If You Survive (27 page)

Some of the young officers we had in the Battle of the Bulge were with us such a short time, I never got to know them. I recall only the names of Lieutenant Hunt, Lieutenant Scheiman, and Lieutenant Gesner; I think they were all retreads.

Lieutenant Gesner was particularly interesting. He was about forty and had been transferred out of the OSS because he was thought too old to jump behind enemy lines and work with the underground. He knew a lot of worthwhile
survival tricks and took the time to teach us a few.

For one thing, he showed us an interesting way to make a quick foxhole in frozen ground. First he held a rifle about six inches over the ground and fired eight rounds into the same spot. Then he quickly dug out the loose dirt with his trench knife, placed a half stick of TNT in the hole, gently tapped the loose dirt around the TNT, lit the fuse, ran back about thirty yards, and fell flat. When trying to save a life with a quick foxhole, a little extra noise is not too important.

Even before the dirt from the blast settled he was back in the hole, enlarging it with his trench shovel. And there it was, a habitable foxhole made in frozen ground within a very few minutes. This fascinated me, and I put it in the back of my mind, hoping I’d never have to use it with my present green recruits because they’d probably blow themselves up.

Early in January, 1945, we moved once more, this time only a few miles northward to a place called Junglinster, which was about five miles northwest of Echternach. Again we were in reserve, and it appeared, at least in our sector, that the first phase of the Battle of the Bulge was over.

The Fourth Infantry Division had stopped the Germans cold and set a southern boundary to their seventy-five-mile-wide breakthrough. The First Infantry Division, after giving some ground initially, was able to confine the Germans on the northern flank. The veteran Twenty-eighth and Ninetieth divisions, both also trying to recuperate from the Hürtgen, were pushed back several miles but made the Germans pay dearly for the setbacks. The 101st Airborne made its heroic, historic stand in surrounded Bastogne.

Our experienced divisions were all disastrously under strength due to the Hürtgen, the only full-strength division
being the wretchedly ill-starred 106th Infantry Division. That division had arrived from the States only three days earlier and had been put in a very sleepy sector of the line so the men could unpack and get the feel of things. There they were caught in the vortex of a panzer charge; they never had a chance.

Once the southern flank of the Breakthrough was settled, the Third Army was able to release Patton’s tanks below us; and they rolled through our rear areas and then turned north on their unforgettable, valiant drive to liberate Bastogne.

By now the Germans were stretched out too far. They were low on ammunition, gas, and reinforcements, and they began to crumble and fold back, trying to escape into the Fatherland. Hitler’s bold gamble had become his last gasp.

And so, barring a spasmodic burst from the enemy, we hoped for a few days’ rest.

S
econd Batallion was placed in reserve again, and this time it appeared we would finally get some much-needed rest.

Some of our divisions had been attacking eastward toward the Our (pronounced
“Oor”)
River. Patton’s tanks had rolled back the entire southern edge of the German bulge and was closing in on beleaguered Bastogne, still held by the now famous 101st Airborne.

In Junglinster, Luxembourg, as our company luxuriated in houses apparently abandoned by their owners, we received the wool socks and snowpak boots we’d so desperately needed before. The boots had tall leather tops sewn to a rubber shoe, and they replaced the cumbersome combination of leather combat boots and buckled overshoes. They were not insulated, but they were light and warm with the wool socks, and we were mighty grateful. Wool Eisenhower jackets were also issued, and these fitted under our field jackets for extra warmth.

Also making its appearance, and this for the first time in
my Army experience, was a liquor ration of six different bottles or fifths for each officer. Since I didn’t use the stuff except for occasional medicinal purposes, and since I was feeling fine at the time, I called in First Sergeant Nagel and had him split my ration among the NCOs. Some of the officers offered to buy it from me, but I thought they already had enough, and nobody pressed the point—possibly because I was their commanding officer.

