This is the latest installment from my dad's short-lived diary, penned shortly after his release from a German POW camp. In these entries, my eighty pound and half-starved father worries about his brother, Art, who was then serving in the South Pacific.Uncle Art was wounded shortly after my father's posts, but not seriously. He was shot in the ass. When I once questioned him about it many years later, he snarled, "I was in front of the front lines, going for extra ammunition."
That's about all he ever shared. He kept no diary. He drank a lot, too.
5/20/45
All of my equipment, loot, real and personal property was once again in moving order waiting to be donned on my aching back as soon as the order to move was given. I waited and waited, a practice at which I have become very adept, for hour upon hour but no such order came. As we were lined up for midday chow ten G.I. trucks pulled up as only G.I. trucks can and I thought that this day would at last see me back to our own lines. However, due to the absence of certain documents or some such reason we are again detained by the Russians. I'm becoming a firm believer in the Vonnegut statement that "getting out of Germany is like walking in sand." The rumor now seems to be that we will pull out tomorrow when the trucks return with the proper papers. More of Hq. Co. showed up today in the persons of Sgt. Shuve and Pfc Sabbatino. Both look OK except for the loss of weight common to all POW's. Neither could give me any info regarding the whereabouts of Sgt. Boyle, Heinbeck, or Edgeworth. I'd certainly enjoy seeing those boys again.
The war in the Pacific seems to be progressing favorably, although we are meeting stiff resistance on some of the islands. I have an uncomfortable feeling that I'll learn more of that phase of our international troubles through first-hand experience. I'd like to see that part of the world but it would be just my luck to accomplish the feat through the medium of being a POW of the Japs, and twice in a lifetime is too much. The Russian band serenaded us again tonight. I'm getting to really like Russian music. The Russians are very much like Americans in their outlook on life. I suppose that is what queers the English with them. A few of us went across the hall to where we had discovered a radio in the room of one of our comrades. We listened for a while and left being driven out by static and by the system the joker in charge was using to operate the darn thing. He's one of that particular species of mankind who thinks he's operating the blue network whenever he comes across a radio with more than two dials on it. We are now preparing for bed at the end of a rather uneventful day.
5/21/45
Lo and behold I am still in Riesa. No trucks appeared today or had been rumored. However, we did receive a visit from two chaplains - one Protestant and one Catholic. They both held services and I heard mass and received communion for the first time in five months. The chaplain who was from the 69th division claimed that we would be out of here in three or four days. He seemed pretty confident that we would be back in the states within a few weeks after we hit our own lines. My inbred scepticism [sic] prohibits me from placing too much stock in his optimistic statement. Time and time alone will tell. The chaplains also brought some V-mail along with them. I wrote to my parents and to Aunt Mae. The letters are supposed to be on their way, having been brought back to our own lines with the chaplain who left here seven o'clock this evening.
5/22/45
A very routine day. I slept through reveille and all the morning, arising only for breakfast. Most of the afternoon was spent by all of us chewing the rag in the room where we were assembled. I thought of home today. Nothing now seems more welcome than news of the family. I am worried especially about Art. I certainly hope he has been as lucky as I in regard to ducking bullets and artillery.
It is early evening now and all of us are in the room now writing, reading, playing cards and talking. Things will no doubt continue along the same line until bed time. Blogger's Note: First published 12/17/07.
12 comments:
This is mesmerizing
bernie, I hope you are not going to be deleting posts and be one sided just like Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose were. I have family roots to WWII also. My dad and all my uncles were in it.
This is a great series. Thank you for sharing with us.
The above comments were posted in 2007.
You should have been a better son.
Bernie,
I have two uncle who served in the war, one is no blood relation but married to my aunt, he served with Patton and never to this day talks about the war. He has photo albums of pictures he took secretly of hundreds of body along the roads where they were marching. This was of course in Germany and the bodies were of detainees from concentration camps who were being moved ahead of their advance.
As interesting are the stories of my wife’s family who were in France for the occupation and liberation. They suffered real deprivations for years and basics like soap were a luxury. Normandy was for many years the one place an American tourist could always count on a warm welcome and lots of tales of “44”.
Scott Armstrong
"What did you learn?" Vonnegut asks.
"I will never believe my government again."
This. A thousand times, this. Those spoiling for war should take note.
This is a great series Bernie, I look forward every year to reading it.
Thank you for sharing and Merry Christmas.
The Banker
Your Father looks like a tough son of bitch ! ☘️
Hi Bernie.....every Christmas I look forward to reading your dad's letters. My dad also served in Europe during WWII, landing on Omaha Beach and ending in the Rhineland. They both were part of the greatest generation. Like your dad, he spoke very little about it. He just went on with his life. Every year when I read these letters, I think of my dad and the family he raised. Great memories. Great men. May your dad and my dad rest in peace. Thank You Bernie and Merry Christmas.
Bernie, thank you for making public these letters from your father. These are accounts that we all need to remember and never forget. Like many others, I appreciate reading them. My uncle was a POW in Europe also during the war, and like most others, he rarely spoke about it. Tom Brokaw, currently battling blood cancer, described the Greatest Generation in his book of the same name: “These men and women came of age in the Great Depression, when economic despair hovered over the land like a plague. They had watched their parents lose their businesses, their farms, their jobs, their hopes. They had learned to accept a future that played out one day at time. Then, just as there was a glimmer of economic recovery, war exploded across Europe and Asia … they gave up their place on the assembly lines in Detroit and in the ranks of Wall Street, they quit school or went from cap and gown directly into uniform.”
Jack Panella
Thank you, Judge. I hope we can remember this time and what a great people we can be.
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