Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble by Antony Beevor Read Free Book Online Page B

ammunition clips and freeze solid. Machine guns were the most likely to jam. The heavy .50 machine gun was essential for shooting enemy marksmen out of trees and other hiding places. American soldiers soon discovered that German snipers waited for artillery or anti-aircraft fire before they pulled the trigger, so that their shot would not be heard.
    Lessons learned in one sector were rapidly passed to other formations through ‘combat observer’ reports. German patrols would cut cables at night and run one of the severed ends into an ambush position, so that they could seize any linesman sent out to repair it. German soldiers sometimes fired a bullet through their own helmet in advance, so that if they were overrun they could play dead and then shoot one of their attackers in the back. They often mined or booby-trapped their own trenches just before withdrawing.
    American patrols were advised that when encountering the enemy at night, ‘fire at random, throw yourself into cover, then yell like mad as if you were going into the attack, and they will start firing’, which would reveal their position. In defence, they should place dummies well to the front of their foxholes to prompt Germans to open fire prematurely. They should provide cover for the enemy in front, but bury mines under it; construct fake defences between strongpoints. Just before going into the attack, it helped to make digging noises to mislead the enemy. Andwhen inside a house, they should never fire from the window, but keep it open and shoot from well back in the room.
    The most respected and vital members of a company were the aid men. They were trusted with grain alcohol to prevent the water freezing in their canteens which they would offer to the wounded. ‘The stimulating effect of the alcohol does no harm either,’ the report added. Chaplains were also sent to the aid stations with alcohol to make a hot toddy for wounded men coming in. Countless men later acknowledged that they owed their lives to the dedication, courage and sometimes inventiveness of aid men. PFC Floyd Maquart, with the 101st, saved one soldier severely wounded in the face and neck by cutting open his throat with a parachute knife and inserting the hollow part of a fountain pen into his windpipe.
    Conditions for more than 700 patients in the riding school and the chapel of the seminary in Bastogne continued to deteriorate, since the German capture of the field hospital meant that there was only one surgeon. The doctor from the 10th Armored was assisted by two trained Belgian nurses: Augusta Chiwy, a fearless young woman from the Congo, and Renée Lemaire, the fiancée of a Jew arrested in Brussels by the Gestapo earlier in the year. Those with serious head and stomach wounds were least likely to survive, and the piles of frozen corpses grew, stacked like cordwood under tarpaulins outside. A number of patients suffered from gas gangrene which gave off an appalling stench, and the stock of hydrogen peroxide to clean such wounds was almost all gone. The dwindling supply of plasma froze solid, and bags had to be thawed by being placed in somebody’s armpit. For some operations, a slug of cognac had to replace anaesthetics. Sedatives were also in very short supply to deal with the increasing number of combat-fatigue casualties, who would sit up and suddenly start screaming. Men who had demonstrated great bravery in Normandy and in Holland had finally succumbed to stress and exhaustion. Cold and lack of proper food had accelerated the process.
    As well as the setpiece assaults, which Generalmajor Kokott had been forced to launch, there were many more German attacks at night, often with four tanks and a hundred infantry. Their soldiers in snow suits were well camouflaged out in the snowfields, but when they were againsta dark background of trees or buildings they stood out. Realizing this they took off the jacket, but the white legs still gave them away.
    ‘Knocking out tanks is a