The Pittsburgh Press (July 31, 1944)
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
Somewhere in Normandy, France – (by wireless)
We drove slowly across the two pastures in the big M19 retriever truck with which our ordnance evacuation company was to pick up two crippled German tanks. The wrecker truck followed us. It was just after midnight.
We came to a lane at the far side of the pasture. Nobody was there to direct us. The officers had gone on ahead. We asked a sentry if he knew where the German tanks were, he had never heard of them. We shut off the motors and waited.
I think everybody was a little on edge. We certainly had American troops ahead of us, but we didn’t know how far. When things are tense like that, you get impatient of monkeying around. You want to get the job done and get the hell out of there.
We waited about 10 minutes, and finally a sergeant came back and said for us to drive on up the road about half a mile. He climbed on to direct us. Finally, we came to a barnyard and then very slowly backed on up the road toward the enemy lines. I stood on the steel platform behind the driver so I could see.
It was very dark and you could only make out vague shapes. Finally, one huge black shape took form at one side of the road. It was the first of the German tanks.
Anxious to get finished
Being tense and anxious to get finished, I hope our trick would take the first tank. But no. We passed by, of course, and went backing on up the road.
When you’re nervous you feel even 12 inches closer to the front is too much and the noise of your motor sounds like all the clanging of Hell, directing the Germans to you.
I knew it was foolish to be nervous. I knew there was plenty of protection ahead. And yet there are times when you don’t feel good to start with, you’re uncomposed and the framework of your character is off balance, and you are weak inside. That’s the way I was that night. Fortunately, I’m not always that way.
Finally, the dark shape of the second tank loomed up. Our officers and some men were standing in the road beside it.
A laymen would think all you have to do is to hook a chain to the tank and pull it out of the ditch. But we were there half an hour. It seemed like all night to me.
First it had to be gone over for booby traps. I couldn’t help but admire our mechanics. They knew these foreign tanks as well as our own.
One of them climbed down the hatch into the driver’s seat and there in the dark, completely by feel, investigated the intricate gadgets of the cockpit and found just what shape it was in and told us the trouble. It seemed that two levers at the driver’s seat had been left in gear and they were so bent there was not room to shift them out of gear. After some delay a crowbar finally did the trick.
Meanwhile, we stood in a group around the tank, about a dozen of us, just talking. Shells still roamed the dark sky but they weren’t coming as near as before.
Loud noises bother Ernie
There would be lulls of many minutes when there was hardly a sound but our own voices. Most everybody talked in low tones, yet in any group there’s always somebody who can’t bear to speak in anything less than foghorn proportions.
And now and then when they’d have to hammer on the tank it sounded as though a boiler factory had collapsed. I tried to counteract this by not talking at all. Finally, we started.
Slowly we ground back down the road in low gear with our great, black, massive load rolling behind us. We’d planned to pull it a long way back. Actually, we pulled it only about half a mile, then decided to put it in a field for the night.
When we pulled into a likely pasture the sentry at the hedgerow gate wanted to know what we were doing and we told him, “Leaving a German tank for the night.”
And the sentry, in a horrified voice, said, “Good God, don’t leave it here. They might come after it.” But leave it there we did, and damn glad to get rid of it, I assure you.
We drove home in the blackout, watching the tall hedgerows against the lighter sky for guidance. For miles the roads were as empty and silent as the farthest corner of a desert. The crash of the guns grew welcomely dimmer and dimmer until finally everything was nearly silent and it seemed there could be only peace in Normandy.
At last, we came to our own hedgerow gate. As we drove in the sentry said, “Coffee’s waiting at the mess tent.” They feed 24 hours a day in these outfits that work like firemen.
But my sleeping bag lay unrolled and waiting on the ground in a nearby tent. It was 3:00 a.m. With an almost childish gratitude at being there at all, I went right to bed.