Into the Bag ...

U.S. Army Photo (PD)

Miller, who was watching the rear, hissed at Ferguson, "Fergie, someone's coming."

"Challenge them, dumbass!"

Miller called out, "Spring!"

He heard the response, "Chicken."

"Is that you. McCoy?" Miller thought he recognized the voice.

"Yeah, me and Johansen, we've also got two Kraut prisoners."

Ferguson turned at that, "Stay where you're at, Will. We're coming to you."

"Something is going on out there, Oberfel." Hartstein was ready to fire, in fact, he was itching to fire. He loved being on the MG-42.

Streicher listened, "Sounds like the Amis might be pulling out ..."

"Do I fire?"

"No, let them go. We need to think about leaving as well, I think our supports are all gone. That firing we heard earlier, just an Ami weapon, there was no return fire. I think the CP¹ is gone."

"Let me give 'em a burst, a going away present."

"Are you determined to give away our position, Kurt? Pull that trigger and I'll shoot you myself."

Hartstein sighed, "You're no fun at all, Oberfel."

MacIlroy had finally stopped running. He was hiding in a ditch by the roadside next to yet another hedgerow. The shaking had stopped, as he gathered his wits about him, the enormity of what he'd done began to make an impression on him.

He had run in terror after seeing one of his men cut down by the Germans, it had been more than he could bear. But now that the night was quiet once more, he realized that he may well have killed himself through his actions.

I mean, they shot deserters, right? He knew that technically he wasn't a deserter, yet, if he went back though, they could still have him shot for running like that.

"What the hell was I thinking?" MacIlroy asked himself, out loud.

Ferguson had a look at the two prisoners, there wasn't much light to see by so he couldn't make out any details about the men. One looked to be an officer by the cut of his uniform, the other, due to the baggy smock he was wearing and the cut-down helmet was a paratrooper. Any other details than that would have to wait until they returned to their unit.

"Alright, move 'em out, we need to get back before the lieutenant thinks we're all dead and gone."

Miller spoke up, "Shouldn't we wait for first light, Corporal?"

"Nope, we go now."

"Did you get Biscayne's dog tags?" McCoy asked, as he held out something which made a metallic jingling sound as he held them out.

"Those belong to Smitty and Jed?" Ferguson asked.

"Yup, we left them near where we grabbed these Krauts. Graves Registration can claim them later."

"We're ... we're just gonna leave 'em?" Johansen asked, his voice shaky.

"We sure as hell ain't gonna lug 'em back to the lines. We've got enough on our plate with these two Krauts. Besides, look around, there are only seven of us left, and Ted is a little banged up." Ferguson waited for a response.

"Okay, I thought so. Now, let's move, no more jabbering."

Oster stumbled along behind Möller, both of them had their hands clasped behind their heads, fingers interlinked. The Amis had pulled their tunics open, looking for weapons he presumed and neither man had his headgear. Möller's helmet had been tossed into the dark, his own soft cap had gone into an Ami kit bag.

He hadn't let on that he spoke English, he knew Möller had a smattering of French and some Russian soldier slang, mostly obscenities, but no English that he knew of. The Americans didn't seem to be in a hurry to question them anyway. Though they were in a hurry to get away from the scene of the firefight which had cost them three killed.

He almost fell as one of the Americans shoved him roughly from behind, "Move it you Nazi bastards."

Möller cried out as one of the Amis lunged at him with his rifle, pricking the German medic with the affixed bayonet.

He acted like he didn't understand when one of the Americans told the others to "knock it off." Good, at least we might make it to a prisoner camp alive.

2nd Lieutenant Holbein looked up as Ferguson came into the CP.

"Where's MacIlroy?"

"I dunno, Sir. He lost it and ran off, we've also got three KIA."

Holbein rubbed his face with both hands and muttered, "Damn it."

"Um, Sir?"

"Yeah, Ferguson, what is it?"

"We did nab two Germans, but ..."

"But what? I asked for a prisoner and you bring me two, what's the 'but' all about?"

"One's a chaplain, the other is a medic, they ain't combat troops, Sir."

Holbein thought for a moment, chaplains and medics tended to be smarter than your average dough, these guys might actually be a treasure trove. "Bring me the chaplain. Get your boys some chow and have a runner go get the Captain, he'll want to know about this."

"Copy that, Sir."

"Oh, Corporal, good job by the way."

Ferguson nodded, then shook his head. "If'n you say so, Sir."

