Angelo Joseph Spinato was born in August 1923 in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. He never left the city until he went to college. He is of Italian descent and at times there were problems with that. A couple of fights in the neighborhood would settle it. The schools were good. After high school, he was not big enough to be an athlete, but his brother taught him how to box. He went to Warren Easton High School [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans] which was the largest in the South at the time. It was a good experience for him. He was in the school play at graduation. His main interest was history. He read about Genghis Khan [Annotator's Note: founder and emperor of Mongols, 1206 to 1227] and Alexander the Great [Annotator's Note: Alexander III of Macedon], Marco Polo [Annotator's Note: Marco Emilio Polo, Venetian merchant], and Napoleon Bonaparte [Annotator's Note: French military and political leader]. When he went to college, he wanted to be an accountant. He was 16 and his brother entered him into a boxing tournament at entry level. He did not want to do it, but his brother scammed him into it. He won the championship for his weight limit. Colleges had boxing then. Three schools stood out – Loyola [Annotator's Note: Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana], LSU [Annotator's Note: Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana], and Southwestern Louisiana [Annotator's Note: Southwestern Louisiana Industrial Institute, now University of Louisiana, Lafayette in Lafayette, Louisiana]. Loyola gave him a scholarship. He did not want to go there, but it was free. He had to wait until September [Annotator's Note: September 1941] to get into school. He trained with the team until March [Annotator's Note: March 1941] or April [Annotator's Note: April 1941] when he got word that they were discontinuing boxing. He was offered scholarships by several colleges. He chose Southwestern because boxing was king there. He went to tryouts there and got a scholarship. He loved the school. He started there in September 1941. He was in the dormitory on a Sunday afternoon when he heard a noise liked drums coming closer to his window. Students liked to cause a ruckus in those days. They came alongside his window, and they told him the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He had never heard of Pearl Harbor. He went outside and joined the students. The dean blocked their path with his car. He said they should wait until Monday and go sign up for the draft and fight for their country. He went to his room and reflected on that. The next day, the school practically emptied of male students, except for Spinato. He wanted to stay in school and box. The next year would be his year and he wanted to be somebody. One of his brothers was already in the Navy, and another brother was in the Air Corps [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Corps]. His mother did not want him to join. Very few males stayed in school with him. If he was to go into the service, he wanted to fly. Frank Alemi [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], his best friend, joined the Air Corps. Spinato wanted to be a fighter pilot. As a boxer, he had good reflexes and that is what it took to be a good fighter pilot. The next Spring [Annotator's Note: Spring 1942], college boxing was being discontinued for the duration of the war. His scholarship was still honored. The few males all decided they should join the service. The services came and tried to talk them into joining. The Army had the ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers], and the Navy had the V12 [Annotator's Note: V-12 US Navy College Training Program, 1943 to 1946]. He and his friends wanted to do things together. He was inclined to go into the Navy. He had two uncles who seved in World War 1 [Annotator's Note: World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918]. One had a rough time in the trenches. They both told him to stay out of the Army, as did his father. Spinato passed the fighter pilot test and physical. He got orders for flight school, but he was not yet 21 years old. His mother refused to sign for him.

After his mother refused to sign for him to enter flight training, Angelo Joseph Spinato stayed in school. Around February [Annotator's Note: February 1942] or March [Annotator's Note: March 1942], he and his friends at college decided to get into the same unit. One or two could not get into the Navy, but could get into ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers]. Vick Larocca [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] had asthma and could have gotten out of serving by being 4F [Annotator's Note: military classification; member is not acceptable for service in the Armed Forces]. Vick said he was going with them and when things started heating up, he would have problems with his asthma. That way when he got out, he would get veterans' benefits. They were all inducted at Camp Beauregard [Annotator's Note: in Pineville, Louisiana]. They went there from New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] by train. They got in at night in Alexandria [Annotator's Note: Alexandria, Louisiana] where there were not any hotels or places to sleep. They reported in and got into their company. It took a while to get uniforms. Spinato had troubles with his uniform pants fitting him correctly. His friends got KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police] duty, while he was sent to deal with his pants. The others came in late at night and got mad to see him in bed reading the paper. The next day he got new pants and they were still too short. He was in his bunk again and the first sergeant gave him some duty to answer the captain's phone. He started reading the captain's books by Shakespeare [Annotator's Note: William Shakespeare, English playwright, poet, and actor]. The next day he went back and did it again and got out of maneuvers and training. A lady he had gone out with had joined the WACs [Annotator's Note: Women's Army Corps; women's branch of the US Army, 1942-1978] and was an officer. She came to visit Spinato. He was very uncomfortable with her being in uniform. That was the last time he saw her. He never wrote to her again. He got into training and went to Camp Maxey [Annotator's Note: in Lamar County, Texas] for basic training from May to September [Annotator's Note: 1943]. They were in an area that had been built for Japanese prisoners. They did not get leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] for the first month. They could get weekend passes after that. Their whole unit was ASTP people, and they got good training. Most of them had had ROTC training [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps], but Spinato did not. He got serious-minded. They were their own cadre. The guys would horse around, and Spinato got tagged as gung-ho [Annotator's Note: unthinkingly, or overly, enthusiastic or eager, especially about taking part in fighting or warfare]. He made his reputation and it followed him. He had to do a little boxing as people wanted to try him at it. His company commander was Captain Blanchard [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] and was very good. Blanchard wanted to be in combat and not training them. Several times Blanchard got in trouble for his discipline. One day he made them exercise until night. One fellow had an uncle who was a colonel and he happened to come visit him. He saw them exercising and contacted the commander about it. They loved Blanchard for that training though. They were called into assembly and Blanchard told them he had been relieved of his duty and apologized. They all stood at attention and saluted him. He would not take their salute and went behind them on his way out. He was a great soldier.

