The War in Europe

I left for Fort Benning, Ga, about the 27th of October, 1944. (19 yrs. old)  and sailed to Europe first class on the "Queen Elizabeth," which had been converted to a troop carrier.  I boarded the ship the 3rd of November, and arrived in Europe on the 10th, somewhere in Scotland.  We then were transported by plane to England.  It was rumored that most of us would be sent to the 101st Airborne as replacements for the men lost on D-Day, when France was re-taken and fighting was still going on throughout the country.  D-Day was June 6, 1944.  I am not sure what area we were sent to fight in, but learned this was for real, where a man could get killed and never know what happened.  I remember walking dirt roads, alongside wooded areas, with cold and snow making walking difficult, not to mention carrying rifle, ammo, and a back pack.  An officer kept yelling, "Spread out, one shell will kill you all!"  When the German shells began coming at us, we knew what the officer was saying was very true.  We finally had to move up into the wooded area and take cover. The shellings were coming steadily.  We were ordered to dig in.  The men paired off and dug two-man fox holes.  It was not easy.  The ground was frozen down to at least 12."  Fox holes were dug a couple of trees back from the tree line.  Holes were dug in record time, as all the men wanted to be down in the holes for protection from the incoming fire.  I'll never forget the whistling sound the shrapnel from the shells made when they exploded in the trees near our fox holes.  We were also getting small arms and machine gun fire coming at us.  Then came the tank mounted 88's.  We held our position for several days, but were losing men faster than they could be replaced.  The Germans would put up a bright flood light at night so we could not see past the light and therefore could not see what they were doing.  If we shot at the light, they could see where the shot was coming from and all hell would open up.  It was better not to shoot at the light.
We found we were on the edge of the Ardennes Forest on the border between Belgium and Germany.  At one point, we had Germans directly in front of us and beyond them Americans were dug in.  Behind us were our own troops.  After days and nights of this, we started thinking it would be nice to get out of this war.  So, if you and your buddy shot each other just enough to draw blood, you might get out.  Then we would consider we could both bleed to death there in a fox hole, and the idea would pass without a second thought. We had tried making small attacks out of the woods, but were driven back each time, sustaining heavy losses.  We had to leave the dead lying where they dropped.  My fox-hole buddy and I pulled a wounded man into our hole, but he died before a medic could get to him.  We had to keep his body in the hole with us for awhile, before we could get him out.  Things were getting worse every day.  One morning we were told Headquarters wanted a German prisoner form the German lines in front of us.  My buddy and I decided just before daylight that we would creep along a small creek bank that would give us some cover.  There was a thin coat of ice on the water and we, by being quiet could get behind one of their machine gun emplacements and surprise them while they were still half asleep.  We were almost around them when they saw us, but they were not minding their emplacement.  They were crawling towards the creek.  With my gun, I motioned for them to get up ahead of us and go towards our lines on their hands and knees.  Half way back we stopped to rest and one of the German soldiers said there were a lot of German soldiers wanting to surrender.  I asked why they didn't?  He said that if any soldier wanted to surrender, they had to first get by the out post that had orders to shoot anyone trying to surrender.  I asked how they managed to get by the out post without getting shot?  He said, "We are the out post."  About that time, we were laughing and small arms fire was coming at us.  Up the creek we went, breaking ice,  as we went on our hands and knees , delivering the prisoners as ordered.  The next day we made the attack and pushed the Germans way back.  I don't think there were more than a dozen or our original group of approximately 150 left.  Our remaining men were scattered out among other outfits.  I do remember fighting for a bridge, but don't recall what company or division I was with at that time.  It was now the end of January 1945.  The Battle of the Bulge was over, and Germans were fighting their way back to their homeland.  I was sent to Paris for a rest and then back to England.  In England, we trained with gliders. One morning we were snatched up in a glider by a tow line from a larger aircraft.  In our glider we had a fully loaded jeep trailer, rifles, ammunition and five men, plus the glider pilot.  We were to land over the rivers and in the center of a German parachute training camp at 12:00 noon, to catch them having lunch.  Believe it or not, it happened just that way and we caught them by surprise..  When we were landing in the glider, I was up front with the pilot as the glider was coming down.  He said to me, "Shall I go over this first fence and hit the next, or hit the first one?"  I said, "Go over the first and maybe we will stop before we hit the second fence."  A sudden stop would have brought the fully- loaded trailer forward on top of us.  When we rolled to a slow stop, I told the pilot to 'look behind him.' He saw the trailer that could have crushed us and said, "Thanks for being there." We unloaded the glider and secured our area.  The Germans did not want to put up much of a fight.  There were a couple of die-hards but the rest surrendered. 

As we moved on across Germany, we were meeting some resistance, especially from Nazi troops.  They were just plain mean. We had stopped in a first-aid station set up in the barn area of a farm.  There were men lying all around on stretchers, both American and German, all being cared for by our medics.  The medic told me the men on stretchers were being shot every once in a while by a sniper, but he could not find him.  From looking around, I knew the only place a sniper could be, was in a loft above the ground floor.  Waiting until things were still and quiet, I slowly climbed the ladder into the hay loft.  Once in the loft, in a loud, stern voice, sounding like a German officer, I said "Hinda Ho!"  and from the far corner of the loft, a young Nazi stood up.  I brought him down and took his gun away.  I asked him why he was shooting helpless men and he said he was trained not to surrender and to kill all others.

