UNKNOWN SOLDIERS: Reliving WWII in Europe

once he and I were probably not separated by more than a few hundred yards. Not until five days into the enemy offensive, however, was the Troop committed to action, when late that sunlit morning a half dozen Recon guys were sent in a jeep and an M-8 armored car up either Highway 7 or the intersecting “Bowling Alley” road parallel to the coast to check if any enemy tanks had moved up. They dug in during the night preparatory to supporting another attack. Corporal Francis Accavallo drove the jeep, with Dunleavy beside him. Dun recalled to me:

We’d hardly started out when an RAF Lancaster bomber prematurely released a load that barely missed us. We cursed and drove perhaps another quarter of a mile when an 88 exploded low over the marshland to our right. Accavallo signaled for a turnaround, but it was too late. The driver of the M-8 panicked and froze. Accavallo braked to a stop and shouted to the M-8 crew to get out and crawl under. We jumped into the ditch alongside the jeep. A second airburst was closer. The tank’s gunner had zeroed in on us. I turned myself into an earthworm, with my face and belly down.

The third shell exploded over our heads. Accavallo grunted and cursed. Years later I learned he lost his right leg. An agonizing pain ripped through my lower back and belly. I remained conscious long enough to see an ambulance on the road above, the first I’d seen so close to the front line, and I was on a stretcher. They musta given me a helluva lot of morphine, because it was a rough ride back, hurt like hell, and I didn’t finally black out until I was on the operating table at the 93rd Field Evacuation Hospital.

The Caves, by combat artist Mitchell Siporin (Department of Defense)