Machine Gun Hill, Ohrdruf, and the Death Camp Doctor
A conversation with 90th Infantry Division veteran Darrel Petty
The 712th Tank Battalion, with which my father served, was an independent battalion that, for most of the war, was attached to the 90th “Texas-Oklahoma” Infantry Division. While I attended every reunion of the 712th from 1989 on, the handful of 90th Infantry reunions I went to yielded a treasure trove of interviews, most of which were impromptu as they were conducted at the reunion and I only did a couple of more formal interviews.
At the 1997 reunion of the 90th in Omaha, Nebraska, I was chatting with Darrell Petty. All these years later I don’t remember how the conversation began; all I know is I must have thought, uh-oh, I’d better hit the record button for this. Here is a transcript.
Darrell Petty
Omaha, Neb., Sept. 1997
Aaron Elson: You’re Darrell Petty, Company G, 358...
Darrell Petty: ...Anyway, it didn’t sound like a German tank. But imagine that sucker coming around that corner into view, the first thing I saw was the end of the barrel on that muzzle brake, I thought, oh, man, they got tanks behind us. Boy, I was sure glad to see that old white star shining on that sucker, I’ll tell you. It made a whole bit of difference. [He was talking about the tank battalion’s first crossing of the Moselle River, which was flooded at the time. The infantry had crossed on assault boats a few days earlier and was facing stiff opposition.]
Aaron Elson: Yes, they got one platoon of tanks across the Moselle, just in time from what I understand.
Darrell Petty: Well, I’ll tell you. It was a lot different the second time I crossed it. [The division’s second crossing of the Moselle was in March of 1945.] I crossed on a bridge. But then we ran into quite a firefight on Hill 451.
Aaron Elson: Where was that?
Darrell Petty: We were supposed to be in reserve. F Company had pulled up on the line and we were in reserve, and we left, I can’t think of the name of that town, just right on the banks of the Moselle on the other side, and anyway, we billeted in houses. We took over houses; we felt pretty secure by that time in the war. So we started marching up in reserve, and we could hear digging. We knew somebody was digging in, but we didn’t know who. And we went up a hill, a pretty damn steep hill, and a guy by the name of Gene Miller and I, we helped another guy up, his name was Prey. He was a private first class, and if I knew then what I know now he was having a heart attack. But we didn’t know it. And I was packing his, he carried a little 536 radio, and I was packing that, and they’re pretty heavy those little devils. And Miller was packing his M-1 rifle, and we were lightening the load up for him as much as we could.
Just the day before that we’d chopped his hair off; it had gotten long. It looked like the devil, so we chopped it off. Anyhow, we got to the top of the hill, then we set down for a break. We could still hear this digging. These guys digging in, whoever it was, and it turned out it was F Company. And about that time, we were just setting there and here comes a a machine gun burst. The Germans shoot white tracers; ours were orange, so we knew that it was definitely German. The sound, and by the tracers — they shot just about twice as fast as our Brownings did. And man, we whirled around and headed for cover. And this kid, this Pfc. Prey, he let out a groan and collapsed.
We figured he was hit. We got over the hill and then hollered “Medic!” And a guy by the name of Doc Roberts, Thomas Roberts, a field medic but everybody called him Doc, he came up, and he and I crawled out there to Prey. We got ahold of him and dragged him back behind cover. And he was gone. And he had a classic look of a person with a heart attack.
Aaron Elson: A classic what?
Darrell Petty: A classic look, in the coloration of his face. We tried to find where he was hit, and we couldn’t find any blood. He didn’t have a bullet mark on him. He died of a heart attack. And we lost him. He was the only dead one. We had some wounded. And Lieutenant Colonel Cleveland A. Lyttle was leading us. He was the battalion commander, and he went right up that hill with us.
All we know is they said there were machine guns on the hill; well, that was standard. If we’d have known what was on it we probably wouldn’t have tried it. They pinned F Company down and they had killed 25 men in F Company and wounded some others. There were five companies of German SS, and they were dug in on that hill, and they had 40 ground type machine guns. And F Company had just buggered into them. And they weren’t supposed to be there. By all the reports there was nothing there. And Lyttle came up and said “We’ve got this hill to take, it’s got some machine guns on it, we’re gonna take it.”
Okay, F Company’s pinned down. So, we called in artillery, everything they had, and boy, they were tossing them in there close to us. So we had to go down the hill, under trees.When you’re standing looking into a hillside and there’s trees, you can’t see in there. But the Germans, their trees were clean of limbs up about that high. It’s beautiful forest.
Aaron Elson: Was it a very steep hill?
