In supervising the photo finishing operations, I noticed that a lot of the films coming in from the soldiers for processing didn’t have anything printable on them. This was because they were buying advanced Leica and Rolleflex cameras at the PX but didn’t know how to use them. I took some of the bad rolls of film down to the Armed Forces Radio Station in Munich and showed them to the manager. He got the idea right away.
“Why don’t we set up a weekly program where you can talk to the GI’s about operating their cameras and taking good pictures,” he suggested. That was what I had in mind.
Within a few weeks our new half hour program “Fun with Film,” debuted on AFN Munich-Stuttgart. Later it expanded to include almost all of the AFN stations in Europe.
The station assigned Alan Bergman, an experienced announcer/disc jockey to work with me on the program to ask questions so I could offer helpful hints on how to operate various cameras and take better focused and composed pictures.
I also visited the Leica camera works at Wetzlar and a film manufacturing plant in Munich and described these operations on the program. Being on the radio was not only a lot of fan but I was happy to note that there was a noticeable decline in the the number of unprintable films received at the Munich Photo Plant.
As we neared the end of 1947, I was offered the job of regional manager of Army Exchange photo operations but this would have involved relocating to offices in Frankfurt, Germany. I preferred Bavaria. Besides, I figured that the U.S. Army presence in Europe was not going to last much longer so I had better go home, finish my interrupted college education and get a long-term job. So I declined to sign a new contract.
My interpreter, secretary and administrative assistant for the past two years had been Elizabeth Oeser, and we had been privileged to fall in love.
Now that I was leaving, we began making arrangements for her to come to the U.S. as my fiancee under a new law that allowed fiancees of U.S. military personnel to visit the U.S. for a limited period if they did not get married, or to stay permanently if they did get married.
Qualifying under this law was no easy task. It took six months to complete the necessary interviews and investigations to prove that she was not a former Nazi party member, as well as numerous physical exams and x-rays to prove that she was in good physical and mental health. Compared to today’s immigration standards, it was ridiculous.
Nevertheless, she finally cleared the bureaucratic hurdles and arrived in the U.S. aboard the good ship George Washington on a sweltering day in July, 1948. I met her in New York and we returned to my parent’s home in Ohio where I had been living since my return from Europe. We were married in Elyria, Ohio on September 1, 1948, culminating my European venture which began with joining the U.S. Army in 1942 and entering active service in 1943.
We are married still.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
The Munich Photo Plant
In the beginning, to provide immediate service, we contracted with a German photo finisher who had a plant in the small town of Bad Wiesee on the shores of Lake Tegernsee, about 30 miles south of Munich. However, as a result of what was known as the "denazification project" instituted by the Allied Forces to rout out former members of the Nazi Party, it was discovered that the photo plant owner had been a Party member. His plant was taken over by the government and Narkus became responsible for daily operations in running the plant.
It was obvious that demand would soon outstrip our ability to supply from the Bad Wiesee plant, so Narkus decided to build a new state-of-the-art plant in Munich with all new Kodak and Pako equipment shipped from the United States.
We took over a large three-story building that had housed a photographic school in Munich and was relatively undamaged by Allied bombing, After we had begun construction to repair and modify the building it suddenly occurred to us that there was a major problem. The only electrical service available in that sector of Munich was 440 volts DC. The new American equipment that was already in transit was designed for 110 volts AC. Now what?
A study of the electric grid serving Munich revealed that the nearest alternating current was in a 5,000 volt underground cable several blocks from the proposed new photo plant. After scouring the country, we finally came up with a 5,000 volt transformer that could step the power down to 110 volts. But how do we install a cable for several blocks under the city streets? The over populated prisoner of war compounds in Munich provided the answer.
Narkus somehow got a document from the Burgermeister permitting us to dig up the city streets to install the cable. We also found out that the prisoners of war were readily available to work on civic clean-up projects. All I had to do was send around a 6x6 Army truck each morning and check out 25 to 50 prisoners to dig the underground trench. In the late afternoon I would have to return and check-in the same number of prisoners.
The first week, we started with Hungarian P.O.W.'s, still in their country's uniforms, of course. The men enjoyed getting out of the crowded camp and sang as they dug up the street, inserted the heavy cable and refilled the trench. When we went to pick them up to start the second week, we found that they had been shipped out on their way back to Hungary.
"How about some Italians?" the prison commandant asked. So we picked up a truckload of Italian soldiers. They surveyed the scene and were not impressed.
