WOUNDED--HOW IT FEELS TO BE SHOT
Just how does it feel to be shot on the field of battle? Just what is
the exact sensation when a bullet burns its way through your flesh or
crashes through your bones?
I always wanted to know. As a police reporter I "covered" scores of
shooting cases, but I could never learn from the victims what the
precise feeling was as the piece of lead struck. For long years I had
cherished an inordinate curiosity to know that sensation, if possible,
without experiencing it. I was curious and eager for enlightenment just
as I am still anxious to know how it is that some people willingly drink
buttermilk when it isn't compulsory.
I am still in the dark concerning the inexplicable taste for the sour,
clotted product of a sweet, well-meaning cow and the buttery, but I have
found out how it feels to be shot. I know it now by experience.
Three Germans bullets that violated my person left me as many scars and
at the same time completely satisfied my curiosity. I think now if I can
ever muster up enough courage to drink a glass of buttermilk, I shall
have bereft myself of my last inquisitiveness.
It happened on June 6th just to the northwest of Chateau-Thierry in the
Bois de Belleau. On the morning of that day I left Paris by motor for a
rush to the front. The Germans were on that day within forty miles of
the capital of France. On the night before, the citizens of Paris, in
their homes and hotels, had heard the roll of the guns drawing ever
nearer. Many had left the city.
But American divisions were in the line between the enemy and their
goal, and the operation of these divisions was my object in hustling to
the front. On the broad, paved highway from Paris to Meaux, my car
passed miles and miles of loaded motor trucks bound frontward. Long
lines of these carried thousands of Americans. Other long lines were
loaded down with shells and cartridge boxes. On the right side of the
road, bound for Paris and points back of the line, was an endless stream
of ambulances and other motor trucks bringing back wounded. Dense clouds
of dust hung like a pall over the length of the road. The day was hot,
the dust was stifling.
From Meaux we proceeded along the straight highway that borders the
south banks of the Marne to LaFerte, at which place we crossed the river
and turned north to Montreuil, which was the newly occupied headquarters
of the Second United States Army Division, General Omar Bundy
commanding. On the day before, the two infantry brigades of that
division, one composed of the 5th and 6th U. S. Marines, under command
of Brigadier General Harbord, the other composed of the 9th and 23rd U.
S. Infantry, had been thrown into the line which was just four miles to
the north and east.
The fight had been hot during the morning. The Marines on the left flank
of the divisional sector had been pushing their lines forward through
triangle woods and the village of Lucy-le-Bocage. The information of
their advances was given to me by the Divisional Intelligence officer,
who occupied a large room in the rear of the building that was used as
Divisional Headquarters. The building was the village _Mairie_, which
also included the village school-house. Now the desks of the school
children were being used by our staff officers and the walls and
blackboards were covered with maps.
I was accompanied by Lieutenant Oscar Hartzell, formerly of the _New
York Times_ staff. We learned that orders from the French High Command
called for a continuation of the Marine advance during the afternoon and
evening, and this information made it possible for us to make our plans.
Although the Germans were shelling roads immediately behind the front,
Lieutenant Hartzell and I agreed to proceed by motor from Montreuil a
mile or so to a place called La Voie du Chatel, which was the
headquarters of Colonel Neveille of the 5th Marines. Reaching that place
around four o'clock, we turned a despatch over to the driver of our
staff car with instructions that he proceed with all haste to Paris and
there submit it to the U. S. Press Bureau.
Lieutenant Hartzell and I announced our intentions of proceeding at once
to the front line to Colonel Neveille.
"Go wherever you like," said the regimental commander, looking up from
the outspread maps on the kitchen table in the low-ceilinged stone
farm-house that he had adopted as headquarters. "Go as far as you like,
but I want to tell you it's damn hot up there."
An hour later found us in the woods to the west of the village of Lucy
le Bocage, in which German shells were continually falling. To the west
and north another nameless cluster of farm dwellings was in flames. Huge
clouds of smoke rolled up like a smudge against the background of blue
sky.