Darrell Petty: Yes, pretty steep. And we had to cross the valley, that’s where they pinned F Company down. We went through F Company, and we headed up that hill. But when we got underneath that canopy where we could look up under there, man, it looked like an anthill; there was Germans running all over that hill. Well, hey, you couldn’t do anything but go forward. If we’d turned around and retreated, we’d have been just like F Company. So we just kept going in, and they’d taught us to use that march and fire. Every time your right foot hit the ground, if you had a carbine you fired it, and we got good shooting from the hip. Heck, I could throw a small bucket out and fire when I throw it and hit it five, six times out of eight out of that M-1 Garrand. And that’s the way we went up that hill.
And that colonel, he gave his .45 to a kid in headquarters company, or his carbine, and he went up the hill with us. Our watches were all synchronized when the artillery was gonna stop, so we knew what time to hit the hill. And when we got to the top, and just between us, and we took one German prisoner.
Aaron Elson: Just one?
Darrell Petty: One. He was a sergeant, spoke English, and he said, “You damned Americans are crazy.” He said, “You don’t know how to fight a war. When you’re fired on with full automatic weapons you’re supposed to hit the ground and take cover.” He said, “That other unit did and you guys didn’t. You just kept coming at us. We couldn’t get our heads up to shoot back straight.” And it made “The Army Hour” [a program broadcast on NBC during the war]] and was broadcast all over the free world.
Aaron Elson: You know, that’s what they told me. I’ve met some of the Germans who fought there, in one of the villages, and one who spoke English said the Americans didn’t know how to fight.
Darrell Petty: Oh yeah. He said we took war for sport, because we laughed at things. Sometimes it was either laugh or cry, so we laughed. And by golly, it’s an awful thing to say, but we shouldn’t take prisoners, because if you stand there guarding that prisoner you’re gonna get shot. And some, very few of them tried to but most of them tried to fight, but a few tried to surrender. You couldn’t stand there and guard him because you’re going to get shot. Plus that, we needed everybody up the hill. So you just had to do what you did.
Aaron Elson: Now the Germans on top of the hill, were they killed by the infantry or by the artillery?
Darrell Petty: Infantry. We took a kid by the name of Speaks, he had a B.A.R. [Browning automatic rifle], and I had an M-1, and old Thomas was like a squad leader. He was right up there on the front end of that thing with us, that medic, and by golly, we overran the CP, the command post up there, and a full German colonel came out of there and his cadre, and they were running and we opened up on them with the B.A.R. and that M-1 and it just folded them up.
There was one still alive, and Roberts went down and was gonna try to help him, and I heard a Schmeisser bolt click. I hollered “Doc! Look out!” I looked up the hill and he was taking aim on old Doc, and Doc just fell down among the bodies and he sprayed him and he finished killing the German, but he didn’t get Doc. And about that time Speaks and I opened up on him, with the B.A.R. and the M-1.
Aaron Elson: The German was firing at Doc?
Darrell Petty: Yeah, he was gonna kill Doc, and Doc was trying to help a German, wounded. He killed the German, and Doc fell in behind the bodies and he didn’t get him. Then we nailed that guy. And my M-1 was so hot it wouldn’t quit firing. It was setting itself off. And on the way up, a kid by the name of Phyllis, in F Company...
Aaron Elson: Phillips?
Darrell Petty: Phyllis, just like a girl’s name, his last name was Phyllis. He was mad, and he jumped up, and he said, “I’m going with you!” He went through basic with us, this other kid and me.
Aaron Elson: He was from F Company?
Darrell Petty: Yeah, he was from F company. And he shouldn’t have even gone with us, but he did. And halfway up the hill I got a bunch of machine gun bullets through the pant leg, and they cut him down. I thought my leg was gone; it felt like somebody knocked it off. I looked down. It was still working; it was okay. But if he hadn’t gone with us, a kid out of Prescott, Arizona, by the name of Billy Bacon and I, we would have run out of ammunition halfway up the hill. We went back and got his ammunition and finished it up, and when it was done I had 18 rounds left. We split it, and we were expecting a counterattack. We were setting there with dang little ammunition. But as it turned out, this German sergeant, he saw what was going on and he played dead. He smeared blood on his face and lay there. When we discovered he was alive, Lieutenant Kelso said, “I want to talk to him,” because old Sergeant Hill was about to kill him. And Lieutenant Kelso said said, “I want to find out what they’re doing here.”
As it turned out, they were supposed to let us bypass them, and then they were going to hit us from the rear that night, and the 11th Panzer was going to hit us from the front. The 11th Panzer, the German armored unit. And then, of course, when we found out, we called artillery in on where the 11th Panzer was gonna come in and we foiled the whole thing. We were put in for a presidential unit citation for that. And it was on the Army Hour. I have the little article, I’ve got it at home, where it says Colonel Lyttle and G Company of 358 outmaneuvered and destroyed five companies of German SS. And I’ve had people look at me about those holes. I had seven holes in the pant legs.
