Ed & Ray Hersman in WWII - Robert Marks.org

4.10. HERBORN Ed & Ray Hersman in WWIISiegfried Line. They would come out of the pill box and defecate on theground. We would wait ’til they got their pants down then throw a coupleof shells at them to make them run.4.10.6 The Moving hay stackOne morning I was running my usual azimuth check on objects when I discoveredthat a hay stack had moved during the night. We called for a couplerounds on the grid coordinates of the hay stack. When the shells hit, thehay stack started moving across the field. Hay fell off and we saw it was aGerman Tiger tank. We couldn’t hit it and it went over a hill out of sight.One night I and Stanley were assigned to participate in a patrol to capturea prisoner. We ran into wire as we approached the line and started to cutour way through. It takes two men to cut wire, one to hold the ends of thewire so they won’t ”spong” apart and the other one to do the cutting. Theother men crawl behind the me doing the cutting.We had cut our way part way through the wire when we set off a Germanflare. When the flare went up, the Germans saw us and opened up withmachine guns. All we could do was crawl back through the wire the way wecame. Five of us were killed and we had to help two more back.4.10.7 MinesWe were in Patton’s army and he had decided to attack Trier 19 , which wasabout 20 miles to our front. One day the order came up that we had to goout again and try to capture a prisoner.The next morning just as the fog lifted I saw a German running as fastas he could towards our O.P. with his hands up. He was headed straighttowards the trip wires. I jumped out where he could see me and yelled”Minen! Minen!” (mines, mines in English). He hit the first trip wire andstopped dead. I went down and led him around the mines and brought him19 Trier is about 30 km northwest of Luxembourg City. See Figure 4.1.62