After basic training, Angelo Joseph Spinato was supposed to go to officer training school and come out as a second lieutenant. The rules were changed, and they decided to start up an ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers] unit in earnest. He was sent to East Texas State Teacher's College [Annotator's Note: now Texas A&M University-Commerce in Commerce, Texas]. The House Majority Leader [Annotator's Note: Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn, American politician] was from that district. He got the government to put the program in his school. He was supposed to study to be an engineer. They were still in the Army and their barracks were on campus. They would get up at six o'clock every morning for reveille [Annotator's Note: reveille is a signal sounded on a bugle or drum to wake military personnel]. They would cheat at it sometimes. It was dark and nobody could see that not everyone was there. Spinato took his studies seriously. There were nice-looking young coeds there. He made friends with some of them. It was a pleasant experience at the school. On weekends, he and his friend would go to Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas]. His friend had a car they could use. It made the Army service less trying. On Sundays, they had a Catholic colonel. He would be at Sunday mass. If you were not there, he wanted to know where they were. Word started getting around that they were to be transferred to the infantry because the Army was having problems in Italy. They were losing a lot of men. When he heard that, he went to Dallas and took the Air Corps test. He passed it. He got orders to report to Sheppard Field [Annotator's Note: now Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita County, Texas]. He got five days to go home first. On his way back, he stopped at the school and saw men getting on trucks and going out. They had been transferred to the infantry. He laughed at them and told them he would look down on them from the sky. He found his orders had been rescinded and he had to go to Camp Maxey [Annotator's Note: in Lamar County, Texas]. He went to the company CP [Annotator's Note: command post] and they were not there. He went to the first sergeant and showed his papers. The sergeant told him he was staying there despite them. That is how he became part of the infantry [Annotator's Note: in Company E, 4th Platoon, 2nd battalion, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division].

Angelo Joseph Spinato went to Camp Maxey [Annotator's Note: in Lamar County, Texas] and all of the men had to stand in line. They were counted off into groups to determine which regiments they were going into. Vic Loracca [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], his friend, was standing right next to him, and they were split up. Vic went to the 395th [Annotator's Note: 395th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division] and Spinato went to the 394th [Annotator's Note: Company E, 4th Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division]. Vic was later captured and became a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war]. Spinato never got a scratch. They remained friends and they would go to Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas] together. After basic training, they were mixed in with the regular Army who treated them like dirt. Their unit was a Pennsylvania National Guard division that got called up. They were steelworkers and coal miners. That was the lowest form of labor at the time. All these college kids [Annotator's Note: Spinato and his group], were suddenly coming in. The sergeants told them that they had free reign to pick on them. Spinato had to go to the gloves again [Annotator's Note: Spinato describes his boxing background in the clip titled "Prewar Life to Boxer in College"] and he got a reputation. They had provisional training then. They had another test for aptitude and assignments. He was assigned to communications and had to learn about radios and wiring. He was also sent to school to learn how to get troops across waterways. He was put in charge of that for his company. The whole company was taught to name airplanes and spot them. He was also taught malaria [Annotator's Note: mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite] control in case they went to the Philippines. He had a lot on his shoulders. They thought they were going to the islands [Annotator's Note: in the Pacific Ocean], but wound up in Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts]. They had moved a contingent of Black troops in. They were having trouble getting them to go overseas. The Blacks were rioting. Spinato had to do guard duty on the Blacks. Spinato went to Camp Myles Standish [Annotator's Note: in Taunton, Massachusetts]. After three weeks, they boarded a boat across the Atlantic.