The ground under the trees in the wood was covered with small bits of
white paper. I could not account for their presence until I examined
several of them and found that these were letters from American mothers
and wives and sweethearts--letters--whole packages of them, which the
tired, dog-weary Marines had been forced to remove from their packs and
destroy in order to ease the straps that cut into aching grooves in
their shoulders. Circumstances also forced the abandonment of much other
material and equipment.
Occasional shells were dropping in the woods, which were also within
range from a long distance, indirect machine gun fire from the enemy.
Bits of lead, wobbling in their flight at the end of their long
trajectory, sung through the air above our heads and clipped leaves and
twigs from the branches. On the edge of the woods we came upon a hastily
dug out pit in which there were two American machine guns and their
crews.
The field in front of the woods sloped gently down some two hundred
yards to another cluster of trees. This cluster was almost as big as the
one we were in. Part of it was occupied by the Germans. Our machine
gunners maintained a continual fire into that part held by the enemy.
Five minutes before five o'clock, the order for the advance reached our
pit. It was brought there by a second lieutenant, a platoon commander.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, looking at the green brassard and
red "C" on my left arm.
"Looking for the big story," I said.
"If I were you I'd be about forty miles south of this place," said the
Lieutenant, "but if you want to see the fun, stick around. We are going
forward in five minutes."
That was the last I saw of him until days later, when both of us,
wounded, met in the hospital. Of course, the first thing he said was, "I
told you so."
We hurriedly finished the contents of the can of cold "Corned Willy"
which one of the machine gunners and I were eating. The machine guns
were taken down and the barrels, cradles and tripods were handed over to
the members of the crew whose duties it was to carry them.
And then we went over. There are really no heroics about it. There is no
bugle call, no sword waving, no dramatic enunciation of catchy commands,
no theatricalism--it's just plain get up and go over. And it is done
just the same as one would walk across a peaceful wheat field out in
Iowa.
But with the appearance of our first line, as it stepped from the
shelter of the woods into the open exposure of the flat field, the woods
opposite began to cackle and rattle with the enemy machine gun fire. Our
men advanced in open order, ten and twelve feet between men. Sometimes a
squad would run forward fifty feet and drop. And as its members
flattened on the ground for safety another squad would rise from the
ground and make another rush.
They gained the woods. Then we could hear shouting. Then we knew that
work was being done with the bayonet. The machine gun fire continued in
intensity and then died down completely. The wood had been won. Our men
consolidated the position by moving forward in groups ever on the
watch-out for snipers in the trees. A number of these were brought down
by our crack pistol shots.
At different times during the advance runners had come through the woods
inquiring for Major John Berry, the battalion commander. One of these
runners attached himself to Lieutenant Hartzell and myself and together
the three of us located the Major coming through the woods. He granted
permission for Lieutenant Hartzell and me to accompany him and we
started forward, in all a party of some fifteen, including ten runners
attached to the battalion commander.
Owing to the continual evidences of German snipers in the trees, every
one in our party carried a revolver ready in his hand, with the
exception of myself. Correspondents, you will remember, are
non-combatants and must be unarmed. I carried a notebook, but it was
loaded. We made our way down the slope of the wooded hillside.
Midway down the slope, the hill was bisected by a sunken road which
turned forward on the left. Lying in the road were a number of French
bodies and several of our men who had been brought down but five minutes
before. We crossed that road hurriedly knowing that it was covered from
the left by German machine guns.
At the bottom of the slope there was a V-shaped field. The apex of the V
was on the left. From left to right the field was some two hundred yards
in width. The point where we came out of the woods was about one hundred
yards from the apex. At that point the field was about one hundred yards
across. It was perfectly flat and was covered with a young crop of oats
between ten and fifteen inches high.
This V-shaped oat field was bordered on all sides by dense clusters of
trees. In the trees on the side opposite the side on which we stood,
were German machine guns. We could hear them. We could not see them but
we knew that every leaf and piece of greenery there vibrated from their
fire and the tops of the young oats waved and swayed with the streams of
lead that swept across.
