A historical question arises from the accounts of two veterans of L Company, 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment. Both accounts describe events on the morning of February 20, 1945 during the 10th Mountain Division’s attack on Monte Belvedere. No company suffered more casualties in that assault than L Company of the 86th. Their mission was to capture the southern spur of Monte Gorgolesco, just south of Monte Belvedere, and then make up the right flank of the attack along the ridgeline running from Monte Belvedere to Hill 1088. Each of the two participants describe a man near them being killed by an enemy sniper early in the attack. The question is whether these two accounts tell of the death of the same man, or of two separate men.
Horton Durfee’s account:
Up ahead, shots were heard and it became apparent a real firefight was going on. Soon I realized I was in it, but I was completely bewildered as to what was going on. The area was lightly wooded, and I had lost sight of Captain Bailey, had no idea where we were, or in which direction the enemy was, or any of my comrades for that matter. As I stumbled around, I ran into another Company L man, a fellow I recognized but didn’t know well. I’ll call him Woody. He was lost, too. Together we cautiously moved in the direction we thought we should go. As we were conferring together, a shot rang out to the left and a little behind us. Woody let out a cry and fell to the ground. I automatically yelled out “Medic!” but I knew Woody was dead. I could see the life go out of his eyes, and they glazed over as I frantically tried to reach his first aid kit underneath him. But he was too heavy to roll over, so I grabbed my own kit and tried to bandage his wound, a neat round hole right through his chest and heart. It was a futile effort, and I cursed in frustration when no medic appeared at my side.
I tried once again to get to Woody’s first aid kit, for I realized I was now without my own, and I might need it any time now. But my efforts were not very enthusiastic – I hated moving Woody’s still warm body – it seemed almost sacrilegious to do so…I called once more for a medic, but none appeared, and I realized there was nothing more I could do. Also it dawned on me that whoever fired the shot that killed Woody was quite likely still out there somewhere and I might be his next victim. So I left Woody, hoping someone would come along and find him, and I headed off in the direction where I heard occasional shots being fired, and fairly soon caught up with a couple of guys I recognized from my company. When and where I was reunited with Captain Bailey I don’t remember, but I was glad to be among friends again.
Bill Morrison’s account:
I led the squad on the reverse slope. We received a couple of rifle shots and hit the prone to fire at likely enemy spots. Captain Bailey ordered us forward again. We ran down the hill far too overconfident, across a small stream and up a small rise. We couldn’t see anything. It seemed peaceful. I reached the top of a wooded rise and started down the other side a couple of yards and stooped to kneel down behind a tree…In a few seconds a mortar shell dropped about fifteen yards to the front, right where I would have walked. I glimpsed it drop but could not hit the dirt in time. One leg went limp from the knee down and I hit the dirt. Al Poskus came up and thought I had been hit badly. I was not in pain, but felt the tremendous shock of being hit. I soon felt better and crawled back to the top of the rise. Al took my rifle and saw some rocks or something roll on the ground some distance in front of us. I told Al that a stone wall ahead might be an enemy position. Al Poskus, Sam Bulkley and Leland Montague fired at the possible enemy position. When we moved and passed that point, there was a dead German there. I tried my leg and found it walkable but sore. Ned Peterson met us on top and we knelt there. All of a sudden Pete [Peterson] let out a yell, straightened up and fell forward. There was a small sigh and he lay still with eyes staring. There was blood on his chest. We ripped his shirt open and saw a small hole about the size of a quarter – little bleeding. We put sulfa powder on it and put on a bandage. As we rolled him over we saw where the bullet had entered – a small pencil hole in the back. It couldn’t have missed his heart. There was no pulse. I placed my alpaca liner over him. Ned had been shot because he was in the third position, which snipers are known to pick out as the squad leader. [Morrison was the squad leader, and he and Peterson had earlier traded places.] Horton Durfee cursed the Germans. Ned’s case was particularly sad because he left a nice young wife and small child behind. I felt no anger or emotion. I couldn’t realize what was happening, as if Ned was just playing a game with us and would get back up.
