Activision Seeks Out Army National Guard Combat Vet
On a white, snow-packed mountainside in eastern France not long after New Year’s Day 1945, PVT Harold Angle of the 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania Army National Guard, found himself in the mother of all shootouts.
He had just joined his unit as a replacement Soldier for I Company in the 112th Regiment. Now he was deployed as a scout on the forward left flank of his platoon as they climbed the Vosges Mountains. American divisions, including Pennsylvania’s 28th Infantry Division, were pushing deeper into France and threatening the Nazi presence occupying the European country.
U.S. troops were moving steadily. Each march eastward was a step closer to ending forever the malevolent force that was Hitler’s Third Reich. But until then, the might of the German army would fight with everything it had to halt the U.S. advance.
Now a retired civilian, Angle was recently asked to describe these dramatic events that took place 72 years earlier. Members of the video gaming company Activision listened intently last October as the 94-year-old veteran told them his story. They were consulting with him and other vets to make sure their soon-to-be-released video game – Call of Duty: WWII® – was as authentic as possible.
Angle’s days in combat so long ago were brief, but chilling. Reflecting back, he said that even though he didn’t see a lot of combat before the war ended in 1945, what he did see was enough to last a lifetime.
The Guard Soldier took the fight to the Germans that January day when he and his platoon had attempted to assault a German machine gun position. But their sergeant tripped a wire hidden under the snow. Light from flares illuminated the mountainside like sunshine, and the Nazi troops began pouring machine gun fire onto the Americans’ position. Fortunately, protected by a depression in the earth, the Soldiers were able to avoid the onslaught of bullets but were pinned down until dawn.
