I dashed into the woods followed by a few other souvenir hunters. About fifty yards in, I paused at a large tree and looked ahead. The enemy soldiers, now in view, were strangely diffident about giving up. From behind my tree I saw four Germans, heavily armed, in a small clearing forty feet away, unaware of my presence. Braced against the tree, I brought my rifle up to my shoulder and fired four fast rounds. They scattered instantly. I may have hit one, maybe two, though probably not fatally. A second later, I was alone again.

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My four enemy targets had been in front of me. I now saw another man to my right, crouching and moving at right angles, also about forty feet away. He seemed unaware of my assault on his nearby friends just seconds before, but such is the fog of war, even on such a tiny scale. I fired two shots at him, and soundlessly he pitched forward. My second round had passed through him from right to left, almost certainly fatally. I now looked ahead. Here was something I could not identify, looking like someone in a strange pose. I soon realized it was a man kneeling, pointing his rifle at me! I stared for a second or two. Suddenly, amid a deafening explosion, the tree that my left cheek was pressing against was torn, and a hail of splinters flew into my face. A bullet had hit the tree two inches from my left eye. I kicked my feet out behind me and fell. A grenade explosion followed and debris cascaded against my bowed helmet. Then came a long burst from an MG42 machine gun. I saw a tree to my right shredded by the fire. I was left alone; the enemy must have thought I had been killed.

I was now uncomfortably alert. The men who had followed me were not in sight. I peered around my protecting tree. Then I heard movement and voices coming from behind me. To my alarm two Germans strolled nonchalantly from my left rear, fifty feet away. They walked to my left, chatting away, their gas-mask canisters clanking steadily against their belts as they strolled. Obviously, I was well within the enemy position. Then, to my further alarm, I saw an enemy soldier in front of me carefully inserting twigs in his helmet netting. I could have shot him easily but at the cost of my own life, which I placed at a higher value than his. Soon, five crouching Germans, just behind the camouflager’s position, advanced past my front. The enemy was attacking. Firing increased.

Much to my relief, the attack stalled, and I saw no further activity. However, worried about my left flank, I raised my rifle and pointed it around my tree in that direction. I also had another concern. I had fired four rounds into the group I had first met and two more at the man I had shot to my front. I should eject the two remaining rounds and insert a new clip, but this would involve loud clicks, which I could only muffle a bit. The distant firing was subdued by the forest, and it was deathly quiet in my lonely domain. I placed a clip upright on a leaf. I would fire my two remaining rounds and ram the clip home as fast as I could. I had done this quite often in training but never when my life depended on it.

Time passed. Suddenly, a single enemy soldier approached along a path traced earlier by two others. On coming abreast, where the path angled left, he turned and stared down at me. At his slightest move, I decided, I would fire. I could not miss; he was less than forty feet away. We stared at each other for some seconds. I cannot imagine what he was thinking. He may have thought I was a comrade, or perhaps I was dead or not human at all, for I was motionless and covered in mud. I will never know. He turned and disappeared.

It was a very close call. He may have noticed me after all; maybe he would call his friends to deal with me. After four hours of lying motionless, I eased out of my heavy pack and crawled over the intimidating open stretch of ground behind me to the sheltering trees, stood up, and returned to the American lines.

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