Dear Ben:
Some time ago I started to write something about Reed "Stinky" Terrell, but ended up writing about what lieutenants did on the premises of the 517th end of Camp Mackall. I hope Reed’s kids are still reading mail call. Reed was a good guy. He always wore a smile and had a cheerful word in all situations. When given a training assignment he thought of ways to make the training stick in the trooper’s mind
Tom Reber asked me how he got his nick name. I think he wore some sweet smelling shaving lotion into the field one day and was "Stinky" ever since.
One of the teaching assignments Reed and I drew was to run the entire battalion through a familiarization course on the rifle grenade, which was supposed to knock out light vehicles. If you thought you could hit a bogey wheel on a tank and had the guts to try it, good luck None of our weapons, even tanks, were a match for their tiger tanks.
This was a tall order for a couple of lieutenants, but there wasn’t much Reed and I thought we were not up to. Reed was a first Lt. so he took the lead. He told me to bone up on the field manual and that he would set the stage on the range. This meant that I would have the mike on the loud speaker system and move the troops through the firing. We were agreed that the troops needed a real target.
The rifle grenade was propelled from an M-1 by a blank cartridge in the chamber. It took a device that fit on the muzzle of the rifle, and the grenade fit onto that device. The pin had to be pulled before firing or the shaped charge of the grenade would not explode on impact with the target. Since the grenade was a lot heavier than the M-1 projectile, on discharge, the M-1 kicked like a mule.
When we got out to the range, here sat a perfectly good Model A Ford fresh from the junk yard. How Stinky got it pulled out of the junk yard and onto the post is still secret information, but there it was. Because of the target and our expert demonstration and coaching, the exercise was a great success.
The only time I ever saw the grenade launcher used in combat was a day or so after our jump into S. France. Riddle, who carried one, found a German riding fast toward him on a motorcycle. His aim was good. He hit and killed the enemy soldier, not the motorcycle. He forgot one of our main training points, pull the pin before firing. Nevertheless, the grenade launcher did its job and Riddle had a motorcycle to ride for a few days before some kill joy took it away from him. Howard Hensleigh
Edith Miller
into my set of pictures and found pictures (pretty current) of these
guys ) Like Morris McDowell, Ford, Fred Harman, Jim Degnan all taken
at one of our reunions that Jay Sutcliffe may be interested in, If Jay
would send me his snail mail address I would send him copies (in color)
along with remarks of each story , I'll send you copies to Ben so that
you have them to run if you like. (Maybe you already them) Tom McAvoy
An oak leaf cluster is a common device which is placed on military awards and decorations to denote those who have received more than one bestowal of a particular decoration. The number of oak leaf clusters typically indicates the second and subsequent award of the decoration.
Most military awards use bronze, silver, and gold oak leaf clusters. The higher ranking oak leaf clusters are issued "in lieu" of a lesser number, allowing a large number of award annotations to fit on a single ribbon. For instance, five bronze oak leaf clusters would be denoted by one silver and five silver by one gold.
The United States military only issues bronze and silver oak leaf clusters. Gold oak leaf clusters were briefly considered as a device for the Air Medal, but this was not adopted by any of the services.
Carol Monkhouse