Easy reached the railroad line and set up another defensive position. The word came to expect German armor. Lipton put Tipper and his bazooka on the bank, with no line of retreat possible: a do-or-die situation.
”Tipper,” Lipton whispered, “we’re depending on you. Don’t miss.”
”I won’t.”
Tipper soon had a problem. His ammunition carrier, Pvt. Joe Ramirez, seemed awfully nervous. “We’ll be O.K., Joe,” Tipper told him. “Just be sure you have two bazooka rounds ready to go, with absolutely no time lost, not a fraction of a second.” Ramirez went back and returned with two bazooka rounds, stumbling and crashing around. To Tipper’s horror, he said he had removed the pins (with the safety pin gone, an armed bazooka rocket would explode if dropped from two or three feet).
”Stick those pins back in,” Tipper whispered. “I’ll tell you when I want them out.”
”I don’t know where they are,” Ramirez answered, holding the rounds stiffly out away from his body. “I tossed them away.”
”Good God Almighty! Find them.” Ramirez could not. Tipper got down on his hands and knees to help look. They found the pins. Ramirez’s arms were twitching as Tipper carefully reinserted the pins.
”When the disarming was accomplished,” Tipper said, “Joe calmed down and his twitching stopped. Mine started at that point.”
Source:
Ambrose, Stephen Edward. “Move Out!” Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004. 93-94. Print.
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