CHAPTER 35
Nightfall
The moans of the dying filled the air as the dark gray rays of dusk clawed across the scarred face of Hill 400. Sleet and icy rain pelted the men, turning their holes into miserable, mud-filled, soupy messes. As night descended on the hill, the Germans regularly tested the Ranger defenses. At this point, Fox Company was down to six men; Dog Company had just over a dozen. Many of the severely wounded were barely clinging to life after lying exposed to shrapnel for hours. Only the lucky ones had made it inside the troop shelter of the bunker. German snipers, artillery, and the direct fire from self-propelled guns made the evacuation of the wounded impossible in broad daylight. Knowing that time was running out for the dying men of Dog and Fox, Slater and Lomell organized a rescue mission for the wounded.
When darkness fell, Rangers in Bergstein formed into teams of litter bearers and ascended the hill to evacuate the casualties. The bulk of the evacuation efforts fell on the men in the 1st and 2nd Platoons of Charlie Company, who had spent the earlier part of the day manning a roadblock midway between the church and the base of the hill. Men from Dog’s mortar section, including Zeke Zyrkowski, joined the rescue party climbing the hill.
Out of breath from the steep climb, Zyrkowski and Dog’s other mortar men, who had been stationed near the church, reached the crest of the hill unscathed. Walking toward the bunker, Zeke turned to his right and gazed at fallen Rangers McCrone, Lewis, and Branley. “There were several bodies in the hole, crimson blood all over them.”
The smell of blood and sweat permeated the bunker’s gray, dank, reinforced-concrete walls. Inside, Zeke found Lomell with a deep wound on his upper thigh and his shrapnel-mangled hand.
Lomell and Petty, who was suffering from sharp and piercing pain from the gunshot wound to his shoulder, both needed evacuation. Petty nudged the medic, who administered another shot of morphine. “After the injection, I was high as a kite and feeling no pain,” Petty later recalled. Despite their severe wounds, both men did what they could to encourage the other Rangers.
Typical of Ranger leadership, Lomell and Petty managed to supervise the evacuation, despite their severe wounds. This was a perilous exercise, considering that the Germans remained ready to pounce, lying only several dozen yards or so on the reverse slopes of the hill. The stretcher bearers set out in groups of one or two pairs, each accompanied by an armed, able-bodied Ranger. Several men made round trips from the top of the bunker down to the church.
Zyrkowski placed the seriously wounded Frederick Dix in a litter. With Dix in the stretcher, Zeke and another Ranger named Bill descended 400. “Trees were knocked down and we had to scramble over them. The hill was very steep. Bill was in front of me and I was in the back and Dix was in the litter.”
Suddenly, Bill’s hand slipped. Dix tumbled out of the litter and rolled down the hill. In the fall, Dix’s helmet fell off. Writhing in pain, Dix blurted out:
“Fuck! You mother fuckers! Give me my fucking helmet back. Give me my fucking helmet.” Knowing the outburst would alert the enemy to their position, Zeke and Bill tried to calm the wounded Ranger down. Then they gently lifted Dix back on the litter and continued down the hill.
A few mortar rounds fell near them as they approached the frozen field they had charged with bayonets earlier that day. “We started to run. There was an opening at the bottom on the way to the church.” In full stride, and halfway across the field, Bill asked, “Can we stop?”
Exasperated, Zeke retorted, “Run, you son of a bitch, run!”
Eventually, the men made it into the church where the seriously wounded Dix received medical treatment, which helped him survive the war. Not all of the men evacuating the wounded made it to the relative safety of the church. German officers sent to reconnoiter the hill captured two litter bearers.
By 9:40 P.M., all Ranger casualties were off the hill and grouped behind the stout, stone walls of the church, which acted as a triage station for the wounded.
When the litter bearers carrying Petty arrived at the church, German shells were falling in the streets. The Rangers carried him carefully down the stairs of the church’s cellar. “After descending the stairs to the basement,” Petty explained, “the first thing I saw when I went in was the first sergeant sitting against the wall smoking. I don’t know why it infuriated me so much, for the entire company had known he was yellow since D-Day, but I went nuts and began kicking the hell out of him. By the time they got me under control, I had the satisfaction of giving several other officers my opinions of them. I can assure you it was not complimentary. I would personally take my three days [at Pointe du Hoc] as an annual holiday compared to my one day on the hill. The trauma to me was deep and lasting. The battle will always be yesterday. Sound bitter? You bet your ass—unforgiving, after forty-three years.”
Later that evening, a three-man, heavy machine gun crew from the Army’s 8th Infantry Division approached Dog Company’s part of the hill. Heedless of the extreme danger surrounding them, the men were complaining loudly about their plight. Concerned that their griping could expose their position to the Germans, Potratz hissed, sotto voce, “Pipe down and be careful where you’re walking. There are three dead Rangers next to us.” The machine gunners became “stone quiet” and moved thirty yards to the right of Potratz’s position where they began to dig in.