Here's a quote from 101st Airborne machine-gunner, who describes fighting around Arnhem during the botched Operation Market Garden. His story gives you a bit of an insight into what it was like to operate and kill with a heavy crew-served weapon.
"During the Market-Garden operation alone, Tex McMorries accounted for about 100 German deaths. He belonged to the ‘30 in one day’ cult of 501st machinegunners, achieving that score with his LMG at Eerde and later up on the dike west of Arnhem. Even with the machinegun, these kills did not come easily. It was not a simple matter of ‘mowing them down’, as in the movies. Al Lisk of F/501 says: “I’m of the opinion that with a machinegun, you’re going to get as many as you can get with the first burst, then after that, the enemy is taking cover and returning fire.”
And so it was at the Eerde fight on 24 September, 1944. The Germans attacked with tanks and infantry after an intense artillery preparation. Tex’s machinegun accounted for 38 of the enemy and was instrumental in halting the attack. The tanks held back when they spotted a phony minefield, planted as a ruse by American troops before the battle.
Tex wrote in his diary: “Germans made an all out attack-they are giving my position priority. They have thrown approximately 600 rounds of artillery within a 50 yard radius of my position. They have used tanks and many machineguns. I got 38 and wounded others. They are smart. Only once did I get two with the same burst, and they were stretcher bearers.”
Few other pics from Market Garden:
Paratrooper sights across the verandah of the Hartenstein Hotel, where the Paras attempted to make their final stand before the survivors were finally forced to quietly withdraw across the river.
A German private killed in action by British Bren gun fire near his car at a crossroads in Belgium during
British paratroopers with piat.