"Is that all that the Hungarians could dig in a week?" they asked. "We can beat that!"
And they did.
Unfortunately, when we went to pick them the following week, they were being loaded up to be shipped back to Italy.
“I guess you’ll have to settle for some German prisoners, “ the commandant said, “but you’ll have to guard them closely.”
Fortunately we had recently been assigned another American civilian employee and a Dutch civilian employee so we let them alternate as guards, armed with our .45 caliber pistol.
The Germans contemptuously looked over the digging done by their predecessors and said they could do better than that. Which they did!
As we neared the end of the digging, our Dutchman went out one day to take over his afternoon turn at guard duty and encountered a surprising sight. The German prisoners were singing and digging with great gusto under the watchful eye of another prisoner, a German army sergeant who was armed with our .45 caliber pistol!
“Where’s the American?” the Dutchman inquired. “Oh, he’s upstairs with a blonde across the street,” the German prisoner explained.
Anyway, none of the prisoners wanted to escape and we completed the cable installation with no problems.
The new automatic film developers, electric eye controlled photo print makers and huge drum dryers were successfully installed and operated fine on our new source of electricity.
The photo plant in Bad Wiessee was shut down and most of the employees transferred to Munich. We had built dormitories on the top floor of the photo plant so that the skilled people from Bad Wiesee could stay in Munich during the week and go home for the weekends.
In addition, we hired more than 100 new employees and trained them to handle the new American equipment. Soon we were churning out as many as 25,000 to 30,000 black and white prints a day. (Color film was not yet available at the PX’s.)
Shortly after everything was running smoothly, Narkus’ employment contract expired and was not renewed, so he returned to the U.S. I was promoted to Munich Photo Plant Manager and signed a new one-year contract, to be effective after a 30-day furlough to my home in the U.S. It turned out to be a rather uneventful year as our business was good and we ended up making a profit -- which went to the United States Treasury.
It was obvious that demand would soon outstrip our ability to supply from the Bad Wiesee plant, so Narkus decided to build a new state-of-the-art plant in Munich with all new Kodak and Pako equipment shipped from the United States.
We took over a large three-story building that had housed a photographic school in Munich and was relatively undamaged by Allied bombing, After we had begun construction to repair and modify the building it suddenly occurred to us that there was a major problem. The only electrical service available in that sector of Munich was 440 volts DC. The new American equipment that was already in transit was designed for 110 volts AC. Now what?
A study of the electric grid serving Munich revealed that the nearest alternating current was in a 5,000 volt underground cable several blocks from the proposed new photo plant. After scouring the country, we finally came up with a 5,000 volt transformer that could step the power down to 110 volts. But how do we install a cable for several blocks under the city streets? The over populated prisoner of war compounds in Munich provided the answer.
Narkus somehow got a document from the Burgermeister permitting us to dig up the city streets to install the cable. We also found out that the prisoners of war were readily available to work on civic clean-up projects. All I had to do was send around a 6x6 Army truck each morning and check out 25 to 50 prisoners to dig the underground trench. In the late afternoon I would have to return and check-in the same number of prisoners.
The first week, we started with Hungarian P.O.W.'s, still in their country's uniforms, of course. The men enjoyed getting out of the crowded camp and sang as they dug up the street, inserted the heavy cable and refilled the trench. When we went to pick them up to start the second week, we found that they had been shipped out on their way back to Hungary.
"How about some Italians?" the prison commandant asked. So we picked up a truckload of Italian soldiers. They surveyed the scene and were not impressed.
"Is that all that the Hungarians could dig in a week?" they asked. "We can beat that!"
And they did.
Unfortunately, when we went to pick them the following week, they were being loaded up to be shipped back to Italy.
“I guess you’ll have to settle for some German prisoners, “ the commandant said, “but you’ll have to guard them closely.”
Fortunately we had recently been assigned another American civilian employee and a Dutch civilian employee so we let them alternate as guards, armed with our .45 caliber pistol.
The Germans contemptuously looked over the digging done by their predecessors and said they could do better than that. Which they did!
As we neared the end of the digging, our Dutchman went out one day to take over his afternoon turn at guard duty and encountered a surprising sight. The German prisoners were singing and digging with great gusto under the watchful eye of another prisoner, a German army sergeant who was armed with our .45 caliber pistol!
“Where’s the American?” the Dutchman inquired. “Oh, he’s upstairs with a blonde across the street,” the German prisoner explained.
