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m*'-it *By HAL BOYLEf. MALO, FRANCE, (ff)—Behind the capture of the town of SC*Malq is the story of how a ^^ring , group of infantrymen rinarte a bayonet charge across 400 ^a'rds' of open territory to dig out fazis entrenched in concrete pill-oxes, blocking *the approach to Ahr\port.^ with them went little Lt. John Pisarcik, chunky combat engineer Simpson, , Pa., who’s had than one man’s share ofTJattle thiills since landing in ee.German* were really in-jwud,o*i. the ridge line we had to “ e- to,.get rinto the city,’* said ardk as he sat in a jeep at the and post before driving with...his men to re-Mtae booby-trapped, teller lt;i»ed,^,.the enemy as j: He continued:» were in two-man *L*-rftwholes, stronger than rwmt^ *aw before. They surrounded with concrete 26measured it—andt:. • r., • FH B#fi»r*• Wtorr isHsr0 .. •.*• ■• U«k Settera 'by AmirlM'i latf til Sbeewefcwethe foxholes had a cover of the same thickness.“Sticking out of the top was a machinegup ■ able to swing in 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 because long-range guns couldn’t hope to get them all. When the company was ready, we attacked ^with Capt. Robert A. Mitchell of Bristol, .Conn., personally leading. TJhat 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 everyone 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 oh their bodies. When we finished cleaning out the pillboxes, we had 25 prisoners and the ridgeline was ours.’*Pisarcik, himself known as a “one-man army” to fellpw combat engineers, has won * Bronze Star and Purple Heart with Clusters, said Lt- Joseph Swiden, 2 Ellewood Ave., Youngstown, O. “He wa* knocked out by an 88 shell when we were back in the hedgerow country, while trying to save the life of a wounded tankman.”■ Swiden said that Pisarcik saw the injured officer trying to get 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 fivefeet away when another 88 shell struck the tank. Behipd him we saw a cloud of smoke and then Pisarcik staggered through and fell unconscious, blit he was back in action in three days.“The sad thing was that the officer he was trying to save was killed in his arms when that second shell hit.”
Newspaper Details
Lock Haven Express
Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, US
Thu, Aug 17, 1944
Page 9
Full Page
Clipped by
Antoine N.
FR 02 Feb 2020
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