Interview with Louis Slama Czechoslovakia / Guttenberg New Jersey Paratrooper / Minor League baseball player - fought in the Netherlands and at the Battle of the Bulge

THIS INTERVIEW IS NOT EDITED FOR CONTENT, LANGUAGE OR HISTORICAL ACCURACY.

Rick: We're glad to have with us today Lou Slama who had some very interesting war experiences. [Sgt. Louis Slama was a member of the 508th Regiment Paratroopers, 82nd Airborne Division. He fought in the Netherlands and the Battle of The Bulge.]
Lou, where were you born and raised?

Louis: Well I was born in Czechoslovakia in 1925, I'm 79 now. My father came to this country when I was two years old. Four years later my mother came with him to help him to make some money because we were farmers back there outside of Bratislava. When Hitler started the invasions and the Nazis started pushing up my mother and father got kind of nervous about us - my sister and I being left there and they couldn't get back and get us so in '35 they sent for us through the Red Cross. I came to the United States in August of '35. From there I lived in Guttenberg, in New Jersey. I went to school in public school, and actually, when I came here I didn't know how to speak English so they put me in the first grade. Here I'm an eight year old kid and they put me in the first grade. I had a teacher that could speak Slovak so she could translate all my stuff. So I was the big guy and the little guy and naturally my mother spent more time in the principal's office than I spent in the class because I continuously got into fights. The kids used to make fun of me because I couldn't speak English. I guess that made me a little tougher than I was. (Rick: And you were bigger than all of them weren't you?) Yeah right, but I went to grammar school then I went to Memorial High School. We lived in three room cold water flat at that time; it was not the best place. My mother worked and my father worked for New York Central back there at that time and then I excelled pretty good and went to Memorial High School. I excelled in basketball, football and baseball and track and in my junior year I got an offer to play for the Giants before I went into the Army. In 1943 I made the All-American Team as a catcher. I batted around 365 at that time and then I played against the East and West Baseball-we played in the polo grounds at that time. So the Giants had picked me up I was going to play in the American Legion and in '43 I decided that I didn't want to be in the infantry and I asked my mother and father if I could join the Army- the Air Corps- and so I enlisted in August or July. Went and took my physical, went to Fort Dix.

Rick: That was July of '43?

Louis: Of '43, yeah.

Rick: At the time of Pearl Harbor you were still in High School?

Louis: Oh yeah, I was still in High School.

Rick: What were your thoughts at that time?

Louis: Oh I was devastated, you know, that this was happening because you know, to us at that time America was the land that we wanted to live in and all. So that's one of the reasons I decided to join and my father was in WWII fought on the Austrian/Hungary side at that time (Rick: WWI). I mean WWI, Austria/Hungary side at that time. So we kept, you know, we listened to the paper and all, I played baseball and basketball and all and I figured when I hit seventeen-I made up my mind that I wanted to join. I knew I was going to be drafted at that point in time but I figured if I enlist I'll have a better chance of picking the service that I wanted to be in. So when I got to Fort Dix and I took my examination and everything else and I wanted to get into the Air Corps and they told me "Louie you can be in the Air Corps but you can't fly", I said "why", he said "you're color blind". So he said "well we'll put you in one of those B46 (the big planes) - a machine gunner or something like that". I told him, I said "No I can't. I got phobia. I can't stand a tight room". So at that point in time I met a friend of mine a buddy 'Lambert Senary' at the same time and he couldn't get in so we decided what are we going to do? So they gave us a choice. They said, "We'll send you to camp in South Carolina - infantry school". So Lambert and I left and went to South Carolina for three months and went to infantry school. We finished our infantry school and were sitting in the PX one day and we were trying to figure out where they were going to send us so we see a big sign that says 'join the paratroopers make 50 bucks a month more' so I looked at Lambert and Lambert looked at me and he said "well what do you think Lou?" so we signed up for the paratrooper. They sent us to Fort Benning for parachute training at that point in time. We went to our, I guess it was, two months of training there, made our five jumps and all and then we were assigned to the 508.

Rick: Did you make the 5 jumps from a plane?

Louis: No well actually the first week that they have the training there you get all the physical training and all and then the second week they have these towers you know and they put you in the towers and they drop you off the tower and teach you how to jump out, you know to land and everything else and during that period of time they teach you how to wrap your own chute, you know. Then they figured that when you make your first jump that's the chute you're going to be using. So we used to have a little thing that 'whose going to wrap his chute first' you know but when the final time came that when you made your first jump it took me three hours to get that chute together. I packed it, unpacked it, I was afraid. It's the same chute that you know you're going to jump with. Then they put us on a truck going about 20 miles and hour and you jump off the truck backwards and learn how to roll, but most of the guys used to break their legs just coming out of that truck.

Rick: Did you have padding or anything like that?

Louis: No, nothing, nothing, no padding.

Rick: You were going 20 miles an hour and you jumped off backwards to give you an idea of what it was like to land.

