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attack was coining from the west.Before the sergeant could rearrange his men, a burst of rifle fire ripped away the lock of a door on the west side of the house and it swungviolently inward. The unteroffizier forgot his dignity and took a run-out powder from the first floor. Next, the sergeant looked out from under thp bed where he was hiding with a private, smack into the bayonet'aridmission was imisncu.Outside the house a green parachute flare floated slowly to earth. High on a hill and some distance from the stone house the commanding officer of “F” for Fox Company of the 358th Infantry Regiment smiled and turned to an aide. He spoke one brief sentence:-“They’re on- their way back with the bacon.” A call was put through to regimental headquarters to thatjump off at 0800 Iiiv aooaui t ▼* uo vvMore AboutmColonel Hind’s School(Continued from page i)Other snipers are posted around the neighborhood and they have instructions to shoot—with live ammunition.All in fun though.“Another and just as important point in the sniper training,” said Col. Hinds, “is for the sniper to be able to get back to his own positionsand to move around to another posi-tion without being seen by Jerry. His life expectancy is shortened somewhat if he doesn’t move pretty quickly and quietly after exposing his position with fire, . Jerry counter-sniper fire is pretty effective at times,” he said.■the last few days at the school are used for dawn and dusk sniper training. The sniper learns- to adjust himself to the dawn ground haze and other hazards, of the early mori as well as putting his cat eyes in working order for the dusky evening, when he inay have to go out and “do a job.For his graduation present the sniper is given full possession special 03 and the telescopic It becomes his very own to ha to hold and to clean until death dopart,“And,” remarked Col. Hinds, “he sleeps with that rifle. He takes careof it like a pottle of cognac in the middle of the Reich. There is no greater love than that of a sniper for Phis rifle.”After the colonel left the area, Lt. William Woodbury, who acts as the company sniper gunsmith—just for the love of it—popped up with a good yarn.The colonel is no Pentagon Build-ing sniper,” he said. “He can shootbetter than any sniper in the regiment.I remember back; in Sicily,” he recalled, “when we were held up near Palermo at a pass by an 88.“While the infantry went around to clean it up, Col. Hinds took a couple of shots at the emplacement—just to see what would happen.He squeezed off two at 700 yards. He squeezed off two more.The 88 stopped firing.”When the infantry took the tion, they found two very Krauts and two more in a friendly mood.“He’s that kind of a guy, lieutenant said.adeadverythehours the next day.Fifteen minutes before that time the 344th Field Artillery began firing heavy concentrations of shells on adraw behind and to the east of the outpos The diversionary fire was in an area from which the Huns would nominally expect an infantry attack, the ruse that threw the sergeant and his 12 men completely off balance.The 345th Field Artillery stood by to interdict several targets on call E Company, 2,000 yards from the stone house, was delivering heavy diversionary mortar, machine-gun and rifle fire in the same area. All this added up to the Germans’ belief the attack was to come from the east.Meanwhile, 4.2 mortars were smoking the south slope of a hill dotted with pillboxes and trenches, blinding any defenders there to the actual route of the attack. Two tanks bn a slight ridge, southwest of the house, were ready to fire on targets of opportunity, or to button up any pillboxes that might open up and to silence automatic weapons in the draw.€F Company was at this time moving northwest through the woods on a ridge overlooking the outpost and then it moved east and northeast under the cover of the nose of a hill. Everything was going as planned.: At the edge of the forest, and to the left of the two tanks, two squads of riflemen from the company were deployed to cover the two platoons assaulting the outpost, Another squad was deployed for local support of the tanks.The first rifle piatoon, consisting cf 34 enlisted men under 1 / Lt. James E. Davis, Miami, Fla., burst from the covers of the' woods like Comancheesuommumcauons, aiways wiuwiduring an attack, must be sure. The 536 radio used for inter-company contact did not work to satisfaction in the attack. The sound-power phone was excellent. Where possible•JW A Vcan move plenty fast with that ng^ ^:Several BAR men have reported good results with the Kraut-killing racket Wg the BAR without any mount at all. Tte? just lay it on the hedgerow, or anythin convenient, and lay it oh.More AboutHow tKillFo\, t,-4-S.ti(Continued from page I)tic days of battling around Geron-sweiler, Germany, recently.“One of the squads made a successful attack on a strong point,” the colonel related, “but was hit with a counter-attack shortly after. About fifty fanatical Jerries were coming strong—^nd they were coming fast. The squad had to move—'but hup-hup. One man Volunteered to cover while the men moved Armed on } with his Ml he stood his ground, knocked off sixteen of the frenzied Fritzies, and stopp the rest of them cold. He did it with a hasty upsfing, in perfect prone position, sweet Ml —and a barrelful of guts,” the colonelconcluded.One of the prize pupils of the colonel’s “rifle school” is Pfc Virgil Slover, of Harlan, Ky., a squirrel-shooting joker of Fox Company.Slover’s biggest distinction was that he was probably the only guy inall Kentucky who couldn’t hit a dime at 600 yards with a blindfold over one eve. As a matter of fact, Virgil had a'hell of a time even qualifying for marksman.They all laughed when he sat down to shoot—back in England.But they didn’t know what Col. Hinds’ rifle school could do.at i •'A few months later, in the of the Ardennes bulge, PfcSlover caught a Jerry patrbl sights. Range 400 yards. —Kentucky. Six shots. Five One ML But the Ml isn’t allskittles. It has limitations.*a tommy-gun or a BAR and designed to fire effectively at ianl airplanes. In addition it 4s $ effective at excessive ranges^ “The MI is not used like a machine-gun, Hinds. “Many men attem^ it too fast. Pick your shoot at them. But don’tan area unless you are iitt$ and want to clear your Way?“At ranges over 500 yaHinds continued, “the Ml good, especially in this coufi the foliage and the eVef ground haze. Don’t try to •with it.“And finally, the Ml is ally effective against craft. Firing just gives a position and justammunition,” he said.That is the story of yoiiK iJoe with an Ml is better man than Frit? with But use it right!, .Jr*v.PublishingLimited. Printing House Swore. London. E.CA. and Published by the United Slates Armed Forces^4-3-45.
Newspaper Details
London Stars and Stripes
London, Middlesex, GB
Sat, Mar 24, 1945
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Gary Y.
CO, USA 02 Dec 2019
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