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| Experiences of Sam Howard Headquarters & Service Battery 907th GFA 101st Airborne Division |
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| Henry "Hank" Keith, Sam Howard & Hank's Wife. Summer of 1999 |
| I told you we had a liason group for each battalion. Well apparently they thought these guys were regulars, that that's was all they did, and carried their ranks along with them for what they did. Well they made up this Fourth Liason group and this was to be a relief outfit. So that turned out to be Lt Ingersol and me and a driver. I think at one time there was a guy named Doctor and Bochvich he might of been with us at times and also maybe Steve Becky, I'm not too sure who went along with us. But most regularlly it was Ingersol and myself. Ingersol was a... Ah... he was an alright guy, alittle bit older then me, course I was only 19 at the time. he was alright, eat anything, we got along that way. Anyway, a day or two after the Church. We went up and took over the depot where I was at the first time. And there was a tank up there shot-out, so crawled up on to look down in it... and here's 3 or 4 guys down there, burnt, burnt to a crisp, I mean they looked like people you would make out of coat hangers or something... that was about all that was left of em. Pretty sad sight! Now I had heard, you had talked about those tanks, 88's, and sand dunes and what knot. But I heard that 6 tanks went after this one German Tiger, he knocked out 3 or 4 of em and got away. They had SUPER Amourment on those Tiger tanks and they had those 88's howitzer, which was better then anything we had... it was a SUPER GUN and scared everybody outta they're shoes, I'll Guarntee ya!! You can kinda take on and judge some of that other artillery, but those 88's were just ALMOST like a guy shootin a rifle at ya, they were something else!!! |
| Under Construction |
| Page #3 Holland Con't MARKET-GARDEN Under Construction |
| Page created on March 29 2002 Updated March 30 2002 |
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| We were probably 50 to 100 yards behind what would be called the front lines which was on the other side of this railroad tracks, right along side this station. Now Holland is very, atleast the part we were in, but across were the Germans were at was kinda hilly, naturally they could set up there and look down on us! Seemed like that's the way we usaually were when we were in a fight, at a disadvantage as far as seeing the enemy, they had a better sight on us, I guess the defense quit often had that privledge. This one day we were up there, the Battalion Commander from the 501 was there, he was a LTC, I forget his name, but the guys from the 501 told me he was a real Blood & Guts kinda guy, and Tuff! He was from Virginia, and he spoke with that ol' slow drawl. Anyway, they were carrying these... body's of our guys out of there on litters because the Infantry was taking a pretty good pounding up the way there. So he made a comment to the men, "Well, Boys it's your first trip in war, what'd ya think about it?" I says, "Well... pretty bad stuff!" And I says ah... "I got one question sir...?" He says, "what's that?" I says, "All I've seen is our dead boys, didn't we killed any of them?" He said,"You haven't seen any dead Germans?" And I won't try to immitate his speach, it probably took hom 5 minutes to say that! but uh... and mines got an up drawl to it! He said, "You go up this railroad track through the ditch to the next crossing..." and you could see it, it wasn't all that far... "And then cross over and come back down the other side and report to me! But don't go behind that next crossing!" I says, "Gottch ya." So I go up there and those ditches were full of dead Germans, just one after another, alll up and back. So when I got back, I told him... I says, "Ya we did get a few of theirs." He said, "We'd get our share!" Now these guys told me that jumped with him in Normandy, that he gave em their talk before they left. He said,"When you hit that ground in Normandy, the first one on the ground will be me... and any one you Son's a-bitch's that ride this airplane back to England... yer gonna answer ta me! I want you out that door and on the ground with me fightin!" It kinda like one of those John Wayne type things, but he was for real! Anyway we were out there, me and the radio, him and my Lieutenant and the other guys were in that train station, probably in the basement if it had one! And we're gettin shelled pretty good.. I mean their rippin on us pretty heavy! And he turns to me and he says, "Boy, where's your Lieutenant?" I said, "that he's in that station somewhere." he said, "get him and get him out here now!" I said, "Yes sir!" So I went in and yelled at ol' Ingersol and told him to get out there that the LTC wanted him! He got on him, he said, "I've had just about enough of this Shit, I want some artillery fire in there and I want it in there now, and I want this attack stopped!" |
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| RWD pg 363 Windmill and knocked-out British Sherman tank in Eerde, 24 September 1944. |
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| RWD Map 52 pg 364 |
| You asked about Lt Gerald Taylor, he was our FO, which the forward observer is right there with the Infantry guys and he was doin the firing. I called it in there and Taylor called in these air bursts that I'm tellin you were absolutly purfect! They were maybe 20- 25 feet off the ground, all twelve guns fired and I'm tellin you that put a stop to that German attack right then! It was something to behold! Lt Taylor was a good abserver. Some of them weren't, they didn't hit what they were shootin at always. But Lt. Taylor was good. We were there one day, and of course food was something. I saw these chickens... I says to Lt Ingersol, "Let's kill us one of them chicken's and fry it up! Taste better then this cheese and crackers!' So we went over there, and I was tryin to shoot at em with that rifle... and I couldn't hit one. So he final took a club, or maybe I did... so we killed this chicken, it could of 20 years old for all I know! We fried it up the best we could, the other two guys wouldn't eat any of it... probably half raw. But ol Ingersol and me, we ate it all and felt pretty good about it too! |
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| Photo from "KILOGRAM" |
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| Normandy 1994 |