50 anywhere and you were dead.
On December 16th
1944 the Germans counter attacked against the advancing Allies at the Ardennes
forest. They took the defending American
forces by surprise and pushed them back. This was the beginning of the Battle
of the Bulge. SS Standartenfuhrer Joachim Peiper, 6th SS Panzer Army
spearheaded the German attack. Ordered
to move fast and seize and secure the Meuse bridges around Huy he didn’t want
captured Americans to slow him down, therefore his SS men massacred the POW’s.
Louie’s commander General Patton was given
the job of relieving the 101st Airborne Division that was
surrounded. He turned the 3rd
Army north on a forced march. General
McAuliffe, in command of the 101st Airborne, when asked to surrender
Bastogne replied “NUTS.” Patton intended
to relieve Bastogne and in the process cut the Bulge in half – isolating the
German forward elements.
Louie: We were ordered to turn north and relieve
those poor bastards a Bastogne It was
freezing, freezing cold but we marched our asses off and covered a lot of ground. We stopped for the night beside a road
through the woods. Word had reached up
and down the line that the SS were massacring American prisoners of war. Machine gunning them down, shooting them in
the head.
Me: What
were the SS?
Louie: They were Hitler’s favorite boys; his
personal bodyguards. The worst of the worst.
Fanatics. They loved killings
Jews. They were animals rats Nazi rats ,
murderers.
We were at a high point in the road. We
heard the sound of engines in the distance.
Soon a column of Germans appeared, headed our way. Captain Schumacher, the Company Commander
checked them out with his binoculars.
Capt. Schumacher
(Louie’s Commander): They’re SS. They
must want to surrender –they’re flying white flags on the aerials of the
command cars.
Louie: Everyone wanted blood.
Capt. Schumacher: Hey, Getzel, you’re a Jew; you”ll enjoy this
more than anyone else.. Jump up on the
quad fifty and hold you’re fire until I drop my right arm. That goes for everyone: when I drop my right
arm let the SOBS have everything we’ve got.
Louie: I jumped up onto the quad 50. Four air cooled fifty caliber machine guns
that fired together in a tight pattern.
The German approached, closer, closer. We could all see the white flags
they were waving. They had no weapons in
sight. They were at point blank
range. They halted the column. Captain Schumacher stood up and raised his
right arm and motioned for the Germans to come in. As they started to dismount from their
vehicles Captain Schumacher dropped his right arm. I opened fire. The fifties cut them to ribbons. I watched their bodies explode. Everyone else
was shooting too. We killed every one of
them. We killed them all and got a lot
of souvenirs.
He showed me a swastika
armband that had old brown bloodstains on it.
I wanted to try it on. Louie said
no. I never saw the armband again.
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