My officers tried to figure out how it could make those holes but miss my leg. And I got a letter from a buddy that was there, he got married after we came home, he got married, and he said, “I sure would like to have you meet my wife. I’ve been telling her all about you and what we did over there.” Then he said, “Well, not quite everything.” But he said, “I even told her about the seven holes in your pant leg.” And I’ve got that letter at home. I didn’t solicit that. So that’s a pretty good testimonial.
Aaron Elson: Now, the German sergeant that was captured, he had smeared blood on his face?
Darrell Petty: He saw what was happening, he saw we weren’t taking any prisoners, his comrade was dead, and he just got some blood and smeared it on his face.
Aaron Elson: Was he wounded at all?
Darrell Petty: Not touched. He just laid down and played dead.
Aaron Elson: And somebody was gonna shoot him, and then who said that they wanted to talk to him?
Darrell Petty: Sergeant Will was gonna kill him, and Lieutenant Kelso, he was our executive officer, he hollered at him, “Will, don’t you kill him, I want to talk to him.”
Aaron Elson: And after they talked to him, then what happened?
Darrell Petty: Then he went back to a prisoner of war compound. But oh yeah, we called it Machine Gun Hill. We figured we were kind of justified in doing that.
Aaron Elson: Now were you wounded later on?
Darrell Petty: I was wounded twice; actually three times. Once I didn’t even; the line medic patched me up and that was it.
Aaron Elson: Where were you wounded?
Darrell Petty: Just outside of Chambois, when we closed the Falaise Gap, the first time. The second time I got it was in the Siegfried Line. And the third time that I got a minor wound, it was about two weeks before the end of the war.
Aaron Elson: And where was that?
Darrell Petty: Getting pretty close up to Czechoslovakia. I don’t remember just where, what town.
Aaron Elson: Before the liberation of the concentration camp?
Darrell Petty: Uh, after some of them. See, we went to Flossenburg...
Aaron Elson: Were you with them at Flossenburg?
Darrell Petty: Yeah. Flossenburg was the last one that we took. You won’t find it in the books or nothing, but the 4th Armored and part of our unit went to Buchenwald, too. But you won’t find it in any history book, because we were stopped at Merkers, where the gold reserves were. And Patton said, it don’t take us all to watch Merkers, and there was a little place called Ohrdruf or something like that. Anyway, it was supposed to be a work camp. But we got there and there were bodies stacked up. A lot of them had come from Buchenwald. They were stacked up. First encounter. And went to Buchenwald, and, when the Germans were gone, the prisoners had apparently taken Buchenwald over by that time, but we saw what was there. And of course, that old camp commandant’s wife, she was called the Bitch of Buchenwald, because she liked tattoos, she made lampshades.
Aaron Elson: Ilse Koch?
Darrell Petty: Yeah, I guess. I don’t know, I don’t remember her name. I just called her what they called her. But anyway, the one unit...
Aaron Elson: Were you with that unit?
Darrell Petty: Yes. And we went to Buchenwald, but you don’t find it in books.
Aaron Elson: Had Buchenwald already been liberated?
Darrell Petty: No. But the Germans knew we were going to overrun it and most of them had fled, and they took quite a lot of the prisoners from Buchenwald to Flossenburg. Then they tried to take them from Flossenburg to Dachau. So, like I said, most of the Germans were gone and the prisoners were actually about in charge of Buchenwald when we got there. But it was still in enemy territory at the time.
Aaron Elson: So you actually went to Buchenwald before it was liberated?
Darrell Petty: As it was liberated. The 4th Armored and a unit from our outfit and another outfit.
Aaron Elson: Did you go into it?
Darrell Petty: Oh yeah, we went in there.
Aaron Elson: And what did you see?
Darrell Petty: Bodies. Everything you can imagine, it horrified us, and we’d seen those bodies at that other one, I couldn’t say its name, and most of them had come from Buchenwald, so we were kind of prepared for it, but still it was...
Aaron Elson: Were any of the German guards captured at the time?
Darrell Petty: The prisoners had got some of them. The prisoners had killed some of them. They caught them. They killed quite a few, the ones that hadn’t got out of there. Once they got control, they went hunting. A revenge thing, and I couldn’t blame them. But where they were shipped to, down there at this other place, they had heavy equipment there and they were supposed to have dug trenches and got them buried before we got there, and they didn’t get it done.
Aaron Elson: And it was just the emaciated bodies?
Darrell Petty: Yeah. I’ve got a few pictures at home. So many times you’d take pictures. I got ahold of a camera, and you always got a moment to stop and snap a picture. We’d have to cross a river or something, you’d get the film wet; it was the old roll type, you know, 120s and that. I’ve got some from Flossenburg, and Dachau.
Aaron Elson: Did you take any at Buchenwald?
