"If you heard the whistle you were safe. They had already gone over."

"Yeah, every morning they'd come after you...Anzio Bettys. The Anzio Express would come in. They'd come through the air 'woosh-woosh-woosh'. Big ol' things really made a lot of noise. Germans - they liked to have whistles on everything else they could think of. They had this nest of mortars - I think there was six of them. They'd all go off at once and they all had a different sound. They called them the pipe organs comin' through the air. They wasn't very effective but they made a lot of noise. Course the 88's, they had that high whistle. If you heard the whistle you were safe. They had already gone over. And if they went over you - say ten feet - you was pretty safe too because they was comin' in at such a high speed all the shrapnel went forward. Hardly ever get anything comin' back." (Bernie L. Stokes, Summer, 2001)

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