"I do, now get moving."

"Sir."

¹ Command post

Entropy

Source

MacIlroy sat there as the sky darkened, night was falling and he had no idea what to do next. He felt detached from it all, as if he were outside his body watching as events unfolded.

Ferguson nudged him, "Mac, we need a plan."

MacIlroy looked up as Ginn and Jackson came stumbling back to join the others. They were dragging something, MacIlroy looked hard to see what it was.

It was Biscayne's corpse.

"Shit."

With that one word, MacIlroy began to tremble. Tears were running down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Norm. I'm sorry I got you killed."

Ferguson threw a look at the others, he gestured with his head for them to fall back on the BAR team. Ginn looked at him with a question on his face.

"Yeah, take Norm."

Ferguson considered his options, MacIlroy was out of it. He sat on the ground, hugging himself and rocking back and forth, his body racked with sobs.

He grabbed MacIlroy by his sleeve, "Come on Mac, let's get you out of here."

Kirche stared into the gathering dark, "I think they quit."

"And why would they do that, Junge?" Streicher asked.

Before Kirche could answer, Hartstein fired a short burst in the direction of the opening to the field. If the Amis had been unsure of their position, there would be no doubt now. The string of tracers pointed right back at them.

"Are you insane?" Streicher grabbed Hartstein's arm. The corporal shook him off.

"Listen."

From the direction of where he'd fired, a man was screaming in agony.

The stream of tracers had lit them all up as if someone had turned on a light. The men froze, the Germans had to be firing blind, but ...

The two men dragging Biscayne's body were both hit. Jackson went down hard, the burst had caught him full in the torso. Ginn was also hit, but not as badly.

MacIlroy screamed, threw his rifle into the dark, then starting running.

"Mac! What the hell?" Ferguson screamed after his fleeing squad leader.

Ginn got to his feet, he was hit, but it didn't seem too bad. Jackson, on the other hand, wasn't moving, what Ginn could see of him in the twilight wasn't good, there was blood everywhere.

Ferguson realized it was him in charge now, Mac had broken, completely.

All of them were new to combat, their outfit had come ashore on D + 4. From what he could see, it was down to him and four other men, one of whom, Ginn, was wounded.

"Alright, everybody down and stay down. Ted, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think so, I think a piece of Jackson's gear hit me when he was hit. It just kinda flew off of him, he's all messed up."

Ferguson checked, Jackson had no pulse, in fact, he had no left arm either. The burst from the German machine gun had literally torn Jackson apart.

McCoy listened, he had heard the German gun open up, heard screaming, then nothing. There had been no return fire that he could tell. He had rejoined with Johansen.

"I think I got one of them." Johansen said.

McCoy doubted it, but said, "Well, you fired off an entire magazine, maybe one out of those rounds hit something. Man, you've got to control your fire, don't keep jerking the trigger until the clip comes out. Didn't you learn anything on the range?"

Before Johansen could answer, McCoy heard something. Someone was moaning, not that far away either.

Schimmelpfennig was rolling back and forth on the ground, clutching his abdomen.

"Make me better, Hans, it hurts like hell."

A round had hit Schimmelpfennig in the small of the back, dropping him like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Möller pulled out his lamp, he always had the red lens rotated in as he didn't really need the light in the day and at night the red didn't show much at a distance. Unfortunately, he couldn't really see blood with it unless there was a lot of it.

He could see that Schimmelpfennig was bleeding badly.

Handing the lamp to Oster, he said, "Father, please hold this."

As Oster held the light for Möller, he could see that the wounded man had almost no chance at all. The bullet had gone in leaving a small hole, it had hit something inside Schimmelpfennig's body and fragmented, there were numerous exit wounds, all bleeding profusely, in the man's belly. He didn't have long.

Schimmelpfennig reached out and grabbed Oster's hand, "Pray for me, Father."

"I am son. Do you believe in God?"

"I don't know, I never really thought about it."

"If you accept Christ as your Savior, then you need not worry, Horst."

Schimmelpfennig coughed, Oster saw blood on his lips, "Isn't it too late for that, Father? I grew up under Hitler, we never went to church ... I ... I ..."

A shiver went through Schimmelpfennig's body and he gasped in pain, "Jesus, Hans, are you trying to tear my guts out?"

Oster glanced at the medic, he couldn't stop the bleeding, as hard as he tried,  Schimmelpfennig was just hurt too bad.