Anyway, none of the prisoners wanted to escape and we completed the cable installation with no problems.
The new automatic film developers, electric eye controlled photo print makers and huge drum dryers were successfully installed and operated fine on our new source of electricity.
The photo plant in Bad Wiessee was shut down and most of the employees transferred to Munich. We had built dormitories on the top floor of the photo plant so that the skilled people from Bad Wiesee could stay in Munich during the week and go home for the weekends.
In addition, we hired more than 100 new employees and trained them to handle the new American equipment. Soon we were churning out as many as 25,000 to 30,000 black and white prints a day. (Color film was not yet available at the PX’s.)
Shortly after everything was running smoothly, Narkus’ employment contract expired and was not renewed, so he returned to the U.S. I was promoted to Munich Photo Plant Manager and signed a new one-year contract, to be effective after a 30-day furlough to my home in the U.S. It turned out to be a rather uneventful year as our business was good and we ended up making a profit -- which went to the United States Treasury.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Hooray! Out of the Army at Last
After several months of this work, I was asked by the Colonel if I would like to keep doing the job as a civilian employee of the Exchange Service. "Naturally," he said slyly, "it would require your immediate discharge from the Army and would pay more money."
Actually, immediate discharge from the Army was all I needed to hear.
I signed up for a one-year contract to work as a civilian with privileges equivalent to an army captain. At the time, they were just beginning the civilian employment program in Europe and no one was quite sure how to discharge me from the Army in Germany and retain my rights to transportation back home to Ohio.
Finally, they set up a discharge facility in Bayreuth, Germany, and it was there that I returned to civilian life with an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army dated the 18th day of December, 1945.
Now -- after three years, three months and 23 days in the U.S. Army -- I was a private citizen again. Yet it would be another two full years before I returned home to Ohio.
As a civilian employee of the Army Exchange Service stationed over seas, I was entitled to lodging and rations equivalent to that of an Army Captain and had to wear an officer's style uniform.
Instead of the insignias of rank and organization that customarily adorn the lapels, sleeves and epaulets of the uniform, the civilian version was a set of embroidered dark blue triangular patches containing the letters "US." I was assigned to work for another civilian, Walter J. Narkus, a tall lanky fellow who was well qualified as an expert in commercial photo developing and printing. He had run large photo finishing plants in the U.S. and had most recently installed large photo finishing operations in Great Britain to serve the American troops there. Now his job was to build new facilities to develop and print the black and white photographs taken by the occupation troops stationed in southern Germany, Austria and northern Italy.
To provide technical support he had brought along an Englishman, George Seagrove, to serve as a mechanic, electrician and general handy man.
Clerical, accounting and secretarial services were provided by a young German woman, Elizabeth Oeser, who lived near the Third Anny compound.
I rounded out the crew with an assignment to procure all of the necessary supplies to keep the operation running.
Actually, immediate discharge from the Army was all I needed to hear.
I signed up for a one-year contract to work as a civilian with privileges equivalent to an army captain. At the time, they were just beginning the civilian employment program in Europe and no one was quite sure how to discharge me from the Army in Germany and retain my rights to transportation back home to Ohio.
Finally, they set up a discharge facility in Bayreuth, Germany, and it was there that I returned to civilian life with an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army dated the 18th day of December, 1945.
Now -- after three years, three months and 23 days in the U.S. Army -- I was a private citizen again. Yet it would be another two full years before I returned home to Ohio.
As a civilian employee of the Army Exchange Service stationed over seas, I was entitled to lodging and rations equivalent to that of an Army Captain and had to wear an officer's style uniform.
Instead of the insignias of rank and organization that customarily adorn the lapels, sleeves and epaulets of the uniform, the civilian version was a set of embroidered dark blue triangular patches containing the letters "US." I was assigned to work for another civilian, Walter J. Narkus, a tall lanky fellow who was well qualified as an expert in commercial photo developing and printing. He had run large photo finishing plants in the U.S. and had most recently installed large photo finishing operations in Great Britain to serve the American troops there. Now his job was to build new facilities to develop and print the black and white photographs taken by the occupation troops stationed in southern Germany, Austria and northern Italy.
To provide technical support he had brought along an Englishman, George Seagrove, to serve as a mechanic, electrician and general handy man.
Clerical, accounting and secretarial services were provided by a young German woman, Elizabeth Oeser, who lived near the Third Anny compound.
