Brothers in Arms : Action at Vierville

My name is Sergeant Matt Baker, third platoon, fox company, second battalion of the 502 Parachute Infantry Regiment. I’m in charge of a squad – that’s Hartsock, Garnett and Allen. We met up after the drop on D-Day and we’ve been trying to rendezvous with the rest of the company for the last twenty four hours.

Staff Sergeant Hassay told us to clear out a place called Vierville – not much more than a church, a couple of houses and some farm buildings, but the krauts were dug in pretty good. Fortunately, we were linked up with Sergeant Risner of the 70th Tank Battalion – he was an old friend of mine from training at Fort Bragg until a knee injury forced him to join the tank boys. I ribbed him about it at the time, but boy, was I ever glad to see his M5 Stuart rolling up the road.

We followed the usual drill – we found the krauts, Risner pinned them down with fire from the tank and the assault team flanked the position to finish them. It took a while – too long maybe, and Risner took a few hits from a mortar battery that was dug in behind a barn, but we finally made the check point by the church.

No time to rest though – the Germans hit us hard with a counter offensive. They came swarming up the main road but Risner pinned them down before they could get an angle on us. They had support though. I heard it before I saw it, but there was no mistaking that profile – a god damn Panzer. Even though our M5 was tucked in behind a wall of the church yard there was no way that it could survive a direct hit, and in return the Panzer was too well armoured for Risner to do much more than dent it.

Nothing else for it. I ordered the squad to lay down a suppressing fire, took a deep breath and sprinted for the side of the church to get behind that monster. They didn’t see me coming – too busy lining up a shot at the M2 – and I got behind and dropped a grenade inside. A sickening noise that would haunt me for years, the acrid smell of burning petrol and the tank was dead. I tried not to think about the men trapped inside that twisted wreck.

Vierville was clear. Just another pin on the campaign map.