Jack Battuello Memoir #1 - University of Illinois Springfield

Jack Battuel.Lo
Q. What was it like?
A. Pandemonium when they shot into us. Pandemonium.
Q. You hadn't expected it?
A. Not that, no. No. We had an idea that when we got there that
they were going to surround us with authorities to keep us intact and
not let us get to thc mines. We figured that out. That we figured.
We also felt that down in Franklin County there would be some kind
of an injunction issued that would restrain. our activities. We figured
that out. hat's what we figured, but never that ambush; we never
figured that out. Never dreamed they'd do that to us.
Q. So you were riding In the bac-k o f the truck.
A. Yes, on the body.
Q. This was an open truck.
A. Yes.
Q. And how were you first aware of the ambush?
A. The shots.
Q. Just pl.owing in?
A. Shooting so they cou1.d hit the cars.
END OF TAPE THREE
A. The first fusillade of shots disabled the first: car. They shot
into the tires and second one. And then it seemed to me, 1ooki.ng
back and remembering in retrospect that the next fusillades of shots--
they shot over our heads. Then sporadic bullets began to hit the
cars. Now I deduced from that tha.t they 'had orders to shoot at he
wheels and deflate the tires and then shoot overhead to intimidate
us and then I figured then that certain ones of them decided, "The
hell with them, shoot right into them." And then those are the ones
that hit us, hit our people. Those are the shots that hit our people.
For ,the most part, though, the shots were either low or overhead.
Q. You had no warning. No one and . . .
A. No, no, just all of a sudden without any warning. We never,
never figured that that was going to come to be ambushed. We'd
didn't think wc was going to be ambushed. That was never even given
Jack Battuello Memoir -- Archives, University of Illinois at Springfield