Download - 70th Infantry Division Association

ehind him and he said, "Brewer." I asked where is he and the man said he didn't know. I started off
again the second time that night looking for the rest of our company. This time we were in a town and I
walked around until I found Brewer. He was sitting down looking at something and I said, "How come
you're not moving with the company?" He said, "I am; they are right over there." So I looked where he
was pointing and it was a shadow. It looked like a man but it wasn't. So Brewer was waiting for that
shadow to move. I finally managed to get everybody connected again.
That night when we were trying to make the connection, I walked over something. It was flesh, but I didn't
know what it was. The next morning I looked down at my combat boots and in my eyelets there was
meat. As time went by on about the third day, I happened to go back to that same area and here was a
team of one ox and one horse that had been killed by an artillery shell. The Germans had been slicing
meat off of them and eating it. It turned out that was what I had walked over.
That morning at 5:30 we jumped off and the fellows went across the railroad tracks where there was a big
building about eight stories tall. Lt. Cheesem and I went into the building with the intent of finding an
observation post and setting my guns up outside. I had three 60 mm mortars and, of course, I had a 536
radio (walkee talkie). The object was to give the troops supporting fire from the observation post in this
building. When we entered the building, we found two French women that the Germans had just left that
morning. We searched the building to make sure there were no Germans. The one woman said, "They
are coming back." What she was insinuating was that the Germans were going to counterattack and take
the building back again. We released the women and they went back down to the basement. I was
looking out the window over the railroad tracks with my binoculars and giving supporting fire to our troops
who were crossing the railroad tracks. The people going across were getting sniper fire and a couple of
our men were killed crossing the track. That sniper was making it very uncomfortable for us to cross the
tracks. Now, it's daylight and there are railroad cars setting along the side of the tracks. Lt. Cheezem
informed me that after the last guy went across the tracks, I was supposed to knock down my guns and
go across. He left and joined the troops. I watched him cross the tracks. It was 10:00 when our last troops
went across. I should have gone with my men, but the sniper fire was very intense by now. It was really
getting hot and furious. We had tanks supporting us and I was in the building on the 6th floor. I heard Lt.
Cheezem yelling from the street below, "Where is that Brubaker?" I left my position, came over to the side
of the building and yelled down, "Here I am." "How come you haven't taken the guys across the tracks?"
he yelled back. As I was proceeding to tell him, all of a sudden the place where I had been standing was
hit by a German shell. The room was blown to pieces. So really, Cheezem saved my life. They were firing
more rounds now into the building, because they knew we were using it for observation to fire at them. I
went to the street level and met Lt. Cheezem. He said, "Get the guys together. We are going to cross
those darn tracks. We are going to cross them now." I said, "You know there's a sniper." He said, "I know,
but we want to go across anyway. We can't be holding off for that sniper." I said, "Look out there." On the
tracks were some of our men, laying dead.
He said, "We are going and we are going now." So Hoot Gibson and I went down to the tracks. We got
ready to cross by stringing wire. Our guns were going to stay on that side of the tracks and we were
stringing what we called "army field wire". Hoot took a spool of wire because he was going to string it. We
got down and laid on the embankment next to the tracks. I said, "Hoot, here is what we are going to do. I
am going first across those tracks and you follow right behind me. We are going to go right underneath
that railroad car over there." He agreed.
I stood up and took off running. I cleared about six sets of tracks when the sniper saw me and opened up.
He missed but came darn close. When he did that, I fell down, because I knew that he was going to let
another round go sooner or later if I was still standing. I let him believe I was hit. When I fell down, I fell
across the rails and my helmet rolled off. I hurt my leg on the rail. Hoot was right behind me and thought I
was hit. He fell down beside me and I said, "Hoot, we can't lay here. We have to keep moving." So I
jumped up and grabbed my helmet. I ran across and jumped underneath the railroad car. Hoot jumped in
right behind me. We were both underneath that car and I looked over at Hoot. He had on a pair of leather
gloves his folks had given him. He was feeding the wire out between his two fingers as he came across.
The wire was laying so fast that it was smoking off his gloves; there was actual smoke. I bet if he had run
a couple more minutes with that thing it would have burst into flames. Meanwhile, that sniper opened up