Band of Mothers

I was in a junk shop the other day and came across a US Serviceman's diary from the Second World War. Here is an extract:

'May '45, back in the Sherman; Howlin' Nancy. Been a few months since I was back in control of this baby, ever since that last 'disturbance'. We had that big heartless bastard from Upstate New York Rodriguez on the gear sticks, Chester Beaty on the radio; Brooklyn born, Brooklyn raised. The only one not from Eastside was Jimmy Spoons on the .50cal and big Bertha. Little Jimmy comes from Shithole, Idaho. The boy had never seen anythin' bigger than his barn, so the buildin's of Paris put the zap right on that little son-of-a-bitch's head.

We was in Southern Austria and we was on point. God-damn Helluva place to be, what with the war windin' down and all. Top Brass knew o' reports of some secret Nazi trainin' camp in the area and we had been told to find and destroy 'em. Always at the shitty end of the stick, me and the boys in Howlin' Nancy.

The shit kicks off early one mornin' as we were approachin' Wüsterbürsterbürg or some other damn Kraut shithole. All Kraut names sound the god-damn same to me. We hear a rattlin' against the side of Nancy and guess we are takin' fire from a Hitler's Saw. Why they are firing 7.92mm at a fucken tank? Fucken dumb Nazis.

Jimmy sees it first, at the end of the main square, the friggin' trainin' camp! It's fenced off and we can see the concreted trainin' ground out front where dem poor Nazi bastards practice their goosesteppin'. A big sign over the entrance says Grundschule, Rodriguez has a bit of German picked up from them whores in Innsbruck and he assures me it says 'Nazi Training Camp'. It's what we was lookin' for so I order the first rounds to be loaded up. Jimmy is a s quick as ever; bang, bang, bang! In seconds we get the roof blazin' with incendiary, then turn the attention to the windows. Dust and shit is flyin' everywhere, we're makin' a real mess o' the place when the Nazi bastards wake up and start pouring out o' the front door. 

All uniformed and obviously out for our blood, they come screamin' at us like fuken' devils, I tell ya. Jimmy gets on the bow .50cal and I jump up on the cupola cannon. I'm shootin' and shootin', so is Jimmy. We musta cleared off three thousand rounds at least. The smoke clears and they ain't no sound comin' from any of the Krauts so we clear out of the God-damn place as fast as the Nancy'll take us. 

 
We were all hauled over the fucken' coals on that one.The rattlin' wasn't from no Kraut machine-gun, it was a busted exhaust on the Nance. Well, anyone can make that fucken' mistake. Mind you, that wasn't the worst of the whole story. We though that the Nazis looked a little young, but by that stage them fucken' crazy bastards were throwin' anyone into the fight. What did we know? We was just some dumb boys in a tank. Anyway, turns out none of them girls was older than eight or nine years old.'