Bomb crater for washing up

The journey from here to there:  in

Two Tours

  At the base of one of the trees the hammock was attached to, I noticed a couple of boards covering about a foot square with some small rocks on it.  I removed the rocks and lifted up the boards and froze!!

​I saw a Bob hope Show:  "Thanks for the memories,"  GI.

         Letter from "Big Jim", nom de guerre,     "​My recollection. We had been paddie pounding and came upon a small ville, uninhabited I believe.  We swept the ville with no findings.  You put out the word to secure the area and set up a perimeter and take a break and have some C's. We set up our CP within the perimeter at the edge of the ville.  After finishing C's you pulled out your hammock and strung it between 2 trees and took a cat nap. 

It was real and it was fun, but it wasn't real fun.   dfwm

United States in WWII for 3 years, 6 mos, European

  CPT Schopp Active Duty 3 years, 11 mos, 27 days

Can't you guess?

There was a hole with a mortar or artillery round buried horizontally with the end exposed to the hole with a wire attached to it. Fortunately it was not setup to detonate with a pressure release or trip wire attached to the board hoping an inquisitive  GI would come along and do what I did.  We were taught in training that Charlie knew GIs we're inquisitive and we should avoid investigating suspicious looking situations like this. I don't think I deliberately abandoned my training but being inquisitive got in the way of good judgment.

 I make it look easy

 As it turned out, the wire led to a remote place where it could be detonated for an opportunity like this.  The results may have been the same as if detonated by lifting the boards.  Maybe one of those days it was better to be lucky than to be good.  I don't remember if we moved out immediately or what took place but I have a vivid memory of looking at that shell "face to face " Oh.... I did wake you up.

Chronic diarreaha