Black - Rangers in World War II

Bouchard obeyed the order, which was little short of suicide, went over the embankment, and was promptly shot down. Petty and others crawled forward to drag him to safety. The German mortar shells were bursting closer now, and the pent-up tension in the men was explosive. All it needed was a spark, and that spark was Sergeant McHugh. Leaping to his feet, the young Ranger brandished his submachine gun over his head and yelled, Lets go get the bastards! All the tension in the men suddenly released; they leapt to their feet and swept up the hill, snarling, cursing, yelling in blood lust.

Seeing the assaulting line of Rangers going forward with fixed bayonets and firing from the hip was an experience Sergeant Petty would never forget. I know that I will never see a more brave and glorious sight, he recalled. It was for me indeed a moment of being proud to be a Ranger.

By Robert W. Black
Published by The Random House Publishing Group:

RANGERS IN KOREA
RANGERS IN WORLD WAR II
A RANGER BORN

A Presidio Press Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright 1992 by Robert W. Black

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Presidio Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Presidio Press and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.presidiopress.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 91-93162

eISBN: 978-0-307-77615-0

v3.1

FOR THE RANGERS

Centuries ago, John Donne wrote that No man is an island. That is especially true when a writer sets forth to tell of an event. I am indebted to many people for their encouragement and assistance. My deep thanks to Rangers Jim Altieri and Lou Lisko; to Marcell Swank, Len Lomell, Bill Petty, and Herm Stein; to Colonel Roy Murray, General Ted Conway, and Colonels Herm Dammer and Dick Sullivan; and to Joe Fineberg, Joe Cain, Fran Coughlin, Ray Alm, Rex Sharp, and Jack McDeuitt. Thanks to all of the Rangers who gave of their time for interviews. The staff of the U.S. Army Military History Institute are old friends and were of great assistance. Thanks to the staffs of the National Archives at Suitland, Maryland, the Infantry Center Library at Fort Benning, Georgia, the Special Warfare Center Library at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and the Military Personnel Center at St. Louis, Missouri.

A very special thanks to Carolyn Stansbury who took the rough-hewn product and polished it. Thanks to Al Hart of Fox Chase Agency and Owen Lock, Stephen Sterns, and the editorial staff of Ivy Books for making this dream a reality.

I was twelve years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and I was ready for war. I had read Dumass The Three Musketeers, Sabatinis Captain Blood, and the great Ranger classic Northwest Passage by Kenneth Roberts, and my ears had been filled with bugle calls and rolling drums, my thoughts centered on flashing swords and the rattle of musketry. From Dieppe in 1942 onward, I followed the exploits of the Rangers with a fervent adulation. But in 1945 when the war ended, the only shot I had heard was when I fired off the family shotgun to locally announce the unconditional surrender of the Japanese.

I cried bitter tears because I had missed my chance to go to war.

In 1950, I was serving with the 82d Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, when North Korea invaded South Korea. Soon a call went out for volunteer paratroopers to become Rangers. I volunteered and became one of Americas first Airborne Rangers. As a member of the 8th Airborne Ranger Company, I fought in Korea and at last experienced the challenge, fear, hate, trust, and brotherly love a man knows in war.

I would never cry for war again.

Around 1960, I read a book titled The Spearheaders by Ranger James Altieri, a member of the 1st and 4th Ranger Battalions of World War II. Jim Altieri recounted the story of how a Commando instructor had told the members of the 1st Ranger Battalion to remember, It is all in the heart and the mind. Having fought in combat as a Ranger, I knew the truth of these words.

On July 12, 1968, in Vietnam, I led three South Vietnamese Regional Force companies in a day-long battle with a North Vietnamese Army (NVA) battalion. In late afternoon, under circumstances of great difficulty, I had reached the end of my physical and mental resources. At that moment, exhausted and drained and lying in the slime of a delta rice paddy, an inner voice said to me, It is all in the heart and the mind. You can achieve anything. It is all in the mind and the heart.

From those words, from that spirit, came the strength and purpose to carry on and complete my mission.

That is the spirit of the American Ranger, a band of brothers that is uniquely American and has its roots buried three and a half centuries deep in American history.

This book is about that spiritit is the story of the Ranger battalions of World War II. It is not a story of supermen or demigods. This is an account of men immersed in the outrage of war. In the battles that are recounted, there was courage and fear; men went beyond the call of duty and men functioned in shock or broke before the horror they encountered. They loved each other as men can love each other only during the time they are in battle. They fought not only the enemy but often among themselves. Some found solace in prayer, and some found it in a bottle. There was comradeship and jealousy, compassion and ruthlessness.

Above all, there was duty and the Ranger spirit, It is all in the heart and the mind.

They prevailed.

The years 19391942 saw the cruel hand of war grasp much of the world. The Nazi war machine had swallowed up most of Europe; Czechoslovakia was absorbed, Poland crushed, and Belgium, Holland, and France lay prostrate under the German boot. The swastika flew over Norway, and the British had been driven back to their isolated little isle, losing most of their weapons and equipment and barely saving 338,226 Allied soldiers in the desperate evacuation of Dunkirk. By sending troops to Greece, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had tried to save what he would call the soft underbelly of Europe, but the resourceful Germans moved swiftly to crush his plans. Coming to the rescue of their posturing Italian ally, Benito Mussolini, they thrashed the nations of their southeastern flank and conquered Yugoslavia and Greece.

In search of lebensraum (living space), the Germans then turned hungry eyes eastward. The Soviet Union had taken advantage of German victories, using the pact between Hitler and Stalin to seize Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Poland and Romania. When it suited their purpose, the Nazis disregarded this pact of conquest and turned the might of Germany on Russia. Though Napoleon had failed to defeat the Russians, Hitler was certain he could succeed. As time would prove, the Soviet Union was a long way from being finished, but in the summer of 1942, the tracks of Hitlers panzers and the tramp of German hobnailed boots sounded at the gates of Moscow and deep into the Black Sea region.