The Undertaker's Daughter (43 page)

O
n this same visit to Jubilee, the house that was formerly my family’s funeral home was for sale. The house was fairly recognizable from the outside, although it looked badly run-down and was probably the most unattractive house on the street. The current owner had run ugly cables and wires in front and had clumsily incorporated an extra window. I called the real estate agent and asked her if she would help me gain access. She explained that the house had been divided into apartments and wondered if I still wanted to see it. I asked her to bring all of the keys. I wanted to see every single one of them.

I lost count of how many apartments there were, perhaps four or five. The rooms that were left unchanged were smaller than I remembered. The original tiles surrounding the fireplaces were now cracked and yellowed. Amazingly, the claw-foot bath had not been replaced. We climbed the very same steps to my bedroom, from where, without thinking, I looked out the window, as if I’d catch a glimpse of my father again making his way to the garage.

Most of the apartments were filthy and had the feel of drug dens. Clothes were strewn everywhere, ashtrays were full of butts, and empty beer cans littered the rooms. We repeatedly went outside to gain entry through a different door to a different apartment. The real estate agent performed admirably; the jangling of her clunky keys drowned my sighs. Each time a door opened, I experienced something familiar, but it was like walking with a veil over my face.

The downstairs area, where the business of death had taken place, was the most changed. One of the apartments downstairs was newly renovated and empty. I stepped onto the new carpet and admired the fresh paint job, then walked though a door into a
closet or storage area, a small, narrow room with no windows. We couldn’t find the light switch and stood in almost complete darkness. In the silence a sudden shiver rippled up my spine, and then I knew. This was the embalming room. I was sure of it. I could scarcely breathe. As chilling as it was, it was the most peculiar and familiar feeling, the closest I had yet come to reexperiencing my childhood home.

The sound of the real estate agent’s keys brought me out of my trance and we left. I was shattered.

Y
ears after the death of my father and the loss of our home, many miles from Kentucky, I sought to discover as best I could what had happened to him to make him the man he was. My mother, the executor of all of his wishes, broke a promise she’d made to him decades before, in an attempt to help me. She handed me an envelope. “Here, read this. He told me to read it, put it away, and never show it to anyone else. But you should see it.”

My father’s neat handwriting filled pages of thick, white paper, the kind they don’t make anymore. This was the only letter of his my mother had kept from his two years in Europe.

The hardest three days of battle I ever saw or took part in was two days before Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving Day 1944. We were on the move, taking close to five tours a day. Have just crossed the Maginot line. There were snipers, machine guns, mortars, shells, burp guns, airplanes and teller mines and it seemed as if every one of them were aimed straight at you. Hungry and nothing to eat, cold and
could not get warm, sleepy and was afraid to go to sleep. We had about 1000 yards of open ground to reach the small town, was about 4:00pm. That was our objective. So here we go. I ran as fast as I could, trying to miss all of those guns. I was sneaking about, it was hard, but by luck I did. When I reached the first house I pushed the door open, just as I got inside an 88mm shell fell on the porch, which killed 5 of my men. So there I was, lost again. Well in war, you may know we don’t stop to grieve over the dead.

We went from house to house clearing the Germans. Now it is just about dark. Thought maybe things would be quiet. But orders came down that we had to take the next town, which was about one half night away. We started out of town when all of a sudden we were caught in machine gun fire. We laid in cold muddy water for hours. When it got full dark we slipped into a field and were on our way. They were waiting for us. Of course you want to know how we could see to fight after dark. It was not much trouble, they used flares, and then too, the towns were set on fire by shells. I again made it to the first house and there were about ten of us that got into the house. We were waiting until we could get a chance to push a little further, when all at once a shell came through and set the house on fire. So you can see by now we were trapped. Either we burned to death, or take a narrow chance of getting through the gunfire. Staying just as close to the ground as we could, we made it to the next house about two of us at a time and in different houses.

From where I was I had a good view of the Germans and they could not see where I was hiding. I was picking them off pretty good, so they began backing up. By the time we all got set and began firing they really got on the move and we had a
pretty good night. By daylight here we are on the move again. The town was about three miles away and I knew it would be rough. We had a company on our right helping us. We started up a long hill, walking with our guns set and ready to fire. When all at once machine guns open on us. I hit the ground and moved over to a shell hole. Just before I got there a bullet went over my head and hit a very good friend of mine. So I took a chance and slipped over to give him first aid. By the time I got there he looked up at me and said, “Well, Mayfield, this is it. You take care of yourself and keep up the good work.” By now maybe you understand why we drink. Sometimes that’s what it takes. But anyway, later we found it was our own men shooting at us. Bad mistake, what do you think.