"There isn't much time, my son. Would you like to confess your sins to me?"

"Yes, yes, I've killed many men Father, I've never been to church ... Oh man, I don't want to die ..."

"Easy my son, do you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, do you renounce Satan and all his works?"

"Yes, Father, please, I don't want to ..."

Möller sat back and began to cry as Oster gave Schimmelpfennig the Last Rites.

Oster crossed himself and looked at Möller, "You did all you could, Hans, he was hurt too badly for you to save his body."

"Did you save his soul, Father? Was that enough?"

Before Oster could answer a voice cried out, "Hands up you f**king Nazi bastards. Don't f**king move."

McCoy and Johansen had found the medic and the priest.

Survivors

German Chaplain on the right, note the cross he's wearing.
Source

"Father, when the sun goes down, can we bury these bodies?" Hans Möller nodded at the two dead Americans and the body of their acting company commander.

Oster stared at the Sanitäter for a moment, knowing that the man had tried to save the lives of two of those three dead men, and had failed. He wondered what that must feel like. Then it struck him, he thought of all the souls he'd tried to save in Russia. He had failed many times, so badly that he'd broken down. His award of the Bavarian Military Merit Cross in the Great War saved him. The Army had shipped him back to Germany for home leave rather than placing him in a disciplinary battalion.

"I think not, Hans. I'm sure the Amis will try a push once it gets dark. Unless the machine gun position in the field over there draws most of their attention," he nodded towards the hedgerow-surrounded field to their right, "I heard grenades and Ami rifle fire. But that all stopped after our MG-42 spoke up."

Schimmelpfennig spoke up, "You seem to know a lot abut war Father. How is this possible?"

Oster looked at the Obergefreiter and said, "I wasn't always a priest. I was drafted into the Bavarian Army in 1916, at the age of 16. I spent two years in the trenches and saw my share of fighting. After the war, I decided to go to seminary. I had seen enough hate and killing. Then of course, this war came along."

"Surely you weren't drafted this time?" Möller asked.

"No, my son. I volunteered."

McCoy looked in the direction Johansen had gone, he saw him, he had a good position behind some piece of abandoned farm equipment. Johansen looked over and nodded.

McCoy checked his watch, it would be dark in an hour or so. The Germans to their front had been awfully quiet, they hadn't returned fire and he swore that he'd hit one of them. So, do we wait until nightfall and rejoin the squad? Or do we close on those Germans and maybe toss a couple of grenades their way?

He looked over at Johansen, who was again looking in McCoy's direction. McCoy tapped his watch, meaning "we wait." At least he hoped Johansen got the message.

Sergeant MacIlroy considered his options, he had three men with him - Miller, Jackson, and Ginn. Ferguson was with the BAR team, McCoy and Johansen were outside his control. The patrol was turning into a mess, he had one dead, probably three for he assumed that Smitty and Hudson had been killed, at best they were missing.

Miller low crawled to him, "Mac, Biscayne is dead, Ginn is pretty rattled, and we've got a f**king MG-42 out there. They can't move but neither can we, at least not forward."

MacIlroy nodded, "We wait for night then, pull back and see what we've got. This prisoner snatch is starting to turn into a complete fiasco. I'm not losing any more guys to satisfy battalion's curiosity."

"You could lose your stripes for this Mac."

"Right now, I've got one, maybe three letters to write. They can have my f**king stripes."

"You were a Landser¹ in the Great War?" Möller sounded surprised.

"Yes. I actually won the Military Merit Cross as well. It's the equivalent of the Iron Cross 2nd Class."

"How'd you get that, Father?" Schimmelpfennig asked from his position watching for the Americans who had killed Mannheim.

"I captured a French machine gun position."

"By yourself?"

"Well, we started out with five men, we were supposed to bring back a prisoner. We happened upon these five Frenchmen in a machine gun position. They killed four of us, we killed all of them. I suppose I got the medal to encourage the other men. The war was going badly, there was a lot of talk of revolution in the ranks."

Schimmelpfennig made a rude noise, "Huh, a medal for surviving, I've got one of those as well. The Frozen Meat Medal² for surviving the winter of '41-'42 in Russia."

"I have that as well." Oster said quietly.

"You were there?" Schimmelpfennig asked, his voice taking on a tone of respect.

"Yes, my son. With Army Group North, almost made it to Leningrad before my morale broke. I held out until spring, then the Army sent me home. My 'survivor medal,' as you call it, saved me from going to a penal battalion, or worse."

