| Original caption: “Private William A. Reynolds…an ambulance driver, exhibits a .50-caliber [(12.7 millimeter)] machine gun bullet which lodged above the windshield of his vehicle when he was strafed by a German plane while driving at the front in France.” United States Army Private William L. A. Reynolds (January 1, 1922 – July 28, 1992) at the window of his Dodge WC-54 3-quarter ton ambulance. The Bullet is likely a 13 millimeter (0.51 inch) from a Maschinengewehr 131 (“Machine Gun 131”) that was mounted in the Messerschmitt Bf-109, Messerschmitt Me-410, Focke-Wulf Fw-190, Junkers Ju-88, Junkers Ju-388, and many other aircraft in flexible and fixed mounts. A pair of Maschinengewehr 131 machine guns was used as cowl armament on later models of the Bf-109 and the Fw-190. Born in Logan County, West Virginia, he resided in Harriman, Tennessee by the time of Pearl Harbor. Reynolds enlisted in the United States Army on May 17, 1943, at Fort Douglas, Utah. Fort Douglas is where the segregated 24th Infantry Regiment trained, but it was sent to the Pacific. In April 1944, he was treated for venereal disease for chancroid sores of the groin and returned to duty, so he may have been transferred to a unit headed to France at that time. Reynolds was discharged on March 4, 1946. The use of African Americans in ambulance battalions was in lieu of white troops, in order to reduce the numbers who otherwise would have been placed in medical sanitary units. 12 African American motor ambulance companies were activated in 1943 and 2 others were added later. African American quartermaster truck and transport companies were more or less permanently attached to infantry and armored divisions fighting across Europe; many of them, through their long attachments, becoming almost integral parts of the divisions to which they were attached, some of them joining in the fighting as riflemen when needed. Medical ambulance companies attached to divisions and hospitals evacuated wounded to the rear and medical sanitary companies loaded evacuated patients aboard ship for return to hospitals in England. Medical ambulance companies were often as close to the enemy and as closely associated with forward units as the truck companies. Armored divisions and their medical companies moved so fast that the length of the ambulance haul to the rear was usually double that of ambulances working with infantry divisions. Following the 4th Armored Division was the 590th Ambulance Company, an African American unit that was evacuating casualties for the 10th Armored Division. Its ambulances were among the 1st to reach the besieged troops at Bastogne. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0444.jpg |
| Image Size | 729.56 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2916 x 2288 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | July 1, 1944 |
| Location | |
| City | |
| State or Province | |
| Country | France |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-208-AA-32P-18 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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