Carlisle: Doughboys hail accuracy of 75s
Knocked out tanks prove sharpshooting
By John M. Carlisle
With U.S. forces in Saint-Lô, France – (July 22)
There were five Nazi Tiger tanks knocked out. They stood idly nearby, battered and abandoned, in a sunken road behind the hedgerow where the company was resting back of the lines.
One of them was thrust in the hedgerow itself, a twisted hulk beyond repair. Some of the G.I. Joes stood around it, and most of them were smiling. They liked the deadly accuracy of our 75mm guns on our own tanks that had knocked out these Tigers a couple of days ago.
Pvt. William J. Rosen of Royal Oak, Michigan, said:
Our tanks made some sharpshooting direct hits on that old Tiger there. That, sir, was fancy shooting, very fancy. When I was doing defense work back home and working on the tank arsenal assembly line, I never dreamed our boys could shoot that well.
Hates snipers
Pvt. Rosen talked of the snipers upfront. He said:
I’m getting so I hate them. They pot away at us all the time. Then when they run out of ammunition, they climb down and surrender. One of them got four or five of our men before we got him.
Pvt. Rosen then pointed to a cabbage patch in the middle of the open field. He said, proudly:
There were 40 Jerries and their officers in one pocket there and one of the last things we did was wipe them out. Our artillery had them pinned down, firing into them and behind them. we pinned them down with rifle fire from the front. We never gave them a chance. Our artillery is all right, mate, better than all right.
Across the back hedgerow, in another field, Pvt. Casimer W. Przetacznik of Detroit was cleaning his rifle. His arms and hands were scratched from the thorns of the hedgerow, but they had healed. But the scars still showed.
Dives through hedgerows
He said:
I just dive through those hedgerows when we have fixed bayonets and are advancing. Sometimes the Jerries are on the other side. They always surrender when you get that close to them. I learned right off the bat not to go through any hedge openings. The Jerries have them zeroed in with mortars.
Nearby was Pvt. Russell L. Dornbush of Muskegon, Michigan, a platoon runner, who was helping some pals clean a heavy machine gun. They handled it with all the care that a watchmaker handles expensive watches.
He said:
It’s not just kidding up there. Those burp guns [Jerry automatic pistols that look like portable machine guns] are popping at you from the hedgerows all the time. A bullet from a burp gun hit my cartridge belt, right over my stomach. I guess I turned 30 colors of the rainbow and…