Tony D'Arpino and Reuben Goldstein
Page 3
Tony D'Arpino: At Fort Jackson, South Carolina, when we were getting ready to go overseas, I had to go to the stockade every morning and pick up this kid named Aaron Durr. He was from Mississippi, couldn't read or write, and he had gone AWOL on furlough, stayed AWOL, and he went to this big city in Mississippi, I forget the name of it now, he used to there quite often I guess, in uniform, the stupid bastard, right, and the MPs around there, they get to know faces after a while, so anyway, they stopped him one time and said, "When is your furlough up?"
And Durr said, "I think it's just about up."
They court-martialed him, and they put him in the stockade at Jackson. And my duty in the morning was to go down and take him out so he could come with his tank crew and do the firing. And then I'd bring him back to the stockade, go back up and help clean guns and everything else, and then we'd eat. I said to Lieutenant Lombardi, "Who the hell's getting punished around here? All he does is get escorted up to the tank with us and does his firing, and then he goes back into his nice warm cell, and we've got to go back up there and clean these guns and then eat. Who the hell's getting punished"
Ruby Goldstein: We had a fellow one time, I can't remember his name, but we were lined up at Fort Jackson and Merrill, Clifford, he said something to us, and this guy opened his mouth, like somebody in the line, you wouldn't even know who said it, he opened his mouth, and everybody is looking straight ahead. And Merrill looked around and said, "Did you open your mouth? Did you?" He came to him, and he looked him right in the eye and he didn't answer.
Merrill had him dig, between the barracks, a six by six by six. He was a short guy. And he kept digging that hole, and digging that hole, and if you ever try that, you'll see how difficult it is. You dig that hole there, and he couldn't get out. He was a sick puppy. Just for opening his mouth. See, you're not supposed to be a smart ass. You listen. Keep your mouth shut. You're told to do something, no backtalk, you do it, right or wrong, whether you like it or not. Those are orders. Because if you don't obey orders, you have a big problem.
Tony D'Arpino: In our company, we had two kinds of punishment. One was to dig a six by six by six, and then the sergeant would throw a cigarette butt down there and say, "Now fill it in." That's if the weather was cool. If they weather was real hot, they'd make you go in and put on your Class A uniform and your overcoat, and your full field pack, and walk around the goddamn company area, like the mess hall and the day room, for two hours at a time, a ten minute break and then two more hours.
Aaron Elson: What was the transition like from training to combat?
Ruby Goldstein: If you recall, if you read in the books, wherever, in the history of the going across the channel, of D-Day, they had them before, they used to drop spies, for infiltration and so forth, but then when it came full force for D-Day, we were lined up if you recall, we were lined up and we had to wait for days. The roads were clogged up with vehicles and men. Then we'd go into a field and you'd be in a tent, on a cot in a tent, until you got word. So then gradually, it took a long time, and the skies were loaded with planes. In England, waiting our turn to board a ship.
Tony D'Arpino: When we went to England, we went to camp in Chiseldon. It was quonset hunts. And we get there, the bunks, I don't know about your company but in our company the bunks were all wood, handmade, upper and lower. Potbellied stove. And there was a mattress cover on each bunk. And they said, "Your mattress is out back, just take the cover out and fill it up." And you go out back, and there's a goddamn mountain of hay there, that was your mattress. You stuffed a mattress.
We were only there a short time, and then they wanted to make a hospital out of that, remember? And they moved us out in the field, on Sunday morning, they put us in trucks, and out in this field, these big cow turds, and the guy had the azimuth, the aiming circle, whatever the hell they call it, and we pitched tents. I forget, how many guys in a tent? Five or seven? Either one or two tank crews in a tent. And that's where we stayed, until we went across the channel.
You were talking about the first day in action. I remember that day, because I was trying to make a little joke about it, all this training you had and everything else, like I was the assistant driver, and an assistant driver in the States, his job was, before the tank driver started the tank, you had to go back and open up the engine compartment and stand there with a fire extinguisher. So the first thing I said, that first day in action, "You want me to open the engine compartment?"
Lieutenant Lombardi says, "Forget all that shit."
So now, we aren't in action, I don't know, three hours, and we hear Sergeant Schmidt in the second platoon, the tank commander's killed. They told him, "Don't ride the turret." And he was sitting on top of the turret. Sniped right between the eyes. He was the first casualty in the company.
I don't know if it was the next day or the day after, Captain Cary, who was our company commander, and he used to tell us, "Watch out for booby traps," he opened a gate or something, and it was boobytrapped and he got wounded, and he went off.
But I remember that first day of action. Then you start saying, "Hey, they're playing for real, this is no more games now." And you're saying to yourself, "I wonder who the hell is gonna be next." And you look around, you're saying, "It could be any one of us. Who knows?"
I never got wounded. The only thing I had, the first tank I was in hit mines. And the only thing that saved our lives was, just before we were going across, they had a little like a cow path, a dirt road there, at the beginning of the war there, right, and they were mined. So Lombardi C we had to go across-country, because the night before they shot everything they had at us. That meant one thing, either they were counterattacking or they were moving, they didn't want to take all this ammunition with them, they just shot off the ammunition and took off.
So we knew the area was mined. And I can still see like a cow pasture, with a gate, and it was open. Lombardi figured we can go through that gate. And I don't know what made him do it, but just before we got to the gate, I was the assistant driver, and this guy named Cardis Sawyer from Texas was the driver. Klapkowski was the gonner, and Grayson LaMar was the loader. Just before we got to the gate, Lombardi told Sawyer to stop, and he said, "Open hatches." And we all opened our hatches. Then he said, "Proceed through the gate."
Well, that's the last thing I remember for a while, because, "Boom!" Shit was flying all over the place. My helmet was gone. I could feel something hot running down my left leg, I thought my leg was blown off.
The three guys in the turret, they got right out. Sawyer and I stayed in the tank, and I was stone deaf. And I looked down, when the stuff cleared and I looked down, the transmission had a crack in it, and the hot oil was running down my pant leg and inside my shoe, and that's what I was feeling hot.
So Sawyer and I had enough to sense that we got out. When we got out, I climbed on top of the turret and went down and stepped on the tank track.
There was an aid station that had just been set up a couple of days before down the road. So Sawyer and I went down there. Sawyer went in first. I heard him scream. I said, "The hell with this!" I was stone deaf. I went back to the tank. I never saw Sawyer again.
Then I had this constant ringing in my ears. [With Sawyer gone], they made me a driver. I told Lombardi, "You know, you ought to keep me out of that driver's seat." I'm just a Pfc. I said, "I want to stay in the tank, but give me another job, because I can't hear. You might tell me to stop and I'll keep on going, and get everybody killed."
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Contents
Chapter 6, Tiger
Burning