"Damn. Uh, beg your pardon, Father." Möller was impressed. He had a childhood friend break in combat in 1943, he'd gone to a penal battalion in the East, where he'd been promptly killed in action.

"Hey, I think the Amis are moving." Schimmelpfennig said.

Moments later a grenade exploded just outside their position.

"Horst, we need to move, and fast. The next grenade ..."

"Right, let's go, keep your heads down and sprint for all your worth to the tree line to our rear."

Johansen opened fire, McCoy wondered why, then he saw three Germans break from cover. They were running like mad for the trees to the east.

"Nick, hold your fire. You're just wasting ammo. Where the hell did you learn to shoot anyway? You stink as a marksmen."

Johansen's face went red, "Yeah, I barely qualified. The drill sergeant said it didn't matter, I'd get killed anyway regardless of how well I could shoot."

"Nice guy."

"Nah Will, he was a prick."

McCoy shook his head, Johansen couldn't shoot and he didn't recognize sarcasm.

MacIlroy and the men with him rejoined with the BAR team and Ferguson. They all heard the shooting.

"That's a Garand." Ferguson offered.

"No return fire. Maybe McCoy got his Krauts to run."

"What are we going to do about our Krauts?" Ferguson asked.

"I don't know, you got any ideas which don't involve someone getting killed?"

"Nope, sorry Mac, this is your call, you wear the stripes."

¹ German term for an infantryman, similar to "grunt" in English.

² The Medaille Winterschlacht im Osten 1941/42 (Medal for the winter battles in the East 1941/42), also known as the Ostmedaille (East Medal), awarded to any soldier who served on the Eastern Front from 15 November 1941 to 15 April 1942.

Die Löwen von Carentan¹

Source

Obergefreiter Horst Schimmelpfennig² listened to his sergeant berate the priest. He wasn't much of a church-going man himself, but his parents had been devout Catholics. He was uncomfortable with the lack of respect Mannheim was showing for the man of God.

He was watching the sector from whence the dead Americans had come, he had been surprised when the two men had stumbled into their position. Only his quick reflexes had saved them. He had been half-asleep when it had happened, his time on the Eastern Front had no doubt guided his hand when opened fire with his MP-40.

He lowered himself even further when he saw something move out there.

"Cover." Schimmelpfennig hissed at the three men behind him.

"Nick, get down." McCoy had seen the German just before he'd ducked down.

"Krauts?"

"Yup, at least one. He was eyeballing this sector when he spotted us. If he'd kept still I woulda never seen him. But he's there all right. I'm guessing Smitty and Jed are there too."

"You saw them?" Nick Johansen asked with a certain amount of surprise in his voice.

McCoy looked back at the man, "Smitty and Jed came this way, we heard firing, probably an MP-40, there's Germans ahead. I'm betting that our lost boys are somewhere between us and the Krauts. Probably dead or hurt real bad."

"Whadda we do?"

"Sit tight for the moment. They've got us pinned, we've got them pinned. Nobody is going anywhere, which is probably good for Mac and the boys with him. I'm gonna fire a few rounds at where I saw the Kraut, soon as I do, you move to your right ten yards or so out. I'm gonna move the other way. Find a spot where you can see that thrown up dirt up there. See it?"

Johansen stared for a moment, "Yup, looks like it's got overhead cover as well. Ready when you are."

McCoy aimed his Garand and squeezed off three quick rounds. On the third he was rolling to his left, Johansen to the right.

"Gottverdammt!"

Schimmelpfennig couldn't believe his eyes. After telling everyone to get down, Mannheim had foolishly poked his head up just as the Americans opened fire. Mannheim was at the bottom of the entrenchment, his hands to his throat. The Sani, Hans Möller was trying to treat the wound, to no avail.

"Damn it, Oberfel, move your damned hands! Help me, Vater!"

Father Oster leaned in and pulled Mannheim's hands away from the wound. Möller managed to get a dressing on Mannheim's bullet-torn throat, but he knew it was probably useless.

"Stay with me, Oberfel. Stay ..."

Next to him Father Oster was praying, when Möller heard the old Latin phrase, "et Spiritu Sancti, he realized that the priest was giving Mannheim the Last Rites.

"What the hell is going on back there?" Schimmelpfennig hissed as he kept his eyes to the front. He'd fired off a few rounds but then stopped as he realized the men out there were moving in two different directions. But he was sure that there were only two men out there.

