My best friend in the Army, in our company, was Smitty—George Benedict Schmid. One night we went out into the farmyard, behind the house where we were billeted, just to talk and calm ourselves. We knew what was coming and that it wasn’t going to be pretty. Out there in the dark, Smitty said to me, “Look, if anything happens to me, you’ve got to go visit my parents and tell them what happened.” I told him there was no way in hell I could do that. I said, “I can’t do that. I’m not suited for something like that. And besides, nothing’s going to happen.” But he kept after me until I finally said yes. I didn’t know if it would even be possible—whether I’d survive, whether I’d ever get home—but I agreed. The next day he was dead. The first minute he stepped onto the battlefield, he was killed.

My name is David Marshall. I served in the U.S. Army Infantry. I was born and raised in New York City. There was no history of military service in my family—none whatsoever. On December 7th, 1941, the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, I was in the hospital. I’d dislocated my elbow playing basketball. It was a Sunday. While I was lying there, the news came over that the Japanese had attacked. I remember thinking, “Well, I’m only sixteen. The war will be over by the time I get out.” That was my first reaction.

I was drafted into the Army in March 1943. My first training was at Camp Pickett, Virginia, which was a medic camp. After that, I went to the ASTP—the Army Specialized Training Program—in Philadelphia. When that was disbanded, I was sent to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, an infantry training camp. My mother tried very hard to get my earlier arm injury to keep me out of the service. She took me to various doctors, trying to get one to say I was unfit to serve. They all said no.

I was assigned to the 84th Infantry Division. We sailed for Europe in October 1944. We landed first at Southampton, England, and stayed about a month in a town called Holford, waiting for the rest of the division to assemble. Each regiment had come over on a different ship. We did a little training, some guard duty, and as much flirting with the local girls as possible while we waited.

We crossed the English Channel on an old British steamer—a rusty bucket of bolts if there ever was one. We climbed down rope ladders into LSTs and landed on Omaha Beach. This was around September 1944, three months after D-Day. It looked almost as bad as it must have on the first day, except nobody was shooting at us anymore. The barriers were still there, the sand was pocked with foxholes and shell craters, and there was abandoned American equipment scattered everywhere. Fortunately, there were no bodies. But it was still a mess. Up on the hill sat a massive concrete pillbox. Looking at that and the terrain up to it, I remember thinking, Thank God I wasn’t one of the men who had to land here on June 6th.

From there we rode in 2½-ton trucks up to the Netherlands. It took about a day and a half in nasty weather. We stayed near the German border, at a town called Gulpen, billeted in a farmhouse, while we assembled and got ready to move into Germany.

That’s where Smitty and I had that talk in the farmyard. The next day, when we finally moved forward, our company advanced squad by squad across an open field. Smitty’s squad went out ahead of mine. When my turn came, I followed—and I stepped over his body. He had been killed instantly, the moment he stepped into that field, just moments after the battle started. I can’t honestly tell you how I functioned for the rest of that day. I wanted to stay with him a while, but the shelling was so heavy I couldn’t. I had to keep moving.

A little farther on, I came upon my squad sergeant, Sergeant Pitt. He had been hit in both legs. A medic was working on one leg. Because I’d had medic training back at Camp Pickett, I dropped down beside him and worked on the other leg so we could get him out of there quicker. After that, I ran to catch up with the rest of my squad.

I was a mortarman. I carried a pistol because the 81mm mortar was too cumbersome to carry along with a rifle or carbine. I liked that gun. It was accurate, quiet, and devastating. They still use mortars in the Army today. It’s one piece of equipment that never really goes out of style. There were six of us on the mortar team: three on the gun and three ammunition carriers. Each gunner carried one part of the weapon—the barrel, the bipod, and the baseplate. Each of those pieces weighed about forty-five pounds. When we moved, we each took a piece and ran with it. Sometimes I was first gunner; sometimes I acted as forward observer, going up ahead and calling for fire. We had a walkie-talkie. I’d give distance and direction—“100 yards short, 50 left,” that sort of thing. Our 81mm rounds were about three inches in diameter. Very effective.

