With 5th Army beachhead forces, Italy – (by wireless)

Without the some of our invasion landings would have been pretty close to impossible. It is leading lady in this drama up here.

All day long you see a black line of tiny boats moving back and forth between shore and ships at anchor a mile or two out. They remind you of ants at work. These are going constantly back and forth all the day and night. There are hundreds of them.

Without the “ducks,” some of our invasion landings would have been pretty close to impossible. It is a leading lady in this drama up here.

All day long you see a thin, black line of tiny boats moving back and forth between shore and ships at anchor a mile or two out. They remind you of ants at work. These are “ducks,” going constantly back and forth all the time, day and night. There are hundreds of them.

One day I stood on the beach and hooked a ride on one of them. A duck has no crew except the driver. My driver was Pvt. Paul Schneider of Seattle. He is only 22, yet from appearances he could have been any age up to 40. His black whiskers were caked with dust, he wore green celluloid sunglasses, and all his upper front teeth were out, giving him a half-childish, half-ancient look.

His teeth were knocked out in an auto wreck before he left the States, and he has never been still long enough since to get a plate made. I asked him if he didn’t have trouble eating, and he said:

No, I get along fine. There’s nothing to chew in C-rations anyway.
As soon as we drove down into the war and got our truck officially turned into a boat in introduced myself, and Pvt. Schneider said:

Oh yes, I just finished reading your book. It was all right.

Man for Ernie’s money

From that moment, Pvt. Schneider was, for my money, the champion.

Once in the water, Pvt. Schneider shifted a few gears and pulled a lever to start a bilge pump. The engine made a terrific clatter, and we could hardly hear each other.

We had gone only a little way when Pvt. Schneider yelled, “Would you like to drive it?” I said, “Sure.” So, he took his foot off the throttle and we traded seats.

Driving a duck is funny. You turn the wheel, and about 15 seconds later you get the reaction to it. You anticipate the waves, and turn toward them a little.

I must admit that I felt very big and important, driving a rust and battered-up old duck out through the shell-strewn waters of Anzio after another load of the precious supplies that keep everything going on this tiny cameo of a beachhead.

Ducks go day and night

Some forms of unloading stop at night, but the ducks work right on through. Each driver does a 12-hour shift; but he does get some rest at the dump out in the country while he waits to be unloaded.

Pvt. Schneider says their big worry is not being shelled, but being run down at night by the bigger and faster ships known as LCTs. We have lost a few ducks that way.

The ducks take an awful beating being slammed up against the sides of ships by the waves while waiting for winches to swing netloads of stuff down into them. Sometimes the swinging load hits the driver on the head.

On our trip we carried back bunches of 20mm machine-gun ammunition.

The tires don’t last long on a duck. They are soft, for ease in climbing out onto the beaches, and won’t take too much running around on land.

Another trouble is that salt water gets in the brakes. Every now and then, you hear a story of a wreck caused by the brakes going out. But on the whole the duck is almost as wonderful in this war as the jeep.

Pvt. Schneider has worn out two ducks and is on his third one. He has had some close shaves, but has never been hit. When you go a long time, as he has done, with fire all around you and you never get hit, you sometimes build up a feeling of infallibility about yourself, and you don’t worry too much about what might happen.

Pvt. Schneider was just out of high school when he went into the Army, via the National Guard. His wife works in a defense plant at Seattle. He has been through the invasions of Sicily, Salerno and Anzio.

He says he would just as soon drive a duck as do anything else. This is exactly the fine philosophy you’d expect of a man who reads good books.

[1] Ernie Pyle. With Fifth Army Beachhead Forces in Italy. News Clipping.

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[1] Ernie Pyle. With Fifth Army Beachhead Forces in Italy. News Clipping in small brown scrapbook with heavily embossed front.