Then all hell broke loose with artillery, mortars, machineguns, snipers and deadly tree bursts. We were surrounded on three sides and no place to go. We were completely zeroed in by the enemy. We couldn’t tell where all this was coming from. We could only try to defend ourselves from the shells. The rest of the company was along the rise.
Both accounts contain striking similarities; people conferring when one of them is shot, the victim crying out and falling to the ground, eyes staring, unanswered cries for a medic, one wound directly to the heart, futile attempts to give medical care, and Horton Durfee cursing. Some of those details seem to be basic elements that might be common to many situations where a man is hit by sniper-fire, but others, especially that last detail, have left questions about whether Durfee and Morrison described the same event or separate events.
There are marked differences in the stories. Durfee describes being lost with only one other person, being completely alone in trying to give medical care, and being unable to roll the victim over. Morrison’s story includes a group of no less than six (including Durfee), none of whom were ever described as having been lost, and the victim fell face-down and was then successfully rolled onto his back.
Initially, it appeared possible that Durfee called the victim in his account Woody in order to conceal his identity. I was able to write to Horton Durfee and ask him about this. He answered that he had called the man Woody because he did not know him well at the time, and could not remember his name. I asked him if it could have been Ned Peterson, and Horton replied that he did not recall a Ned Peterson. This was not at all the definitive answer I had hoped for, but it certainly did not rule out Woody and Ned being the same man.
Memory can be a malleable thing, especially in moments of extreme stress or exertion, and over long periods of time. I wrote to Bill Morrison as well, and he told me that his account was from 1946, during a period of intense writing about his war experiences which he undertook to process them. So his account may be warped by stress, but not very much by time. Durfee’s account comes from a rare memoir which he self-published in 1998, over fifty years after the event.
Given the nature of sources whose memories were made under stress, and have possibly transformed over long periods of time, several possibilities exist to account for these two stories.
That Durfee’s memory of being lost is an inclusion in the sniper story; that he was lost with Woody, was reunited with the others, and then saw Peterson get killed. Woody and Peterson were two different men, but Woody was not killed. From five decades later, he misremembered being alone with Ned’s body, and not knowing either man very well, the two events (being lost with Woody, and being with Ned when he was killed) merged into one remembered event. Both accounts tell the story of Ned Peterson’s death, though Durfee’s story of earlier being lost with another man crept into the narrative. Durfee’s account is sketchy overall and contains large time gaps leaving plenty of room for this kind of memory shifting.
That although Morrison never mentioned it in his detailed account of the morning’s action, Ned Peterson had become lost, hooked up with Durfee, both men found the rest of the squad, and Peterson was then killed in the presence of the squad. Durfee misremembered the order of events, and being alone with Ned’s body. Morrison either didn’t notice or didn’t recall that Peterson had been missing for a time. In this version Woody and Ned Peterson are the same man. Morrison’s account is very thorough and follows a seemingly complete timeline. There is very little room in his account for Peterson to have disappeared for an extended time and then returned.
That Durfee was lost with Woody, that Woody was killed, and Durfee was afterward reunited with his comrades. Then he also saw Ned Peterson get killed, but never mentioned this second event in his memoir. Perhaps that memory was lost over time, or was amalgamated into the event of Woody’s death as one remembered event. Woody and Peterson were two different men, both of whom were killed, and the two accounts tell of two separate events.
The third scenario seems the most likely for the following reasons: First, unless there is a very compelling reason not to do so, there should be a preference to go with what the sources are saying. They were there and we were not, and while this type of source analysis is an essential part of reconstructing historical events (and can reveal compelling reasons to favor the result of analysis over the testimony of one or more sources) there should be an inclination to give them the benefit of the doubt over our own inferences. Second, there were a number of documented casualties caused by snipers during the Belvedere assault, and L Company encountered snipers at nearly every objective that day. Horton Durfee’s account of the attack essentially ends with the death of Woody. Since his memoir omits all of his subsequent actions and experiences for the remainder of the assault, a possible missing second encounter with a victim of sniper fire after the Woody incident leaves no gaping hole in his story.