Darrell Petty: I took some, but I lost them, before I got it. And then, after the war was over, I was still enlisted for a while. I enlisted, and instead of coming home with the division, I stayed over there in the army of occupation. They transferred me back to Munich, and I was attached to the 508th MP battalion. And when we weren’t doing the other stuff we just pulled regular MP duty. But we were at Dachau, at the war crime trials, and at Nuremberg, we were part of them.
Aaron Elson: Were you at Dachau for the war crimes trials? You never ran into a fellow named Clifford Merrill, did you? He retired as a colonel, but he was in charge of MPs at the Dachau...
Darrell Petty: I probably saw him, but you know, so many times, like I said, we didn’t know names. Didn’t bother with names. And if you didn’t know the guy, why, he was just another GI. I most likely saw him, I probably saw him there.
Aaron Elson: He was an officer of the MPs. He had contact with that Ilse Koch, and also there was one famous prisoner there, Otto Skorzeny, he was the commando who tried to capture Eisenhower, and who had freed Mussolini the first time. He was one of the prisoners there. [Cliff Merrill was the original commander of A Company in the 712th Tank Battalion. He was wounded on July 13, 1944, in Normandy and didn’t return until late in the war.]
Darrell Petty: I don’t remember the name, but, you know, one that stands out in my mind was old Dr. Schilling.
Aaron Elson: Why does that stand out?
Darrell Petty: Because he did so much experimenting on the people. He was the camp doctor...
Aaron Elson: At which camp?
Darrell Petty: Dachau. And he experimented on those people. Even when we took those places, it was horrible to see what was there, but we still didn’t know about all the experimentation until the trials. And, uh, I came within an inch of shooting him.
Aaron Elson: Really?
Darrell Petty: That’s one of the reasons he stands out, I guess. Because we’d just been on his case. I wasn’t at all the trials of Dachau, because they switched us back and forth, but we had some guys that had never seen an ounce of combat, who came over there later, and we had one new guy, I won’t mention no names, I don’t want to implicate anybody, but anyway, he’d never seen combat. And he had a little .30 carbine, and those were just semiautomatics at that time, and 15-round clips, but there would be a clip in the gun, and two clips on the butt of it. That’s 45 rounds.
Okay. He’s standing there gawking around and he wouldn’t be protecting that gun. I got on him several times, I told him, “You protect that firearm.” I said, “These guys don’t have anything to lose.” Well, these guys that lived such a high muckety-muck life, it was kind of satisfying to see them sniping cigarettes off the floor, and they were eating some pretty thin soup that we brought for lunch, and they were in a soup line. That day it was some pretty thin soup. And this kid was standing there gawking around and he’s got the butt of the rifle grounded on the floor, and gawking around and not looking at them at all. And I just about went over and said something to him and I didn’t.
And by golly, old Schilling was in line, and I, I just loathed him for what he’d done to people. And all at once he made a dive toward this kid, and the first thing flashed in my mind was he’s going for that carbine. I had a .45, and I always had it full loaded, the hammer on half-cock and the safety on. And he dove like he was reaching for that rifle. Well, as it turned out there was a cigarette butt about that long, boy, that was a prize, between that kid’s foot and the butt of the rifle. That’s what he was going for. But I didn’t know that. And I grabbed the old 45 and I dropped the safety, and cracked the hammer full, and when he came up with that cigarette, I was about from here to there ...
Aaron Elson: About six inches?
Darrell Petty: That half-hole looks awful big.
Aaron Elson: From his face?
Darrell Petty: And he just drained, his color just drained. “Oh, nein! Nein! Bitte! Bitte! Zigaretten, Rauchen! Rauchen! Bitte, nicht schiessen!” Don’t shoot. Please. Rauchen is smoke. And I never had a feeling like that in my life, before or since. But I wanted to pull the trigger. I couldn’t hardly keep from pulling the trigger. And I finally just pushed my finger off of it. And I dropped the safety on, and I grabbed him and boy I threw him back in the line and I told him to stay there, and he’d complained to me before about having to go to the bathroom a lot of the time, he’d had surgery, I suppose, prostate, I don’t know. But anyway, I thought, “Yeah, you, I sure feel sorry for you, you ...” And when I got done, I was mad. I threw him in that line, and I did a pirouette and I kicked that kid just as hard as I could kick him right in the hind ...
Aaron Elson: The kid, the other MP?
Darrell Petty: Yes. And he lost his grip on the rifle and I grabbed that before it hit the floor, and he went down. And I stood above him; I had that butt of that rifle right in his face. And man, I told him in no uncertain terms what I’d do to him if I ever saw him mishandle his rifle, and I said, “Much as I wanted to do it, you almost made me kill a man without a reason.” And I was just hyper, I was just, you know...
Aaron Elson: About how old were you at the time?
Darrell Petty: Nineteen.