The Lightning War

The Initiation

About a month after the sniper incident, we got word from HQ that we were getting a half platoon of infantry to be dropped in. They would be dispersed through the company to the platoons.

It was close to mid day when we could hear the rumbling of the C-47 as it cruised into the drop zone. The plane was spotted a moment later by one of the Oscar Platoon men. The plane soared over, heading right towards the field, soon after the string of men began to fall from the plane, chutes deploying successfully. The stick landed about a mile away in a field, it took them only 45 minutes to get into the town. The men were quite green, they hadn't seen any fighting yet, most of them came into the war with this aspiration. It was like each of them thought they would be the one to kill Hitler and end the war, to them this was all just a game. I envied their enthusiasm, but there was a sadness in my heart that became real then Haeden and Bailey walked up beside me, Haeden simply looked at us and said

"Wonder how long they'll be like this for"

We took them and dispersed them into platoons and our day went on without any complications.

It had been calm for about a month now, the only sight we'd seen of the enemy was that we had seen a tank with a few troops on the horizon about 2 miles away. McCartney was the one who spotted them at first. He rounded up all of the demolitions platoon, and headed straight to the enemy. They cleaned up the tank and the few infantrymen that were accompanying it.

McCartney reported back to me when they had finnished
"Panzer III, and about 10 infantry, Fallschirmjäger's"

(Fallschirmjägers were the German airborn)

Besides the run in with the tank, the last action any of us had seen was the sniper. Not that we were complaining! This was the best part of the war so far.
We had the luxury of staying in houses, and eating warm food on a daily basis.

But, as usual... the war found a way to put an end to good things.