SOUTH OF BASTOGNE, BELGIUM, DECEMBER 23-26, 1944.

A farmer buries his horse.

 

My icy cameras hung around my neck, and I could not keep my gloved hand on the frozen shutter for longer than a split second. Five miles from Bastogne, I stopped my jeep on the road. A battalion of infantry was advancing on the snow-covered field just off the road. The smoke of the exploding shells hung above the black figures who were alternately lying down and standing up on the white carpet. It was my first unusual picture of war in a long time. I climbed up on the embankment, took my Contax with the longest lens, and began to shoot. Suddenly a GI from the infantry battalion, about 150 yards away, yelled something to me and raised his tommy gun at the same time. I yelled back, “Take it easy!” but as he heard my accent he began to shoot. For a fraction of a moment I didn’t know what to do. If I threw myself flat on the snow he still could hit me. If I ran down the embankment, he would run after me. I threw my hands high in the air, yelled “Kamerad!” and surrendered. Three of them came at me with raised rifles. When they were close enough to make out the three German cameras around my neck, they became very happy GI’s. Two Contax cameras and one Rolleiflex—I was the jackpot! I still kept my hands as high as I could, but when they were a rifle’s length away from me, I asked one of them to search my breast pocket. He took out my identification and the special photographer pass signed by Eisenhower himself. “I should have shot the bastard before!” he groaned. The famous Sad Sack was a gay blade compared to my three captors. I let my hands drop, took their picture, and promised it would appear in Life magazine.

I rejoined the tanks. I felt safer riding with a driver who spoke with a Texas drawl.

It was Christmas Eve and the sky was full of stars. We stopped for the night and dismounted, forming little groups around our frozen tanks. I passed around my silver flask, and the cold brandy warmed our stomachs. Huddled close together the men who during the day had been killing Germans and shooting at accents began to sing “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht.” Then suddenly, like the star of Bethlehem, a bright star burst in the sky and stayed right over Bastogne. It was a flare from a German plane; the Luftwaffe was delivering its presents to the 101st Division. We used unprintable language and remounted our tanks.

On the three roads to Bastogne the three wise colonels who led the three combat teams carrying presents of tinned food and shells saw the star and began moving.

The combat team with which I rode was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Abrams. He looked like a cigar-smoking Jewish king, and swore that he would be first to reach the town.

Late next afternoon, after much fighting, we reached a hilltop. Bastogne lay below us, only three thousand yards and two thousand Germans away. Abrams lined up his tanks side by side and ordered a charge. He told his men to keep on going and keep on shooting, without stopping to aim, until they reached the town below.

McAuliffe, the commander of the 101st, the general who had said “Nuts!” to the Germans when they asked him to surrender, was quite polite. “It’s good to see you, colonel,” he greeted Abrams. He wasn’t kidding.

On the black, charred walls of an abandoned barn, scrawled in white chalk, was the legend of McAuliffe’s GI’s: KILROY WAS STUCK HERE.