Beer

by

 Lt. James "Grumpy" Smith

How’d this happen? Now I’m really on the spot. Behind me are ten pickup trucks all loaded up. It’s a dark night, and here am I and twenty three year old second lieutenant right in the middle of a crazy crisis.  What to do?  The trucks are all stopped. I’m standing on the running board. The drivers are out on the road. “Hey, lieutenant, what’s happening? Let’s get going! No time to waste. It’ll  all be gone ‘fore we get there!”.

I yell back. “You think I don’t know that? It’s this damned MP. He won’t let us through.”  

“The hell with him. Let’s go. Now!”

And there he stands - an MP sergeant. Just a young kid like me. Now he has a back up. Six of them and  they’ve got rifles. We don’t. They’re pointing at me.  “Lieutenant, I have orders. No one goes down this road. Don’t force me to shoot. I will if I have to. Now turn around and go back”

I’m the head honcho here. The only officer.  I yell “I’m an officer. Now get out of the way. I’ll take responsibility. We’re going.”  

But the MP does not back off. They all raise their rifles. They point at the truck  tires. “If you move forward, lieutenant, we’ll shoot out all of your tires”. He turns to the others “and anyone who tries it will get the same!”

We stared at one another. Will he? Would he?  Yes he would. I’m in a losing situation. No way to save face. If I back down I could have a rebellion on my hands. But there’s no question in my mind if we move he’d shoot out my tires. I’d be blamed of course.

Now at this point you’re probably curious what in hell is so important down that road? Would I surprise you if I said ‘an Italian brewery in Messina ’?

Unfortunately the last nasty, dirty, lousy thing the Germans did was to stand in the doorway and spray the beer barrels with bullets.

Beer is running all over the floor. If we don’t get there fast it’ll all be gone. I love beer. We all loved beer. We haven’t had any in No. Africa or Sicily . And now here stands that MP and his six buddies. And there stands me a twenty three year old kid and it’s up to me.

You must wonder why those MP’s were instructed to stop us. Was our headquarters against beer? No. The Germans were shelling  the roads leading to that brewery. Kinda funny isn’t it? They probably drank themselves drunk at that brewery. But they knew we would find it, and so they now are determined to see we don’t get any.

So what do you think I did? Lead a revolt? Couldn’t do that. By now everyone hates me. “Whose that damned lieu, Smith? I’d like to plug him!”

I turn around  and drive back past all those angry soldiers – pure hatred staring at me. But proud too. I don’t hide in the truck. I stick my face out so everyone could see me. We get back, everyone mad at me. But I survived and the war went on.  Wine?  We had plenty of that, but no  beer.

Wait, before I close out this topic. Sicily . End of the fighting. The Germans had fled the island. We were sitting in a dried out riverbed, relaxed. Well it’s over, but we should be doing some celebrating. Well we got to do it. Two village women came down with babies in their arms. (They always came with babies.) They wanted to make a swap. “We got wine. You got food.”

We got a five gallon water can and filled it with wine. What a time we had!

Drunk as lords, dancing around, laughing at nothing at all. Before noon three of us passed out. Woke later to puke all over. We talked about our celebration for a long time after. Why not? We’re now getting ready to invade Italy.   It was our last chance at some fun. So go for it!

Editor’s Note:  Lt. Smith was a forward observer in the 17^th Field Artillery Regiment, 13^th Brigade.  This episode took place in Sicily in August, 1943.

© Weston Military History Group, 2004.

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