Sgt. “Chuck” Grant, an original Toccoa man, was a smiling, athletic, fair-haired Californian who was universally respected – he had knocked out an 88 in Holland – and liked. One night he was driving a couple of privates to a roadblock for a changing of the guard. As they arrived, they saw a commotion.
A drunken G.I. was standing with a pistol in his hand, two dead Germans at his feet. He had stopped them in their vehicle and demanded gasoline, as he was out. But he had no German, they had no English, he concluded they were resisting, and shot them.
A British major from military intelligence happened to have been driving by. He and his sergeant got out of their jeep to see what was going on. The drunken G.I. pointed his pistol at them and told them to back off.
At that moment, Grand came driving past. The drunk took a shot at him, but missed. The major made a move to disarm the man. The G.I. turned on him and shot him dead, then his sergeant. Grant came running over; the drunk shot him in the brain, then ran off.
Speirs thought the world of Grant. When he heard of the shooting, he and Lieutenant Foley jumped in a jeep, drove to the site, got Grant on a stretcher, and roared off for the regimental aid station. The doctor there was a disgrace, unshaven, unkempt, wearing a badly stained shirt. He took a quick look at Grant and said there was “no hope.”
”Bull shit,” said Speirs, who put Grant back on the stretcher and roared off again, this time for Saalfelden. Speirs had heard there were some German specialists there. One of them was a brain specialist from Berlin. He operated immediately and saved Grant’s life.
Word of the shooting flashed through the billets. E Company went out en masse to find the culprit. He was found trying to rape an Austrian girl in Zell am See. He was a recent replacement in Company I. To the expressed disgust of many of the men, he was brought back to company HQ alive.
He almost wished he hadn’t been. Half the company was milling around him, threatening, kicking, swearing vengeance. Before anything more serious happened, Captain Speirs came rushing in, straight from the hospital.
”Where’s the weapon?” Speirs shouted at the prisoner.
”What weapon?”
Speirs pulled his pistol, reversed his grip to hold it by the barrel, and hit the man right in the temple with the butt. He started screaming, “When you talk to an officer, you say ‘Sir,’” and hit him again.
The G.I. slumped into a chair, stunned. Pvt. Hack Hansen from Grant’s 2d platoon, and a close buddy, came running in. He whipped out his pistol. “You son of a bitch,” he cursed. “I’ve killed better men than you.” He put his pistol right in the man’s face. Four men grabbed Hansen from behind and tried to pull him away, shouting that death was too good for such a coward, but he pulled the trigger. The pistol misfired.
”You ought to have seen the look of that guy,” Gordon Carson remarked.
They beat him unconscious, then carried him to the regimental guardhouse and turned him over to the provost sergeant. When he revived, the provost sergeant beat him until the blood ran.
Sink came to company HQ. He strode in and asked Sergeant Carson, “Where’s Speirs?”
”Up on the second floor, sir.”
Sink went up and got the facts from Speirs. It took the better part of an hour. Sink left, and Speirs came down.
”How’d it go?” Carson asked.
”Pretty rough.”
”Well, what did he say?”
”He said I should have shot the son of a bitch.”
That he did not is remarkable.
[…]
Almost every man in that room had killed. Their blood was up. Their anger was deep and cold. But what stands out in the incident is not the pistol whipping and beatings, but the restraint.
They had had enough of killing.
Source:
Ambrose, Stephen Edward. “The Soldier’s Dream Life.” Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004. 284-86. Print.
Further Reading:
No comments, yet...