The Pittsburgh Press (February 18, 1944)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Italy – (by wireless)
The little handful of old-timers left in my company have been together so long they form a little family of their own. They sort of stand apart from the newer bulk of the company.
Out of their wisdom they seek the best place to settle down in a new bivouac. They are the first to find an abandoned German dugout, or a cozy pig shed, or a case of brandy in the cellar of a bombed building. And by right of seniority, they take it.
Most of them are sergeants and platoon leaders by now. Such men as Tat Allumbaugh and Knobby Knobbs and Jack Pierson, whom I’ve mentioned before, and Sgt. Ed Kattleman of Cincinnati, and Buck Eversole of Twin Falls, Idaho, and 1st Sgt. Bill Wood of Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Sgt. Pete commers of Imogene, Iowa, and Pvt. Eddie Young of Pontiac, Michigan.
So much depends on this little group of noncoms, and war is such a familiarizing force that they are almost on the same basis as the officers. In this company the officers eat separately when they’re in bivouac, but that’s about the only class distinction.
Little military formality
There is little military formality. I had to laugh one afternoon when Lt. Tony Libertore of Charleston, South Carolina, was lying on the ground with several of these sergeants sitting around him, just gabbing about this and that.
Lt. Libertore made some remark. I forget what it was, and Jack Pierson rocked back and forth with his hands tucked around his knees, and said:
Why, you horse’s behind. It ain’t that way at all.
Even in fun, you don’t talk that way with an officer until you’ve been through that famous valley of death and out again together.
Then Lt. Libertore started telling me all that he had to put up with. He said:
Now take Tag and Knobby. They treat me like dirt. They browbeat me all the time. But word came around this afternoon that six men were to be picked for rest camp, and boy they’ve been “sirring” me to death ever since, and bringing me gifts and asking if I needed anything.
Listen with appreciative grins
Tag and Knobby sat there listening with appreciative grins on their facts.
These old-timers in the company sort of took me in and made me feel a part of them. One afternoon, Lt. Sheehy asked if I’d ever shot a carbine and I said no, but that I’d always wanted to. So, he said:
Well, let’s go out and shoot at something.
At the time, we were a couple of miles back of the fighting. Our company was to march that night and start its own attack next day. That afternoon, they had nothing to do, and were just like a man who takes a day off from the office to lie around home. There was distant artillery and the day was warm and sunny and lazy.
The lieutenant went to get his gun, and just by acclamation the little circle of veterans went after theirs, too. When they came back, they had carbines, Tommy guns, Garands .45s, and the German automatic known as the P-38, similar to the Lueger. We walked about a quarter mile from our olive orchard down into a broad, protected gully.
Slope is too rocky
Then with seasoned eyes they looked around for a place to do some target shooting. They’d look at one slope and say:
No, that’s too rocky. The bullets will ricochet, and they might hit some of our artillery batteries over the hill.
They looked at another slope and turned it down because we’d seen some Italian children running across it a little while before. Finally they picked a gravelly bank that seemed to have nothing behind it, and we started shooting. There weren’t any tin cans or anything, so we’d pick out tiny white rocks in the bank. The distance was about 75 yards.
I’d been jokingly bragging on the way down about what a crack rifle shot I was, so now I had to make good or else. And I did! nothing could make me any prouder than that I picked off little white rocks right along with these veterans.
Shoot for half an hour
We must have shot for half an hour. We traded guns all around so I could try them all. Buck Eversole showed me how they hold a Tommy gun and spray a slope full of krauts.
Finally, the lieutenant said:
We better stop or the colonel might raise hell about wasting ammunition.
Toward the end the boys made it comical, holding the guns out at arm’s length and shutting their eyes like girls, and holding down the trigger and just letting her jump.
It was really an incongruous interlude – war is full of them. Eight of the finest and most hardened soldiers in the American Army out in picnic fashion shooting at rocks and having fun two miles behind the line where tomorrow they would again be shooting to kill.