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Ubc Jialf ffakt STr’ibunfSunday Morning* June 11, 1944Ran gers Take Nazi Guns;Repel Attacks Two DaysSergeant Lands With First Company.Which Continues to Fight WithEnemy Arms After Own G ives OutBy Harold V. BoyleGENERAL MONTGOMERY’S COMMAND POST, June % (Delayed) (/P)—A slim little black-haired sergeant told Frida\ how American rangers in their first combat action destroyed five German heavy guns and for two full days beat off all counterattacks during which one yank mortar knocked out 12 enemy machine guns.After exhausting their own am-iba«« b-v topping- thermite gro munition, the Rangers fought on|natic3 lt;lovvn lhc barlTls' with raptured German weapons, j II oost ua lras“ °r men F «a We spent 11 weeks pmclicingjthem- lhouSh- bcc»use we **r0 nthat maneuver and it caught the dc« constant mortar and snipe:fire.Germans flat-footed, because they didn’t think we'd dare comenOne heavy counterattack drovlt;ashore, said Staff Sergeant Fred-1 hack. One of our men asked thlt;erick Dix. 24, of Syracuse, N. Y. ,-Our job was to take and hold that neck of land and we did it and are damn proud we did it.Dix, whose outfit took and gave heavy casualties before reinforcements arrived and relieved them, said the Rangers hit the beaches at 7 :Q5 a. m. on D-Day, and “seven of our eight boats got ashoreokav.Lose One Landing Boat“One got swamped in heavy seas and I don't know what happened to the men in it, he continued. “We couldn’t stop to check. We ran Into rifle, machine-gun and sniper fire from the flanks as soon as we got within range and lost some of our medicos right there on the beach. Some of them tried to plant a Red Cross flag where they were working over the casualties, but a sniper put three bullet holes in it before they could raise it. The Germans were hidden in a 42-foot deep tunnel extending 600 yards from the beach to a camouflaged barn which had been reinforced into a pillbox and ammunition dump.“We made a hell of a noise and scared one 17-year-old German. He was a senior noncom. His outfit, too, was running out of his pillbox to give up. Before he could reach us his own captain shot him through thp neck and killed him. Then we captured the captain and made him open up the pillbox himself. You can’t trust those guys, you know.“One stood up ancf waved a white flag and yelled ‘kamerad.’ One of our boys said, 'Let’s give him a chance,’ and stood up and hollered. ’Come over here.’ That gave away our position, and another German opened up with a machine gun and killed our fellow. He was a nice guv, too.“You can’t trust those Germans.“They put mortars and artillery in on us then, and wounded eight more of our men. What a hell of a trick to play.colonel what we should do and h( said, 'build up your lifelines anc we will hold this point.’“The next morning, after weathering a lot of machine gun fire, wt were reinforced by 20 new men, . never saw anybody more welcome So we decided to try a counterattack,Use German Guns“We had used up all our smal: arms ammunition long ago anc one of our problems was making those damn German machine pistols wc had captured work. II takes both a gunner and mechanic to keep those things going. Wc also used their pistols and rifles. There were 17 machine guns amongst the Germans, and our best mortar man, Sergeant Eugene Elder, knocked out 12 of them during our counterattack. I never saw such shooting. No, I don’t know where he is from. Some town in western Missouri. He says you have got to ride an hour in a buckboard to get there. When he ran out of shells he began firing colored signal flares. These really scared hell out of the Germans. They wore perfectly harmless, but they make a hell of a flare and sparks. When they lit near the foxholes the Germans would get up and run, and we popped them off with our machine guns. I guess the Germans never heard of the Fourth of July.“Out of my own group, 65 men. we had lost, six killed and 17 wounded, and we were the lightest hit outfit in the battle. But it was worth it. We held that point for them and hoys we have got left willing to Lake arjother anyareAided by Navyi‘We couldn’t have made it without the navy. Their observers called for support and they began dropping shells in that tunnel opening. They had to knock out that position three times. Every time they blew one crew away, another bunch of Germans would pop out of their holes and start working machine guns on us.“Funny thing, too, because they weren’t all that brave, and they finally ran like hell, but they kept throwing artillery around us. Our wounded had to lie for two full days on the beaches because we couldn’t evacuate thorn. We caught 66 Germans, but lost most of them during counterattacks.“They told us they knew at 2:30 a. m. that we would try to land in that vicinity and had pulled back six heavy guns which we had been assigned to knock out. We kept on plugging and found the guns about 2000 yards farther on in the woods. The gunners ran from them as we approached and we blew up thetime our side wants it.Dix was an apprentice machinist in civil life and wants to be a toolmaker some day. Among the Rangers with him are Private John Bacho, UnionTown, Pa.; Private First Class Bill Walsh, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Sergeant Paul Byzon, Lotvber! Pa.; Private First Class Harry Roberts, Charleroi, Pa.; Private First Class Edward Johnson, Bruce Crossing, Mich., and Private Re-nato Baptists of Chicopee, Mass.. an engineer.French LooseNazi RaidsinIICHIASSO, Switzerland, June 10 ( C T P S )—The Anglo-American landing in Normandy has loosed a wave of sabotage in fierce reaction against the Germans throughout all of France, according to information reaching here from France. Even a good deal of action on the part of the nazls appears to be ''preventive” but only limited details are available.In the Dordogne department incentral France “terror has been set free, with vjllages being set afire, hostages shot, pillage unrestrained and innumerable arrests. Almost everywhere all of the male population is being ar-
Newspaper Details
Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake City, Utah, US
Sun, Jun 11, 1944
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
CO, USA 18 Apr 2020
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