(2 of 5)
Two or three hills ahead of us, across a series of steep slopes and gulches, was the highest ground in the area. The Colonel ordered Captain J. Kelly and Captain Morris Belisle to take that hill. Off they went, with two companies of men.
It was now 5:15 a.m. We had light enough to see our little Honey tanks emerging from dust clouds in our rear and going into position below us. German observers also saw the tanks.
From some place far away came a whining roar, and the whole sky seemed to be screaming toward us. Something like the sound of a dozen railway trains thrashed overhead, and the slope back of the tanks erupted. Soldiers looked up wide-eyed, and one said: "That must be that six-barreled rocket gun." (Prisoners had told us of this new German weapon, some with six barrels, some with five, on a revolving, electrically driven cylinder, firing five or six rocket shells almost simultaneously.) Our Honey tanks began climbing up the slope toward us, "Goddamn them," said an infantry officer, "why don't they stay down in that draw where they're protected? They'll only bring fire down on us by coming up here."
The White House. We began moving forward. Officers yelled: "Scatter! You want to all get killed at once?" We panted up a big hill. In the middle of an almond orchard we came out on another crest. Here, with two walkie-talkies, the Colonel again set up his command post.
Below us was a deep ravine clothed in low bushes. On the other side of the ravine was a steep hill—the one which Captains Kelly and Belisle had already gone ahead to take. Kelly's company and a company from another battalion were on the slope nearest us; Belisle's company was on the rear slope, out of our sight.
Near the end of a sharp cliff on this hill was a white house, and we promptly nicknamed the hill White House Hill. We could see Kelly's men climbing from the ravine to the lower slopes of the hill. We could also see some of the enemy, but Kelly could not see them. Near the white house was an enemy machine gun. Enemy soldiers came out of the house, some going to the machine gun and some creeping on their bellies to the edge of the cliff.
Kelly might be ambushed. We tried to warn him, but our walkie-talkie couldn't pick him up. The Colonel was very worried. He conferred with Captain Bernard Kotin, an artillery observer, about the possibility of hitting the enemy without hitting our own men. "At least we could burn 'em out of that white house if you could land a shell on top there," said the Colonel to Kotin. "Pretty narrow target, though," he added. Kotin decided to try a smoke shell first and gave the range.
The first shell was far to the left of the target. The next bud of smoke was right in back of the white house. Kotin squealed with delight and snapped out his next order: "Fire H.E. [high explosive]. Repeat range. Fire when ready."
Flame flashed in front of the white house. Our shell struck home.
"Look at 'em run," yelled the Colonel. We thought that Kelly's company had been saved. We were wrong.