At this time Lieutenant Colonel Kenan, who remembered my interrupted R & R in Luxembourg City, insisted that I again try to take some time off. Thus I found myself riding in the lead cab of a three-truck convoy of the battalion’s enlisted men bound not for Luxembourg City but for gay Paris itself, for some reason the dream city of almost all GIs.

When we arrived at our hotel some two hundred tedious miles later, I was surprised to find I was the only officer in the convoy. The duty was real Rest & Recreation, with no command functions at all for me. The men were simply told at what time and where to report back in three days and were then turned loose on a city the chief wartime industry of which seemed to be women.

Well, the GIs took off in wild jubilation like a bunch of kids on the last day of school, and I was left to myself, in dignity, sitting on the steps of an old second-class hotel.

It was not long before I found out that it is quite possible for an American to be lonely in teeming Paris, the warm and beautiful metropolis of hundreds of small neighborhood villages, sidewalk cafés, fruit and vegetable markets. It was a city with an excitable, war-weary populace. It was dead winter, five long months after the hysterical, emotional tidal wave of the Liberation on August 25, when we were showered with cookies, candy, flowers, all sorts
of bottles; when we were smothered in kisses and embraces; when men, women, and children screamed and tore about in riotous celebration.

Now everything was strictly business, cold and impersonal. I couldn’t read or speak the language, and I felt more like an interloper than a triumphant liberator. The liberated weren’t above cheating the foreigner, for the few small purchases I made in English-speaking stores and arranged to have sent home to Michigan never arrived.

The black market was in full swing, and the price of a dinner in a restaurant was about $25—equivalent to some $75 or $100 today.

Nonetheless, I was determined to see the sights and get some variety, even though walking down a snow-swept pavement without having to worry about mines or tree bursts or burp guns was entertainment enough for me. I gaped at the Eiffel Tower. I dutifully inspected the Louvre, Notre Dame, and other imposing buildings from the outside—for they were still closed to the public. Then I strolled down the Champs Elysées from the Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe and its torch for the Unknown Soldier of that War to End Wars. Standing at that memorial, I felt a bitter irony.

I was raised in small towns and in the country, and just as many city boys had never milked a cow, I had never ridden a subway. I was intrigued by the Métro. The trains were clean and swift, and they rocketed along in underground tunnels until they eased into a perfectly clean station.

Another phenomenon that impressed this country lad was the men’s rest rooms. It wasn’t so much the relatively sanitary conditions prevailing that seemed so unusual to me as the way this was achieved. They were cleaned by women, matrons who came when they pleased, without
knocking and without thinking the least about it. It didn’t seem to embarrass the men either, for they gave no indication that they even noticed the women.

This lack of prudery was more evident on the city’s streets, where men’s relief stations were practically in the open, tiny, circular brick kiosks around the interior of which urinals spiraled. They were screened in to about shoulder height, but passing women could see the men standing there, and certainly there was no mystery as to what they were doing. Most of the women seemed to pay no attention to the open-air contrivances, which bore the none-too-elegant name of
pissoir
(pronounced
“piswa”)
. In fact, some women casually conversed over the barrier as they waited for their companions inside.

While I can’t imagine any such device in even the worst slums of an American city, I suppose there is a certain modesty in ignoring a natural function instead of calling attention to it by hiding it. Anyway, that was Paris.

I got to know the subways better than most Americans as I rode from one station to the next. Every now and then I would get off to window shop. The exploration would have been more pleasant if I had had a French translator along, but I managed to stay out of difficulty, at least until the very end. On one ride I was surprised to find that the train was no longer underground when it stopped. It was dark outside, and I suppose that’s why I hadn’t noticed our emergence. Everyone got out and walked away, and the train showed no signs of moving on, so I got out to look around and get my bearings.

My confusion must have been pretty obvious, particularly with my uniform marking me as a stranger, and soon a very kind lady of about fifty came up and asked in English if I needed any help. I asked if she knew when the subway was going back to town. She smiled sympathetically
and told me there would be no more trains until morning, that I had been on the last one.

