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Show YANKS SHOW NAZIS SOME GUN TRICKS; CACHE SERGEANT PLAYS PROMINENT PART 4 Paradise Soldier Directs Mortar Fire Editor's Note: The following story about Staff Sergeant Allen Al-len O Bickmore, 29, son of Mr. and Mrs. E. M. Bickmore of Paradise, was written by Kenneth L. Dixon, an Associa-ed Associa-ed Press Staff correspondent with the armed forces in Italy: Sergeant Bickmore has been in! the service for three years. He trained first at Fort Lewis, Wash-1 ington and then at various posts in California before going over- seas in October, 1942. He par-, ticipated in the landings at North . Africa and was engaged m a( battle near Casablanca. Later he was with the invasion troops on Sicily and now is in Italy. Part of Dixon's dispatch, fol- l0The trouble with this war, from the German point of view, is that these verdammt Yanks don't fight according to Hoyle They shoot howitzers on tne run and pick off tanks with mortars mor-tars from a mile away. Gott in himmel! Right here in der book it says things you chust cannot But the Yanks still are coming forward despite the Boche hide-and-seek tank tactics, tduch con sist of quick stabs at moving un-and un-and then scuttling back into the cover of these Appenine hills. This is the story about a mortar mor-tar unit which destroyed a German Ger-man tank with a direct hit from 1750 yards. Mortars are credited with much smaller range in the military books, but it happened. A correspondent cor-respondent almost drove into two nazi tanks passing a pocket between be-tween a hill and a mountain around a bend in the road. Major Daniel Lenahan of Atlanta, Ga an artillery battalion executive officer, said it was best to stop and wait until the road was cleared. It was sunset. Lieutenant Colonel Col-onel John J Toffey, the battalion commander, from Columbus, Ohio sat on the hillside giving orders to six 75s and two 105s of a regimental regi-mental mannon company over a mobile radio set far up in the brush of Mount Presenzano. Behind Be-hind us, a Lieutenant Fortgual of Clifton, N. J., reported the results re-sults of the shelling to Toffey over field phones. The guns laid an ear-splitting barrage on the foot of the mountain moun-tain but couldn't bend their shells down over the hill far enough. Finally they damaged one tank with " what Portugal called a "near hit" only 25 yards off. The guns were some three miles away. "Twenty-five yards!" yelled Toffey into the phone. "These aren't mortars, man! These are big guns. Which eye do you want us to hit?" I He called 'to Sergeant John P. 1 Zeuli, vSt. Paul, Minn., the radio operator, who signaled the guns to shoot the works again. But dusk was settling down and it looked like the tanks would hold until night, repair their damage j and slip away in the dark. The men were tense. Suddenly Toffey leaped up with a yell. "Hot dog! Direct mortar hit, one round 81 HE heavy, the other ! tank burning." j The men cheered. Lenahan ex- plained that one of the H com-1 pany mortars had laid one right ! on the tank from 1750 yards,) which, he said, was strictly some-1 thing to write home about a field i artillery hole in one. He never heard one like it before. Neither j had the rest of the men. They all relaxed and laughed because they : didn't even know the mortar was in there pitching. Toffey rang up the company field phone to get the name and home town of the sergeant who commanded the mortar battery. It was Sergeant Allan O. Bickmore Bick-more of Paradise, Utah. "Hurray for Bickmore." shouted , Lenahan. "Let's elect him mayor." : "Mayor of Paradise?" yelled Toffey "mat's not enough. Hell, j Bickmore for president!" |