Germans repel attack, show mercy and spare American lives

As soon as we exited from a wood and started to cross a field the German machine guns raked our ranks. Many men fell wounded and killed. At that point the German tanks appeared, and shelling from both sides intensified, aggravated by machine gun fire.

At this point I was wounded and figured I had nothing to lose, so I shouted to the German machine gunners in German, "Stop firing! Most of us are already hit." 

And they stopped! Our wounded men walked as best they could down a dirt path to get away from the shelling. A badly hurt soldier, his face ashen gray, stopped, lay down by the side of the path and passed away. I later found out that this specific action cost us 34 dead and over 70 wounded.

Had the German gunners not stopped firing we would have had many more fatalities. I have always been grateful that they did so. During my time in combat I took many German soldiers prisoners and was glad I showed them consideration and respect because they sure reciprocated on that miserable morning in 1945.

Warning from above

Here's another experience from that monstrous war. At one point I hadn't slept properly for about five days, I'd only gotten a few cat naps and I was immensely tired. I saw a house that was still intact and thought maybe I could rest for a short while. But before going in there I decided to look into a air raid bunker where many German civilians had taken shelter.

There were a number of wounded civilians inside, including a woman whose infant was wounded. Evidently she had been running through an artillery barrage and shrapnel took off three of her baby's fingers, and the poor little thing had also lost an eye to shrapnel. 

The woman asked if I could help her so I flagged down one of our vehicles and took her to the battalion surgeon who dressed the infant's wounds, and removed the destroyed eye. I then returned the way I had come, went into the intact house I'd seen earlier and lay down on a bed in the corner of a room. 

I was in an extremely deep sleep when I felt what I perceived to be a hand on my chest trying to awaken me. The second time this occurred I awoke and went downstairs to see if one of our men had jolted me from my sleep. At that moment a German shell tore into the house. The bed I had laid upon a few moments before was a crumpled mess of twisted bed frame.

None of our men or any German had awakened me. There's never been any question in my mind that I would not have survived had I remained in that house. I always believed that the kind deed I extended to that poor woman and her child was repaid in kind by our God. I have hated war ever since that catastrophe of World War II and hope that all wars will someday cease.

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