My Life As a Hero

This headline says...My Life as a Hero!

Wait a minute. Hold on, guys.

Who wrote that headline?

I'm no hero. Never have been. Never really wanted to be.

How did that word get up there?

Well, it turns out that there is a germ of truth here. I have been reading about this utterly remarkable woman who was born in Africa. I was wandering through her aerial exploits in her single engine monoplane over unsettled unfriendly countryside, taking off and landing on rough, uncharted landing strips, and my mind led me back to another continent, to another time, indeed another century.

It was late Fall 1944, in Europe. There was this moment in the war when I might have had a brush with the heroic...didn't seem so at the time.

We were in this historic battle for that fortress city of Metz, right on

the French-German border, a bastion that had never been captured by

enemy warriors throughout history, and here we were: fighting the Germans who had holed up in the forts of the Maginot Line. (Built by the French, but captured by the Germans during the Blitzkreig.)

Two companies in our 95th division, were attempting an end-around

attack, devised by our bombastic regimental commander, Col. Bacon, a Patton protégé. (come to think of it, he now reminds me of Donald Trump)

By U.S. Signal Corps [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Well the maneuver didn't work, and two companies were trapped on the

other side of the Maginot fortress, running out of food and ammunition and in

desperate need of first aid materials for their wounded comrades.

In the midst of all this mayhem, Captain Compton, our company

commander a decent human being, a high school gym teach from South

Carolina, called me to his quarters.

“Weedenthal,” (he incessantly called me Weedenthal)

“Weedenthal, you ever flown in a plane?”

“No sir, never flown in a plane.”

“Well here's your chance. Show up tomorrow after breakfast. We need you to help in a rescue mission. We picked you and Corporal Spinelli to volunteer for the mission. You're small. You'll fit in the space behind the pilot."

So he had volunteered.  Maybe that explains the “hero” word.

"Hold the headline guys. Maybe we can still use it!”

The next morning, after very little sleep, I showed up and we got in a couple

of jeeps. They took Corporal Spinelli, a little cook from Chicago, and me to a

sprawling cow pasture. It was very uncharted; very uneven. In the distance four

Piper Cubs...looking old and fragile, not unlike the plane that our African

queen had been flying a few chapters back. They we actually artillery

spotter planes connected to the battalion of cannons supporting us. In the

Army they were called L-4's

Well Spinelli, and I and two little guys from another unit, looking as

confused as we were, stumbled across the pasture and we each climbed

aboard our plane.

"Private Weidenthal, climb board aboard." said the pilot. (I was pleased

that he, at least, had pronounced the name properly.)

“There is a box back there you can sit on. We'll put the boxes of supplies and your lap.”

So there I was, cramped in the space behind the pilot, sitting on a box

with three boxes on my lap, and we were ready to take off.

This was not Cleveland Hopkins. It was a cow pasture.

I cannot accurately describe how I felt at the moment the plane started

moving.  No stewardess, no seat belts. As I told my mother in a letter later,

it was "like living history in a movie".

I didn't tell her this: Getting off the ground was harrowing. Worse than

driving through a rutted parking lot in our 38 Plymouth.

From the air we could see a battle ground painted by years of

history. Cults, tribes, nations had fought over this land. It was surreal.

Directly below was the Maginot Line. This was not a sightseeing trip for

Senior scholars. This was war, live.

No sign of the enemy, and down the hill were the remnants of the two stranded companies.

Our guys were waving at us madly. We dropped down to maybe 50 feet

and the pilot dipped his wing.

“Okay Weidenthal, open the door!" he shouted above the din of the engine.

In no time I had thrown out all three boxes. The guys waved. I closed the

door and I said to myself, “Thank God this a round trip.”

We swung around, picked up speed and flew back over the forts at a

higher altitude. By that time the Germans figured out what was going on

and were firing at us. Thankfully, we were too high.

We made three round trips, as did the other planes, without casualties

except for a hole in the wing of one of the other Pipers.

A couple of months later, as I recall, I was called to Capt. Compton's

Quarters. There he was again.

"Weedenthal, l want you to show up tomorrow morning."

“Oh my God not another rescue mission,” I thought to myself.

The next day all eight of the four little non-coms and the four pilots were

lined up on the field and a General from the Third Army decorated each of

us with an Air Medal for valor.

And for that moment I felt like a hero.

The rest is history.