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.One day while we were in Bad Kostritz we had a parade.A little while before theparade I saw Sergeant Pollectcus, the regimental sergeant major, who probably knew moreabout the regiment than any other man in it.I told him that John Windsor had beenawarded the Silver Star for a deed he had done along the Moselle eight months earlier, buthad never received the medal.The good sergeant major told me that he would take care ofit, and he hurried off to Regiment.I rounded up Windsor, and pretty soon Colonel Fishercame back with Pollectcus.Windsor and another man from Company G reviewed theparade and, afterward, Colonel Fisher pinned their Silver Stars on them.We had more champagne than we knew what to do with.We were even gettingparticular about what brand we drank.If it wasn t pink champagne, we threw it away.Iwish I could have gotten a couple of truckloads of it home.We left Bad Kostritz early in the morning of April 20 and moved 150 miles by truck.Our destination was Burglesan, a farm town composed of about twelve buildings, threefourths of which were barns.Our job was to maintain law and order and patrol the place.The war was about over now, but we did not know just when it would fold up completely.While we were there, we had a clothing and equipment check.In my house were an old farmer, his wife, and two daughters.The farmer was aharmless old soul who hadn t paid much attention to the war.He had one weakness,though, and that was schnapps.He hadn t been getting much lately, and he sure missed it.Some of the men decided to please him and gave him some schnapps.He was just like akid at a circus.I ve never seen a more jovial drunk in my life.I laughed with him until Ithought my sides would split.Lieutenant Edwin Heller and his machine gun platoon were in a country guest houseacross the street.The cellar was full of beer, so he set up a club for the company.The menreally enjoyed themselves.We left Burglesan on the morning of April 23 and moved to Nuremberg to relieve the3d Infantry Division.Nuremberg had been beaten to a pulp.It had formerly been a walledcity with a moat around it a medieval jewel no longer, courtesy of Mr.Hitler.I relieved a heavy weapons company of the 3d Division and was given the mission offurnishing 24-hour motorized patrols with radios throughout the city.The riflemen hadwalking patrols through the city and my boys coordinated with them.The 3d and 45thInfantry Divisions had a hard time taking Nuremberg, and the civilians were hostile.Snipers were raising hell and our boys had to be very careful.Our job was to maintain lawand order, enforce military law, prevent looting, and continue our training.Mostimportant, though, was to give the men a much-needed rest and time to clean and repairtheir weapons.We arrived there in the morning and my patrols were working by noon.About themiddle of the afternoon, one of my jeeps brought in two German civilians who had shot atmy troops.One shot went through the windshield and another through the hood.The boyshad just missed getting hit.These Krauts were little dried-up men in their late thirties.My battalion hadn t gottensettled yet, so I took them around to 3d Division Intelligence.I didn t want to bloody upmy place.There were two Poles there who still bore the scars of concentration camp life.They could speak German, so the Intelligence Officer and I told them to get someinformation out of these guys.These Krauts were died-in-the-wool Nazis.They wouldn t say a word, even though theyknew that they would probably die for trying to kill my men.We searched them.One ofthem had a cat-o-nine-tails whip.One of the Poles grabbed it and told the Kraut to talk.There was a gang of snipers on the loose in Nuremberg dressed in civilian clothes, and wewanted to know about them.The Kraut refused.The Pole started beating him, but theKraut still didn t talk.The other Pole joined in, but the Kraut still didn t talk.He justwhimpered like a rat caught in a trap.I left eventually.I don t know if the Krauts talkedbefore they died or not, but I don t think they did.Nuremberg was dangerous at night.All that was left of the town was a pile of rubbish.At night, the ruins silhouetted against the sky looked like death.At all hours of the day,civilians could be seen digging out their dead from the ruins and carrying the limp formsaway in sheets and blankets.It was like Hell.There was only one water point in oursection of the city, and all day long civilians lined up with their buckets and pitchers to getsome.My CP was in a bakery.It was warm there.We let the people run their bakery, but weborrowed a few of their rooms.When I first walked in, I went into the bathroom.Out ofhabit I turned on the hot water spigot of the tub to see if it worked.Sure enough, hot watercame out, so I just let it run, pulled off my clothes, and took a bath [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]