That they were two separate events is the simplest explanation, and requires no tortured logic or suppositions. Even so, the possibility cannot be entirely ruled out out that Woody and Ned Peterson could have been the same person. Oxygen deprivation and over-stimulation cause the brain to filter out only small pieces of the information it receives. This can have the effect of causing two men who are next to one another in a combat situation to recall what was really a shared experience in ways that differ so much that they are almost impossible to reconcile.
If Woody was not Ned Peterson, then who could he have been? Twelve men from L Company were killed in action during the attack on February 20th (a further thirty were wounded). I have been able to establish an exact time, place and cause of death for all but three of those killed. They are Pfc. Jesus Garcia, Pfc. Archie Kuhn, and Pfc. Robert Ruhlman. Including Peterson, one of these four men must have been Woody. It is to be hoped that continued research will solve this mystery, and positively identify the man in Durfee’s account.
*UPDATE: The accounts left by Pfc. Norman Goldenberg describe the death of a man he calls “Gonzalez” during this attack. “I crawled by Gonzalez to get a shot at a kraut M.G. As in a movie, the M.G. was in a haystack. Raising my BAR, my head became the center of a cone of bullets snapping in both my ears. Crawling backward I found Gonzalez dead.” There was no man in L Company named Gonzalez until Joe Gonzalez arrive with the unit almost a month after the Monte Belvedere attack. It seems probable that he actually describes the death of Pfc. Jesus Garcia. This would reduce those who might have been “Woody” to Pfc. Ned Peterson, Pfc. Archie Kuhn, or Pfc. Robert Ruhlman.
This blog is part of a larger body of research culminating in the publication of the book ‘Heroes in Good Company: L Company, 86th Regiment, 10th Mountain Division 1943-1945’ which is available in select bookstores and on amazon.
German Snipers on Monte Belvedere – A Historical Mystery
A German sniper in winter clothing.
A historical question arises from the accounts of two veterans of L Company, 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment. Both accounts describe events on the morning of February 20, 1945 during the 10th Mountain Division’s attack on Monte Belvedere. No company suffered more casualties in that assault than L Company of the 86th. Their mission was to capture the southern spur of Monte Gorgolesco, just south of Monte Belvedere, and then make up the right flank of the attack along the ridgeline running from Monte Belvedere to Hill 1088. Each of the two participants describe a man near them being killed by an enemy sniper early in the attack. The question is whether these two accounts tell of the death of the same man, or of two separate men.
Horton Durfee’s account:
Up ahead, shots were heard and it became apparent a real firefight was going on. Soon I realized I was in it, but I was completely bewildered as to what was going on. The area was lightly wooded, and I had lost sight of Captain Bailey, had no idea where we were, or in which direction the enemy was, or any of my comrades for that matter. As I stumbled around, I ran into another Company L man, a fellow I recognized but didn’t know well. I’ll call him Woody. He was lost, too. Together we cautiously moved in the direction we thought we should go. As we were conferring together, a shot rang out to the left and a little behind us. Woody let out a cry and fell to the ground. I automatically yelled out “Medic!” but I knew Woody was dead. I could see the life go out of his eyes, and they glazed over as I frantically tried to reach his first aid kit underneath him. But he was too heavy to roll over, so I grabbed my own kit and tried to bandage his wound, a neat round hole right through his chest and heart. It was a futile effort, and I cursed in frustration when no medic appeared at my side.
I tried once again to get to Woody’s first aid kit, for I realized I was now without my own, and I might need it any time now. But my efforts were not very enthusiastic – I hated moving Woody’s still warm body – it seemed almost sacrilegious to do so…I called once more for a medic, but none appeared, and I realized there was nothing more I could do. Also it dawned on me that whoever fired the shot that killed Woody was quite likely still out there somewhere and I might be his next victim. So I left Woody, hoping someone would come along and find him, and I headed off in the direction where I heard occasional shots being fired, and fairly soon caught up with a couple of guys I recognized from my company. When and where I was reunited with Captain Bailey I don’t remember, but I was glad to be among friends again.
