"You're a one man army"Said a beachhead general to Pvt. Alton W. Knappenberger, 20 of Spring Mount, Pennsylvania, shown here cleaning his fondest possession: an automatic rifle. - 16 Apr 1944With it, he killed approximately 40 of the enemy. Along with two buddies (killed in this action), 'Knapp' (now single-handed), fired 600 rounds of ammo, returned for more - then killed more enemy, including an officer and 7 men who ordered him to surrender. He thought he had killed a 'nice bunch' when questioned regarding his lone 1 hr. 'blitz'.Alton Warren Knappenberger (December 31, 1923 – June 9, 2008)United States Army soldier and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War IIPrivate First Class Knappenberger's official Medal of Honor citation reads:"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action involving actual conflict with the enemy, on February 1, 1944 near Cisterna di Littoria, Italy. When a heavy German counterattack was launched against his battalion, Pfc. Knappenberger crawled to an exposed knoll and went into position with his automatic rifle. An enemy machinegun 85 yards away opened fire, and bullets struck within 6 inches of him. Rising to a kneeling position, Pfc. Knappenberger opened fire on the hostile crew, knocked out the gun, killed 2 members of the crew, and wounded the third. While he fired at this hostile position, 2 Germans crawled to a point within 20 yards of the knoll and threw potato-masher grenades at him, but Pfc. Knappenberger killed them both with 1 burst from his automatic rifle. Later, a second machinegun opened fire upon his exposed position from a distance of 100 yards, and this weapon also was silenced by his well-aimed shots. Shortly thereafter, an enemy 20mm. antiaircraft gun directed fire at him, and again Pfc. Knappenberger returned fire to wound 1 member of the hostile crew. Under tank and artillery shellfire, with shells bursting within 15 yards of him, he held his precarious position and fired at all enemy infantrymen armed with machine pistols and machine-guns which he could locate. When his ammunition supply became exhausted, he crawled 15 yards forward through steady machinegun fire, removed rifle clips from the belt of a casualty, returned to his position and resumed firing to repel an assaulting German platoon armed with automatic weapons. Finally, his ammunition supply being completely exhausted, he rejoined his company. Pfc. Knappenberger's intrepid action disrupted the enemy attack for over 2 hours."(Color by Jecinci)
So there I was enjoying a two-martini lunch when the Battalion XO, Major Good Ideafairy, walks into my office and says, “Lieutenant…I want you to run a joint end-of-year weapons range with the Koreans next month.” Anyone else think this is how those “do’s and don’ts of range safety” videos start off?It’s an annual thing – Army units have to expend all remaining ammunition in their accounts by September 30th or they don’t get any the following year. The logic goes like this – if Uncle Sam gives you 10,000 rounds of ammunition and one fiscal year to shoot them off, then failing to do so means you don’t need 10,000 rounds of ammunition. You probably only need 9,000 rounds and therefore you get a smaller allocation the following year.So to avoid getting their ammunition accounts cut, most commanders set up a range in late September to go gun crazy before the end of the fiscal year. When you think about it, that means most commanders are cheating the system to ensure they have more ammunition than they really need, which puts an unnecessary burden on the logistics of the Army, but that’s beside the point. This story is all about how one dumbass, butterbar Lieutenant (me) planned, coordinated, and executed one such range and nearly got a lot of people maimed doing so.The sheer volume of the ammo we had to shoot was staggering. The breakdown went something like this:15,000 rounds of 5.56 ball ammo for the M-1610,000 rounds of 9mm ammo for the pistol7,000 rounds of 7.62mm for the M60 machine gun2,000 rounds of 40mm grenades for the M203 grenade launcher8 hand grenades15 claymore mines1 AT-4 rocketThe first indication that this range was destined for lore were the elderly Korean civilians walking leisurely downrange. No matter how much our interpreter implored them to leave (through a bullhorn), they were intent on gathering up rare indigenous roots for some pagan ritual (or just to sell at a local market) and had no interest in petty American qualifications.“Should I put a round downrange near them to get our point across?” an NCO asked.“Sure,” I replied.In hindsight, I’m an idiot. Thankfully this NCO was a good shot and the tracer round that flew over atashi’s (the Korean word for gentleman) head had the desired effect. He picked up his one-eyed dragon wheelbarrow and left quickly, probably to inform his local politician that Americans were trying to kill him.Didn’t matter. The range was officially open.The second indicator that this was noy your standard range was the fact that we had every weapon in our arms room on the same firing line. Normally we break up weapons systems into different ranges here in the U.S. The M16 has it’s own range, the M9 has a smaller one, and the M-60 has a longer one. Not in Korea. Realistic training is the name of the game there because hey…in combat would you split up your weapons into different zones? Hell no. So we had everything rocking at the same time, which was perfectly legal at this point. Major Good Ideafairy’s guidance was clearly being met – “Don’t come home with a single round of ammo.”In hindsight, he was an idiot to tell me this because inexperienced Lieutenants don’t know how to interpret orders, just follow them. So I did exactly what he said to do. There was no way I was bringing a round home.By mid day, it was hot and blowing off ammo as fast as possible made many barrel’s scorch. Someone joked about a barrel glow bright red from all the ammo we were shooting…until it wasn’t a joke. I’ve never yelled “CEASE FIRE!” so loud and flapped my arms so frantically in my 24-year career. I looked like Tiger Woods trying to deflect alimony suits.With a ceasefire in effect (and no one injured), I figured it was time to walk down range and throw the 8 hand grenades we brought. Too bad only six of them exploded. Now I had a real problem. I couldn’t leave a dud on the range or some atashi like the previous one might step on it while collecting snipes. Luckily I had a stroke of brilliance.“Let’s keep shooting and hope someone hits them.”
At this point I figured I was too fucked to continue any semblance of a military career and started cutting my Lieutenant bar off my collar. But the mission wasn’t complete. There was still more ammo to expend and as much as I’d screwed up this range, I wasn’t a quitter. No one was dead after all. Just scared shitless. What we needed was a night fire!In hindsight…we didn’t need a night fire. But we did it anyway. After all, tracers are really cool. Is there anyone who’s served in the Armed Forces who hasn’t ogled at the site of pretty red lights flying downrange at nearly the speed of sound and bouncing into the stratosphere? Who hasn’t wanted to shoot those same tracer rounds straight up into the air directly over the firing line?