Sunday, December 13, 2009

March 4, 1945


March 4 left for Süchteln where we took over a civilian loft. The front is moving too fast to stay in one place very long. There were lots of animals laying dead along the road.

The Wermacht was still hanging around bad when we came in. The front is moving very fast now. Got a lot of loot in this town. Nick showed up at M. Gladbach today, sure surprised to see him. Nicky came to see me here and I made many trips to his field from here. Gandy took my pistol away here. Our chickens are giving us 45 eggs a day now. 

[Süchteln is situated in Viersen, Dusseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. Wessel is directly east.]

April 1, 1945

Left Süchteln on Easter Sunday and crossed the Rhine at Wessel.



Photos by Louis Lee Sapienza.
Warden's truck slid off the road in front of me but it was caught in the wires and didn't go down. Saw where our gliders landed a few days previous, took some pictures.Continued with the 4th Sig to Gr. Behen [spelling ?] where we took over a house. Col. Kuntz was over to see us. Left here on the 4th and drove to Bielefeld. Passed through Appelhausen (still a waring inferno from enemy artillery), Munster, Warendorf and Gütersloh. Had a close call in Bielefeld, snipers opened up on us as we came up the hill into town.  A machine gun opened up from a side street and cut us off so that we couldn't go either way. A infantry squad flushed out 4 of them and then a recon and finished off the machine gun.

The jerries had a road block under a R.R. trestle here this morning. The prisoners were men of about 40 and plenty scared. A captain asked Harry and I if we would go search the movie house in back of where we were hiding so they couldn't come up from our rear. All was O.K. now. We went back to Gütersloh where we took two civilian lofts and found a Nazi officers house where we loaded up plenty of souvenirs. Found plenty of liquor in the cellar also champagne which I took good care of.    

1 comment:

  1. plundered by troops - how lawful, really impressive
    everybody knows, and here's the proof again, how respectful even american soldiers as well were behaving in regards to private property

    ReplyDelete