Ed & Ray Hersman in WWII - Robert Marks.org

4.5. ALL QUIET ON THE FRONT Ed & Ray Hersman in WWIIFigure 4.3: LEFT: P-51’s. RIGHT: P-47’s.G.I.’s that I wouldn’t make it through the war.One day we received another replacement named Williams. The morningafter Williams arrived, the German guns were shelling us as usual, and thensuddenly stopped. Everything became real quiet.4.5.1 Watching the fighter-bombersThe air became full of noise and became full of fighter-bombers, P-51’s andP-47’s 6 , which were headed straight for the Germans. They started strafing,dropping bombs and laying down colored smoke (I think).Our artilleryopened up with everything they had and may or may not have been firingcolored smoke shells.The fighter-bombers pulled out and waves of light bombers came in andbombed where the colored smoke was and moved on. The sky then becamefilled with thousands of heavy bombers, B-17’s, but mostly B-24’s, and theystarted dropping bombs on the Germans. 7We crawled out of our holes to watch. The ground trembled and vibratedlike a big earthquake. Wind started to blow the smoke in our direction and6 See Figure 4.3.7 See Figure 4.4.50