London Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 20, 1945, London, Middlesex                                1 to action ill this Page Day of com As typical gis she Battle they to their Haem Al com 1 their is of that is Learned the of my the but Iven my Ifer advised a  your i figy Jinow the Tell you if youll How about Ifni i sap dough that was ii it around to each Jay came off his High he got on the t eyes open 5 ii the next forbidding i up the Hill and i the tank just enough he re de tank commander Bis eyes open for so spotted fired in he got just be was Cool ale thought of the Aid to the tank and Okay for Ken la were were no krauts of Kali he wished the front Armor of the m5 was that sight hed sweat out and cussed so it worked like a just keep your keep your dig that was the dig in and move when you keep the guns the rest of the tank under Good didst use Many of those pretty formations Here were pretty much on our it was wonderful How a Guy remembered All those training films and lectures he thought hed and the i got friends no Kraut in the world is better than a yank with a just keep head he thought of Kline and Wilson and they were his tank he hugged the thought of All of them having these Guys with him was just like having three extra inches of Armor in front of the without them he was just another name on a casualty and the hell of it was that they Felt the same about Kline came from Philadelphia and Wilson from los Angeles and Weinstein from but in this tin can they All came from main and there want a Damn thing wrong with v hed fought a Battle and come out of it neither a hero nor a just another yes sir a that me the kid who had Ridden horse All his life and always thought a tank was to hold grinned at he grinned the tank was a far cry from the Walnut Street Shell filling Toalson cleaned his that my he v it i it t j he hugged the Shell didst even come lesion hit tie april 0800 37 years snapped shut the Cash Register of his supermarket in Shook hands All said goodbye to the took at 1000 hours that same theron United states huddled in the Back of a i truck with Twenty other miserable took a few Days later a Field artillery outfit at fort was rapidly transforming a grocery Man into an Thomas had a pretty Good idea that Uncle Sam haunt dragged him away from the Crisco cans just to Deco rate the Bleak Oklahoma so he entered into his training with the prime objective of learning and remembering everything he in the grocery business a Guy who knew his stuff stayed in the the other jokers became casualties to the Chain Thomas figured the same thing applied glad he asked now Here was Christmas and still almost As Green As was Cannonier with an Artil Lery outfit of the 5th infantry division he was going into action with his Section in just about two the past few Days since he had arrived at the up As a reinforcement is the name for them through his mind with lightning like he wondered if he would re member what an old timer with the told him about the difference Between the my self pro pulled gun he had trained with Back in the states arid the ground gun he had to use up he wished they had Given him More of that Back but he was glad that he haunt been shy and had asked advice of All the they had been Durbin and the rest haunt volunteered any info but if you asked they gave it to you with no heroics and no he had liked splinters Fly up Thomass mind snapped Back to the present in a hell of a an eerie scream seemed to Cut his head to he knew it was an incoming but where was it coming from what was it was it near was the Damn thing going to hit me should i Duck what in hell do i do now for a split second he froze he stood straight i then a metallic voice hit the dirt like a flashlight in a pitch dark room everything cleared All of a sudden he remembered All his training Back he remembered How they had drilled immediate obedience to orders into him and How they had told him time and time again that shrapnel goes up and not Thomas hit the ground and hugged it the Shell i Dent even come a few minutes later a Beautiful looking plane studded across the Cloud less wonder if one of mused an instant he found out that it the fw190 swooped like a Hawk after a a fraction of a second later the air screamed like a Hurt Thomas dived for his he had Learned by this that Bastard is Damn he hit the Frozen wish to hell they Given me More time on aircraft identification Back at he gritted through a Mouthful of or put me on up when i fell asleep at the when he got up the Section Leader told him to take Over the the number three Man had been Here was where that rotation training came in he knew every Job on the he didst have to ask ques the hours they sent them time on target that was a new term hed never heard in the and they took the in coning Jerry the bombs came and Thomas Learned to Duck without soon the Relief an artillery Man now theron out of the hed been scared now he was he knew what to he knew he was one of the he knew that he could depend on them and that they could depend on and six months hed been the owner of a army signal corps photo he got artillery backs up the doughboy with armed forming part of the big army