Chapter 14: Safe in Divarty.

When we arrived in Divarty there was not a lot for me to do. Besides I didn't operate a radio for several months because we were busy managing the occupation and had no time for training. We could not do both. Only later when we became established in permanent posts could the normal duties of an army begin. With the confusion of millions of refugees what to do with them was our first priority. So later we were sent up near Kassel Germany where we had to deal with huge numbers of refugees. Both homeless Germans freed concentration camp inmates and volunteer workers from other countries. More about this situation later. Immediately after the war our main duties were to disarm the German and Austrians. Part of this was to dispose of the small arms that were collected. More on this can be read in the blog billswar.blogspot.com. Bill Sheldon was in the Third Inf. from it's organization at Ft. Lewis Washington. He was also a radio operator in the 39th FA Battalion. His wife Virginia Sheldon made a book of his experiences with pictures and I am making a blog of them. Be sure to take a look at a real hero. They put me to driving a truck to the dump a couple times I have posted them here again if you want to look.


Dumping Garbage







House,in Salzburg where I lived until we moved to Melsungen near Kassel



But for my immediate duties was driving a truck. Here is a picture of the house we were billeted in.

Now I come to an episode that I am not very proud of. It's the subject of looting. Looting went on from generals looting trainloads of treasure to privates looting anything they could get their hands on. The Russians looted entire factories. Some had greater opportunity that others. So some didn't do much. Some had the integrity to not loot. It wasn't just Nazis doing the looting. The army was very lax in putting a stop to it. Maybe it was because after 2 or 3 years of war a certain mentality was more or less built in. After a couple years of unrestrained killng and destroying it was hard to stop. Also the desire to make the Germans, all the Germans pay. So the military looked the other way for a while. I managed to send home 3 machine guns. The German Schmeiser, the Burp gun and an Italian army rifle which customs caught because I either didn't secure adequately or they were x-raying packages by then. I kept them a while then gave them to a Fire Chief in the Seattle Fire Department who properly disabled them so they were not usable according to law. I was nervous about keeping them in working order. I also looted some things from the house which got on my conscience and one reason I went back to Austria later was to try to give it back to the original owner if I could find him. But I couldn't even find the house after all these years. However this turned into a great trip for other reasons. More about this later.







D Gudgel in front of HQ at Salzburg









As I was new I was curious about what was going on. Which was nothing. I went into the HQ trailer used to keep records which was not used any more because the war was over. I looked around which had been the brain of the Divarty. Left on one of the counters was the last situation report of the war. It is reproduced here. I have the original.
Check out Bills War

Next, Salzburg activities.