From Ernie Pyle, somewhere in Europe, in Brave Men: "Speaking of noise, you've probably heard the term "screaming meemies," meaning a certain noisy type of German shell. The boys called them "screaming meanies," instead and , brother, they were bad indeed to listen to.
The Germans called the gun the "Nebelwerfer." It was a six-barreled rocket rack which fired one rocket after another, electrically. The gun didn't go off with a roar, but the shells swished forward with a sound of unparalleled viciousness and power, as though gigantic gears were grinding. Actually it sounded as though some mammoth man were grinding them out of a huge machine.
Whenever a shelling started we always stopped and listened, and somebody made a remark like, "Grind 'em out, boy; keep on turning!"...
Now, your Old Grind doesn't seem so bad, does it?
Excerpt from The Fabulous Infantry, Page 193, Brave Men, Henry Holt and Company, New York,1944
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Dad was in the middle of the channel on that day, next to go in.
If only by the Grace of God...
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