Louis: Yeah, when you hit the ground then you learn how to roll so that you don't break your ankles or anything else like that. Naturally you know it was in an area where the fields are all plowed you know, it's kind of soft it's not hard stuff so it wasn't too bad. And then you prepare for your first jump and they put you in this big room and the music is blaring and all that and everybody's all hooked up ready to go. Before that what they had was a big tower. You go on top of the tower and you hook up and you ride down a thing and you hit as you come down you hit into a lot of sawdust and stuff like that. That's where you separate the men from the boy's cause a lot of guys wouldn't come; they'd have to push them out. So when we finally got ready to go Lambert and I were just, you know, wondering what the hell this whole thing was going to be about. So we get into the thing and we were all hooked up ready to go, had our jumpsuits on and all and we take off and the first jump was 1200 feet you know and they take you up in a plane. There's 24 guys, 12 guys on each side of the stick and everybody hooks up, it's an automatic puller inside of the plane so they go alphabetical order. Naturally 'S's are in the back so you watch all the other guys go out in front of you. The guy says, "Okay guys stand up". They tell you "hook up", so you hook up and check your canopy and the last guys have to turn around and check the other guys to make sure that you hook up proper and make sure your line's not underneath because if it is it'll tear your arm off you know when you go out of the plane. So we get on there and the first goes out first and then the second stick and we shuffle up to that thing. I got up to that door and I kind of hesitated and the jump instructor saw me hesitate and he just tapped on my leg and I went flapping right out of that thing. I got out and the thing opened up, you drop about 90 feet, the chute opens up and they tell you to check your canopy, make sure that everything is okay because you can get some blown panels and all. And I came down and landed "boom", boy that's easy. I unhooked up and we went out and so you do that four times and the last jump you make is at night time between 1200 and 1000 feet and you naturally have your reserve and all and you make the four jumps and your final jump you get your wings and stuff at night time about 1:00 in the morning. So what you do is they hook you up, you sit there for about three or four hours waiting. When they load you up and it's dark, pitch dark you can't see anything. We jumped near the Chattahoochee which is outside of Fort Benning. We got in there and you couldn't see anything and we jumped out I guess about 1:00. But previous to that, the jump instructor was a southern boy and you know, they were still fighting the Civil War between you know the south and the north and naturally he could tell we were both from New Jersey, both Yankees, and he said to me on my first jump, he said "Lou, when you go out that door I want you to keep your eyes open. If you don't keep your eyes open tell me what happens, I'll know and it'll be about a hundred pushups". So we got on the thing and I kept my eyes open and when I landed and he said "Okay Slama what happened"? He said "well Sarge, I'll tell you one thing, when you keep your eyes open and you go down and the tail of the plane looks like it's going to cut you in half and all of a sudden it sucks you underneath the tail and the chute opens". He said "you kept your eyes open". So but at last we got our wings and went out and did a little partying you know got down in there and from there on we just you know had maneuvers and all that. We had a couple a more jumps; I had a total of thirteen jumps during my time in the service.

Rick: How large was the pack you jumped with; how many pounds did you have to carry?

Louis: Well combat wise you had your chute, your reserve, we had about one week at that time I was in Lieutenant Pollet's platoon, I was his scout and rifleman and the scout at that time was Sanchez. We had about two weeks of ammunition that we carried and other food and stuff. I had a five-pound mine that was strapped to our bodies that we used and I had a gammon grenade.

Rick: You had a five-pound mine to set into the ground?

Louis: In the ground right exactly, we'd jump, we'd pull out our guys would jump with that then I had a gammon grenade. A gammon grenade was a compound C2 and it was in a round ball and you put C2 in it and you put bullets in it and all the stuff that you can. When it explodes it's like shrapnel in there, but the thing is devastating you drop it you can blow up this whole building. It's very uncomfortable to carry and it looks like a whiskey bottle; you unwrap it and there's a pin in it and when you have this thing and you pull the pin and you go like this, they'll never find you so what you do is you unwrap it and hold on to the pin until you're ready to use it. So I had that and what we did is you take a sock, a GI sock, you cut it open and then we took some cord from the parachute cord and you tie it around and you tie it around your body. So when you run you know it doesn't bounce all over the place. So you figure between all that you had maybe another 80 pounds or more that you're jumping with at that time. Naturally in combat you only jump 500 feet.

Rick: Could those mines go off while you carried them? Or did you have to arm them?

Louis: No, no, there was no way. Like guys would jump with the B-A-R and that was the heaviest equipment was the B-A-R a Browning Automatic. At that time as I said I jumped with an M1 at that time cause I was in Lieutenant Pollet's squad but you had at the time, many of the guys got to the plane, they couldn't get up you know to get into the plane, they'd have 3 or 4 guys lift them up and get them into the plane. It was hard to shuffle so all you did is kind of shuffled in and once you got into the plane you sat down. You don't move until you're ready to go out of the door.

Rick: Did you ever think that maybe it wasn't worth that extra 50 dollars a month?

Louis: Everyday. It was a tough 50 bucks to make. So Lambert and I always thought about that but he was a kind of a southern boy from south…same age we were both 17 when we came in and 18 when we first got into combat.

Rick: At 17 you had to have your parent's signature didn't you?

Louis: Yeah exactly, my mother and father had agreed to the fact that, you know, I wanted to, you know. But the thing about that is I was not a citizen of the United States yet. They said that if your mother and father are citizens it wouldn't matter if you become citizens but that's not true, you can't vote so when I got out of the army I had to go to Newark to get my citizenship when I was 21.

Rick: Now you spoke Slovak; it seems to me they would want you in the intelligence service.

Louis: Yeah, well I did some of that in the 'Battle of the Bulge'.

Rick: It was on your military record, then that you spoke Slovak?

Louis: Yeah I spoke Slovak and what happens is every time you write to your mother and father; my mother and father spoke mostly Slovak when I was living at home and in fact they never knew anything about sports so whenever I had an English paper in our house we always had the Slovak "Denuska" they called it and people used to say to them "Mrs. Slama did you know your son scored four touchdowns and three touchdowns"? My mother said, "What are you talking about"? They didn't know anything about the sports so in those days immigrants were more inclined to making some money and surviving at that time.

Rick: After completing your training were you ready to go overseas?

Louis: We were assigned to the 508, they had already left to go overseas, they left in January and we left in May of '44. By the time we got across to Nottingham where we were bivouacked you know, the 508 was located in Nottingham. Of course, I got hurt in a jump prior to that in the training. I hurt my ankles and back and broke my knee and stuff.

Rick: Did you take a troop ship?

Louis: Yeah we were on a troop ship going over and had to go around because of the U-boats so it took us almost 3 ½ weeks to get across you know finally when we got across we found out that the 508 and the 82nd and the 101st already had taken off for Normandy.

Rick: Tell me about your accommodations and experiences aboard ship.

