MY ARMY DAYS: WWII (91-100)

            -91-

We wakened when we heard some shots

And wondered what was up

We thought it was just nervous guards

And so went back to sleep

But later on we were to learn

The Krauts had sent out troops

And killed three men from First Platoon

While they were fast asleep.

At three o’clock they wakened us

And said we would attack

Across the field and road we’d hit

And then we’d be in Fürth

We moved across the field quite fast

The road and river too

Then up the other side we went

To wait for six o’clock.

But just before we made our jump

White flags began to show

It was still dark, but we could see

The Germans coming out.

They surrendered, all of them,

And we just went on through

We sent the Krauts back to the rear

With just a guard or two.

            -92-

It was the same, where’er we went

The Germans just gave up

We saw one Kraut in uniform

Just kiss his wife goodbye

And knew that he had been called up

Not many days before

The old, the young, the crippled too

Would try to make a stand.

So after we had taken Fürth

We headed south again

Thru many towns and villages

All flew the big white flag.

We had but one slight incident

Some miles south of Fürth

There we were strafed by three Kraut planes

That came down on the road.

They came in line, and opened fire

Before we spotted them

Then each man jumped to save his life

It mattered not just where

One of my squads had moved thru town

Along a garden wall

And when they jumped, they fell ten feet

And nothing broke their fall.

            -93-

The mortar, sight, and cleaning rod

All ended up in mud

But as each man got himself up

Not one of them was hurt.

We looked again to find the planes

But found that they were gone.

We later learned they’d been shot down

By our P51’s.

We went across the Blue Danube

That wasn’t very blue

It was a wide and muddy stream

And so we crossed in boats

When the south side had been secured

Our engineers then built

A pontoon bridge to get the tanks

And vehicles across.

So we continued on our way

When evening called a halt

We stopped right near the autobahn

That led down to the south

Toward Munich and still further on

This open road did go

We thought of how we’d move along

If we were on that road.

            -94-

We spent the night in this small town

Without an incident

And in the early morning dawn

We saw a lot of tanks

They now were on the autobahn

And waited just for us.

We climbed aboard and off we went

And now it was a race.

The Third Division raced us hard

The Forty-Fifth did too

All tried to reach the old beer hall

Where Hitler got his start.

It took two days to reach the town

For often we did stop

To clear the road of SS troops

Who tried to block our way.

We’d passed by Dachau in our plunge

To get to Munich first

And later learned that some of ours

Had gone into that camp

They saw the horrors in the stripes

The living and the dead

The living only skin and bones

The dead lay everywhere.

            -95-

The German guards were shot on sight

Wherever they were found

But very little could be done

For those close to their deaths

The dead were stacked as cordwood is,

Around each oven door

While inside, ashes and their bones

Were all that once were men.

And now we were so very glad

That we’d been picked that day

To ride the autobahn on tanks

And miss out on Dachau.

We had no envy for our friends

In our first battalion

Who had a most distasteful task

Of cleaning up the camp.

At last we came into Munich

And stopped quite close to dark

We jumped down off the tanks we rode

And looked across the street

For here we saw a storage plant

That was chock full of food

It did not take us very long

To load that tank with crates.

            -96-

We then jumped back onto the tanks

And rumbled down the road

Until we came to the billets

Selected for the night.

We took the food down off the tanks

And carried it within

Then had a feast, the likes of which

We’d never had before.

The Swede was a machine gunner

Who liked to eat his eggs

Now he had a whole crate full, but

Could eat just twenty-eight

The rest of us just ate and ate

‘Til we could eat no more

Then after setting guards about

We settled down to snore.

Now as for us, we slept that night

And rested one more day

And then we started south again

Thru old Bavaria

Town after town, we passed on through

Without a single stop

Sometimes we rode the tanks or trucks

But mostly we just walked.

            -97-

There was one time that we were stopped

By just a bunch of kids

They had an MG forty-two

And stopped our movement cold.

So we had to set up our guns

As our riflemen deployed.

We thought four hundred yards would do

For nothing could we see.

We got a call, from out in front,

On where we were to fire

The range was right, but where to shoot

Was anybody’s guess.

And so we dropped one round ahead

“You’re shooting far, far to the right,”

The answer soon came back.

We then adjusted all the guns

And moved them to the left

Then dropped another round out front

And hoped it would be close

“You’re long about ten yards or more

And now just to the left.

Come in a bit, and move more right

And you’ll be where we want.”

            -98-

These weren’t the ways that mortar men

Were used to firing guns

But this is what we got that day

From someone out in front

So we corrected all our guns

According to his word

Then started firing while we searched

Traversing left to right.

 “You’re on,” I heard him shout in glee

Over my five three six,

“One landed right on that bunch of Krauts

And now confusion reigns.

I do believe they’re giving up

Stop firing anytime.”

And so I gave the sign to halt

And sure enough they quit.

The Germans just threw up their hands

They were about sixteen

They all were just a lot of kids

Whose officer was dead.

He had been hit by mortar fire

That rattled these young kids.

And with him dead, they chose to quit,

And this is what they did.

            -99-

We moved on out, when we were sure

The village had been cleared

This was the last time in the war

That we would have to fire.

In two more days of marching so

We entered Austria

And there we rested for a while

Just waited out the war.

The war did end officially

The seventh day of May

But for most of us at least

It ended days before

We now began to occupy

The villages and towns,

The western part of Austria

Known mainly as Tyrol.

We traveled now by German trucks

We’d captured in the war

And first went up to Krimmel

The last town to the west

Where the Salzach River begins

So high up in the Alps

It was a pleasant place to stay

The fishing was just great.

            -100-

We stayed in Krimmel for a month

And then were called upon

To furnish General Collins troops

To act as honor guards.

We went by truck to Kitzbühel

That lies in the Tyrol

This was a ski town ‘fore the war

But none of us did ski.

We stayed in Kitzbühel for a month

It had a great hotel

Where General Collins lived in style

With non-coms as his guards.

We stood our watch throughout each night

Two man on every floor

And then had four days of our own

To see the sights of town.

We went up on the Hoehnenbahn

The ski lift for the town

Went way above the timberline

And could see all around

The snowcapped peaks just to the west

Was where the Alps began

While down below we saw the town

It looked so very small.