Major Berry gave orders for us to follow him at intervals of ten or
fifteen yards. Then he started across the field alone at the head of the
party. I followed. Behind me came Hartzell. Then the woods about us
began to rattle fiercely. It was unusually close range. That lead
travelled so fast that we could not hear it as it passed. We soon had
visual demonstration of the hot place we were in when we began to see
the dust puffs that the bullets kicked up in the dirt around our feet.
Major Berry had advanced well beyond the centre of the field when I saw
him turn toward me and heard him shout:
"Get down everybody."
We all fell on our faces. And then it began to come hot and fast.
Perfectly withering volleys of lead swept the tops of the oats just over
us. For some reason it did not seem to be coming from the trees hardly a
hundred yards in front of us. It was coming from a new direction--from
the left.
I was busily engaged flattening myself on the ground. Then I heard a
shout in front of me. It came from Major Berry. I lifted my head
cautiously and looked forward. The Major was making an effort to get to
his feet. With his right hand he was savagely grasping his left wrist.
"My hand's gone," he shouted. One of the streams of lead from the left
had found him. A ball had entered his left arm at the elbow, had
travelled down the side of the bone, tearing away muscles and nerves of
the forearm and lodging itself in the palm of his hand. His pain was
excruciating.
"Get down. Flatten out, Major," I shouted, and he dropped to the ground.
I did not know the extent of his injuries at that time but I did know
that he was courting death every minute he stood up.
"We've got to get out of here," said the Major. "We've got to get
forward. They'll start shelling this open field in a few minutes."
I lifted my head for another cautious look.
I judged that I was lying about thirty yards from the edge of the trees
in front of us. The Major was about ten yards in front of me.
"You are twenty yards from the trees," I shouted to the Major. "I am
crawling over to you now. Wait until I get there and I'll help you. Then
we'll get up and make a dash for it."
"All right," replied the Major, "hurry along."
I started forward, keeping as flat on the ground as it was possible to
do so and at the same time move. As far as was feasible, I pushed
forward by digging in with my toes and elbows extended in front of me.
It was my object to make as little movement in the oats as possible. I
was not mistaken about the intensity of fire that swept the field. It
was terrific.
And then it happened. The lighted end of a cigarette touched me in the
fleshy part of my upper left arm. That was all. It just felt like a
sudden burn and nothing worse. The burned part did not seem to be any
larger in area than that part which could be burned by the lighted end
of a cigarette.
At the time there was no feeling within the arm, that is, no feeling as
to aches or pain. There was nothing to indicate that the bullet, as I
learned several days later, had gone through the bicep muscle of the
upper arm and had come out on the other side. The only sensation
perceptible at the time was the burning touch at the spot where the
bullet entered.
I glanced down at the sleeve of my uniformed coat and could not even see
the hole where the bullet had entered. Neither was there any sudden flow
of blood. At the time there was no stiffness or discomfort in the arm
and I continued to use it to work my way forward.
Then the second one hit. It nicked the top of my left shoulder. And
again came the burning sensation, only this time the area affected
seemed larger. Hitting as it did in the meaty cap of the shoulder, I
feared that there would be no further use for the arm until it had
received attention, but again I was surprised when I found upon
experiment that I could still use it. The bone seemed to be affected in
no way.
Again there was no sudden flow of blood, nor stiffness. It seemed hard
for me to believe at the time, but I had been shot twice, penetrated
through by two bullets and was experiencing not any more pain than I had
experienced once when I dropped a lighted cigarette on the back of my
hand. I am certain that the pain in no way approached that sensation
which the dentist provides when he drills into a tooth with a live nerve
in it.
So I continued to move toward the Major. Occasionally I would shout
something to him, although, at this time, I am unable to remember what
it was. I only wanted to let him know I was coming. I had fears, based
on the one look that I had obtained of his pain-distorted face, that he
had been mortally shot in the body.
