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“Baker Company, let’s go” a loud voice
was shouting in the darkness as we staggered down the gang plank one
night at the end of January ‘45. Those
who opened their eyes against the freezing wind caught a few glimpses of
shuttered windows strange-reading signs like “Bijoutrie” &
“Patisserie” as the headlights of the open trucks swung down narrow
streets. But for most the
first view of
Europe
revealed endless rows of pyramidal tents, flapping or collapsing, empty,
snow melting on the ground. The
chills and frost-bites disappeared slowly that day from the
battalion’s feet and hands. Somehow
we had fumbled our way into a newly set-up receiving tent camp, the
wrong tents, to be sure, but the right camp anyway.
After the first month of mud and rain in Camp Lucky Strike we
moved to the comparative luxury of a nineteen-room chateau in Les
Grandes Ventes. While at the
chateau we cleared timber from bombed out V-Bomb sites.
James saw to it that good American apple pie came out of the old
French kitchen.
With the aid of Gagney, Betit, and Gold we learned enough French
to bargain with the local “merchants”.
When we first took over the chateau it had no plumbing or
lighting facilities. Sgt.
Dunn put electricity in every room, Slifko installed a four-head shower,
and some unnamed heroes dug the all-important plumbing fixtures.
Carpenters Clayton and Gosink gasve this lat item deluxe
appointments.
It was here also that the company acquired its first non T.O.
weapon. It took eighht
machine guns from a wrecked American bomber to make one good fifty
caliber. The new gun doubled
the automatic weapon fire power of the company.
Sgt. Evans and Lt. McRae did most of the work on the gun.
The
artists of the company had a field day when spring came.
Lt. Glass and Sgt. Liberi recorded many scenes from the
surrounding country in excellent water colors.
Vosburgh added his expert touch to the flowers already in our yard, and
improved them considerably.
All this time the rumors were coming thick and fast from a
certain spot out in the back corner of our garden.
When the drivers were sent to
Brussels
to pick up our trucks we knew that we would soon head for
Germany
. It was on this trip that
hard luck first started hounding Satierfield.
“Slats” caught pneumonia from the ride to
Brussels
and spent several weeks in the hospital.
Soon
after we got our trucks we got orders to move to Munchen-Gladbach by way
of
Charleroi
,
Belgium
, and Maastrich,
Holland
.
The
transition form “oui” to “ja” was not too difficult, but it
didn’t matter anyway since the non-frat policy discouraged the study
of German.
From
M. Glabach we moved on to better looting in
Bielefeld
and Depot twenty. Here
headquarters platoon took over its duties with another depot company.
After one day of rest the line platoons moved on to other parts.
The first and third platoons went to Dorstend to run a depot at
the
Ruhr
pocket. In their spare time
they collected what is probably the greatest collection of foreign
weapons every gathered by such a small unit. It was here that Olsavski
seriously injured his hand and had to be evacuated.
It was a tough break for the company as well as for Olsavski.
The second and fourth platoons went to Oschersleben where they
ran Depot No. 21 for units trying to maintain a bridge across the Elbe
near
Magdeburg
. For the first two weeks
they lived almost entirely on K-rations.
During this period they loaded more trucks with more bridge
equipment than the average Pfc. has ever seen.
Lapierre,
who also speaks French displaced a motor bike from a displaced
Frenchman. Lainhart and
Perrone acquired musical instruments, and furnished entertainment.
Klein, Rowzee, Deacon Jones, and Adams kept up the morale as
usual. Molovinski and Prata
maintained close contact with the Polish village, while Glaser,
Chandler
, O’Meara and Aleka led a more staid life in and around the depot.
Long and Bradley put out their shares of work, and then put down
their several shares of German beer.
Serpa, that Jack of all trades took over a German forge unit and
kept the crane rigs in good shape. James
and Johnson dished out the K’s and also cooked the deer.
Hollenger soon had the company’s largest collection of
trophies. La Berge, Madison,
and Koblinski kept the Autobahn hot driving back and forth to
Bielefeld
.
Captain Havill came up to see how things were going, and then
with Ward and Angier drove
over to
Magdeburg
. If they hadn’t kept as
carefully abreast of the news and the exact position of the Army’s
front lines that week as they usually did, they were quickly
straightened out with a first-rate class in orientation.
Our bombers reached Madgeburg that morning just after the “B”
Company jeep. Just after
that the jeep left fast. Then
the rest of the day, this self-appointed spearhead watched the taking of
Madgeburg from a nearby hilltop.
Soon after V-E day the company reassembled in the drafty halls of
Depot 20, where Contreras was still dishing out the details.
Life in “Outside storage” was by this time brightened with a
few American touches, Gold’s pink and blue theatre with the hot and
cold running dressing rooms, Lt. Myhrum’s “Café Noir” for
officers and painted poles, and the new day room where liquor was
rationed with small success at the Swiss Cheese Bar (closed during duty
hours). Bing & Sudvarg
hunted all day long for a pretty slippery
crew of Germans on the police detail.
Sgt. Addy and Hirneise left the trails of the supply business
just long enough to celebrate the liberation of
Holland
with the Hollanders. Keller
operated the largest beanery of his career.
Those who came
back from
Dorsten
tell of the midnight ride of Phelps and Vosburg on a motorcycle.
It was said that Dunn and Chicken Meeds had liberated several
trophies from
Dusseldorf
some time before
Dusseldorf
, itself, was liberated. Gamblin’
Guimont and Bedbug Gillam justified their nicknames by indulging in
their favorite sports.
Most of
us still wonder why Mayall never mailed any of those letters hhe wrote;
he surely wrote enough of them. When
all the scores were in it was found that Platt, Marusiak, and Robison
had as large collections of things for Betit to send home as anyone;
nice weapons, too. All
reports indicated that
Clark
and Basso were providing enough better-than-average food to sustain all
of this extra-curricular activity.
Lt. Bangs
came into possession of such a number of weapons and cameras during this
period that he had a very respectable amount of baggage upon leaving
Europe
.
At Korbach, a small and very ancient town, the Bn. came back
together for the first time since we left Lucky Strike.
Here, in the style to which we would like to be accustomed, we
lived in a modern suburb, each platoon with its own two-story house and
each house with its garden and big, ripe strawberrys. Trotta added his
last snapshots to a sizeable collection of views of the Reich.
Eckberg had some photos, too.
There was a company partly occasioned by the departure of Ward
and Meeds, the first men to leave on points.
It was a very successful party; Barker, Lumpkin, Hanwell, and
Contreras were particularly successful; Addy, as a paratrooper, less so.
Fortunately Van der Horn and Pekar,
retained enough of a grip on the situation to see everyone back
to the billets.
Our departure from Korbach was sudden.
One long night of loading out all the equipment and we headed
back toward Lucky Strike. On
this trip our only fatality occurred when Holly was killed in a truck
that skidded on a slippery pavement and hit a tree.
Back at Lucky Strike there was a week of long chow-lines, drafty
tents and the long hike down to the latrine.
We left in the dark and early hours for
Le Havre
; this time the truck t rip was not as cold as another we remembered.
The. S. S. General Gordon was a welcome sight, and going up the
gangplank was a better feeling than the coming down to this same dock
had been sic months before. She
was much larger than the
Santa Maria
. This was good too, for she
carried us nicely thru the two-day hurricane that climaxed our return
voyage. Betit was sick
again. But the last day out
was calm; evening, and orange sky, plowing up the harbor between New
port News and
Norfolk
. Was it at
Newport News
or
Norfolk
that we landed? Who cars?
Home, for thirty days, July, 1945.
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