Evening star., 1943-09-26
Bravery Of Invaders
OF Italy Recounted
ByD. {. Photographer


courage shown by American troops
facing withering blaze of machine
gun fire from concealed German
nests while landing on the Italian
mainland has been received from
Chief Photographers Mate william
j. Forsythe, Coast Guard, who lives
at $3.50 Sixteenth street NV.
These amphibious landings are
getting monotonous in a ghastly
sort of way" he wrote to Ensign
Everett F. Mashburn, chief of the
Photographic Laboratory at Coast
Guard headquarters here. And
don't let anybody kid you that the
United States isn't paying a price
Tor such places as Sicily and Sa-
lerno. OF course, the radio reports
and newspaper headlines sound very
encouraging to the folks back home.
put there's lot of American bows
getting killed, but suppose that's
the price of war"
Describes Night Attack.
Mr.. Forsythe, whose letter was
released by the Navy yesterday, is
former member of the local AS
sociated Press staff now serving as
a combat photographer aboard a
Coast Guard-manned assault trans
port. He gave graphic description
OF the bitter fighting engaged in be-
lore American troops successfully
established a beachhead.
He told of bombing and strafng
from tho jys in, ,ior,
which 1t seemed that everybody in
the German air force, even Goering
himself, must have been flying over
u.s., and of how even after the Nazis
mad been pushed back from the
beach they continued to pour
death dealing rain of hot lead into
the Americans with mortars and 88's.
Mr.. Forsythe came through the
beach attack unscathed and re-
turned to his ship to make a pho
tographic record of the landing and
OF the wounded being brought
aboard.
Praises Soldiers Courage.
II covered great many stories in
my 10 years as news photograph
er," he wrote, but I have never
yet seen anything to equal the grit
and courage of the soldier from
Texas who had to have his leg am
putated as result of machine gun
bullets. A young Coast Guardsman
gave his blood to help this boy
through his operation. = = The last
thing the soldier said as left him
was How about getting some pic
lures OF my operation?"
The enemy had a warm recep-
ton prepared when they landed and
carefully waited to get the Ameri-
cans we'll within gun range before
revealing their presence. 1t was
comparatively quiet when the first
few assault waves went in, he wrote,
but when they landed and the ramps
went down "the bottom dropped
out" The shelling was so heavy
the remaining boats had to wait
about a mile offshore until it lifted.
Mr.. Forsythe paid tribute to the
boat crews for their skill and cour-
age in running back and forth be-
tween the beach and ships, con-
stantly facing heavy enemy fire.
8S-mm Shell Hit Boat.
He told of Coast Guardsman Ber-
nard J. Miller, of Fort Wayne, In
diana, acting as wave commander
for unit of British boats, trying
to get his craft out of the line of
fire after it had been hit by an 8S,
falling because the British en-
gineer must have been wounded.
A second SO hit the boat amidships,
killing approximately 20 men and
forcing the remainder to bail out.
A British support boat picked up
Miller.
Another incident he related was
that of Ensign Walter r. Samuelson,
Coast Guard, of Brooklyn, N. Y,
silencing two machine-gun nests
long enough for the troops to dis
embark safely. Coast Guard Cox
swain Jack N Miller of Eustace,
Tex, stayed at the wheel of the
landing craft despite Nazi machine
gun fire that knocked off part of
the wheel and threw. splinters in
his hands and face, and brought
the boat to the shore.