Losing Louie
April 6, 1945
April 6th was the first day of the full attack on the Ruhr Pocket. Hell of a way to get started.
The morning began the way most mornings began now, with some incoming artillery and small arms fire that meant nothing in particular except that the war was still happening. Task Force Rhea stopped in Olsberg for fuel and ammunition before moving on to Helmeringhausen, and Jack, with his platoons of Company C, was fueling the tanks when he saw his old crew from Company A doing the same thing.
He walked over to see them. Tech Sergeant Dudley, his old driver. Corporal Louie Brodman, his gunner on Americana III. They had been his crew since he joined the 7th Armored Division as a platoon leader in Holland training for his first combat on Thanksgiving 1944. They fought through the Bulge together, survived St. Vith when so many others hadn’t. They stood there talking for a few minutes about nothing important, the kind of conversation you have when you’re just glad to see familiar faces.
Then the task force started mounting up to leave Olsberg, and the sniper fire came. Louie Brodman was hit in the head and killed about fifty feet from where Jack was standing.
Jack wrote to his father a few days later, and the grief and anger came through in a way it rarely did in his letters:
My old gunner from my tank, America’s III, was killed by a sniper a short distance from where I was with my new company. It knocked the old gang to pieces, especially since a few days earlier, we had a little scrape, my America’s III tank, and all of my platoon came out of it. We were lucky. I lost some other fine fellows that day. It’s a pretty rugged life at times.
My old driver, Dudley, was evacuated for combat fatigue after Louie was killed. We had shared various tanks since I joined the 7th Armor.
I wish it were over. All the boys in the old outfit are pretty broken up about Louie. They said that if a soldier went to heaven, Louie was there.
Why do people have to kill and fight? It seems pretty stupid to me. We are making the bastards pay dearly, too. I have absolutely no use for either the soldiers or the civilians. Each is as dangerous as the other. Nazi artillery can shell us, and the German people will not believe that it is Jerry’s stuff. Beats me.
Task Force Rhea moved out through Olsberg and Bigge that afternoon, turning southwest toward Helmeringhausen two miles away. They overcame three lightly defended roadblocks along the way. The assault began around three in the afternoon, with the GIs leading on foot and Jack’s tanks following. The Germans put up light resistance. The town was secured by five o’clock and organized for defense by nine. Sixteen prisoners went to the cage.
The task force settled in for the night.
What stories did your family carry home from the war?
The full story: Jack’s Story on Amazon