He knew the size of an American squad, twelve men. Two out there, two lying dead inside his position, so where were the other eight?

Ferguson braced his weapon, then fired a rifle grenade in the direction of the enemy emplacement. He'd heard firing off to his right, but he had to focus on his job here. McCoy and Johansen needed to watch their own butts for the moment.

When the grenade exploded, the squad burst into action. As Cohen's BAR began to chatter,  laying down suppressive fire, MacIlroy led Miller, Jackson, Ginn, and Biscayne on a fast, low crouching dash into the field defended by the German position. Ferguson popped another rifle grenade for good measure.

Just before reaching cover, the German machine gun opened up. It's low-throated ripping thunder seemed to fill the air around them. As quickly as it started, it stopped.

"Everyone okay?" MacIlroy yelled out.

Before anyone answered, someone moaned, "F**k, I'm hit Sarge, hit bad." Followed by a series of wet coughs, then silence.

"Who the f**k was that? Sound off!"

"Miller!"

"Jackson!"

"Ginn!"

Silence.

Ginn had slipped back in the direction they'd come from. He found Biscayne, the man's trousers were soaked in blood and his uniform, and body, were torn up from his navel down to his feet.

"Sarge! Biscayne's had it, he's f**king dead Sarge!"

MacIlroy recognized Ginn's voice, "Take it easy, Ted. Are you sure he's dead?"

Ginn was trembling, his hands were soaked with Biscayne's blood. "He ain't breathin' Sarge, he's torn up real bad from the belly on down. His eyes are open, but he ain't seein' nothing!"

MacIlroy dropped his head into the turf, "Shit, now what do I do?"

"Put pressure on it." Hartstein yelled at his assistant gunner as he tried to tend to Streicher's wound. A grenade fragment had torn Streicher's belly open, the second grenade the Ami had fired had hit a tree branch overhanging their position and burst in the air overhead.

"I'm okay, it's not as bad as it looks. Give me the dressing, get back on the gun, Hans."

Kirche did as he was told, leaving the sergeant to finish binding up his wound. Streicher grimaced as he put pressure on where he'd been hit. He'd pulled his tunic open to check his wound almost immediately after falling to the ground. The pain had been intense.

The fragment had gone down into his lower abdomen, leaving a nasty hole in his tunic and another in his shirt. The wound was bloody but he'd managed to pull the jagged fragment out with his fingers. Wasn't steel, was actually wood, part of the tree over them. A few centimeters one way and it would have missed him, a few the other way, and he'd be singing soprano.

A stalemate settled over the field as the Americans were leery of advancing and the Germans weren't sure what they up against. Each side waited for the other to make a move.

For the moment, silence reigned. 

¹ The Lions of Carentan, a sobriquet applied to the German 6. Fallschirmjägerregiment during the Normandy campaign.

² The Germans. On the machine gun: Feldwebel Manfred Streicher - MG 42 Team Leader, Gefreiter Kurt Hartstein - MG-42 gunner, and Schütze Hans Kirche - assistant MG-42 gunner. In the command post: Heereshilfspfarrer Gerd Oster - German Army Chaplain, Oberfeldwebel Georg Mannheim - acting company commander, Obergefreiter Horst Schimmelpfennig - MP-40 gunner, the man who killed Smith and Hudson, and Flieger Hans Möller - medic (Sanitäter in German). (Yes, I should have identified them yesterday. Es tut mir Leid.

Last Rites

U.S. Army Photo (PD)

The last thing Smitty remembered was when he and Hudson had stumbled into a German command post. The Germans had been sleeping, all but one man whose eyes widened when the two Americans appeared right in front of him.

Smitty had regained consciousness hearing strange voices, German voices.

"Er hat viel Blut verloren, Vater.¹"

"Gibt es Hoffnung?²"

The German medic had managed to staunch the bleeding, but the American had lost a lot of blood. If he could get the man to a field hospital, he would stand a slim chance. But here? In the field? He looked at the chaplain and shook his head.

Smitty saw that he was being treated by a German medic ... Where was Hudson? He looked around, jerking his head from one side to the other.

"Easy, my son, rest easy."

There, near the lip of the entrenchment he and Hudson had blindly walked into, a man in an American uniform, his chest a torn and bloody mess.

Smitty tried to reach out to his buddy and managed to croak, "Jed ...?"

Gently, the man who had spoken to him in heavily accented, but very clear English, pushed Smitty's hand down.

