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
Dad was in the middle of the channel on that day, next to go in.
ReplyDeleteIf only by the Grace of God...