Hotel in Luxemburg. Generals HQ

This is the hotel where the generals lived while the foot soldier was slogging it out in the mud. No wonder generals like war. They don't sleep in the mud or expect to get shot or blown up

Chapter 12: Worms Germany, War ends then to Salzburg Austria

My next move was from Villerupt France to Worms Germany. I don't remember the trip to Worms Germany. It had to be by truck as the railroads were totally demolished. At least in what turned out to be the American sector of Germany and I am sure the entire part of Germany west of Berlin and a line pretty much south. I don't know if theAir Force bombed train lines east of Berlin very much because it didn't effect supply to the German army opposing the Allies in the west. Now at the end nothing could move over the railroads. In fact I drover officers to Le Harve for transport home for months because the trains in Germany were not running. So it must be pretty obvious that with the destruction of the railroads it would be almost impossible to feed the inmates of a concentration camp with a population of 75,000 as Dachau had. Later with my travels in Germany during the occupation I witnessed the total destruction of the cities of Germany and I must have seen this destruction when I went to Worms from Villerupt France. But I don't remember details of the trip now.

My next memory of Worms was pulling guard duty. As I mentioned before soldiers in a replacement depot are all kinds. Artillery, radio operators like me, infantry, Just all kinds. Heck I am in the artillery I don't know anything about a rifle. We just waited. So they didn't just select infantry who knew an M1 rifle they somehow picked me to pull guard duty. Guard duty consisted of patrolling a post on the periphery of the camp. Being in the army they naturally expected any soldier to know how to shoot so they handed me an M1 and told me your on guard. Well, guard duty wasn't particularly new to me but if I had not been curious about the M1 previously I wouldn't have known how to actually load it. Most rifles load magazines from the bottom but the M1 loads a clip from the top. When the last shot is fired the clip pops out and the chamber remains open. When you reload a clip you had better watch your thumb because when the bolt slams forward you can mess up your thumb. I don't know why they went with this style of loading a rifle. Machine guns that loaded from the bottom. Even the our Thompson sub machine gun did. The carbine M1 that was issued to the artillery loaded a clip from the bottom. Semi automatic hand guns loaded from a clip in the handle. S0 why they didn't make one that loaded from the bottom is a mystery to me. So the technology was there. But it was a powerful rifle in other respects. Didn't jam too easily I guess.
But in any case I did a manual of arms that I had seen the infantry do and I was set for guard duty. I got a laugh out of this.

An incident happened that has stayed with me all these years. Some German kids were playing around my post and one was particularly undernourished, He had spindly legs and gaunt features of the starving. He tried to keep up with the other kids but was handicapped by his physical condition and it was impossible. Starvation in Germany got worse under occupation for many months. Several books have been written about the deliberate policy to punish the Germans. I will get to this later when I describe life in Germany.

I have not been able to locate the picture of me and the some others at Worms who occupied a tent while waiting for assignment.

There were no pictures taken in Worms except this one. We could see the town completely destroyed. Everything was destroyed in Germany that could be destroyed from the air. Seemingly just to destroy. Even a lot of small towns. No other reason. To get a little insight get the movie and see Little Dieter Needs to Fly. Even in those days I think I had a historical perspective. Even in high school I picked what I thought would be easy courses. History being one of them. At the time I wasn't particularly mature in these subjects and didn't resent the senseless destruction of an ancient culture. I just figured that that was just the way things happen. I never considered the politics of countries and the world. We were the good guys the losers were the bad guys. So they deserved a little looting by the victors. Sort of like Iraq I guess. Some say the Germans had it coming. I don't think the country had it coming. Just to mass murder children, old people and women didn't bring the war to an end any sooner. The same as for the British. It only hardened the resolved to fight on. I took a picture of a Greek statue in a destroyed museum in Munich later, I thought the statue quite interesting. The museum had been bombed and destroyed. This statue was in the basement or the level below ground level. So the statue was highlight by the sun down shining on it. So I just pointed my camera down at it and took its picture. I thought myself fortunate to have the right conditions there to take it's picture. Whether it is an original or replica I don't know. Hopefully someone will see it and tell me what it is if it is famous enough.

Chapter 10. Scotland then France and Belgium..

I offloaded during the day. We marched immediately off the barge and loaded onto a train. The day was decent and the Red Cross or some other organization was there to give us free coffee as we hung out the window looking around. I felt very sorry for one of the girls who was hurrying to give a soldier some coffee but stumbled and lost almost maybe all her coffee. I still remember this.

That was the last daylight we saw until we unloaded at Southampton. When we left the station at Glasgow they blacked out windows and we went through London not even knowing when and where it was. But opening to the light at Southampton was a shock. We saw what war was all about. The waterfront was a shambles. Of course the Germans wanted to deny the use of the port to the Allies so they bombed the heck out of the harbor. By the time we arrived rockets no longer landed in England but the destruction was all about. This was however a pale shadow to what was to come to Germany. See the picture of Darmstadt in 1945 below.

