Royce Flandro, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Winston P. Erickson, March 21, 2000: Saving the legacy tape no. 2 & 3

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ROYCEFLANDRO March 21,2000 be in, we had to expose ourselves to enemy visibility by moving around a hill on one of these terraces. We had to trample down a lot of grapevines to get our vehicles and weapons around there to get in the position we wanted to get into, but it was a good position once you got there. So we had to go there at night. We put on our night lights and all that. And we were going in an extended convoy to get into that position, and we tipped over two of our trucks. They went over the edge. Then they threw camouflage nets over the whole stuff, and we got four or our six guns in position ready to go. Then the next night we were able to get all of the rest of the stuffback over where it belonged. That was just one of the incidents that occurred. But then I couldn't get an officer to go with me to the very front to forward observe or direct our fire. They didn't know what to do when they got there, so I went alone. It was handy because I carried my own radio, and I had my musette bag and my own little carbine. And then I went forward and tied in with the company commanders of the rifle company. Together we would pick out targets, and I would radio back to the fire direction center and get a sense ofbursts and all that. We were then independent of the field artillery. Then I got another man that I had worked with who was a corporal in the fire direction center, and taught him a little about gunnery as a forward observer sensing bursts and sending the commands back and all that. I taught him, and he was sharp. And there was another man named Marslich who had been a manager in a women's garment factory in Chicago. He got drafted, and he also was real sharp. He learned the fire direction center stuff, and we just kept him there. But this other corporal and I took turns going forward as forward observers. We would go there for ten days, and then trade places and go back to the fire direction center. Each of us would operate our own radio, and we would be up there alone with the riflemen, the company commanders, and the support men. So then we became truly a "close support howitzer unit." I should also say one other thing, which is that because we had vehicles they used our vehicles to take the guys back to church, the different churches. The chaplains in the rear areas 22