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LT. LOUIS GANZ AND 'FRIENDLY FIRE'

I ended up in January 1945, in "A" Battery of the 436th Field Artillery Battalion, in Camp Gruber, OK, near Muskogee. We were out in the Oklahoma Hills, in bad winter weather, on live ammunition maneuvers. I was Radio Op for our Battery Captain, Ralph T. Unterzuber, a good guy, and rode shotgun next to him in his jeep. He was acting as FO, or Forward Observer, for the battery. This means he was about to 'direct fire' for our four big eight-inch howitzers (That's guns firing shells eight inches in diameter, and about four feet long.) We were situated up on top of a high ridge forward and to the right of the battery which was down in the valley far below us. The time was dusk, and night was closing in fast.

Down at the battery was Lt. Ganz, our Exec, or Executive Officer, 2nd in command after the Captain. It was his duty to take the firing orders from the Captain, over the radio, and pass them on to the gun crews. The information he had to relay was the 'site' and 'elevation' of each firing order. That means he had to tell the gun crews in what direction and how high to point the gun barrels, in order to land the live ammunition in the right location 1000s of yards in front of our position.

Now Lt. Ganz was an interesting character. If I recollect he was from Flushing, NY. Of course coming from New York automatically made him something of a 'wise guy' (as most of us New Yorkers were known in the service, often with good reason.) But he was something out of the ordinary. He was noticeably overweight, unusual among lower rank officers during WWII. But what put him in bad with us soldiers were little things he used to do. For example, our battery would be out all day long in the bitter cold and snow and ice, and often we'd miss our lunch because we were too far out in the field. When we'd come back at 5 o'clock or so, we'd find that our sandwiches were missing. What had happened? Lt. Ganz had grabbed them and eaten them up by himself!

Anyway, the Captain started directing fire, and I was operating the radio in his jeep. He gave the first order, Lt. Ganz relayed it to the guns, and they fired off their first rounds. A moment later the Captain and I heard this whizzing sound along with a fiery trail passing directly over our jeep, maybe 5 feet or so, on its way to its target. IT WAS CLOSE ENOUGH TO FEEL THE HEAT FROM THE SHELL AS IT PASSED OVER OUR HEADS!!! The Captain yelled out a gross profanity, and barked out to Lt. Ganz what he had just done to his fire command relay.

Then the Captain gave the order for the next round. A moment later another shell came over our jeep even closer! TALK ABOUT A HOT FIREBALL!!! The Captain immediately called down to Ganz to close down the battery, and strike camp. By the time we got down off the ridge and back to the battery the word had gotten around about what had nearly happened to the Captain and me. Our outfit, instead of heading back to our bivouac area, ended up back at Camp Gruber, with most everybody more quiet than usual.

The next morning, bright and early, we fell in to inspection formation in the battery quadrangle. And there was Lt. Ganz, standing off to the side with his duffle bag and orders in his hands. Where was he going? Off to Adak, Alaska. That was near Siberia, and equivalent to it -- it's where a lot of military 'fu...kups' got 'shanghai'd' to when they screwed up. I'm sure to a man everyone in our outfit was thinking "Good riddance -- may you freeze your a...s up there, AND rot in H*ll, both.")
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I'll try to add some pics of typical radio msgs I was relaying down to the Exec Officer now:

Radio Msgs (Small).jpg

Bill

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True knowledge leads some from cocksure ignorance to thoughtful uncertainty.