Hurtgen Forest, Germany
I thought our company commander and captain, Captain Harold M. Pitt, reminded me of John Wayne, which I
consider a compliment. He looked like he weighed 35 pounds and was extremely
tall. Maybe it was his weight which I remembered most. He lived mostly on coffee
and vitamin pills. His constant companion was his little portable stove which he
took from a German officer. A few incidents I will relate will give you an idea
of what kind of a leader he was:
We were digging in our mortars in the Hurtgen Forest, when he came storming down
to the mortar position cursing us out, as to why we weren't doing the assignment
faster. The C.O. later came back and apologized. You see, an officer is not
permitted to curse an enlisted man. The enlisted man didn't have any such
restrictions. One of the guys in the squad, who was from the South said, after he
was gone, of course, "What does he want me to do, stick a shovel in my a__ and a
pick in my mouth and turn flip flops?" The reason I mention the soldier's remark
was that southerners seem to put things best and in their proper perspective.
Another incident in the hedgerow country of Normandy:
Our convoy was plunging through mud and a downpour which made progress slow and
an ideal situation for a sniper. The sniper slowed us down to almost a
standstill, when the C.O. and the first sergeant went out with .45s and brought
back two German snipers. He said. "We can move out now". We did, and that was the
end of that. The German army left these snipers behind for harassment purposes.
They carried Browning automatics equipped with automatic sites.
There was another incident in the Hurtgen Forest. The captain had to go back to
Corps Headquarters. He told the first sergeant to instruct platoon leaders to
keep their platoons in the same positions until he returned. I must explain.
Platoon leaders are officers, either first or second lieutenants. One of the
platoon leaders decided to move his platoon to a different position and told the
first sergeant so.The first sergeant told the officer what the C.O. had said but
the platoon leader insisted. The first sergeant said OK simply because 'you
outrank me'.
When the C.O. returned and noticed this platoon in a different position, he
demanded a "How come?" When he heard the explanation, the captain gave the
platoon leader a good 'going over' and from then on he made it a habit to ask the
first sergeant before going over the C.O.'s head. Most people don't realize how
much weight a first sergeant really carries. The only reason I figure is that the
company commander is leader over everyone but the first sergeant is commander of
all the enlisted men. The platoons are in charge of the men in their platoons
only. They probably would not be as knowledgeable about a situation in the rest
of the company as the first sergeant.
I heard the next incident from a company member close to the captain. The C.O.
picked out a target, and the coordinates had been given to the platoon leader for
'zeroing in' the mortars. The operator should be on target within three rounds.
He had used five rounds and still wasn't close. My reliable source for this
incident said the C.O. grabbed the phone and said, "Lieutenant, get your head out
of your a--. This last word was spelled with two 'esses'.
It was also reported that the captain would check for land mines in a field where
we were to set up our mortars. He would ride back and forth with the first
sergeant through the fields. Sounds a little drastic but it also sounds like
him. He might have had a motive we didn't know about.
The last incident took place when we were in a rear area in Belgium. Everyone was
grumbling about our situation. The weather was bad and the Battle of the Bulge
was about to dawn. The C.O. gave us a little talk about how the infantry had
their job, the quartermasters had their job, and we had ours. He made it clear
that we were going to do ours, and gave out "so, let's go" and "quit bitching"
commands. We grudgingly admitted he was right .
After the Bulge began, things became fairly chaotic and positions changed almost
daily. Our colonel gave the line companies new positions that he had gotten from
corps without first checking them out. They were pretty bad positions. Our C.O.
came back to the rear area where the colonel was, dirty, dejected and mad. He
figured the colonel had not done his homework on these new positions.
I was in the rear area because I was coming down with yellow jaundice which
hadn't been diagnosed yet. The C.O. stopped a corporal and shouted, "Where is the
colonel?" The corporal replied he didn't know and took off. Undaunted, the C.O.
went looking down the long row of glass offices in this abandoned wool dying
factory building and finally found the colonel. He threw open the door, stood in
front of him and roared, "You ---------". The last words were hyphenated. All the
words were spoken with conviction. The colonel quietly got up and closed the
door.
Our captain and C.O (for his daring and durability) was relieved of his command,
'kicked up stairs' to G-2 (intelligence operations) and promoted from captain to
a 'major' award (reminiscent of the main character in THE CHRISTMAS STORY). I
really liked and admired the C.O.
Art Pranger
(08/18/98)