Then she offered to help me find a room and walked me about a block to the only hotel in that part of town. She spoke a few words in French to the manager and then hurried off to her family.

Early the next morning I took the first subway back to the city, grateful that the little misadventure had not come on my last night in town, when I would have missed the convoy back to Luxembourg. I never would have lived that down, and no one would have believed what actually happened and that no French lass was involved.

I ate breakfast as soon as I returned to the city, and then I started to wander around town. I did a little shopping. Although I was most certainly minding my own business, I was stopped time and again by the ubiquitous ladies of the moment. While I possessed all the standard male urges, I did not find the propositions particularly tempting. The poor souls were not especially attractive. They looked worn and haggard.

Anyway, that too, was Paris in all its variety. A few months later I was to encounter a unique situation in this regard, a situation which came my way in the form of an assignment.

One pleasant surprise as I strolled around was a huge American Red Cross sign on a nearby building, and I thought this might be the place to get a cup of coffee and perhaps some suggestions about what to see and do. The suite was nice, clean, and comfortable, and best of all, everyone spoke English. It must not have been much of a lure for the GIs, though, because I was the sole visitor.

The French Red Cross hostess was a pretty girl with a sweet smile and dulcet voice. We had a pleasant chat on
places to visit in the city. After a while she asked if I’d like to have dinner with an English-speaking French family. When I agreed it might be nice, she told me to come back at six. She would arrange for me to meet a couple who had been educated in the States.

I made sure I was punctual, but after waiting in the lobby until almost 7:00
P.M
. I got up to leave. Thereupon my pretty friend came over and explained that the couple had just phoned to say they had a sick child. They asked her to give me their apologies. She felt responsible for ruining my dinner plans and told me it was too late for me to get back in time for dinner at my own hotel, but she said that if I didn’t mind waiting another fifteen minutes until she went off duty, she would be glad to guide me to a nearby place that was not dependent on the black market.

A little while later when I saw the big “American Officers Club” sign on the hotel she led me to I understood her maneuvering. I really wasn’t too upset. She knew where to get a good meal, and I didn’t mind the company.

Inside the huge lobby a group of officers was queued up to buy meal tickets. I joined the line, and soon, to my astonishment, got two tickets for only twenty-five cents each. That was the price officers were usually charged for meals when in garrison, but I didn’t expect it to apply in Paris, where everything else was so inflated.

With tickets in hand and a young lady at my side, I followed the other officers up a long, magnificent staircase to the dining room. I was flabbergasted, and perhaps a little intimidated, by the luxury of the immense lobby and mezzanine. I was in for a shock, though, when the second lieutenant posted at the door refused to admit us to the dining room. Improper uniform, he said. Then I noticed that all the officers were in full-dress “pinks”, I was wearing an olive-drab uniform with an Eisenhower jacket.

Instantly I grew angry, and I asked if he thought I
should go back to the front lines and draw a proper uniform. He was obviously embarrassed and quickly apologized, saying he was partial to the infantry and didn’t realize I was fresh out of combat. Rear-echelon people sometimes irritate; how can they stand on formalities? How little effort and time it takes to be considerate.

As we were ushered to a table several senior officers glanced our way, but none seemed to object. I couldn’t believe the food, having almost forgotten that such lavish, delectable victuals existed. Along with T-bone steaks came mashed potatoes and brown gravy, green beans, rolls, butter, coffee, and pie. I ate very, very slowly and handled the silverware ever so carefully. The club was a wonderland.

Although no one nodded or smiled at my pretty young French friend, I realized she must have been in that arena more than once, and I certainly didn’t blame her. What did bother me, however, was the kind of life our rear echelon troops, especially the officers, seemed to be leading. My mind took a nasty turn as I saw myself, in sudden fantasy, as commanding general of the area, putting all those fancy people permanently on K rations and sending them up for a tour of front-line duty just so they’d know there was a war somewhere. (Ah, daydreams.)