Angelo Joseph Spinato's first four days at sea were beautiful. He was in an 88-ship convoy [Annotator's Note: with Company E, 4th Platoon, 2nd battalion, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division]. He was on a small ship that had cannons and depth charges [Annotator's Note: also called a depth bomb; an anti-submarine explosive munition resembling a metal barrel or drum]. They would go to intercept any submarines. That was not comfortable. They had a couple of alerts. He was on deck in his Mae West jacket [Annotator's Note: common nickname for inflatable life preserver] praying to God they did not find a submarine. He saw icebergs in the Northern Atlantic. This was in October [Annotator's Note: October 1944]. They crossed in 14 days to Scotland. They went into England and to the English Channel. He went to Lyme Regis [Annotator's Note: Lyme Regis, England]. They stayed there until around 6 November [Annotator's Note: 6 November 1944]. They had duty and did training. They were building up and there was a lot of speculation that the war would be over soon. There were Black and white soldiers there and they did not mix. The Black soldiers were mostly truck drivers and quartermasters [Annotator's Note: supply support for soldiers in the field], not combat troops. The combat soldiers would see them in the bars messing with the girls and took exception. They had to keep them separated and did not let them have liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] the same nights as each other. The English gave a dance that he attended. He saw a pretty girl and danced with her. After his third dance, a lady told him that the young lady had a Black boyfriend. Spinato dropped her. The British were prejudiced too.

On 2 October [Annotator's Note: 2 October 1944], Angelo Joseph Spinato and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company E, 4th Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division] got on a train to Southampton [Annotator's Note: Southampton, England]. There they boarded an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] in the harbor. They had been eating crap [Annotator's Note: slang for bad food] the last month – brussels sprouts, SPAM [Annotator's Note: canned cooked pork made by Hormel Foods Corporation], and junk. For the first time in a long time, they had a decent meal on the ship. The deck of the LST was loaded with guns and tanks. They were underneath in the open space. They sat overnight and the ship was rocking. He got sick. He had also gotten sick crossing the Atlantic. They crossed the Channel [Annotator's Note: the English Channel] months after D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] and landed at Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France]. They went into town, and it was a rubble bin. The whole city was totally destroyed. There were no civilians. They got on trucks and started across the front. Things out of the ordinary happened to him. From Le Havre to Belgium he was put on a wrecker which was the last one in the convoy. They stopped at a farmhouse to get water. There was a girl there with red hair and freckles. She had wooden shoes. He had not heard of that in France. He used a French word for "drink". A man came out and Spinato said it to him. The man took the canteen and came back with it. Spinato gave him a pack of cigarettes for it. Spinato kept his cigarettes for barter. He gave a soldier his canteen to have a drink. He found it had wine instead of water in it. He was now seeing things he had read about regarding the different types of people in different countries.

Angelo Joseph Spinato and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company E, 4th Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division] went into Belgium. There was a bakery there. There were only three of them in the truck he was in. Joe Lieberman [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] was riding with them. They went in and got some goodies. A lady came in and was surprised because Spinato resembled her son. She showed him a picture of him. The same thing happened the very next day. They had caught up with their company near Aubel [Annotator's Note: Aubel, Belgium]. They had pitched tents in a field. He went into his company area and the commander told him where to put his tent. It started snowing. There was a lady on the periphery who had a son with her who was about 12 years old. The son came over and said his mother wanted to speak to Spinato. They invited him to sleep in their house. The captain said he could if she invited more soldiers. The woman got all of her neighbors and the whole battalion got to shelter that night. The officers stayed in the houses and the soldiers stayed in the barn. She fed them with her family. These were people in the middle of the war. They fed their kids and one by one they wiped the kids' faces and sent them to bed. Spinato was impressed that they took care of their family. He looks at war differently than a lot of other people do. The combat is the only facet of it. Often times, the people without the guns are more affected by war. He wants to tell his story so that people know what it is. We [Annotator's Note: Americans] had not seen a war since 1866 [Annotator's Note: American Civil War, 1861 to 1865] and did not know what it was. He slept there that night and left the next day towards the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s] on 11 November [Annotator's Note: 11 November 1944], Armistice Day [Annotator's Note: the commemoration of the end of World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918]. The Belgian town had flags out celebrating it. Women were outside crying. Other women were cleaning up after the trucks went by. They came to wide open spaces and saw war. They saw big plots of crosses in one big field. After Spinato got to the front and then came back a month or so later, the crosses had doubled. Spinato does not know why Belgium does not tell us [Annotator's Note: the US] to take the bodies back so that they use the ground to grow food. He saw a lady cry and said to himself she should not cry for him as he was coming back from combat.