Bill Morrison’s account:
I led the squad on the reverse slope. We received a couple of rifle shots and hit the prone to fire at likely enemy spots. Captain Bailey ordered us forward again. We ran down the hill far too overconfident, across a small stream and up a small rise. We couldn’t see anything. It seemed peaceful. I reached the top of a wooded rise and started down the other side a couple of yards and stooped to kneel down behind a tree…In a few seconds a mortar shell dropped about fifteen yards to the front, right where I would have walked. I glimpsed it drop but could not hit the dirt in time. One leg went limp from the knee down and I hit the dirt. Al Poskus came up and thought I had been hit badly. I was not in pain, but felt the tremendous shock of being hit. I soon felt better and crawled back to the top of the rise. Al took my rifle and saw some rocks or something roll on the ground some distance in front of us. I told Al that a stone wall ahead might be an enemy position. Al Poskus, Sam Bulkley and Leland Montague fired at the possible enemy position. When we moved and passed that point, there was a dead German there. I tried my leg and found it walkable but sore. Ned Peterson met us on top and we knelt there. All of a sudden Pete [Peterson] let out a yell, straightened up and fell forward. There was a small sigh and he lay still with eyes staring. There was blood on his chest. We ripped his shirt open and saw a small hole about the size of a quarter – little bleeding. We put sulfa powder on it and put on a bandage. As we rolled him over we saw where the bullet had entered – a small pencil hole in the back. It couldn’t have missed his heart. There was no pulse. I placed my alpaca liner over him. Ned had been shot because he was in the third position, which snipers are known to pick out as the squad leader. [Morrison was the squad leader, and he and Peterson had earlier traded places.] Horton Durfee cursed the Germans. Ned’s case was particularly sad because he left a nice young wife and small child behind. I felt no anger or emotion. I couldn’t realize what was happening, as if Ned was just playing a game with us and would get back up.
Then all hell broke loose with artillery, mortars, machineguns, snipers and deadly tree bursts. We were surrounded on three sides and no place to go. We were completely zeroed in by the enemy. We couldn’t tell where all this was coming from. We could only try to defend ourselves from the shells. The rest of the company was along the rise.
Both accounts contain striking similarities; people conferring when one of them is shot, the victim crying out and falling to the ground, eyes staring, unanswered cries for a medic, one wound directly to the heart, futile attempts to give medical care, and Horton Durfee cursing. Some of those details seem to be basic elements that might be common to many situations where a man is hit by sniper-fire, but others, especially that last detail, have left questions about whether Durfee and Morrison described the same event or separate events.
There are marked differences in the stories. Durfee describes being lost with only one other person, being completely alone in trying to give medical care, and being unable to roll the victim over. Morrison’s story includes a group of no less than six (including Durfee), none of whom were ever described as having been lost, and the victim fell face-down and was then successfully rolled onto his back.
Initially, it appeared possible that Durfee called the victim in his account Woody in order to conceal his identity. I was able to write to Horton Durfee and ask him about this. He answered that he had called the man Woody because he did not know him well at the time, and could not remember his name. I asked him if it could have been Ned Peterson, and Horton replied that he did not recall a Ned Peterson. This was not at all the definitive answer I had hoped for, but it certainly did not rule out Woody and Ned being the same man.
Memory can be a malleable thing, especially in moments of extreme stress or exertion, and over long periods of time. I wrote to Bill Morrison as well, and he told me that his account was from 1946, during a period of intense writing about his war experiences which he undertook to process them. So his account may be warped by stress, but not very much by time. Durfee’s account comes from a rare memoir which he self-published in 1998, over fifty years after the event.
Given the nature of sources whose memories were made under stress, and have possibly transformed over long periods of time, several possibilities exist to account for these two stories.