And then the third one struck me. In order to keep as close to the
ground as possible, I had swung my chin to the right so that I was
pushing forward with my left cheek flat against the ground and in order
to accommodate this position of the head, I had moved my steel helmet
over so that it covered part of my face on the right.
Then there came a crash. It sounded to me like some one had dropped a
glass bottle into a porcelain bathtub. A barrel of whitewash tipped over
and it seemed that everything in the world turned white. That was the
sensation. I did not recognise it because I have often been led to
believe and often heard it said that when one receives a blow on the
head everything turns black.
Maybe I am contrarily constructed, but in my case everything became pure
white. I remember this distinctly because my years of newspaper training
had been in but one direction--to sense and remember. So it was that,
even without knowing it, my mind was making mental notes on every
impression that my senses registered.
I did not know yet where I had been hit or what the bullet had done. I
knew that I was still knowing things. I did not know whether I was alive
or dead but I did know that my mind was still working. I was still
mentally taking notes on every second.
The first recess in that note-taking came when I asked myself the
following question:
"Am I dead?"
I didn't laugh or didn't even smile when I asked myself the question
without putting it in words. I wanted to know. And wanting to know, I
undertook to find out. I am not aware now that there was any appreciable
passage of time during this mental progress. I feel certain, however,
that I never lost consciousness.
How was I to find out if I was dead? The shock had lifted my head off
the ground but I had immediately replaced it as close to the soil as
possible. My twice punctured left arm was lying alongside my body. I
decided to try and move my fingers on my left hand. I did so and they
moved. I next moved my left foot. Then I knew I was alive.
[Illustration: HELMET WORN BY FLOYD GIBBONS WHEN WOUNDED, SHOWING DAMAGE
CAUSED BY SHRAPNEL]
Then I brought my right hand up toward my face and placed it to the left
of my nose. My fingers rested on something soft and wet. I withdrew the
hand and looked at it. It was covered with blood. As I looked at it,
I was not aware that my entire vision was confined to my right eye,
although there was considerable pain in the entire left side of my face.
This was sufficient to send me on another mental investigation. I closed
my right eye and--all was dark. My first thought following this
experiment was that my left eye was closed. So I again counselled with
myself and tried to open my left eye--that is, tried to give the mental
command that would cause the muscles of the left eye to open the lid and
close it again.
I did this but could not feel or verify in any way whether the eye lid
responded or not. I only knew that it remained dark on that side. This
brought me to another conclusion and not a pessimistic one at that. I
simply believed, in spite of the pain, that something had struck me in
the eye and had closed it.
I did not know then, as I know now, that a bullet striking the ground
immediately under my left cheek bone, had ricocheted upward, going
completely through the left eye and then crashing out through my
forehead, leaving the eyeball and upper eyelid completely halved, the
lower eyelid torn away, and a compound fracture of the skull.
Further progress toward the Major was impossible. I must confess that I
became so intensely interested in the weird sensations and subjective
research, that I even neglected to call out and tell the wounded officer
that I would not be able to continue to his assistance. I held this view
in spite of the fact that my original intentions were strong. Lying
there with my left cheek flat on the ground, I was able to observe some
minutes later the wounded Major rise to his feet and in a perfect hail
of lead rush forward and out of my line of vision.
It was several days later, in the hospital, that I learned that he
reached the shelter of the woods beyond without being hit again, and in
that place, although suffering intense pain, was able to shout back
orders which resulted in the subsequent wiping out of the machine gun
nest that had been our undoing. For this supreme effort, General
Pershing decorated him with the Distinguished Service Cross.
I began to make plans to get out of the exposed position in which I was
lying. Whereas the field when I started across it had seemed perfectly
flat, now it impressed me as being convex and I was further impressed
with the belief that I was lying on the very uppermost and most exposed
curvature of it. There is no doubt that the continued stream of machine
gun lead that swept the field superinduced this belief. I got as close
to the ground as a piece of paper on top of a table. I remember
regretting sincerely that the war had reached the stage of open movement
and one consequence of which was that there wasn't a shell hole anywhere
to crawl into.
This did not, however, eliminate the dangerous possibility of shelling.