Angelo Joseph Spinato got into Belgium in the middle of the day [Annotator's Note: with Company E, 4th Platoon 2nd battalion, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division]. They went into a house that had been hit by a shell. The living room was intact. In the middle of the room there was a big table and a family photo album on it. He looked at the pictures and they made him think about his neighbors and the fact that he was fighting people who all came from the same bloodlines. They stayed there until night. There was a barn with six cows. There was one man there taking care of them. They moved to another area. They got on the International Highway that they called California Road [Annotator's Note: unable to identify]. It was about 11 o'clock at night. They were walking and it started snowing. The only way he kept awake was by bumping into the person in front of him. They walked until daybreak right up to the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s]. The 2nd Division [Annotator's Note: 2nd Infantry Division] was there, and they were to relieve them. They jumped into their dugout areas. This was around 12 November [Annotator's Note: 12 November 1944]. They stayed until 18 December [Annotator's Note: 18 December 1944] when they got kicked out [Annotator's Note: during the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Spinato was with 4th Platoon's mortar squad. He was transferred to Company CP [Annotator's Note: command post] as a messenger and radioman. He went back to the Company headquarters area behind the California Road. A buddy of his was the greatest soldier Spinato ever knew. His name was Wadsworth [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] and was his foxhole buddy. They spent the next couple of months there.

A lot of Angelo Joseph Spinato's time in Belgium [Annotator's Note: with Company E, 4th Platoon, 2nd battalion, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division] was uneventful except for blizzards. It was so dark at night he could not see his hand. A German could have walked by without him even knowing it. When 16 December [Annotator's Note: 16 December 1944] came around, the Germans started shelling them and they were right on target [Annotator's Note: for the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. The day before that, they heard a machine gun firing in the distance and could not understand who was firing it. It was constant and lasted hours. They decided to go find out. A patrol was picked, and Spinato went on it. They went into an area they thought was unoccupied. They could not really tell where the noise was coming from. They walked all day long. They started back at dark, and it became pitch black. They walked down a road that separated the 393rd [Annotator's Note: 393rd Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division] and the 394th. They did not know where they were when they heard clicking like a rifleman getting ready and thought they were going to get shot by their own men. They got lucky and found a sentry who challenged them. They gave the password and got through. They made it back to the battalion. He slept there that night in a big tent that had cots. They were next to artillery and every time they blasted, they would bounce out of their beds. The next morning he got his first hot meal for breakfast and went back up to his company. They heard skirmishes but nothing alarming. The Germans would come out of the bunkers in the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s] and do their exercises. They would watch them and sometimes shoot at them. He went to sleep that night and they did not send out patrols. About six o'clock the next morning, they got the biggest firestorm he ever saw. For 45 minutes, it rained rockets, phosphorous, and 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. What saved them was being in the forest and the shells were hitting the trees. Spinato was in his foxhole with Wadsworth [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling]. They had a can of dirt they poured gasoline in. They lit it and it gave them a little bit of heat for their hands. The company commander had a cabin they built above the ground that had a vent for their fire. One or two sparks came out and one of their soldiers emptied a clip at the area. He told the captain that if he could see the spark, the Germans could.

Angelo Joseph Spinato [Annotator's Note: with Company E, 4th Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division] got up and heard some shooting on the left flank. To their left was the right flank of the 393rd [Annotator's Note: 393rd Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division]. A road separated them. He had a cannon on his area with a three-man squad. They were having no trouble on the front. The company commander formed a patrol to see what the shooting was. Spinato went on the patrol. They got close to the cannon and crawled up in the snow. Spinato was told to cover the sergeant and he got a field of fire. He saw his first dead soldier. It was one of the cannon guys. He had to crawl over him, and his mouth was wide open. The sergeant made contact with the only one left at the cannon. The bullets were still coming in, but they could not see to get a shot off. The cannoneer wanted to charge them for killing his buddies. The sergeant made him sit tight. F Company [Annotator's Note: Company F, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division] was in reserve, and they came walking through. They did not dig in. The Germans had broken through the 393rd and came through the line. They could see them running across the road into the woods. They then came up the road. His platoon, 4th Platoon was on the road and started shooting. 3rd Platoon was fighting them in the gap. The right flank was the main thrust. The Germans hit a regimental group that was on a hill. A little German girl ran onto the highway. The regiment could see the girl talking to the Germans.

