Gene Garrison - Unless Victory Comes: Combat With a Machine Gunner in Pattons Third Army
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- Book:Unless Victory Comes: Combat With a Machine Gunner in Pattons Third Army
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- Year:2004
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Unless Victory Comes: Combat With a Machine Gunner in Pattons Third Army: summary, description and annotation
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Gene Garrison spent a terrifying nineteenth birthday crammed into a muddy foxhole near the German border in the Saar. He listened helplessly to cries of wounded comrades as exploding artillery shells sent deadly shrapnel raining down on them. The date was December 16, 1944, he was a member of a .30-caliber machine gun crew with the 87th Infantry Division, and this was his first day in combat.
Less than a year earlier, hed entered college as a fresh-faced kid from the farmlands of Ohio. Now, as the night closed around Garrison, slices of light pierced the darkness with frightening brilliance. Battle-hardened German SS troopers using flashlights infiltrated the line of the young, untested American soldiers. Someone screamed Counterattack! In the maelstrom of gunfire that followed, the teenage Garrison struggled to comprehend the horrors of the present, his entire future reduced to a prayer that he would be alive at daybreak.
From those first frightening, confusing days in combat until the war ended five months later, Gene Garrison saw many of his buddies killed or wounded, each loss reducing his own odds of survival. Convinced before one attack that his luck had deserted him, he wrote a final letter to his family to say goodbye, handing it to a friend with instructions to mail it if he died.
From the bitter fighting west of Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge to the end of the war on the Czechoslovakian border, Garrison describes the degradation of war with pathos and humor. His story is told through the eyes of the common soldier who might not know the name of the town or the location of the next hill that he and his comrades must grimly wrestle from the enemy but who is willing to die in order to carry the war forward to the hated enemy. He writes of the simple pleasure derived from finding a water-filled puddle deep enough to fill his canteen; a momentary respite in a half-destroyed barn that shields him from the bitter cold and penetrating wind of an Ardennes winter; the solace of friendship with veterans whose lives hang upon his actions and whose actions might help him survive the bitter, impersonal death they all face.
The rich dialogue and a hard-hitting narrative style bring the reader to battlefield manhood alongside Garrison, to each moment of terror and triumph faced by a young soldier far from home in the company of strangers.
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Gene Garrison
Author
Perhaps Mark Twain said it best when he wrote, Courage is not the lack of fear, it is acting in spite of it. His observation describes perfectly a combat unit.
The following events are recorded to the best of my recollection. Some names have been changed or purposely deleted. It was not and is not my intent to embarrass or humiliate anyone. Who knows what action or reaction might be taken by anyone in a similar set of circumstances?
Further, it must be remembered that historical data is no more accurate than the information available and the quality of the reports submitted by the company, battalion, and regimental clerks. Also, as memory dims, so does accuracy. In the absence of diaries or journals, which were supposedly prohibited, chronology, fact, and memory may be in conflict.
It must be understood I considered all of the non-commissioned officers I served with to be good soldiers, and they performed their duties extremely well. The same can be said about most of the replacement Air Corps NCOs, especially my squad leader, Lyle Jacobs.
The events herein are factual and are related as accurately as possible. Dialogue has been added, but it reflects the situations as they occurred. Most of the events involved the author. Those that did not were either related personally by the participants or were taken from other narratives.
Special acknowledgement is made to Patrick Gilbert, who authored a paper entitled, An Introduction to the Battle of the Bulge, relating the stories of Elmer Zeichner, Tom Katana, and me on New Years Day, 1945. I used his material extensively. Patrick encouraged me, as did many other 87th Division Association members and friends, to have the book published. He volunteered to proofread and edit the manuscript, and make suggestions and revisions as mutually agreed. In the process, he revised paragraphs and chapters for the sake of continuity and transition, added geographical locations, and historical data. Without his many long hours of work and perseverance this book would have never reached fruition.
I would also like to thank everyone who provided information, be it in the form of conversations or articles, from the following men of C Company: Carl Blanchard, Walter Byrnes, Earl Cate, James Cheatwood, Richard Coble, Pat Collucio, Richard Cunningham, Anthony DArpino, Walter Dippold, Robert Fulton, Bronislaw Jaroz, Robert Jones, Thomas Katana, William Knight, Milton Miller, Norman Panther, William Petrosky. Percy Shue, John Thomas, Armand Verdone, Guy Wick, Charles Yanacheck, and Elmer Zeichner. Earle Hart helped us by providing Signal Corps photos for our use.
We also wish to thank Casemate Publishing and David Farnsworth for his willingness to publish my memoirs, and Theodore P. Savas for his assistance in designing and finalizing this book. Patrick and I would also like pass along our appreciation to Eric Hammel for his editing assistance.
To my wife Juanita, who supported my sporadic efforts over the past twenty-odd years, writing while waiting in physicians offices for my parents to be treated, while on vacations, watching TV, or whenever I could find the necessary time. She volunteered to type my notes into a legible manuscript after having not touched a typewriter for more than twenty years. She even consented to try to use a computer.
To all members of my family who assisted in the compilation of a completed document and especially to my son Geoffrey, who installed the computer, patiently answered my wifes numerous questions, and proofread and assembled the initial documents. To my grandson Brian Short, who has a keen interest in WWII and in my service with the 87 Infantry Division.
To Thomas Fuller, who encouraged me to complete the memoir so he had a more personal narrative to read.
And finally, to Colonel Robert B. Cobb, our battalion commander, whose fearless leadership was our inspiration. The success of the battalion must be attributed to him. His courage was contagious.
It was 0900 hours on a Friday in July 1944. It was hot as usual in the basic training installation at Camp Croft, South Carolina, and rivulets of sweat were on my forehead and temple. I could feel the perspiration on my back under the full field pack.
A dozen young soldiers stood at the edge of the parade ground in front of the neat rows of barracks. We were the next-to-last of the trainees to be shipped out of the latest training class. I had experienced a strange sensation that morning. Although I had made many friends the last three months, I had watched most of them leave over the last two days with a sense of detachment that I had never felt before. I hadnt felt that same indifference when Ed Czarnecki, with whom I had developed a special bond, had left following his fathers death. Now I viewed them with no feeling, as if they were strangers. Even John Ehle, who had taken me home to meet his family in Asheville, North Carolina, left with only a brief good-bye and a perfunctory, Stop and visit if you are ever in Asheville!
Had I analyzed my feelings, I would have realized that I was building a self-defense mechanism that would be with me throughout my military serviceand perhaps, forever.
I was shipping out to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, to join the 87th Infantry Division. The men going with me to Jackson whom I knew were Paul Gullet and Warren Little, both from my hometown of Middletown, Ohio; Harold Brewer from Piqua, Ohio; Morris Cole from Seymour, Indiana; and Pat Coluccio of Poughkeepsie, New York. Everyone else was from different training companies.
We stood there, leaning on our barracks bags, waiting patiently for the 6x6 trucks. The only person missing was Brewer. He emerged from the A Company barracks across the compound and walked hurriedly toward the group. We thought you changed your mind, Brewer, Coluccio kidded.
Brewer ignored him. What time are we leaving?
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