We still had to get across the channel. We marched to a Polish ship docked at one of the docks. Some of the docks were restored but buildings would have to wait. We were in it a while before it finished loading. I cant remember how long. But long enough to learn the food wasn't any better than the QE. The ship was also as crowded. Eventually we sailed for Le Harve. I pretty much expected a decent welcome from the French in Le Harve. But the Americans and British had bombed the city killing 5,000 French and making 80,000 homeless. There were many raids on Le Harve but the bombs had a propensity to miss the harbor and hit the town nearby. The Germans had major submarine pens at Le Harve. But we marched through the town that was still standing. We thought we would be welcomed. But the women looking out the windows appeared sullen and didn't smile and wave. They had seen thousands and thousands pass by here. We were nothing new. The welcome mat was not out. Like it was not out either when I came home with a troop ship load to Ft Meade Md in 1946. It was old hat to the residents. They had had their parades and they were no doubt tired of war. They probably just wished the war to end. Some of the soldiers threw candy and gum up to the girls on the second floor. This didn't seem to cause a response one way or another. They just took it. Maybe they were no longer impressed with marching soldiers. It was later that we learned why they didn't seem to greet us with smiles and kisses. When those who killed were from "their" side. They probably could not forget the 5,000 dead and 80,000 homeless. Now THAT is homeless.

There were several huge replacement depots at Le Harve named after cigarettes. Soldiers arriving in France by the countless thousands came this same path I came. I can't remember the name of the camp I went to. The military genesis figured the name would confuse the German intelligence.

I stayed for just a short time. Next I was to take the train north where there was still some war going on. The depot was on the hill overlooking Le Harve. You walked down to the rail yards. As thousands of soldiers passed by here they had built a wall to shield the soldiers sensibilities from view of the other soldiers who were going in the open air latrine. However just next to the other side where the latrines were the townspeople with a view. It didn't seem to shock them.

The train. Inside the compartment a bench faced another bench seating two or three people. Above was a luggage rack on both sides of the compartment.You have seen many of these in movies. We would have to sit up the entire time. Naturally soldiers tried to find some way to sleep. The French had defeated this idea by putting in rack supports about every couple feet or so. So the only thing was tough it out and stay awake. The favorite thing was to go out of the little room with the benches into the hall and watch the scenery go by. This was strange to me that in England we had to travel in blackout conditions but here we could watch the scenery. In talking with other soldiers on the train we learned that not all were fresh from the states. There were many deserters and AWOL's being returned to units. Not talked about very much is the desertions the US Army suffered. I don't like to keep bringing up the German Army but their desertions were almost non-existent. Which was because: if you deserted you got shot, Period. I am not sure this is a good idea for the US army. I never went AWOL but came close a couple times inadvertently.

The train continued north with an occasional stop for stretching our legs and unwinding. I don't remember Paris on this trip but I suppose we went through it. It didn't make any difference because we could not get off the train anyway. Nothing remains with me about this ride until we got into Luxembourg, or perhaps Belgium I don't remember. American airplanes had been trying it's level best to destroy the railroads and were quite successful. The military had repaired the railroads that supplies had to traverse. The maximum speed would be about 25 miles per hour. Which reminds me somewhere we had to change into box cars from the passenger cars. Probably because the French owned the passenger cars and the Belgiums owned the cars and roads we were on. Being on these cars reminded me of stories from WW1 where they talk about box cars holding 40 men or 8 horses. The reason for the emphasis put on 40 and 8 by WW 1 vets who had to ride in them. Well I rode in them too. . Anyway we were in this box car when all of a sudden the awfullest banging and rocking was going on. What had happened the car had jumped the tracks and we were bouncing on the ties. A good reason we were not going real fast. Of course the military kept the speed down because of just this danger. The railroads of western Europe were in a shambles as the inmates of the concentration camps found when it came time to eat. Without railroads the military comes first. No matter which country it is. Concentration camp inmates can go hungry,

We continued on and it began to get dark as we went into Belgium. Eventually about 11 that night we stopped at a town called Verviers. We unloaded in blackout conditions. As a reader of lots of WW1 books it reminded me of the times I had read of troops marching through blacked out towns. Now here I was doing what I had only read about many times. This was for real. I was living it. We continued through town and out a couple miles to a factory now used as a replacement depot by the US 3rd army. We went in total darkness. Other troops were already there.. Some went out the back to find a latrine. No one told them that there was a big hole there and one man fell into it. Next day I looked into it and saw a lot of debris. It must not have been pleasant to land in that stuff.

We stayed there some being assigned to units. A short time later one morning about hundred showed up for sick call. There was some contaminated food and we got what ever it took to fix it up.

I occupied myself the next few days taking an occasional walk around the country side near the factory. A replacement depot is different from a regular outfit because you don't have time to build friendships. So your amusement is up to you. My method was by taking walks. This is where it might make an impression that you are just a number. You are not even a cog in a big machine. You are nothing. Verviers is in the area where heavy battles went on during the Battle of the Bulge. Malmedy, Bastogne were not far away. Destruction by war unimaginable to the newcomer.

Within a few days we moved again. This time down to Villerupt France.
I had no camera or knew anyone who did. There would not have been any way to develop pictures anyway.

See chapter 11 next..