90th Infantry Division soldier, T/Sgt. Charles Cook, shows baseball great, Mel Ott, a souvenir pistol he picked up along the German front. texag57

War Souvenir

T/ Sergeant Frank Kviatek was a forty-six year old platoon commander and sniper in a heavy-weapons platoon. During the first world war he spent nineteen months as a machine-gunner. He had spent twenty years in the same platoon and his soldiers called him 'Hardtack Murphy'. By the time this photo was taken Frank had killed twenty enemy soldiers with his Remington 1903A4 snipers rifle and two with hand grenades. He has also killed a dozen Germans with a tommy gun but he didn't count them because he wanted to be able to see his enemy in the eyes when he killed them: &quot;I like to see him drop. When he drops, I can almost see my brothers smiling at me. I like shooting snipers especially; they're so sneaky.&quot; 

The first sniper that Kviatek shot was encountered when his unit was stopped outside Cerisy La Foret. The sniper had chosen to place himself at a crossroad- a good position. After the sniper had killed a number of men the company commander asked for a volunteer to eliminate the sniper. Kviatek volunteers. He prowls through the woods until he was about twenty-five meters behind the sniper who was positioned behind a road marker. Sergeant Kviatek lifts his rifle to shoot the sniper but then discovers another sniper about thirty meters to his right. He first shoots the sniper to the right and then the sniper behind the road marker. A few minutes later Frank Kviateks company has begun to advance again. He walks behind to give rear protection. Suddenly he discovers a hedge move slightly, he becomes suspicious since it moves in the opposite direction of the wind. He sneaks up to the hedge until he sees a German. He then shouts &quot;Hey!&quot; The German turns around and Kviatek fires a shot and the German falls to the ground. At first he thinks it was a common soldier but later learns that it was a fallschirmjägerhauptmann. 

 

Once one of Kviateks men stuck his head above a hedge to shoot but is shot by a sniper. &quot;His brain splattered all over my face...I have never been so sick in my life, &quot; Frank Kviatek remembers. Private Floyd Rogers and Kviatek decides to get the sniper. Kviatek tells Rogers to hold up the dead soldier’s helmet on his signal. Kviatek moves away about forty meters and then gives the signal. The sniper fires immediately. Sergeant Kviatek gives the signal to Rogers to stick up the helmet again but at another position. Kviatek now sees the snipers head and shoulders stick out from a tree. &quot;Then I let him have it. All it took was one shot. Those bastards don't give you more than one shot.&quot; 

 

Private James W. Justus remembers Sergeant Kviatek as a good leader. &quot;The only trouble is, he wants to finish off the war by himself. Every time I see him, he's looking at a tree. He's going to be a very sad man when the war is over and there are no more snipers to kill.&quot;

Ace sniper of the Army - France 1944

On 21 April 1945, Lieutenant Daniel Inouye, of the US 442nd Regimental Combat Team, was leading his platoon on an assault against a heavily fortified ridge line when his platoon came under fire from three machine-gun nests. Inouye ordered his men to take cover while he climbed the hill to take on the nests alone.

When Inouye charged the first machine-gun he was suddenly knocked down, hit in the stomach by machine-gun fire. Ignoring the hit, he got up and destroyed the bunker with a grenade before moving on to the next. After the second was knocked out, Inouye collapsed from blood loss, unable to stand, but there was still one more machine-gun nest.

While his platoon distracted the third machine-gun, Daniel crawled up to the nest. He stood up and drew his arm back to throw a grenade. But a rifle grenade struck him in his right elbow and all but completely severed his arm. He pried the grenade from his severed hand and tossed it into the machine-gun bunker. He then took his Thompson submachine-gun into his left hand and raked the German survivors.

Just then another bullet hit Daniel in the right leg and he fell down the hill. Some of his men rushed down the hill to help him, but he shouted to them, “Get back up that hill! Nobody called off the war!”

For knocking out the three machine-gun bunkers, Lieutenant Daniel Inouye was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross, which was later upgraded to a Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton in 1991.