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rm*Leaves From Notebook Of ACorrespondentBy BAL BOYLESt Mato, France, Aug. 10 (Delayed) (JtV-Behind the capture of the town of St Malo is the story of hoar a daring group of infantrymen made a bayonet charge across 400 yards of open territory to dig out Xazis entrenched in concrete pillboxes, blocking the approach tothe port With them went little Lt. John pisarcik, chunky combat engineer from Simpson, Pa., who’s had more tiiwn on* mac's share of battle thrills since landing in France.The Germans were really in solid on the ridge line we had to take to get into the city.’* said Pisarcik as he sat in a jeep at the command post before driving frontward his rr»n t« wow some booby-trapped teller mines, used by the enemy as roadblocks. He continued:They were in two-man *‘L-shaped foxholes, stronger than any I ever saw before. They were surrounded with concrete 26 inches thick—I measured it—and the foxholes had a cover of the same thickness.‘‘Sticking out of the top was a machine gun able to swing m a 360-degree arc and shoot soldiers coming at them from any direction. All the Germans had to do was sit in these pillboxes and ( swivel the gun around. And the, top of the ridge was lined with these pillboxes, because it took a direct artillery hit to knock out | these posts |It had to be an infantry job i because long-range gum couldn’t hope to get them all When the company was ready, we attacked with Capt. Robert A Mitchell of Bristol. Conn., personally leading That was the longest 400 yards I ever ran in my life We caught the Nazis in their concrete holes before they could pull out and gave the bayonet to every one that tried to get away We found some Germans lying dead beside their guns, killed by the concussion from shells—but without a mark of any kind on their bodies. When we finished cleaning out the pillboxes, we had 25 prisoners and the ridge line was ours.”Pisacreik, himself known as a one-man Army” to fellow' combat engineers, has won a Bronze Star and Purple Heart with clusters, said Lt. Joseph Swiden. Youngstown, O. He was knocked out by an 88 shell when we were back in the hedgerow country, while bring to save the life of a wounded tankman.”Swiden said that Pisarcik saw the injured officer trying to gfet out of the tank after it was hit by a shell. He ran up to the tank under fire, picked up the officer and had dragged him five feet away when another 38 shell struck the tank. Be-him him he saw a cloud of smoke and then Pisarcik staggered through and fell unconscious, but he was back m action in three days.The sad thing was that the of-; fieer he was trying to save was 1 killed in his arms when that second j shell hit.*4; i ■1■ i \\*ificE1.£sshSiia£1tP11EAdx*dit i ■AliLScCvtlS'u.«I*tlo!fc2.glt;tlP8ndlt;irclPiditiaiGb;*irYoliratlt;tlJ;bd;Ilt;I
Newspaper Details
News
Frederick, Maryland, US
Thu, Aug 17, 1944
Page 10
Full Page
Clipped by
Antoine N.
FR 02 Feb 2020
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