European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 23, 1945, Darmstadt, Hesse                                When youre under bottle conditions and its a tossup whose neck there int any worrying about the differences in the color of your skins at least what negro gis Learned on two european Charlie Rattler of a fighter on the Western strikes a pose with his by Ralph Martin stars stripes correspondent with the seventh Western the generals had some medals to hand but not All of the Guys could some of them were still up in front digging in their three Inch some of them were in the some of them were the six who were there stood stiffly at attention in their War dirtied combat their tired faces drained of their eyes staring straight the general was telling them Why they were getting the they knew you dont forget things like because you had to be crazy to move in on said you just dont try to position your guns in a Flat Valley when youve got big Kraut guns sitting smuggle on two rugged ridges flanking the town 300 Yards and when youve got nazi 88gunners parked on the towns High ground right next to some Mark in and when youve got the nearby Woods Lousy with mortars and machine gun nest Sand All of the whole German artillery zeroed in on a single waiting for you to come out so the germans can Start pulling but somebody had to do it in this 103d Divi Sion Slimbach was the last nazi Strong Point before the Siegfried and the nazis told everybody they liked Slimbach they planned to stay there for the so the 103d division created task Force Black consisting of a platoon of a com Pany of infantry from the 411th seven medium tanks and a platoon of towed three Inch ads from the the tactic was for the to platoon of four guns to keep All the German Bat teries occupied while the infantry infiltrated into the town around the leading the taskforce column through the Woods was the co of c company of the he want supposed to be there he just wanted to somebody said it was because he was self conscious about being a but somebody else said it was just because he was that kind of a Guy because he had lots of it want Long before some of his guts were spilling into the Sticky mud near the thin not Only did his vehicle run Over a mine but it also got smacked Square by an then a machine gun opened up on when his executive officer raced through this hellfire to evacuate him min utes he was still Down in the the medics were soon just As Busy As the gun Penman Crews cant last Long when there sitting in an open Field getting so much fire that nobody knows whats coming from they didst less than an hour single soldiers were doing full Crews work firing and then racing Back to a Hal track to hop be Hind a to Cut Down krauts trying to sneak through the one of those single soldiers was platoon William he got the Bronze Tabron kept going until a tank Shell knocked out his it want until the next morning that he noticed his foot had been bloodied by but Tabron was Lucky Hes still maybe 30 minutes later nobody looks at his watch during a there was Only one gun still it was 75 Yards from three other knocked out and the krauts  seem to get at it because it was in a slight shells kept plopping All around just one near miss blew up a Hal track 25 Yards it was hot and and everybody kept won Dering How much would be next still sweating it out was the gun Dillard Booker from the so was his 1st it Thomas and so were a couple of other Booker got the Bronze Star and Mitchell the Silver Mitchell was racing around As fast As he did when he broke the Alabama track record for the Quarter mile dash Back in his Days As a College he was helping shoot evacuating Point ing out enemy gun somehow Call it a mild Miracle if you this therein Chagun Crew kept they silenced two loud Barking tanks at the towns then they picked up a muzzle blast from a camouflaged House and threw in three rounds of he until the gun stopped be fore the three other guns were knocked they had accounted for some 88s and had swept the Woods fairly clean of German my and mortar but there was still plenty of Small arms coming much too then the to boys ran out of we Felt stripped said figured this was but it the tanks were still hopelessly mired in the too far in the rear to do any but three bar boys from the infantry company volunteered to come up and act As flank Security for the two were soon Cas the Crew flattened out and popped away with their mis and carbines into the sniper filled they killed lots of krauts in this meanwhile t5 Robert Harris of Kansas City was getting ready to move out his ammo truck and head toward the front in a he was waved Down by the taskforce you cant up there right said the the artillery fire is too when a colonel talks like that to a Corporal there usually is no room for but t5 Harris didst argue he didst have he just yelled get the hell out of my in taking this up to my the colonel laughs when he tells the Story driving straight through Harris got his truck within 25 Yards of bookers gun before it bogged Down in gooey then soon joined by made trip after trip lugging 54pound ammo boxes to the gun by All anyone could hear was the splattering of Small arms fire within the town the stiffest fighting the Doug feet had was in the graveyard where the germans had dug them selves when the Short pitched Battle was Over the germans were still in the now waiting to be covered if you asked the Doug feet about they Tell you the ads deserve credit for taking the town if you asked the ads 3d they Tell you that they had More than 50 percent