Louis: Oh, three high you know and you could hardly breathe and it was terrible. I was so sick half of the time, you know, and all we did is play poker, seven hand double you know deuces running wild, that's all we did for that time and then you know calisthenics and stuff like that, that's all you could do.

Rick: And you were there for almost three weeks?

Louis: Three weeks yeah, going across, yeah. So when we landed boy I was glad to get off.

Rick: You landed at Nottingham?

Louis: Yeah, we went to Nottingham. At Nottingham and then Walton Park, that was considered the kings and the queen's park where they had all the deer running around and all that.

Rick: Now this was May of '44, prior to the D-day invasion?

Louis: Yeah right. So, it was pretty good. We used to go into Nottingham and when we got there we were on alert all the time. Their indication was that we were going to go in as reserves going in you know if the 508 was going to stay, because they took heavy casualties and we were sitting around with all our gear ready to go. We were going to go across the channel but that never happened.

Rick: So you were a reserve unit on the D-day invasion?

Louis: Right, yeah, but that never happened. Out of the 155 guys in F-Company I think only 62 or 57 came back that were able to walk. They took over 50% of casualties. Most of them were at a jump and all and when they came back I was assigned to F-Company 2nd Platoon to Lieutenant Pollet. Lieutenant Pollet was from Shreveport Louisiana and he gave me my nickname as 'the kid' because I was the youngest guy in the thing and in the morning he used get up and then go like that and say, "did the cat lick you this morning"? I wasn't shaving yet at the time.

Rick: Your unit, the 508 that dropped in the D-Day action, did they go in before the infantry?

Louis: Oh yeah, they jumped June 6th of '44 at one o'clock at nighttime or so.

Rick: And they're the ones that took 50% casualties?

Louis: Oh yeah. Most of the guys that dropped, some of the guys my buddies, had told me that a lot of them dropped in areas that they were spread all over you know and they finally got a couple of guys together during the hedge rolls and stuff like that. They had the crickets at that time and Gene Klug who is also an air dropped in with Whitey and they both got captured the second day by the Germans and spent the rest of the war in the POW camp.

Rick: And you were held back because you had sustained injuries. How did you feel when you heard about the 50% casualty rate?

Louis: It was devastating you know. A lot of the guys didn't come back and a lot of the fellows that were in the hospitals came back you know, about two months later. But a lot of fellows you know were still missing in action and people didn't know if they were POW's or that's what happened. A lot of them were captured at the same time.

Rick: So you were the replacements for those that didn't come back?

Louis: That's right. Lambert and I were so strong bonded that we had asked the company commander if we could be in the same outfit together because we did everything together all hours so that's when we got assigned to Lieutenant Pollet. When I first met Lieutenant Pollet he reminded me of a Greek God the guy was built like a brick and he got the Silver Star and the Bronze Star in Normandy, he was the best fighting man I'd ever seen. Also he was a nut about baseball, so when he found out I played baseball (and you know I was a catcher at that time) we talked about baseball all the time and I was his runner at that time so he said "you stay close to me". So I said, "yeah, if I stay close to you I'll probably get killed first" because he'd take so many chances you know. But he was a great guy a really great guy. So I got the nickname as 'the kid' at that point in time, you know, when we were training, getting ready to go into Holland. We were supposed to go in in August, the end of August and they changed it and kept changing until, you know, finally they put us into the hangars on the 12th of September. We sat there until we took off September the 17th and then we found out that we were going to jump in the afternoon during- the daytime.

Rick: Did you know you were going to Holland at that time? It wasn't a secret that you were about to jump behind enemy lines?

Louis: Oh yeah, there was no secret at that point in time; yeah we jumped behind enemy lines, right. We actually, it was I guess they really weren't sure you know if it was going to be night or day but they figured they'll try a daytime jump to see what would happen you know at that point in time. When we took off we had breakfast in the morning and our Master Sergeant shot himself in the leg cleaning his 45 and then that started us off real bad, so it was really a disaster at that point in time.

Rick: This was the first daylight jump that they were just going to try? Did you feel like you were guinea pigs?

Louis: Just about, yeah. They were going to try to see if it would be an element of surprise and I said "element of what surprise". I mean you see thousands of planes, I mean you could imagine you have 508 I guess has got maybe 2800 people you know troopers in that thing and you're only jumping maybe 24 - 30 guys in a plane so you could imagine how many planes you got in the air and when they dropped those guys it was amazing, you know I mean it was a sky full of parachutes and all.

Rick: There were 2800 paratroopers jumping at the same time?

Louis: Yeah, they'd bring the first wave then the second wave behind them and the third wave behind them and these guys would go back and keep going and then after that they had the 325th which was the gliders and the 319 was the artilleries you know coming in at that point in time.

Rick: Give us as much detail as you can about that first jump into Holland.

