What is the sound of battle like?

[daryl]

I do a little rifle and pistol shooting. Ear protection is necessary. I can see that ear drum damage could easily happen without protection. Ear drums can get sore after just one shot, whether from my own gun or others shooting ten to twenty feet away.

I got to thinking, my dad used to say that the screeming meemies would drive you crazy as they went over but he never said a word about the sound of gun fire and explosions. I remember a war movie (only one movie though) where a bomb exploded near a soldier and his hearing was damaged. Seems to me that every soldier had to have hearing problems. From my experience on the range I assume that the sound of battle would drive you insane and if your hearing was not screwed up for days afterward you must have been protected by angels.

So tell me, after a battle can you hear? Are your ear drums in pain from the sound?

[connie]

Daryl,

This sounds like a great one for Floyd to answer. I'll check in to bring up the today highlight.

Needless to say I have little I can add since I, like you, was not there. But I do remember one Belgian WWII museum we visited where there was one display you entered and exited through sound-proof doors. It attempted to replicate the din heard on the 16th of December, with all the incoming artillery rounds from the beginning of the German offensive. Floyd was there, too, and affirmed that it felt genuine.

The din was so overpowering that you almost couldn't hear it, if that makes any sense. It penetrated not just eardrums but every cell in the body.

This, however, was just a fleeting impression from brief exposure to a display. I await the words of someone who was really there...

Thanks for asking!

Connie

[daryl]

This is a subject I have never heard anyone ever mention.

[floydragsdale]

Hello Daryl:

One time during the B.O.B. we (G Co., 424th) were involved in an encounter with a unit of the German Army. Artillery and rifle fire was very intense most of the day. The sound ricocheted from hillside to hillside a good part of the daylight hours. It seemed as if the devil himself unlocked the gates to hell and was giving us a preview of what it was like to be there.

When that engagement quieted down that evening, my head didn’t seem as if it belonged to me. There is no way to describe the consequences I was going through after all the turmoil of that day. A complaint to the Company Medic brought zero results; he simply said, “You’ll be OK by morning.”

Several days later I visited the medics at Bn. Headquarters and was informed that they could do nothing for me.

To make the story short, that head noise is still with me, as I write this; it never goes away. Some days it seems as if a freight train is roaring through my head. That’s why I drink two big glasses of home brew before I hit the sack every night. That relaxes me to the point where sleep comes easier.

If you have ever heard the grand filially at a fourth of July fireworks, that is an indication of what it was like; except during the B.O.B. the noise was much louder; also the commotion went on all day.

Floyd

[daryl]

O my God! My dad woke in the middle of the night, many times, insanely screaming because his head hurt so bad from headaches. Left us kids in terror. A couple decades later when I had become a regular chiropractic user I determined that his headaches were from stress and his life could have been miraculously improved with chiropractic care which he was fanatically opposed to as it was "dangerous". But hearing you say that the "train" is still running through your head makes me wonder if he didn't have the same train. But as I said, he never mentioned the sound.

Thanks for your account and God bless you.

[connie]

Daryl,

Funny the unexpected insights that open up when we begin asking questions... Like you, as I dig into the past I keep stumbling into things that take my breath away. Wish Dad were around to know, but sometimes I think he does, anyway...

I am so grateful to Floyd and others who were there and who have taken the time to answer questions.

Thanks for asking this one and for sharing the possibilities it opened.

Connie

[daryl]

I only does what I can ;D

[floydragsdale]

Good morning:

Thank goodness I do not have headaches. However, the head noise is constant, day and night. Some days it is more intense than others.

Shortly after being discharged from the Army trying to sleep, in the quietness of home, at night was a serious problem. Street traffic and trains coming and going were music to my ears.

Several years later an E.N.T. Doctor said he could sever the nerves in both ears and the head noise would quit; but then, "You'll completely lose your hearing," he said.

The end results were that I had to learn to live with the problem. It wasn't easy, to say the least.

With lots of head noise,

Floyd