Thomas Eugene “Gene” Atkins
It is the early hours of 10 March 1945 on Luzon in the Philippine Islands. The jungle around the Villa Verde Trail is black and close, broken only by a thin ridge that juts out from a larger hill. On that ridge, just ahead of the main American perimeter, three foxholes scrape a shallow line in the earth. In one of them lies Private First Class Thomas Eugene “Gene” Atkins of Company A, 127th Infantry. His job is simpl