Thanksgiving Day! About 8:00am orders came down to take one company and go over the hill and clear out a small town and then come back and have a good Thanksgiving dinner, and we needed it too. We all left our packs there, just had our rifles and four bandoleers. However, I was carrying the automatic rifle, which fired like a machine gun and of course the man who carried that was the boy that they tried to pick off first because it has so much firepower. I had not reached the top of the hill when a shell landed about 15 yards from me. A piece of shrapnel hit my ammo belt. It went through two clips of ammo but just nipped the skin. It turned me a good flip but I was not hurt.

We got to the top of the hill at last. They told us there were only about twenty-five Germans in the town, but we knew better. So the captain called back and told the Commander that with just one company of men we could not take the town. But our orders were to take the town. So
here we go. We could see tanks moving around in the town and they set up and began firing point straight at us and I mean that is rough. I was running toward the town like a storm. I saw that I could not make it—men were falling all around me dead before they hit the ground. Then about 20 yards away I saw a little stone stile block about 2 feet wide and about 3 feet high. So I made a dive for it and lucky me made it. Well I stuck my BAR out around one corner and began firing but was not doing any damage. So I laid there and wondered what would happen, because I knew that we did not stand a chance.

I turned around and saw about ten of our men running for the same stone I was behind, only about five got there, the rest were shot down. I knew it would not work with six behind the stone and it didn’t because they began cutting it down. So I took off again. How bullets missed me I will never know.

So I got into this little wood building. I was the only one in the building, in fact I was the first one to get to the town alive. I was tired, hungry and afraid and anything else you could think of. The Germans saw me go into the building but they did not try to get me right then. I think that is why I am living today. If they had gotten into the little building I think I would have been shot. Then here comes the Captain too, men were covering him. He was shot in the right hip. Then that made four of us in there and I knew it was not safe. So I started to climb out of the window when the Germans opened up on the little house. So I got flat on the floor. On that go round one of the boys was hit in the chest, in fact it went through him. I gave him first aid even though I knew it would not do any good. While I was doing that, a
German Lieutenant came to the door with a pistol. I started to grab my rifle, but saw that it was too late. He came in and took everything away from us and smashed our guns, kicked us and then walked to the door. One of our men saw him and took good aim and shot him through the head from across the street.

I knew what would happen after killing the Lieutenant because they thought one of us did it. I saw several mattresses just piled in one corner and I got under them and stayed. It was about 11:00am. I really don’t think I moved or got my breath. I could hear the Germans talking, then I heard four shots. I knew they had killed the Captain and the other men and that they could do me the same way if they found me. This went on the rest of the day and part of the night. About 11:00pm I slipped real easy from under the mattresses and got out where I could hear, but there was only one boy still living and he was drowning in his own blood. So there was not much I could do. I waded through the stiff bodies to the door. When I got there I did not see or hear anything. I then stepped outside, looked all around and started real easy toward our lines.

I didn’t have any rifle or protection at all, but I knew it was the only thing to do. I came down through the orchard on a slow run; it was darker than hell. Just as I got into the open field I was shot at by a tracer bullet that missed me by about 4 feet. I had gotten about 200 yards from town and I began stumbling over dead bodies, so I slowed down a bit in order that I might see them in time to step over them or go around.

I got back to the company, went on to my Sergeant and found only one man with his head hanging down, crying. When he saw me he came running and said, “Mayfield did
you make it?” I said, “Yes, but this looks like all of us.” So out of my company of two hundred and fifty men there were only four who got back alive. So that’s it, just a small piece of what went on in the war.

I
have since discovered, through a helpful and committed network of World War II veterans, that one of the battles my father described was at Hilsprich, France. All of the officers and almost all of the noncommissioned American officers were killed or captured on that Thanksgiving Day. It was the most costly battle of the entire war for Company C, of the 137th Infantry Regiment. After Hilsprich, the company consisted almost entirely of new troops. The soldiers of Company C were also the first members of Patton’s army to set foot on German soil, and my father was still with the company on that day in December 1944.

On July 12, 1973, the entire sixth floor of the Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, was destroyed by fire, along with over 16 million military service records. Anyone in search of a family member’s records will know how disappointing it was to me to discover this.