Wharton - Shrapnel: a memoir

Rolin and I get to be good buddies. Hes a chess nut and has a small portable chess set we play on. We share easily and, except for Rolins stinky feet and his size, hes a perfect tent mate. Within a few weeks, while were in company reserve, I manage to pick up another small shrapnel wound in my shoulder. Flying shrapnel in those days is almost as common as wasps. Im sent back to the field hospital and they take it out and put in a few stitches.

Once again, I milk this little wound as long as I can to stay off the line. And I get my second purple heart. Were beginning to hear rumblings of a point system for discharging when the war is over. This purple heart is worth five points to me toward discharge.

When I finally come back to the outfit the guys have had some pretty rough stuff again. In particular, theyve had a bad time in a place they call the crossroads. Its like people talking all the time about a movie you havent seen. Its common with soldiers to name battles as a place personal to themselves. These battles Im sure have different names and numbers in the military records where such things are kept, but to us, they are private property. When someone is hit or killed we refer to the situation as he got hit at the crossroads, or whichever private landmark is nominated for that bad time.

By being in the hospital, Ive missed the battle of the crossroads. Because there are so many casualties, and because Rolin is such a natural soldier, hes been made a squad leader and a staff sergeant while Ive been gone. He wants me for his assistant squad leader. Normally the squad leader and the assistant dont share the same tent or hole, but we pull it off.

For Rolin, the war is like some kind of game, a combination of chess and Russian roulette. He likes it! Of course, Im still scared out of my mind by the whole thing. So we have a sort of symbiotic relationship in which he plays war hero and Im his audience. We begin taking patrols together, just the two of us. This is also not the way it should be done. But Rolin always volunteers us for some of the most treacherous patrols and I go along because hes so persuasive. Thats how I get into my second most ridiculous event of the war, after that D-3 day. And it involves a small airplane again, my little personal history repeating itself.

Were roaming around on a vague patrol, looking for an L4 airplane thats been shot down, not too different from the one I was dumped out of at the start of my personal war.

Rolin is acting as combination scout and squad leader. Were in an area where theres been tons of artillery thrown against the enemy, directed by little Piper cubs called L4 artillery observers. The Germans keep trying to shoot them down, but it must be harder than one would think because its rare they get one. But this time they do, and Rolin swears he saw where it went down.

We, as ground troops, are not too happy having these planes fly over top of us because they give the Germans an idea as to where we are on the ground. Also, theres some shrapnel fallout from the ack-ack of anti-aircraft guns.

Our patrol, as designed by Rolin, is to see if we can locate this L4. Hes convinced its been shot down in something of a no-mans land between the two meandering front lines. Everything is fairly fluid right now.

Its coming on to early spring and Rolin is all hopped up. Were just wandering and, as usual, Im scared half to death. Im trying to keep track with my compass so we can get back, shooting azimuths about every ten minutes.

You dont need to do that, Will, Rolin tells me. I know my way back. Remember, I used to take these Wild Bill hunters into the deep woods of New York and Maine. I know just where we are.

Yeah, but do you know where were going? I ask. Remember those two Krauts we shot, just wandering around? Something like that could happen to us, too.

About five minutes later we look out from the edge of a wood, and sure enough, see that L4 were looking for. We sit for about half an hour trying to see if anybodys around, either the guys who were flying it, or some Kraut keeping watch on it. We dont see a thing.

Hell, Im getting tired of just sitting around, Will. You cover me.

With that, hes off with his rifle unslung, moving toward the airplane. I have an M1, I lost my carbine with the filed off sear somewhere in the trip back to the hospital. I keep the rifle lined up on him, scanning as he goes.

He walks right up to the plane, turns back, and waves for me to come on down. I move toward him cautiously, expecting someone to pick me off. God, how do I get in situations like this?

Rolins all excited. Hes sitting in the cockpit by the time I get there. He wants me to give the prop a twist to start the engine. Ive never done anything like that, so he jumps out and demonstrates a few times how to do it, with both hands, pull hard clockwise, then jump out of the way. I do that and hes inside trying to get the motor started but nothing happens. He smiles and jumps out.

No gas. Could those idiots have just let this thing go down because they didnt fill it with gas?

He looks in back of the plane and finds two Jerry cans full of high octane gas. He passes them out to me.

Ill bet some lucky Kraut bastard managed to put a bullet hole into the gas tank, or maybe one of those puffs of anti-aircraft smoke we see actually had some shrapnel in it. So theres most likely a hole and the gas drained right on out. Boy, those guys in this bird must have been scared shitless. I dont see any blood in the cockpit so either they got back somehow, or the Krauts took them prisoner.

While hes saying this, hes looking around under the airplane. He pushes his finger into a hole.

Here it is. Those guys were lucky this thing didnt just blow up on them or burst into flames.

Lets get out of here, Rolin. Those Germans could have a guard on this plane. They must have seen it come down, too.

What, leave a perfectly good plane out here in this field because of an iddy biddy hole? Lets see if we can get this baby off the ground again.

Hes already crawled back into the fuselage and is pounding with a wrench against the inside of the gas tank. He tells me to put the butt of my rifle against the hole on the outside. In five minutes he has that hole pounded out just about smooth.

Were lucky, he says. The gas stopped the bullet or piece of shrapnel, or whatever it was, so theres only one hole. Wait a minute.

Hes searching through his field jacket pockets. He pulls out two sticks of gum and starts chewing one. He gives me the other.

My ten year old brother sent these. He knows how much I like to chew bubble gum. Boy, hell appreciate the way were going to use it.

When we have the gum chewed up, he starts sticking it down on the remains of the hole. He smears it tight into the cracks of the hole pressing it inside and out.

Man, I hope gum isnt soluble in gasoline, but it doesnt really matter. We probably wont be going that far.

So we fill the tank with the two Jerry cans and Rolin gets into the cockpit again. After five or six tries, I spin the propeller right and the motor turns over. Rolin motions me into the plane.

Come on, Will, were going to have some fun.

Ive never been in an airplane before except for those parachute jumps at Benning, that channel-hopping ride where I was pushed out, and the short ride with my Dad. But I climb in. In some strange way, Im mesmerised.

Rolin taxies the plane uphill to the edge of the forest. He turns it around, guns the motor and starts going downhill at full speed. I duck down expecting were going to crash at any minute. Imagine an infantryman being killed in a little airplane like this in the middle of a field. I can hardly think. Rolin is laughing.

He clears the trees on the other side of the field by about two feet and were in the air. He waggles the wings for fun.