I rounded out the crew with an assignment to procure all of the necessary supplies to keep the operation running.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Epilogue
'
Photo: Aerial View of part of bombed-out Munich.
The streets were cleared quite rapidly but it took years to tear down
many of the buildings and rebuild them. Much of the rubble
was hauled to the edge of town where a small mountain was created
near what is now the site of the 1972 Olympic Games.
When I left Germany in 1947, there were still people
living in some these wrecked structures.
Now that the war was officially over and Hitler was dead we had the sudden feeling of being “all dressed up and no place to go.”
We were sent to a bivouac area near Wasserburg for a few days, then moved to Sauerlach a few miles south of Munich, and finally to a former German army barracks in Munich. These were pretty nice quarters with good beds, a good kitchen and a riding stable full of horses.
Captain Kelly and the other officers thought that they would be going home soon since they had been in the regular army for several years prior to the war and would probably be among the first to be discharged under the point system that the government was developing.
Captain Kelly was well aware of my journalism background so he suggested that I write an account of B Battery’s actions during its two year existence.
He offered to make available the Battery’s daily logs and reports to Battalion headquarters so I could get all the necessary facts. I agreed and began typing up a first draft with the help of the rest of our communications section, who offered suggestions and did research for me.
One day we had a surprise inspection by a Colonel from Third Army headquarters. At the time, I was in the barracks office working hard to type up some of the information we had developed. The Colonel looked into the office and after I jumped to attention and saluted, he complimented me on my touch-typing skill. Then he asked, “What’s your name, rank and serial number, Soldier?” Of course, I told him. Two days later the Battery received a directive transferring me to Third Army Headquarters.
I had to say good-bye to all the fellows I had served with through the combat days with Battery B, gather up my duffel bag and move to McGraw Kasern on the southeast side of Munich. This had been a major German Army base with excellent accommodations and had sustained very little damage during the war.
I spent the next several weeks typing endorsements on a variety of correspondence going to General Patton requesting approval for certain actions and then typing his approval as a directive “By Command of General Patton.”
General Patton’s forward headquarters was located at a villa at Bad Tolz about 25 miles south of Munich but most of the work was done at his rear headquarters in Munich. When I first started my job at headquarter, I reported to a captain who directed my activities. As the weeks went by, my supervisors successively received transfers back to the States and were not replaced, so I reported to their former superiors. Thus in a matter of weeks I reported to a captain, a major, a lieutenant colonel and a full colonel.
The colonel soon observed that I was qualified for things other than typing all day and decided to offer me a job running the post exchange warehouses in Munich. He also decided that one of my associates, Sgt. Winograd, should take over a new task of procuring photographic supplies for a photo processing plant that the Exchange Service was establishing.
He called us both into his office to let us know his decision. Sgt. Winograd smiled and stated that he would be very pleased to accept the assignment to travel through Germany seeking supplies of photographic chemicals and paper for the processing plant. Where, he asked, would he get his command car and driver? The colonel pointedly informed him that, yes, he would get a command car or light truck but that he would have to do the driving himself.
Winograd’s response, though hardly earth shaking, would change the rest of my life.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I don’t know how to drive!” he said.
The colonel shifted his gaze to me. “Can you drive?” he asked.
“Of course,” I replied. And so it came to pass that Winograd took the job running the PX warehouses while I became the new procurer of photo supplies.
Friday, June 26, 2009
The War in Europe Ends
The news from the German front in Stars & Stripes indicated that the end of the war was at hand. As luck would have it, the Cease Fire Agreement ending hostilities was signed at General Eisenhower’s headquarters in Reims, France on May 7 -- the day before I was supposed to fly back to rejoin Battery B and the 14th Armored.
Fortunately, the flight on the 8th was canceled since everyone was celebrating and the pilots probably had too much to drink.
The next day, the plane was to depart at 1 p.m., which it did. The problem was that it did not get very far. After take-off, we noticed that the pilot was doing a lot of circling to the left, and finally we were skimming alongside the ominous hills at the airport and came in for a landing back where we had started. The co-pilot jumped out and removed an aileron chock that restrained the right aileron, or wing flap, from moving while the plane was parked on the ground. Someone had forgotten to pull it off before our take-off and without the flap the pilot was only able to fly in circles to the left.
The second time was a charm.