Louis: Well we took off, Lambert and I took off and got onto the planes and Lieutenant Pollet told us our mission at that point in time was to secure the drop zone for the 325th and the 319th gliders. We were in the first wave and then each platoon had a 'bundle' and it was a colored bundle and inside of that bundle you had the equipment. So when you land the first thing you had to do was get to your bundle so you could get to your heavy equipment like your 30 calibers, mortars, 60 mortars and other stuff that you couldn't jump with. So each platoon had his own bundle. So he told us he said "make sure you got the bundle Lou, your bundle's yellow" and that's what they did is they dropped the bundles before you go out they push the button and the first things that come out of the plane are the bundles with all the heavy equipment. So when we sat in that plane (we're a couple of kids were in there and we're just about at the end) and as it gets to the tail end of the plane and we're looking out of the plane and Pollet comes over and says, you know, "Make sure when we hit the ground look for me", you know, because at that time Burns was the radio man at that point in time and John Hearst also was the radio man. Now John Hearst was from Alabama (and we could never figure why they made John Hearst a radioman because when he started talking you couldn't understand him-he had such a southern accent you couldn't figure out what the hell he was saying). So we were sitting in the plane and we had the drop zone because before we jump we had the town spread out you know, we knew exactly where we are, almost. You could see, you know, we had the areas showing us where our drop zones are going to be and what our mission was going to be. So we're sitting in the plane and going across the channel and we hit the outskirts of Holland, the Netherlands and we looked out and we see water and we keep going and we see more water. So I asked Pollet I said "Lieutenant, where the hell is the ground"? And he said, "Evidently what happened is the German broke all the dykes". They know somehow, so everything was all water, I said, "Jeese not only is it daytime but we're going to probably land in the water". So finally we were flying about 1500 feet and all of a sudden the plane starts going down and I said "Oh", and I knew right off that point that our drop zone was getting close. So when we hit about 1,000 feet Pollet says "okay guys lets get it up", so everybody jumped up and I unhooked my reserve. Lambert and I dropped our reserves down because we figured by the time we hit the ground the reserve is not going to help us or anything. We had all the, you know we had the gas mask and all that other crap on us so we all dumped, most of the guys dumped their chute because at 500 feet so all of a sudden 20 millimeters are coming through the plane you know. The guy across from me was standing there shaking and he peed right in his pants, I could tell because I looked at his jumpsuit and everything else, and one of the guys and grabbed him and kept pushing him up so we could feel the plane going down and it was rattling and everything was…we got a couple of shells through the rear on the wings and all and the pilot says "come on, get the hell out" you know at that point in time so he pushed the button and we started going out. Pollet went out first and we all went out and the kid that was pretty well gone, they picked him up and just shoved him out of the plane and we jumped about maybe 400 - 500 feet and that plane took off and I looked up and I've never seen any sight like that in my life I mean there was thousands of parachutes all over the place. So we landed and I was looking for Lambert and you know the first thing they tell you to do is to check your canopy and then what you do is it was so close together you had to rotate…it's just like driving a car you take your two risers and you pull them down and that means you'll go forward, you take your two back risers, you pull them down and you go back so if you get coming close to a guy you separate to the left or right so you learn how to separate. As we're coming down before that I had a jump knife that I put in my hand and I taped to my hand cause once with all that equipment you had and you hit the ground you can't get out of the chute, it's very hard to try to do. So what you do is you push the button to jump up and you take a knife and you cut the risers and everything else and get out of the chute. And so when we hit the ground, we landed up in a turnip patch.

Rick: You weren't over the water then?

Louis: No, we landed right outside of a turnip patch and those turnips were about- high out of the ground and boy you could feel them on your rear end as you were going down so we collapsed our chutes and everything else. I cut myself pretty bad to get out of the chute and we ran for our bundles and all and got all our heavy equipment out of there and at that time Pollet got us all together and we started a perimeter, set up a perimeter you know to keep the Germans. And what happened, the Germans were really surprised to see us.

Rick: Was anybody shooting at you?

Louis: Oh yeah, they were shooting at us yeah, but not that many. When they saw us they started running, we saw these guys running away. They had all the anti-aircraft, they took off and ran and left all the anti-aircraft behind and I guess the element of surprise kind of worked, because they didn't know what the hell was going on.

Rick: Were the Germans outnumbered with the 2800 paratroopers?

Louis: No, they were all in the town and outside and after they regrouped and found out, they captured the guy that had the invader from headquarters and where we were going to go and they said "oh American trick", you know they didn't believe it and all of a sudden when we started hitting all these other places they realized at that point in time and then all hell broke loose. But so we set up the perimeter for the 325 command and also we jumped with the Polish Brigade at the same time and then the 9th airborne division jumped in Arnhem and about 9,000 of them jumped in Arnhem which was across Nijmegen and I don't know if you've read the book 'A Bridge Too Far', they made a movie of it. The British lost 6,000 out of 9,000. They just got slaughtered over there. So actually what happened is when we started, when the 325th landed and the 319th with the artillery landed and most of them all got killed in the crashes coming down and then the Germans realized what was happening and while we were there we tried to keep that drop zone open and all hell broke loose.

Rick: They thought it may have been a diversion to start with.

Louis: Exactly yeah.

Rick: Let me ask you about this Polish Brigade. Germany had already taken over Poland but these were remnants of the Polish Army and they were fighting with the allies?

Louis: Yeah they come over you know they left with the allies at that time. Good soldiers, they were good soldiers really and they got the hell beat of us. They was with us as was part of the 9th airborne so when we set up the perimeter and everybody landed we started to move out - our mission at that point in time was to try to keep the Germans from blowing up the Nijmegen Bridge so the British could bring in their tanks - Montgomery- and bring all the reinforcing. And it was only supposed to be a two-week deal because once we established behind enemy lines all our missions…the heavy artillery and the heavy tanks and everything was supposed to come in and start fighting the German across the line. But what happened, Montgomery didn't do that, they never got there and we ended up there until November 14th. Meanwhile we left the perimeter and our mission at that time was to keep the Germans from blowing up the bridge so we got into Nijmegen and as we were going across the middle (nighttime at that time) afterward we got inside on the outskirts of Nijmegen and we were walking single file on each side of the road and I was also in Pop Hull's squad. He was the oldest guy, he was 32 years old, he was the oldest guy in the airborn and we're running single file you couldn't…just about in front of us. So we got there and all of a sudden all hell broke loose. We hit into M42's and 20mm at a roadblock. The Germans opened up on us and the only thing is I just froze. I didn't move and the next thing I know Pop Hull, a big guy, picks me up and throws me across on the other side, probably saved my life and then we hit the ground and we went crawled around on the outflank and knocked out the Ness with the phosphorous grenades and killed all the Germans. There was about 10 - 12 Germans sitting up the roadblock so they knew we were coming.

Rick: This was fairly close to the bridge? Why did the British take so many casualties?

