Father Wilheim

At one time, they asked where I lost my radio operator. We went up to a meeting in (inaudible) just before Regalbuto, and the colonel went to his meeting, and when we... waiting for him to come back we had a mortar attack. I was on one side of the tank, the right hand side of the tank, my radio operator was other side. We were doing some work there you know, cleaning up or something. And the mortar landed on his side. Killed him completely. Father Wilheim was our padre at the time, he, that's when... I knew him you know. But I was never intimate with Father Wilheim and he came over, and he knew all our names, I was surprised. He asked me what was the matter, I said "Well, Bert here is, I can't find him." I said a mortar went down. So we went ahead and looked around and found parts of his body, we gathered it together. And I turned around and said to Father Wilheim, after we gathered everything up and buried it, you know. I says, "I got a problem." He says, "What's that? " I says, "If something happens to me and I get killed, who's going to say, give me my last rights? " And Father Wilheim turned around he says "Don't worry about it", he says "I can look after that." And he pulled up a Hebrew bible. Then he read off he says "Am I right? " I says "Thank you very much" I said "I can go peacefully now!" He had a great sense of humor Father Wilheim. One of the finest padres I've ever met.