American Valor Quarterly Issue 1 - Winter 2007 | Page 11

ditch manning the machine gun, one of the tanks rolled
into the ditch on fire. I couldn’t go running out, or even
raise my head, the place was like a hornet’s nest. I would
have got my head blown off. I was pinned down. Getting a
shot off was out of the question. I don’t know how I escaped
that burning tank, but somehow I did.

ran at them, trying to get over, and bounced off. And I was
bogged down by my machine gun. John Sheehy yelled from
the other side, “Come on, Heffron! Give it a running start!”
I threw my machine gun over the hedgerow to Sheehy, but
to get a running start, I had to move back into German fire.
My heart was pounding. It was like you see in a movie.
Bullets were kicking the dirt up next to my ankles and
We never succeeded in pushing the Germans back, and we whizzing by my head.
were ordered to withdraw. It’s hard to take when you get
that order to pull back. You feel defeated. But you do what As I ran, my rosary beads flew off my neck, but I jumped
you’re told, and we had full confidence in any order Dick the hedgerow and Sheehy grabbed my jump jacket and
Winters gave.
yanked me over. I didn’t want to leave without my rosaries.
I thought I wouldn’t come out of this war alive without
I was providing cover fire for the rest of
them. “To hell with the rosary beads,”
the platoon, when I felt something hit
Sheehy yelled. “Let’s go!” I stooped
my leg hard. I thought I was hit. But it
down to pick up my helmet, which had
was Buck Compton’s head. He fell across
fallen on the ground, and the rosaries
a wheelbarrow right at my feet. A sniper
were right inside the helmet. Lying right
got him right in the backside. He looked
in there. By some