Louis: Yeah that was the second day. Oh they landed right on top of the Germans; I mean they were getting fired with 88 tanks firing at them at horizontal. I mean they, oh they just got wiped out and at that time while this was going on, we also was supposed to keep the Germans from blowing up the Waal River Bridge which was another area that was a very concentrated area that we had with the 504. The third battalion was getting a lot of flack so they called in saying F-Company, so they asked Lieutenant Pollet to see if they can, you know, help out to keep the Germans from blowing up the bridge. And so prior to that we were in Nijmegen and trying to set up a zone. Right after we got Nijmegen and the Waal River, but Nijmegen…Pollet said "we got to infiltrate" and they started, the Germans started building up and we went into a patrol into Nijmegen about the whole company went in to patrol; Lambert and I got separated and we got into town and we hit everything that you could think of. The Germans, you know, they were all sitting in the houses waiting for us. They had snipers all over the place and I remember coming in and we hid into a hospital and just as we got to the hospital Hernandez got hit with a shell and blew part of his chest out and everything else. The first time I seen a guy- I got sick, you know, it was part of his body was blown out and the guys, the underground guys came running to us and they said "look, don't go in that direction". He said "the German's just waiting for ya, they're gonna just slaughter ya". So we kind of worked our way through the town.

Rick: So you went house to house? Did you have tank back up? Did you see any civilians?

Louis: House to house, no just artillery basically. No, most of them were on the ground but see they wouldn't shoot at the hospital at that point in time so we moved down and we got down and Burns was with me and so was John Hearst and we had Clemenger, was in the squad at that time, and we moved up and I remember jumping into the house and these homes, they were architecturally beautiful you know they had the framed windows and everything else and as this German sticks his head out of the door and started running I pumped a couple of shells into him. And then as we moved along Burns you know comes running over to me he said "Lou", he said "Lambert got hit" you know cause we were kind of separated, we were on an east and a west kind of a thing, we're trying to circle-eight and attack the Germans at that point in time. So I ran over and oh he got hit, a sniper shot him. Shot him through the neck - kinda died right there. I sat there. Couldn't figure out what to do but at that point in time I was trying to figure out how I was going tell his mother if I lived. But so I wanted to take his dog tags but they wouldn't let me take his dog tags but they picked him up and took him away and he was buried in a Harrlo Cemetery. But it was the first time that you know it was a tragic thing for me then.

Rick: Had you turned 18 at this time?

Louis: Yeah. So Lieutenant Pollet came and said, "You gotta stay with it, you gotta remember" I'll always remember that, he said, "you don't shoot the guy, you shoot the uniform and kill him". He said "survival of the fittest". He said, "You kill 'em first so they can't kill you". I think at that point in time my life changed you know at that point in time I was kind of a guy that took chances. (You know I cried like a baby at that point in time, I couldn't…. to me it was disastrous to see him laying there you know it was just like he was asleep and the sniper shot him right through the neck.) And so we took part of the town, the 3rd battalion came and took the other part and then we got orders from the third day that the Rhine River was another point that they were getting a lot of flack there and that they couldn't take the bridge. So we came up and on the south end of the bridge and we got to the thing and you could see the guys from the 504 and they were trying to get across the Waal River to attack the Germans and the Germans just picked them off. You could see their bodies floating in the river. I mean the river was full of- you know, it was red. The guys were just floating in the river, they never got across.

Rick: These were our guys?

Louis: Mostly our guys, they were all our guys basically, there was no British at that point in time and so we got there and the Germans were dug in so Pollet called for some anti-aircraft for the 309, so under the aircraft we attacked the Germans at the bridge and as they took off from their foxholes we killed them and took the bridge at that point in time and secured it and all. Pollet got the distinguished Silver Cross for that at that point in time so there was talk about him at that time, he should have gotten the Medal of Honor for that and when I was sitting, you know when we were there with him at that point in time we took about 35% casualties you know. Most of our guys - we were down from 152 to about 90 or so guys you know. So after we took the Waal River Bridge our next mission was to set the ground to go into Beek and hold - push them back. Now the Germans already have taken the towns back and they realized that they were ready for a fight at that time so we, in order to keep moving, our mission was to take Beek and Foxhill.

Rick: Beek is a little town?

Louis: Is a little town outside of Groesbeck. It was a little town which was in the high ground of the whole area. You look and if you take the high ground you look at the plains and you see the plain and you see the Nijmegen Bridge. So whoever controlled that town controlled high ground- was a town that was you know was in charge of the whole thing. So we went in and took Beek and the Germans came back. We took Beek by surprise and we set up a perimeter on high ground. The Germans came back and pushed us out and we had almost hand-to-hand fight them. We came back and took Beek back again and then the third time we were sitting on Beek on top of a big hill again, you know, and they started to anti-aircraft and stuff like that and we're sitting in foxholes in an apple orchard and to the right of us about, oh, 100 yards was a farmhouse and everything else. And we're sitting there and all of a sudden it explodes- about 30 - 40 Germans come running out of that farmhouse, you know, attacking us and we cut them down like nothing I mean we killed every single one of them. And we were sitting there and I'll always remember this, next year we plan on going back to - my wife and planned on going back to Holland; I never went back. There was a big high retaining wall down the road outside of Beek and the town and the tank is actually coming down the town firing horizontally 88's at the guys in the 3rd battalion. So Sanchez and I tried to figure out what the hell we're going to do, so I still had that gammon grenade to my chest and all and so I told Sanchez, who's a Mexican boy, - hell of a soldier- we crawled up to the top of that hill, we saw that tank coming down and we had like bushes along the side of the hill where the farmhouse was, so we get on top of that hill and we see this tank coming down the road. The Tiger Tank with an 88 firing out of the thing, I could see the Jerry on top of that thing so I opened up the thing that pulled the stocking down and we kind of scooted up to the end of the road, it was about a 15 foot drop or so down below and the German never saw the tank coming on and I opened up the top of the bottle and Sanchez said "don't pull the pin yet", he said "because we'll never make it". So the tank came down, we could see that there was a guy sitting on top of the tank directing you know and they had a MG42 on top of there firing away at the troops and they had pinned down the 3rd battalion. So as the tank came back down along the road I pulled the pin and as the German came down I yelled down "Hand in the hold you son-of-a-bitch" and I dropped the damn gammon grenade right on top of that tank and the German looked up and that was the last of him. It just blew the whole top of the turret off and the tank just went zooming like that, the guys got in, it would knock those guys off and the tank just came off the road and just blew the whole top of the turret off you know. So we secured the town at that point in time, we took pretty good casualties. Meantime there was no tanks, no British coming to support us I mean we were right in the smack in the middle and all sides the Germans are trying to push us out into a center so they could squeeze us in, they've already squeezed you know the British and kicked the crap out of them, those poor guys. And their next step was to do that same to the 101st and the 82nd.

