The World Within War by Gerald F. Linderman

Author:Gerald F. Linderman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Press

The officers dug in on a hillside . . . armed with Very [flare] pistols. The enlisted men attacked them, armed with concussion grenades. Nearly every enlisted man would have given a lot to sock it to his company commander for all the “wrongs” done him in the service.

Private Doyle was particularly eager to “get” his commander, Capt. Caspar Curtis. . . . He had the pin pulled from his concussion grenade and was about to lob it [into Curtis’s foxhole]. That would make up for a lot of things that had happened in the past. Then one of the officers fired a Very pistol at someone else. The red flare caromed off a rock, and socko—hit the car of the Fifth Army inspector general. . . . [He] . . . got out, and began delivering unshirted hell to all concerned. The exercise came to an abrupt end. What a time Private Doyle had getting the pin back into that concussion grenade.

Most resorts to force bespoke revenge for specific actions by officers. But here soldiers began to take action from a generalized and enduring sense of insult. 61

The impulse to escalation did not stop at threats or at acts reaching to the edge of force. Some enlisted men inflicted physical damage on their officers. Soldiers in Germany, angered by unceasing guard duty and officialdom’s failure to open to them any recreational opportunities, blamed their officers: “[One] of the boys in my squad beat up a 1st Lt., a Major” and several of their sycophants, chauffeurs and orderlies. “He got away with it too.” 62

Seldom did the desire to avenge wrongs or slights suffered at the hands of officers result in death. A different matter, however, was the necessity to restrain or cast off officers who, the men felt, threatened their lives in combat. Soldiers often placed in jeopardy those whose intentions seemed sure to shorten, beyond battle’s own odds, the men’s chances of survival. Enlisted men sometimes prompted fate—and the enemy’s snipers—by saluting an officer on the front line. During the Ardennes campaign, a replacement officer, Lieutenant Galicki, joined Kurt Gabel’s paratroop unit. (“ ‘Stay seated, men.’ That is what he said! We looked at one another to be sure we heard right.”) “Is there any action?” asked Galicki. (“The word ‘action’ sounded odd.”) No. “Well, what do you do here? . . . Combat patrols?” No. “You mean you don’t go out and harass the Krauts? . . . Doesn’t sound like the airborne I know!” No audition was necessary. The men knew their area to be under enemy observation and as a precaution ordinarily went for food in twos or threes, groups too small to attract artillery. Now one of the men, Otto, heartily waved Galicki into the chowline, and six others followed. Otto knew from experience how long the Germans required to transmit sighting reports and execute fire commands; at his signal the group burst apart, the men sprinting for foxholes and leaving Galicki to welcome alone the explosions of two 88 shells.

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