I can’t fully describe that first day in combat. I was numb from seeing Smitty dead. Later that day, we dug in. I dug a foxhole, climbed in while they were shooting at us, and called out, half-joking, “Hey fellas, when the war is over, come back and get me—I’ll still be here!” I was just trying to lighten the mood a bit, to bring myself back to something like normal. It was hard.

We stayed in that general area for a while, pushing toward the Roer River. We were supposed to cross the Roer and then move on to the Rhine. But before that happened, the Battle of the Bulge started. We were pulled out, loaded onto trucks, and rushed south to Belgium. The 102nd Division took over our positions. My other best friend was in the 102nd. After six weeks in the Ardennes, in brutal conditions, we returned to the Netherlands and the town of Igelhoven, a coal mining town, where they had hot showers ready for us.

Those six weeks in Belgium were bitterly cold. We arrived around December 18th—two days after the Bulge began. At first it was just cold and windy. Then the snow came. Deep snow, high winds, freezing temperatures—and Germans. The worst part was trying to drag that mortar through knee-deep snow in heavily wooded terrain. In the Ardennes, with trees everywhere, the mortar wasn’t very useful. Our shells would just hit the overhead branches. So we took up rifles and fought as ordinary infantry for a time. I carried an M1 Garand. Being twenty years old, being Jewish, and fighting Germans, I felt no remorse for what I had to do. And to this day, I still don’t.

We held our positions. We did not retreat. The Germans threw a lot at us, but they lost men left and right and could not push any farther. Eventually, they started to pull back instead of us.

As I’d told my friend, our original mission had been to fight in the Roer Valley. That became Operation Grenade, the push toward the Rhine. We crossed the Roer on February 22nd, 1945, after a night of intense bombardment. Every gun on our side opened up. It looked like daylight. By the time we moved out, all of our assault boats had been shot up. So we crossed the river on narrow, swaying footbridges under shellfire. The bridges couldn’t have been more than two feet wide. Loaded with equipment, we ran as fast as we could. Once across, we moved north and joined the rest of the division, which had formed Task Force Church—a combined force from our battalion in the 84th Division plus tanks, medics, and support, enough to operate independently. That was Operation Grenade.

At some point I was awarded a Bronze Star for my actions in Operation Grenade. I honestly couldn’t tell you exactly what for. If they told me, I don’t remember. There’s a lot I don’t remember. And there’s a lot I don’t want to remember. I know I have the medal with my name engraved on it. My daughter wanted it, so I gave it to her.

Later in 1945, our unit helped liberate the Hannover-Ahlem slave labor camp. We were advancing in that area when we noticed a smell in the air. As we moved forward, it grew stronger until we reached the camp gates. It was horrible. Prisoners were lying on the ground, some sick, some dying, some already dead. Others were staggering around like skeletons. When we opened the gate, one man walked out as a free man—took a few steps—and dropped dead. I’ll never forget that. It was like the universe itself had played a cruel joke.

They wanted food, of course, but we couldn’t just give them our K rations or C rations. It would have killed them. So we told them, “Be patient. The medics are coming.” Doctors, nurses, proper supplies—all of that would follow us. We had to keep going, chasing the Germans. The prisoners’ condition was indescribable—rags for clothing, bones visible under paper-thin skin, skull-like faces. We had heard nothing of the Holocaust before that. This was our first direct encounter with what had been happening. The guards were gone. They’d fled because if they’d stayed, we’d have killed them on the spot. As a Jewish man, seeing that turned my stomach. I could not believe people could do such things to other human beings.

After I came home, there was still the promise I had made to Smitty. It took me six months to work up the nerve to call his parents. When I finally did, they were very gracious. This was two years after his death, so the initial shock had dulled. They asked me to come see them. I went out to visit. They treated me kindly. They even called his girlfriend over so I could meet her. I told them what had happened and how quickly it had happened, so they’d have the full story. Smitty is buried in Margraten Cemetery in Holland.

Today I have it arranged with a woman I know in the Netherlands that when I die and am cremated, she will take some of my ashes and place them on Smitty’s grave. She promised me she would do it, and I know she will.