Rick: Did you sleep at all during the day or night? Were you in foxholes?

Louis: Oh yeah we dug in foxholes. The only problem with that is you dig a foxhole with no problem, you can dig one but the second, third day you're floating because the ground…you had a high water table and so all you do is move from the next foxhole to the other full of water you know and so we…when we set up perimeters and all like that so you're on for two hours in a foxhole. Sanchez and I were in a foxhole. You sleep for one hour and then you know you kind of…

Rick: So you're breaking your sleep up in one-hour segments?

Louis: Yeah right, exactly. And then we were told by Lieutenant Pollet said "look, we're going into Foxhill, this is probably the main area right now that we gotta stop the Germans" and it was outside of Beek. We already secured Beek and then the 504 came in. Beek was another town, Foxhill was a town that, a little town again that we set up a perimeter again at this point in time we were running low on ammo, they brought in ammo for us. So we sat on top of the hill waiting for the Germans, we could hear them in the woods out there. So they threw everything at us, everyday…88's the 'screaming mimmi's' you know what they are? The 'screaming mimmi's' are guns- they're like…ten of them in one and they shoot all at once, oh they scream and I'm telling you when you hear that I mean you start shaking. They had thrown all these screaming mimmi's. When we finally got off of Foxhill there wasn't a tree left in there. But, so we secured Foxhill and one night we're sitting there, I had the machine gun guys at that time, Digs Ramo's with me, Sanchez and Spibey, Sergeant Spibey was in our squad at that time and Pollet says to me that one night he said (we had to go on patrol) and he said "we gotta find out what…get an idea if we can…if we go on patrol at nighttime maybe we could catch a couple of guys, swipe them and bring them back and find out…get an idea of what us two would be able to interrogate and find out what their plans were at that point in time". Hell we knew what their plans were, their plans was to attack us and drive us off the hill and kill all of us, that's what their plans was basically and so we decided to go on patrol that night and each guy had put on a 'spaghetti'…a spaghetti is a long thing and it's a phosphate in it so what you do is you put a spaghetti around the front of you and one in the back of you and that's all you had. And the reason for that, it's so dark that when you're in patrol you can see the guys in front of you so you don't shoot them. So as you go down, you have the, you just see this outline of the spaghetti. Well we infiltrated into the lines and I got so close to a Jerry -almost from here to here -and I had my jump knife, I was gonna jump him and cut his throat and Pollet says "no, lets"…you know, so we kind of moved around and got an idea of where the hell they were. I mean we could…I could hear 'em breathing we got so close to them.

Rick: Wouldn't the spaghetti help the Germans see you too?

Louis: No, well we down, we were just kind of crawling along at that point in time. So we got back and we waited and the next day - the next day they started hitting us and we figured that's when it was going to come in. The shells came in and the shells came on back and forth, the shell came in front be front of you, the shell came behind you…and we're sitting there with all set up and I remember as Rama was with me in the foxhole, he had us dug foxhole I mean it was deep with the 30 caliber machine gun on there and a bazooka and Sergeant Spibey is on the right of us and I can always remember, all of a sudden the shell comes in and Spibey yells out "they got us zeroed in, let's get the hell out of here". So Zommer and I froze in that foxhole. Spibey got out and started and the shell hit and blew part of his body right off, he got killed right off the instant second. I got out and the shell hit part of me and hit me and threw me up and I got a concussion like the back of my head and Zommer got hit and lost one of his testicles, got threw the iron and blew off his testicle. And the next thing I remember, I'm laying there and the medic is there and I went deaf you know and my eyesight was because of the concussion. So in about 10 - 15 minutes you know I got back on a 30 caliber and I had shrapnel all over, I mean little pieces you know I had been taking shrapnel. I had some cuts on my left side on my body and hands and stuff like that but not enough to evacuate me and after, we went to the hospital and they took some of the shrapnel out of me. But we fought those Germans for six days straight. Six days, six nights continuously. So we finally took Foxhill and then we took the perimeter and for a two week thing we ended up leaving on November the 14th, we decided, they left. The British came in and took our positions you know, that we had set up and all.

Rick: Were you moved in trucks?

Louis: Oh, that was the next story. I found out that the British decided you know they didn't have enough trucks so we had to walk 21 miles to get out of there and then go to Succion in France,-they picked us up. But as we're walking along single file back I mean we were, we had taken maybe 40% - 45% casualties at that time and I mean there was not too many of us left. I mean we were pretty beat up and all and as we walk along single file I was right behind Pollet and Shield was in a squad. Shield was the meanest, toughest son-of-a-bitch I've ever met; I mean he was a soldier. He was so mean and the guys would never fool around with him and he was walking along…so we're walking along single file. The British guys are walking in single file on the other side to relieve us so one limey says, he yells out to us he says "hey yanks", he said "I guess it is too hot for you, you can't stand it"? And at that point in time, Shield broke ranks, jumped over and had this knife against- he was going to cut his throat. Pollet jumps and takes him off and then I guess the Lieutenant for that guy comes running and pushes this guy and Pollet says "if you touch him" he said "I'll put a bullet right between your eyes" he said "you know what your guy just said". He said "here we are, we did all your dirty work and now you guys are going there" and that was the end of our, you know, thing and we ended up in France, in Succion.

