Mortar Attack!
We crash into Besancon and fight until morning
My Mother and Audie Murphy Ch. 30
September 5, 1944. “In a short while we are again in the thick of battle. Our forward units knife through the enemy lines, leaving pockets of resistance for mopping up crews. The noises of combat come from all sides.
“The swift advance has drained our energies and most of our supplies. Now hungry and sleepy, we rest on a roadside waiting for orders. Our artillery fires over us. We lie on our backs, listening to the crash of the shells.
Murphy and his crew ambush a German truck full of supplies, including cognac and bread. They eat and drink and sing.
“That night we crash into Besancon and fight until morning. Within a few days, the city is secured; and once more we take up the pursuit of the Germans.
“My platoon is bringing up the rear when a roadblock halts the company….Mortar shells begin to pepper the earth; and I halt to talk to a group of men until the fire eases up. From their pallid faces, I can tell that several of them are replacements….
Nearly killed by a mortar shell
“The mortar shell comes in almost soundlessly. It is practically under my feet before I am aware of it. I have just enough time to think, ‘This is it,’ before the blast knocks me unconscious.
“When I come to, I am sitting beside a crater with a broken carbine in my hands. My head aches; my eyes burn; and I cannot hear. The acrid, greasy taste of burnt powder fills my mouth.
“Methodically I run my hands down over my legs. The limbs are still there. But the heel of my right shoe is missing; and my fingers are sticky with blood.
“My groggy brain picks up a voice ‘Are you all right sergeant,’ it asks.
“I wipe the tears from my smarting eyes and look about me. The sergeant and the young recruit are dead. Three other men are wounded. They were all further than I from the projectile.
“When a mortar shell explodes on contact with the ground, it throws its fragments upwards and outwards in a cone shaped pattern. I was standing next to the base-tip of the cone and consequently caught only the beginning of the shower. Had I been three feet farther away, I would most likely not be alive to tell about it.”
During World War II, concussions resulting from mortar attacks were a significant source of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Soldiers experienced symptoms like headaches, dizziness, poor concentration, and memory problems following exposure to blasts, even without visible head injuries. The term “shell shock” was originally used in WWI to describe these symptoms, but was later replaced with terms like “post-concussion neurosis” in WWII, head injuries from mortars contributed to a significant percentage of medically treated wounds during the war.
Murphy spends a few days in the hospital, not because of his brain injury, but because his foot was wounded. Then he’s back in the lines.
Quotes are from Audie Murphy’s autobiography, To Hell and Back
Ch.31: https://medium.com/@tradeswomn/evidence-of-nazi-war-crimes-mounts-c98cdd765f58