Angelo Joseph Spinato [Annotator's Note: with Company E, 4th Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division] did not see any spotlights when the Germans attacked. He was in his bunk and was covered up. He heard a lot of mechanical noise and knew something was going on. He did see a glare in the sky, but it was more red than spotlights. The next few days were interesting. They were taking the Germans on. He was with the company commander as the radio operator. A sergeant named Fred Wallace [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] did a great job fighting off the Germans and beat them back. Spinato's best friend, Jay Taylor [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] was in that platoon. Another friend of his from the ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers] days was in a cabin when a shell came through and blew up. He was the first one of them that was killed. They had big concrete stumps called dragon's teeth [Annotator's Note: Drachenzäahne; square-pyramidal fortifications of reinforced concrete] in his area to keep tanks from getting through. Wallace had to fight on the other side of them and got it under control. The whole US Army was retreating, and E Company was attacking with Wallace. Around two o'clock in the afternoon, Spinato was feeling like attacking them like Godzilla [Annotator's Note: fictional monster from a series of Japanese films starting in 1954]. They got orders to retreat, and he got mad. He thought about the guys who had been killed. He did not know that meanwhile half the battalion was running away disorderly. Captain McGee [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] took over for their battalion commander who probably should have been put in jail. He wanted to surrender right off the bat. Captain McGee, who Spinato despised, would not let him. E Company and F Company were contacted and took what they had left into the woods. Around six o'clock, they stopped at the edge of the forest. Johnny Thompson [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] and his machine gunners were out of ammunition. They were told to set them up and hopefully scare them off. The night was uneventful. This was the morning of the 18th [Annotator's Note: 18 December 1944]. They went forward and stopped on the outskirts of the forest [Annotator's Note: near Monschau, Germany]. Everything was quiet. Robert Ward [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] was a radio operator. Spinato offered to carry the radio equipment for him so he could rest. He could not put the radio on over his coat, so he gave his coat to Robert. They moved out and stopped in a dug-out area for artillery. There were five of them there, the rest were in the woods. Shooting broke out in the town and it started coming in their direction. Spinato got on the radio and heard Americans on another radio. It sounded like they were facing off against one another. They decided to shoot flares. They did not see each other's flares. They heard someone say to treat them like the enemy. It did end up being the Germans.

Angelo Joseph Spinato's [Annotator's Note: with Company E, 4th Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division] company commander went into the town [Annotator's Note: unable to identify which town] and radioed for the mortar guy to come to him. Then they wanted the radio. Spinato started running down and was getting shot at. He would never go deer hunting because he knew how the deer felt with bullets zinging by. He was zigzagging and diving for cover. He would fall every two or three steps. One of the guys was watching him and ran to him to help with the radio. They got it to the captain behind the first house in the village. Spinato got on the 2nd floor of a house to have a good field of fire against the Germans. Two other companies tried cut the Germans off. The Germans were smart and let half of them move up and then opened up with the machine guns. They got orders to withdraw, and Spinato was able to get out and back to his unit. They were going to get out. There were mountains and ravines on each side of them and one in the middle. They started walking through there to get to the lines. They started out in late afternoon. The path got thinner as they walked. Before it got dark, a lieutenant ran back and told all the officers to move forward. Spinato was helping one who had gotten hit in his foot. They kept walking and got to a pass they had to cross. The Americans had put their artillery way back and were shooting to protect that pass. They could see the shells coming down. They got to the gap, and it got rough. They would watch the ball of fire come down the valley and hit the ground. They lost a lot of men there. Spinato was walking with the medic, and they got through. There were holes in their clothes from shrapnel. The snow saved their lives by softening the blows of the metal. The medic, Moore [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], said he had to go back and take care of the wounded. He went back and did get through safely. Spinato thought it was heroic of him. They got through there and made it to a hill where soldiers were. All of the officers had formed a combat unit and took off, leaving the enlisted men behind. A sergeant was the ranking man, and he formed a combat unit with the rest of them. They found a road in the dark of the night that was mined with tank mines [Annotator's Note: stationary explosive device triggered by physical contact]. They could see them, but it was dangerous. He made it into a town and went into the houses' cellars. Two fellows decided to sleep in a bed upstairs. He had one can of peas to eat. There were about eight of them who shared it. That was all they had to eat that day, but they were out of the bad weather and out of the fire zone. At daylight, the cellar door landed on them as the building took a direct hit by a German tank. The tanks were circling the town and trying to take it. One of the men sleeping in the bed was killed, and the other was wounded badly. They took him to the aid station. [Annotator's Note: The video ends abruptly while Spinato is midsentence.]