(5 of 6)
Another Dawn. At 7 o'clock in the morning two Italians came into our lines saying that the Germans had evacuated Troina. We wanted to believe them, but we did not let our hopes run away with us. Horner gave last-minute instructions to Lieut. Everett Booth, commander of Company I, who was to go out in full strength toward the city: "Never mind the banks or anything like that. Head straight for the mayor's office and set up the battalion command post there."
In a moment we were off, straight down the road as if we had nothing about which to worry. Off the road a little way we observed a grave, placarded with a small square wooden sign on which was a cross and the words, "Hier Ruhen Soldaten USA" (Here lie soldiers of the U.S.A.). A few yards farther on we saw a big cross with a German helmet stuck on it like a scarecrow.
A soldier said: "The hell with the war," and we walked on.
At that very moment a volley of rifle shots rang out of the fields above us at the base of the stone ramp guarding Troina.
Bullets cracked and sang by our ears, causing everyone to throw himself flat on the ground.
We had scarcely time to think when planes shot out of the sun, dived low and bombed the town and in front of the town.
At 7:55 another wave of planes circled and strafed an area just to the left of us and still this side of the town.
It was getting uncomfortably close.
At 10 minutes past 8, a group of dive-bombers swung in from the left and circled back in our direction, and suddenly swooped straight for us in steep whining dives. A crash shook the earth directly in front of us, and smoke and the smell of burning was in the air. The ditch we dug our faces into was only one foot deep.
At. 8:25, another wave of planes dived over us.
Private Robert Martin took a card out of his pocket and showed it to me. It was a birthday greeting from his wife, and it read: "Birthday greetings to my better half. What sunshine means to flowers, what leaves mean to a tree, what springtime means to songbirds. ..." Hrumph! hrumph! hrumph! the bombs fell, and I ducked, and then looked up and read the last line of the greeting: "That's what you mean to me." "Songbirds, huh?" said Martin, looking up into the air.
After 15 or 20 minutes, when no more planes appeared, we crawled out and around to the right flank and headed once more toward Troina.
The City of the Bombed. Looking through glasses, we saw that sheets and drawers and white pieces of cloth were hanging straight down from windows in the face of the cliff. We ventured upward in column, passing along the way a ghostly old woman lying amid crumbling plaster and shattered timber, who stretched out her hands to us, stared out of sightless eyes, and moaned like the wind whining through pine trees.
We went on to the church. Light was shining through a hole in the roof. Below it an unexploded 500-pound bomb lay on the floor. Some American soldier breathed heavily in my ear: "God, that was a miracle." We turned around to look at the altar. It was still intact.
Before it, kneeling on the ground with his helmet and rifle by his side, an American soldier was silently praying.