Rick: So you flew to Succion?

Louis: Well we went by trucks outside of Reims.

Rick: And then did you go to England again?

Louis: No we stayed right there. We all wanted to stay right there.

Rick: Did you have another parachute mission?

Louis: No, we went into the 'Battle of the Bulge' by trucks at that time on the 18th. And that was probably the worst battle of my career.

Rick: You saw a more severe battle in the Battle of the Bulge?

Louis: Oh yeah it was worse than anything. The cold and all -it was devastating. We had the greatest battle that stopped the Germans in the area where the Germans had decided that was their stand, and it was our stand.

Rick: Where were you when the Battle of the Bulge started?

Louis: I was in Succion and we moved out, you know.

Rick: So, they moved you by truck?

Louis: By truck, yeah into Belgium. We got there, we had no winter clothing, we had our regular outfit, I mean, it was cold. The heaviest equipment we had was 30-caliber and bazooka against tanks at that point in time and then we moved out…snow up to there you know, and when we finally got into fighting our way through stopping the Germans into the area-this was right after Christmas Eve and Christmas. We set up a roadblock along the whole thing. The 3rd - 2nd battalion and we had the machine gun all set up and we knew that the Germans were there. We could hear them yelling and screaming. We had to send out outposts at that point in time knowing that they're going to come at us and I set up my machine gun group on the west side of the bank. We had the 504 and the 3rd battalion and you could see it was a whole complete line. And in Belgium they have these haystacks you know and what they did is they cut all the haystack and put them in there and so when Pollet told the guys from the patrol he said "when you hear the Germans", he said "set the haystacks on fire". Sure enough that one night around I think, it was the 25th or 26th, all hell broke loose. Haystack fire, we're sitting in there and sitting there with the machine guns, and I was so mortified. I looked up out of the foxhole and to me it looked like a million ants coming out at us. I mean they were screaming…thousands, there was a hundred thousand of them and they were all dressed up in white and the tanks, the tanks were coming at us you know. So Pollet said, "Wait till you get ???" So sure enough we opened up and all hell broke loose and I had the machine gun, we were firing away. To this day I always think about-there was a kid there as a replacement and in my squad. The next thing I know is he says to me "Lou I'm hit" and I said "okay" so I pulled him out, as I pulled him out my hands were full of blood. He got hit through the chest, I could hear his gurgling of his blood you know from his lung and I kind of yelled "medic" for that time and Zolkey, he was a Staff Sergeant that was in charge of the squad at that time we pulled him out of the foxhole and laid him down and he died in my arms and to this day I can't remember who he was you know, it's like a block. I can't remember his name, nothing, cause I wanted to find out -you know talk, to his parents.

Rick: What happened next?

Louis: They overran us, over the top of us came back and he kind of overran us again, came back again and the Germans finally retreated you know, they went back to regroup; the tank came back over the top of us. I could feel that tank right over the top of my head. So I was trying to figure out what the hell to do and I'm looking at this gun and I'm trying to get some ammunition and we had taken out all the 'tracers'. Because if you have tracers in there the Germans can knock you off. Looking there and I look up and about 25 - 30 feet a German jumps up and points this thing at me and I look up and I look at him and he points this thing at me and I take the machine gun, I zoomed it out and I cut him right in half and went down. So when the daytime came I mean it was, oh God, I had never seen so many dead guys.

Rick: Alright, Louis, you had manned your machine gun and mowed down these thousands of Germans that were coming at you and the tanks would run over your foxhole?

Louis: Yeah, they'd just run over the foxhole because the infantry guys were right behind them. So we just waited and then we hit the infantry guys as they were coming behind them.

Rick: Weren't you vastly outnumbered?

Louis: Oh yeah I mean it was maybe five in one or whatever it was. But we took a lot of casualties, but we stopped them. The next morning when I got up and turned these kids over they were maybe 15 - 16 years old. All you kids.

Rick: Young Germans?

Louis: Your German guys and the guy that you know that I knocked off in there and our command post was hit pretty bad, about four or five guys got knocked off over there but then after that we went into offense and we went through the Zigfried line and you know fought through the snow and at that point in time Lieutenant Pollet was transferred out. Him and Martin didn't get along and so he left and took over E-Company. And when he took over E-Company I tried to get, you know, transferred over to E-Company and Martin hated me, he wouldn't let me go so Lieutenant Owens was our platoon leader. So as we're fighting through the towns we came into a town, outside of a town and Lieutenant Owens was sort of a crazy guy, he didn't know how to fight a war or anything else and we're bivouacked ready to take this town and it was about four o'clock in the afternoon and we're lined up in this gully and they had a roadblock set up with MG42's. So when you go up they fire the MG42's about three feet, four feet off the ground and they got two, three feet of snow so if you go then they just cut you in half. So Owens says at that point in time you know we lost a lot of guys, we had some replacements up there and Owens said "we're gonna take this machine gun and that's when I say lets go over the hill". So I tell my squad "let that dumb bastard go by himself you know".

Rick: He wasn't relying on you guys to go through combat?

Louis: He just went over the hill, MG42's open up and I looked up and I said "run" and I saw him turn down and go down. Three guys got killed. And we're all looking and they said 'what are we going to do, he's out there'? So I took my stuff off and I crawled out in there and I finally got to him and his rear end was full of blood and everything else.

Rick: This was the lieutenant?

