On September 7, the 3rd Division continued to chase retreating Germans northward up the Rhône Valley, encountering heavy resistance by an enemy desperate to escape. The Allied forces were hampered, though, because every time American GIs entered a town, the French locals would ring their church bells, which told the retreating Germans how far away their adversaries were.[1]

 

The French people didn’t want to give away positions; they were just so happy to see American troops liberating their towns. The GIs were showered with milk, bread, apples, and bottles of wine from dusty cellars.

That afternoon, Phil and the men of the 3rd Battalion were moving forward to cross the Ognon River in the vicinity of Boulot. The battalion met and overcame scattered resistance, knocking out machine gun emplacements to reach the river at 1600 hours. Phil and a scout team came to a bridge destroyed by Germans attempting to halt the push of the 30th Regiment.

They found an abandoned barge and discussed how they could cross the broad river and continue taking the fight to the enemy. The barge was stuck on a sandbar, however, which meant they weren’t going anywhere. Suddenly, a pair of machine gun nests and a Tiger tank[2] on a hill across the river unleashed a torrent of firepower. Phil and his men managed to take cover as hundreds of bullets passed overhead. Phil called in artillery, which quickly destroyed the tank and the two machine gun nests. With the enemy neutralized, Phil could devote his energy toward getting his men to the other side of the river.

He regarded the abandoned barge and sent a private to find a truck with a winch—any winch. When he returned, they attached the winch to the barge and started to free the vessel. As they were making progress, Phil saw flashes of light from the opposite side of the river as two rifle shots rang out. Snipers! 

Two of his men fell to the ground, dead, their heads blown apart.

In an instant, Phil swung his rifle to his shoulder and fell to one knee. He curled the rifle’s sling around his arm from a kneeling position and quickly spotted his target across the river through the specially designed peep sight of his M1 Garand. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

The sniper saw him and began to swing his rifle barrel at Phil. Before the shooter could complete his aim, Phil quickly squeezed off two shots. The German’s head exploded, and he collapsed.

Two other Germans began to run, and Phil expertly cut them down with equally well-placed shots, blowing a hole in their backs and through the chests of each soldier. Satisfied no other Kraut soldiers were in the vicinity, he called out, “All clear!”

“Damn, Lieutenant, what great shots!” exclaimed one of his privates. “I’m glad you’re on our side!”

The private slapped Phil on the back. “I’m gonna put you in for a medal for that, and then have Colonel Neddersenix transfer you to the snipers.”

Phil smiled. “Just doing my job, private. And I’d a whole lot rather stay here with you guys.”

The next order of business was to get a ferry going, using the barge. Lumber was found in a nearby rail yard, which allowed the soldiers to push their way across the river and then be winched back. Throughout the night, a nearly continuous operation by “hand power” one way and then the power of a truck’s winch the other way took soldiers to the other side, forty at a time, without wetting their feet. By morning, an engineer’s bridge had been erected to allow vehicles to cross the river.

In the early hours of that afternoon, Colonel McGarr, while visiting the battalion command post, heard about the improvised ferry. He was intrigued and left his outpost to spend the next several hours with Phil and his men, looking over the situation.

“Damn nice job!” he told Phil.

The following day, Colonel McGarr nominated him for a Bronze Star for “valor” and “meritorious achievement.”

In seven months of fighting, Phil had been awarded a hat trick of medals—a Purple Heart, a Silver Star, and now a Bronze Star.

And he was still a teenager — not even twenty years old yet.[3]

~~~~~

[1] [2] Larimore, At First Light, 142.

[2] The Tiger was a German heavy tank officially called Panzerkampfwagen Tiger. The Tiger is one of the most revered tanks of the war, if not in the entirety of tank history, due to being able to destroy enemy tanks at long range while shrugging off hits from lesser Allied anti-tank guns.

[3] Larimore, At First Light, 142-143.

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