With the fatalism that one acquires along the fronts, I was ready to
take my chances with the casual German shell that one might have
expected, but I devoted much thought to a consideration of the French
and American artillery some miles behind me. I considered the
possibility of word having been sent back that our advancing waves at
this point had been cut down by enemy machine gunners who were still in
position preventing all progress at this place. I knew that such
information, if sent back, would immediately be forwarded to our guns
and then a devastating concentration of shells would be directed toward
the location of the machine gun nests.
I knew that I was lying one hundred yards from one of those nests and I
knew that I was well within the fatal bursting radius of any shells our
gunners might direct against that German target. My fear was that myself
and other American wounded lying in that field would die by American
guns. That is what would have happened if that information had reached
our artillery and it is what should have happened.
The lives of the wounded in that field were as nothing compared with the
importance of wiping out that machine gun nest on our left which was
holding up the entire advance.
I wanted to see what time it was and my watch was attached to my left
wrist. In endeavouring to get a look at it, I found out that my left arm
was stiff and racked with pain. Hartzell, I knew, had a watch, but I did
not know where he was lying, so I called out.
He answered me from some distance away but I could not tell how far or
in what direction. I could see dimly but only at the expense of great
pain. When he answered I shouted back to him:
"Are you hit?"
"No, are you?" he asked.
"Yes, what time is it?" I said.
"Are you hit badly?" he asked in reply.
"No, I don't think so," I said. "I think I'm all right."
"Where are you hit?" he asked.
"In the head," I said; "I think something hit my eye."
"In the head, you damn fool," he shouted louder with just a bit of anger
and surprise in his voice. "How the hell can you be all right if you are
hit in the head? Are you bleeding much?"
"No," I said. "What time is it, will you tell me?"
"I'm coming over to get you," shouted Hartzell.
"Don't move, you damn fool, you want to kill both of us?" I hastened to
shout back. "If you start moving, don't move near me. I think they think
I'm dead."
"Well you can't lie there and bleed to death," Hartzell replied. "We've
got to do something to get to hell out of here. What'll we do?"
"Tell me what time it is and how long it will be before it's dark," I
asked.
"It's six o'clock now," Hartzell said, "and it won't be dark 'til nine;
this is June. Do you think you can stick it out?"
I told him that I thought I could and we were silent for some time. Both
of us had the feeling that other ears--ears working in conjunction with
eyes trained along the barrels of those machine guns a hundred yards on
our left--would be aroused to better marksmanship if we continued to
talk.
I began to take stock of my condition. During my year or more along the
fronts I had been through many hospitals and from my observations in
those institutions I had cultivated a keen distaste for one thing--gas
gangrene. I had learned from doctors its fatal and horrible results and
I also had learned from them that it was caused by germs which exist in
large quantities in any ground that has been under artificial
cultivation for a long period.
Such was the character of the very field I was lying in and I came to
the realisation that the wound in the left side of my face and head was
resting flatly on the soil. With my right hand I drew up my British box
respirator or gas mask and placed this under my head. Thus I rested with
more confidence, although the machine gun lead continued to pass in
sheets through the tops of the oats not two or three inches above my
head.
All of it was coming from the left,--coming from the German nests
located in the trees at the apex of the V-shaped field. Those guns were
not a hundred yards away and they seemed to have an inexhaustible supply
of ammunition. Twenty feet away on my left a wounded Marine was lying.
Occasionally I would open my right eye for a painful look in his
direction.
He was wounded and apparently unconscious. His pack, "the khaki doll,"
was still strapped between his shoulders. Unconsciously he was doing
that which all wounded men do--that is, to assume the position that is
the most comfortable. He was trying to roll over on his back.
But the pack was on his back and every time he would roll over on this
it would elevate his body into full view of the German gunners. Then a
withering hail of lead would sweep the field. It so happened that I was
lying immediately in line between those German guns and this unconscious
moving target. As the Marine would roll over on top of the pack his
chest would be exposed to the fire.