Louis: Yeah, Lieutenant Owens so I figured that maybe he got hit somewhere so he was down and he was so damn afraid so I turned him over I said "Lieutenant are you okay"? He said, "Yeah Lou I'm alright", I said, "What happened? You get hit in the ass"? And he said, "No, I've got a bad case of piles". So I pushed him back, we come back and roll him back and everything else and he says to me "if you ever tell anybody what happened", he said "you'll be doing KP duty for the rest of the duration". So by that time we went down at nighttime we crawled back and knocked the machine guns out and then we got to hill. All of this time I had a very bad case of GI's. I was eating snow and that developed an infection in my stomach and my feet were so bad - frozen, the medic kept telling me "you can't do it, you can't…well we can't send you back". He said "we haven't…you're a non-combo…" So I kept and he said, "don't take your boots off because they're frozen". So finally we got to Hill 404 before St. Vitz.

Rick: You stayed in combat.

Louis: Yeah, all the way through to St. Vitz. This was February and we were sitting in St. Vitz hill 404 at the end of the Rhine River - Cologne Plains and the Germans are on one side and we're on the other and we're going to attack. And then what's his name, my buddy Bill Givel (another non-com) was left - that's the only buddy that I had left and Sanchez and one night Owens says "we gotta go on patrol, we gotta find out what the hell the Germans are doing". So I said "Lieutenant", I said "we know what the hell they're doing we can see 'em right from here, I mean what's the big deal"? He says, "Well I got ??? Says we got to infiltrate and get in patrol". He says, "You go out there", so I had the machine gun at that time I had a 45-caliber machine gun. So I took seven guys with me, four of them were replacements, they didn't have too much you know combat and three other guys. (Rick: And you had frostbite on your feet?) Well yeah, so we got out in the middle there it was about one o'clock in the nighttime. We infiltrate, got across the Rhine River Bridge, they had the Rhine River Bridge there, got across and one of the guys thought he heard something and starts opening up his M1 'pow' you know and everybody froze and I run over and says "what the hell are you shooting at? You can't see anything". And at that same time everything opened up I mean crap, MG42's and the Germans thought we were attacking them. So I said to these guys "we got to get the hell out of here". So we got across the bridge I said, "You guys get across and I'll cover your rear". So we got across and everything else and between the bridge and 404 was a hill and flat plains like you know maybe about 400 yards or whatever it is and then you go up in the trees and everything else so we came running across the guys I can always remember and the 88's are starting to hit I can see them explode around the trees and I got across the bridge, I assumed the guys made it and then I looked down and the whole thing was just piling…so I says 'I gotta get across that thing'. I took all the crap off, 45 and everything else and I thought to myself at that point in time frozen feet and all I say "well, I know I ran the quarter mile when I was in high school and I set a record of 49.6" so I said 'I'm getting my ass across that thing'. So I dropped and I started running zigzagging. I got about half way across and man you could almost feel it, it was just like you knew it was going to happen. That shell came down and exploded about ten feet away from me. It hit me and it hit my whole left side. I lost part of my lung, my whole left side was you know, I broke my shoulder, broke my leg and everything else, shrapnel and everything else and I hit the ground and I don't know if you know, some guys will know and I just laid there. I didn't feel anything and I thought about my baseball career and I thought I lost my arm because I couldn't feel anything and I looked up at that sky and it was so blue and everything else and I yelled "medic" once and nobody came. Then I kind of you know when you're out of it I'd say that most of the guys when they get hit they freeze to death you know the shock gets in and they freeze to death. Then I passed out, I didn't know and the next thing I know it was Bill Gigals next to me and he said "don't' worry, you'll be okay" and the medics came down because this guy came up and says "where's Lou"? He said "well he's coming right behind us" and the guy said, "goddamn it, did you guys leave him back there"? So he came down with the medic and they shot me full of morphine and stuff like that and I didn't know what happened and everything. I ended up in a doc hospital and I'm laying on a table and a guy said to me and, he was a major, said to me, he looked at me and said "oh you're a baseball player huh"? And I said, "How the hell did you know"? He says, "Well that's all you kept talking about while you were out". So he said, "you'll be okay, you won't lose your arm". But I got cuts right through in here and so they patched me up and they flew me to a hospital in the 79th general hospital and from there I went to the 90th in Reims for three months and then I came back. I came back to the outfit in May of or June of '45 and I was a special guard for General Eisenhower and then I left in December of '45. But in the meantime when I came back Seals told me he said "you're going to be really upset Lou", I said "why"? He said "remember that third battalion guys when you knocked down that machine-gun (that's the before in that town when I hit with a bazooka)". And he said "they put you in for a Silver Star", he says "guess who got the star for telling you to do what you did was Lieutenant Owens". So I came home. I found out the 508 stayed in Germany as a special guard for General Eisenhower and I left and I came home with the 82nd and marched down 5th Avenue and went to spring training with the Giants in '46 and played Wilsberg Minor Leagues and then Mont Mobile. But I knew at that point in time that I couldn't make it. My legs were giving out on me, but I never batted under 300. I played with Willy Marshal, Bobby Thompson, most of the guys that got hired into the international league and then in 1949 I decided to go back to school and get my degree in civil engineering and that was it.

Rick: What a story! "A Bridge Too Far" in the Netherlands and the "Battle of the Bulge"- did Hollywood get it right?

Louis: A lot of it was right, yeah.

Rick: So you were happy with the movie version of both battles?

Louis: Oh yeah, a lot of it was right, yeah a lot of it. You know they put all that stuff in there but a lot of it was you know is the combat you know when the guys get hit and just fall right next to you and die you know. We had more casualties I think in Holland than they had in Normandy. That was a fiasco. It was a thing that should never had happened and Eisenhower really should have said no to Montgomery at that point in time because it didn't shorten the war like they said, but that was it.

Rick: Interesting stories. Thanks so much for talking with us.

Louis: Well it took me some fifty years. In fact there's a book out, this book in here "Freedom" is a book I was telling you about, that was written by this gal, she died and in it it has all the stories of the guys that were in WWII and Korea and they got my story in here, too.

Rick: Is that book still available?

Louis: Well yeah that's still available but I was gonna give you a copy that I had for you to read and I lended it to another guy. He hasn't given it back to me.

Rick: I can get a copy. Thank you so much for coming today!