That Durfee’s memory of being lost is an inclusion in the sniper story; that he was lost with Woody, was reunited with the others, and then saw Peterson get killed. Woody and Peterson were two different men, but Woody was not killed. From five decades later, he misremembered being alone with Ned’s body, and not knowing either man very well, the two events (being lost with Woody, and being with Ned when he was killed) merged into one remembered event. Both accounts tell the story of Ned Peterson’s death, though Durfee’s story of earlier being lost with another man crept into the narrative. Durfee’s account is sketchy overall and contains large time gaps leaving plenty of room for this kind of memory shifting.
That although Morrison never mentioned it in his detailed account of the morning’s action, Ned Peterson had become lost, hooked up with Durfee, both men found the rest of the squad, and Peterson was then killed in the presence of the squad. Durfee misremembered the order of events, and being alone with Ned’s body. Morrison either didn’t notice or didn’t recall that Peterson had been missing for a time. In this version Woody and Ned Peterson are the same man. Morrison’s account is very thorough and follows a seemingly complete timeline. There is very little room in his account for Peterson to have disappeared for an extended time and then returned.
That Durfee was lost with Woody, that Woody was killed, and Durfee was afterward reunited with his comrades. Then he also saw Ned Peterson get killed, but never mentioned this second event in his memoir. Perhaps that memory was lost over time, or was amalgamated into the event of Woody’s death as one remembered event. Woody and Peterson were two different men, both of whom were killed, and the two accounts tell of two separate events.
The third scenario seems the most likely for the following reasons: First, unless there is a very compelling reason not to do so, there should be a preference to go with what the sources are saying. They were there and we were not, and while this type of source analysis is an essential part of reconstructing historical events (and can reveal compelling reasons to favor the result of analysis over the testimony of one or more sources) there should be an inclination to give them the benefit of the doubt over our own inferences. Second, there were a number of documented casualties caused by snipers during the Belvedere assault, and L Company encountered snipers at nearly every objective that day. Horton Durfee’s account of the attack essentially ends with the death of Woody. Since his memoir omits all of his subsequent actions and experiences for the remainder of the assault, a possible missing second encounter with a victim of sniper fire after the Woody incident leaves no gaping hole in his story.
That they were two separate events is the simplest explanation, and requires no tortured logic or suppositions. Even so, the possibility cannot be entirely ruled out out that Woody and Ned Peterson could have been the same person. Oxygen deprivation and over-stimulation cause the brain to filter out only small pieces of the information it receives. This can have the effect of causing two men who are next to one another in a combat situation to recall what was really a shared experience in ways that differ so much that they are almost impossible to reconcile.
If Woody was not Ned Peterson, then who could he have been? Twelve men from L Company were killed in action during the attack on February 20th (a further thirty were wounded). I have been able to establish an exact time, place and cause of death for all but three of those killed. They are Pfc. Jesus Garcia, Pfc. Archie Kuhn, and Pfc. Robert Ruhlman. Including Peterson, one of these four men must have been Woody. It is to be hoped that continued research will solve this mystery, and positively identify the man in Durfee’s account.
*UPDATE: The accounts left by Pfc. Norman Goldenberg describe the death of a man he calls “Gonzalez” during this attack. “I crawled by Gonzalez to get a shot at a kraut M.G. As in a movie, the M.G. was in a haystack. Raising my BAR, my head became the center of a cone of bullets snapping in both my ears. Crawling backward I found Gonzalez dead.” There was no man in L Company named Gonzalez until Joe Gonzalez arrive with the unit almost a month after the Monte Belvedere attack. It seems probable that he actually describes the death of Pfc. Jesus Garcia. This would reduce those who might have been “Woody” to Pfc. Ned Peterson, Pfc. Archie Kuhn, or Pfc. Robert Ruhlman.
Read more about Horton Durfee here: Voices of War – Horton K. Durfee
This blog is part of a larger body of research culminating in the publication of the book ‘Heroes in Good Company: L Company, 86th Regiment, 10th Mountain Division 1943-1945’ which is available in select bookstores and on amazon.
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