I could see the buttons fly from his tunic and one of the shoulder
straps of the back pack part as the sprays of lead struck him. He would
limply roll off the pack over on his side. I found myself wishing that
he would lie still, as every movement of his brought those streams of
bullets closer and closer to my head. I even considered the thickness of
the box respirator on which I had elevated my head off the ground. It
was about two inches thick.
I remembered my French gas mask hanging from my shoulder and recalled
immediately that it was much flatter, being hardly half an inch in
thickness. I forthwith drew up the French mask to my head, extracted the
British one and rested my cheek closer to the ground on the French one.
Thus, I lowered my head about an inch and a half--an inch and a half
that represented worlds of satisfaction and some optimism to me.
Sometimes there were lulls in the firing. During those periods of
comparative quiet, I could hear the occasional moan of other wounded on
that field. Very few of them cried out and it seemed to me that those
who did were unconscious when they did it. One man in particular had a
long, low groan. I could not see him, yet I felt he was lying somewhere
close to me. In the quiet intervals, his unconscious expression of pain
reminded me of the sound I had once heard made by a calf which had been
tied by a short rope to a tree. The animal had strayed round and round
the tree until its entanglements in the rope had left it a helpless
prisoner. The groan of that unseen, unconscious wounded American who
laid near me on the field that evening sounded exactly like the pitiful
bawl of that calf.
Those three hours were long in passing. With the successive volleys that
swept the field, I sometimes lost hope that I could ever survive it. It
seemed to me that if three German bullets had found me within the space
of fifteen minutes, I could hardly expect to spend three hours without
receiving the fatal one. With such thoughts on my mind I reopened
conversation with Hartzell.
"How's it coming, old man?" I shouted.
"They're coming damn close," he said; "how is it with you? Are you
losing much blood?"
"No, I'm all right as far as that goes," I replied, "but I want you to
communicate with my wife, if its 'west' for me."
"What's her address?" said Hartzell.
"It's a long one," I said. "Are you ready to take it?"
"Shoot," said Hartzell.
"'Mrs. Floyd Gibbons, No. 12 Bis, Rue de la Chevalier de la Barre,
Dijon, Cote d'Or, France.'" I said slowly.
"My God," said Hartzell, "say it again."
Back and forth we repeated the address correctly and incorrectly some
ten or twelve times until Hartzell informed me that he knew it well
enough to sing it. He also gave me his wife's address. Then just to make
conversation he would shout over, every fifteen minutes, and tell me
that there was just that much less time that we would have to lie there.
I thought that hour between seven and eight o'clock dragged the most,
but the one between eight and nine seemed interminable. The hours were
so long, particularly when we considered that a German machine gun could
fire three hundred shots a minute. Dusk approached slowly. And finally
Hartzell called over:
"I don't think they can see us now," he said; "let's start to crawl
back."
"Which way shall we crawl?" I asked.
"Into the woods," said Hartzell.
"Which woods?" I asked.
"The woods we came out of, you damn fool," he replied.
"Which direction are they in?" I said, "I've been moving around and I
don't know which way I am heading. Are you on my left, or on my right?"
"I can't tell whether I'm on your left or your right," he replied. "How
are you lying, on your face or on your back?"
"On my face," I said, "and your voice sounds like it comes from in back
of me and on the left."
"If that's the case," said Hartzell, "your head is lying toward the
wrong woods. Work around in a half circle and you'll be facing the right
direction."
I did so and then heard Hartzell's voice on my right. I started moving
toward him. Against my better judgment and expressed wishes, he crawled
out toward me and met me half way. His voice close in front of me
surprised me.
"Hold your head up a little," he said, "I want to see where it hit you."
"I don't think it looks very nice," I replied, lifting my head. I wanted
to know how it looked myself, so I painfully opened the right eye and
looked through the oats eighteen inches into Hartzell's face. I saw the
look of horror on it as he looked into mine.
Twenty minutes later, after crawling painfully through the interminable
yards of young oats, we reached the edge of the woods and safety.
That's how it feels to be shot.