"Your comrade is dead, I'm afraid. I am, sorry."

Smitty blinked back tears, "Dead?"

The man's next words surprised Smitty, "Do you believe in God, my son?"

Smitty now focused on the man talking to him, some sort of officer from the uniform. Then he noticed, on the man's soft cap, there was an ornate cross underneath the standard German Army eagle clutching a swastika. Smitty thought how incongruous that was, then the pain hit him. He understood the man's question now.

"Are you a priest? Sir."

"Yes, my son. Are you Catholic?"

Smitty nodded, "Yes, Father."

Smitty glanced again at Hudson's body, the German said, "He's dead, my son. Was he a friend?"

"The best, Father, the best. What am I gonna tell his mother?"

Father Gerd Oster shook his head, "Don't worry about that for the moment, my son."

MacIlroy was chewing his lower lip, something he did when he was at a loss for what to do next. He'd heard the yelling, a short burst of automatic weapon fire, then nothing. Had Smith and Judson run into trouble? The weapon sounded like an MP-40, he'd heard no return fire. Damn it.

Ferguson, in the meantime, had kept the field under observation, he'd heard the fire as well, but stayed focused on the task at hand. In doing so, he caught a flash of movement, a face turning towards the sound of the firing. On the opposite side of the field from the position Smith and Hudson had been moving on. A dummy? He fell back to tell his sergeant.

MacIlroy looked at Ferguson, momentarily nonplussed, then Ferguson spoke.

"Mac, there are Krauts on the other side of the field, I think the position I saw before was a dummy, a ruse."

MacIlroy shook himself, he was slightly amused at Ferguson using the word "ruse," most of the men would have called it a decoy or something else. He remembered that Ferguson was an ASTP³ boy, a smart one at that.

"Okay, okay, take Miller and Jackson up to where you were, I'll have Cohen and Robinson set up to lay down fire on the Kraut position." Turning he looked at Private Will McCoy, kid was sharp and a good soldier.

"Will, I want you, Ginn, and Biscayne to work your way up to the left of that opening. Johansen, you're with me. I want to check on Smitty and Jed."

McCoy cleared his throat, "Bad idea, Sarge. Let me go with Nick to check on Smitty and Jed. You should stay here, you take Teddy and Norm. You lead the attack, 'cause I know that's what you have in mind."

MacIlroy looked at McCoy for a long moment, then Ferguson spoke in his ear. "He's right Mac, Smitty and Jed are of secondary importance now. You need to lead here, now."

MacIlroy sighed and looked at the ground, "You're both right, Will, go find Smitty and Jed. The rest of us, let's go."⁴

Streicher pulled Kirche back down as he had jumped and turned at the sound of the firing from not too far off. "Quit bouncing around. We know the Amis are out there, if you move, they might spot you. Dumb ass."

Hartstein muttered, "Too late, the bastards are maneuvering, I think our decoy has been blown."

Streicher took a quick look through his glasses, "Damn it, I think you're right. Get ready Männer, we're about to have company."

"Well, Heereshilfspfarrer⁵ Oster, are you planning on saying a Mass for these dead Amis? There are live ones out there, you should head back to the rear." The senior sergeant sneered as he said that.

Father Oster knew that Oberfeldwebel Georg Mannheim was a Party member. Odd for a paratrooper, but the Luftwaffe had always been politically savvy. He looked down at the dead American once more. The boy had died worrying about his friend's family.

Now there were two families in the United States who would be receiving the news of the loss of their sons.

The boy's last words had been, "How can you serve that bastard Hitler, Father?"

Before Oster could answer, the young American was dead.

The boy's question was one he'd been asking himself a lot lately.

Indeed, how could he serve both God and the Third Reich?

¹ He's lost a lot of blood, Father."

² Is there any hope?

³ Army Specialized Training Program, see this.

⁴ The members of the squad are: Sergeant Ian MacIlroy - Squad Leader, Corporal Bruce Ferguson - Grenadier and Assistant Squad Leader, PFC Julius Cohen - BAR man, Private Bob Robinson - Assistant BAR man, Private First Class Jacob Smith - Rifleman, Private Jedediah Hudson - Rifleman, Private Herb Miller - Rifleman, Private Melvin Jackson - Rifleman, Private Nick Johansen - Rifleman, Private Will McCoy - Rifleman, Private Ted Ginn - Rifleman, and Private Norman Biscayne - Rifleman

⁵ Army chaplain