After leaving the first-aid station, we had taken the top of a hill overlooking a village below.  There had been some tough fighting by other Americans to gain this hill, but they had not been able to take and hold this hill. We came right behind the first Americans and they had been able to weaken the Germans so we re-took the hill fairly easily.  As I came up on top, there were bodies of our American soldiers lying where they had fallen.  Something pulled me to one of the bodies.. When I looked, it was Jerry Knight, after all these years, it still hurts just to think about it. 

By now, the German soldiers were all ready to surrender.  On top of a hill, I looked down to the road and there was a whole division of German troops carrying white flags.  I went down, accepted their surrender and went up front of them and marched in approximately 1500 prisoners, all by myself.  I felt like I had won the war. 

While in Duisburg, Germany, in 1945, after the fighting had stopped, our outfit was in the process of organizing a temporary government.  This was a fairly large city with thousands of people who had been hit hard by the war, which left them short of food, water, and housing. There was no city governing organization.  It was up to our U. S. Army to bring some kind of order and authority into power to govern the city and preferrably this would be accomplished with their own German people. At the time, all was confusion with American G I's in charge, not knowing who was who, or which people could be trusted, or what lies were being told by residents against each other in order to gain favor with American G I's.

One story that was reported needed immediate investigation.  The story was that a mass killing had taken place a few days prior to our fighting to capture the city.  A group of the city people directed our men to an area a short distance from the center of town.  There on the side of a small hill was evidence of fresh turned earth.  This gave proof to the allegations of mass killings. What we learned from this group of angry Germans, who were residents of  the city, was that 20 to 30 people, dressed in prison stripes, were brought
to the side of this hill, given shovels and forced to dig a trench 20 to 30 feet long, about 4 ft wide, and 6 ft deep.  They were then  forced to line up on the hill, just above the hole, and the prisoners were then shot.  Most fell into the grave, those that did not were thrown in on top of the ones that had fallen in.  Not knowing if all were dead, the trench grave was covered with earth by a bulldozer.

The group of angry citizens claimed this was done by the Nazi's who ruled things under Hitler and the prisoners who were shot would not do as the Nazis had ordered.  They would rather die first- and they did.  

Within a very short time, some of the strong Hitler followers were gathered at the grave sight by our American soldiers.  There were perhaps 20 men.  They were given shovels and under armed guards, forced to unearth the bodies, clean them off and place each one in a wooden coffin, take the coffins to the town square, where a separate grave was dug for each coffin.  The graves were covered and a marker placed at each grave sight with flowers. 

With me during the re-burying ritual, were three Russian soldiers whom our unit had freed from a prison camp.  They requested to stay with our unit.  Originally we were to be the first to Berlin, and they would leave us there.  "Victor." was the oldest, well educated and he spoke good English.  He was perhaps 30 years old and mild-mannered.  Victor was a strong church man.  "Nikolai." about 25 years old, was Mongolian Russian, short on education, and nothing disturbed him, but he know how to laugh.  The third man was "Waseal," he was tall, blonde, well-built and a 22 year old farm boy.  He had a fair education and was a nice guy. He was also a church man.

While Victor and I were standing and watching the digging to remove the bodies from the mass grave, with American GI's holding guns on the diggers, Victor said, "Bob, you Americans are not much better than the Nazi's, forcing this to be down under threat of death."  That statement has always bothered me. Victor was right.  We had let anger blur out better judgement, but anger was one of the reasons we were fighting this war.

Not long after the all of this happened, the fighting had stopped in Europe.  Word came that all Russian soldiers were to assemble in designated areas and told what to do after they were assembled.  Victor explained that a Russian was sworn to keep one last bullet for himself, and not to be taken as a live prisoner by the Germans.  Should they, as Russian soldiers, not kill themselves, they would not be accepted back to Russia.  So they felt there was no going home, as they were men without a country.  When we arrived at the designated area, there were thousands of ex-Russian soldiers, all alive.  I told Victor he was not the only chicken in Russia.  He didn't think that was funny.  All the Russian soldiers were in the same boat. Small groups were forming and there was talk of banding together to form a small army to overthrow the Russian government.  They even asked me to join them.  Luckily, about that time, word came form Mother Russia that all was forgiven, "Please come home."   That is where I left three happy friends. I learned many things from those three, especially concerning world propaganda.  We, as common people, are really nothing but sheep.  We are told what to do by the ruling authority.  In Russia, it was Stalin. In Germany, Hitler.  In Italy, Mussolini.  Now in the U. S., it is the IRS.  That is unless, of course, you have the money to hire high-priced lawyers, then you can get away with anything, even murder.  My biggest problem is with tobacco companies who are allowed to manufacture cigarettes.  Having emphysema as a result of smoking cigarettes, since I was age 9, I am not in favor of smoking.  But when you're are hooked, you're hooked, but enough  of my preaching, back to the story. 

To be continued.... Rescuing the Dutch, and delivering a baby.