Operation Sea Lion: Letters from Cletus 2

Time for another letter home from Cletus. This week he talks about his first time in action. The actual batrep can be found here.

Dear Mom,

Hope y'all are well. Got a letter from the Pastor this week. He said everyone back home was praying for me to come home safe and that he was lookin in on you regular like to make sure you was all ok. Can you tell him for me I sure do 'preciate his kind words and prayers.

Well them Nazis done gone and invaded England and things ain't goin so well so fer. But we aint beat yet. I got me a chance to show them Nazis that us farm boys know how to shoot real good.

The Sarge got us up real early Monday morning, said we wuz heading south to somewhere called Hamp Shire. We was in the the trucks for awhile then we stopped real sudden like. The Sarge says to get out and get into cover real quick. Turns out we ran slap bang into the middle of a bunch Nazis south of this real cute looking village. The Leiutenant comes up and says we got to move up through these woods and fields to git these nazis offa some objectives. Didn't say whut these objectives wuz but I figured the Sarge would know whut we was supposed to do.

So we started to move up towards these woods with the guys in 1st platoon movin up through the fields to our right. We'z running forward and we could hear the mortars and artillery poundin them Nazis real good. Then these P-47s swoop in guns a blazin and I figured there'd be nothin left for us but I sure wuz wrong.

We got into the woods, they wuz just like the woods down by the creek back home, and I started to look see if'n I could bag me a racoon for supper. When these Nazis come running towards us guns blazin and they was all whooping and a hollerin fit to bust. But we let em have it and the boys in the 1st Plt opened up too. That stopped em cold, then the sarge says lets go get em boys and wez up and charging at em, guns firing and what wuz left of them just hightailed it outa there like the devil himself wuz chasin em. We kept after them then ran into some more of them hiding in some trees. We hit the dirt and let em have it. I think we got a whole bunch of them coz we couldn't see them no more.

Then we heard tanks, I was hopin they wuz ours but these tanks moves up and started to machine gun the heck out of the boys in the 1st plt. The Sarge said they wuz Tigers and we wuz in trouble now. We could see shells bouncing offa them and then the Lt comes up and says we pulling back cos our armor got beat up real bad and we aint got nothin that can take them Tigers. So we headed back to the trucks and hightailled it outta there.

That night we found out we'd hit em hard but we'd lost a bunch of guys too. Just about then I started shakin real bad and feelin like I was gonna throw up. The Sarge come over and said not to worry and  that's just how you feel after a battle. I asked him if it ever gets better and he said you'd better hope you never feel good after killing a bunch of folks. I guess he wuz right cos then I got to thinkin bout what the Bible says about thou shalt not kill. Can you ask the Pastor if'n I'm going to hell now as I sure as heck killed me a bunch of Nazis today.

Your lovin son,
Cletus

P.S. I'll write you again next Friday