However, most of the plane was loaded with Army nurses and I guess the pilots wanted to impress them. Anyway, instead of flying at a more normal altitude, he flew low -- just a few hundred feet above the tree tops. This gives the impression of greater speed. It also scared the hell out of farmers and livestock on the French and German farms we flew over on the way back to Nuremberg.
All the passengers on board had their fingers crossed, thinking what a shame it would be if we had survived the war but were killed in a plane crash the day after the armistice. But we arrived safely.
I finally located Captain Kelly and the Battery B half-tracks near the airport at Landshut, Germany, where they were helping to process liberated American, English and French prisoners of war for flights back to their homelands.
Naturally, my buddies wanted to know what kind of close relationship I had with General Patton that enabled me to be vacationing on the Riviera when the war ended. I had no answer for that question.
But I did have some answers to other questions.
How long had we been on combat alert since landing in France? Answer: 281 days.
How many miles did we cover?
Answer: 3,350 miles-at least that was the mileage on the odometer of Captain Kelly’s jeep.
Fortunately, the flight on the 8th was canceled since everyone was celebrating and the pilots probably had too much to drink.
The next day, the plane was to depart at 1 p.m., which it did. The problem was that it did not get very far. After take-off, we noticed that the pilot was doing a lot of circling to the left, and finally we were skimming alongside the ominous hills at the airport and came in for a landing back where we had started. The co-pilot jumped out and removed an aileron chock that restrained the right aileron, or wing flap, from moving while the plane was parked on the ground. Someone had forgotten to pull it off before our take-off and without the flap the pilot was only able to fly in circles to the left.
The second time was a charm.
However, most of the plane was loaded with Army nurses and I guess the pilots wanted to impress them. Anyway, instead of flying at a more normal altitude, he flew low -- just a few hundred feet above the tree tops. This gives the impression of greater speed. It also scared the hell out of farmers and livestock on the French and German farms we flew over on the way back to Nuremberg.
All the passengers on board had their fingers crossed, thinking what a shame it would be if we had survived the war but were killed in a plane crash the day after the armistice. But we arrived safely.
I finally located Captain Kelly and the Battery B half-tracks near the airport at Landshut, Germany, where they were helping to process liberated American, English and French prisoners of war for flights back to their homelands.
Naturally, my buddies wanted to know what kind of close relationship I had with General Patton that enabled me to be vacationing on the Riviera when the war ended. I had no answer for that question.
But I did have some answers to other questions.
How long had we been on combat alert since landing in France? Answer: 281 days.
How many miles did we cover?
Answer: 3,350 miles-at least that was the mileage on the odometer of Captain Kelly’s jeep.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Back to the Third Army
Again, for unknown reasons, we were transferred from the Seventh Army back to the Third Army as the final phase of the war was at hand.
This time we were in the Third Corps of the Third Army along with the 14th Armored Division.
By this time organized resistance had practically ceased and the Third Army was rolling ahead 15 to 20 miles per day. Despite this growing lack of resistance on the ground, we were amazed to find that the Luftwaffe was becoming active again - perhaps because we were so close to some of their main airbases.
On April 16, two ME-109's came in on bombing and strafing runs and our gunners reported hits on both planes. The following day, a flight of 20 ME-109's appeared over Altdorf but were driven off by our heavy firing. Although no planes were knocked down, the engagement turned out to be profitable as 74 enemy soldiers, impressed by our display of firepower, came out of a nearby woods to surrender. Jet propelled planes also showed up for the Luftwaffe's last stand and one was shot down by the sections guarding Division headquarters.
On April 25 we reached the Danube River near Ingolstadt but the main bridge had been blown up by the Germans. While we were waiting for a pontoon bridge to be put in place, a message arrived from Battalion headquarters concerning me. It directed me to proceed to the airport at Nuremburg, which was now safely in American hands, and catch a plane to Nice, France, for a 10-day furlough. It seems that I was about the last of the Battery's troops to get any time off from combat alert since we landed at Utah Beach, and I was lucky enough to be able to go to Nice.
I caught a C-47 airplane at Nuremburg and we flew nonstop to Nice.
The weather on the Mediterranean Sea was warm, clear and sunny when we arrived. Visibility was excellent and we were a little perturbed at our first sight of the Nice airport. It was flanked by sheer mountainous hills on the north side and it was easy to see the wreckage of quite a number of airplanes plastered against the hills. We hoped that our Air Force pilot had been here before and knew how to land!
I was assigned to a good hotel in the center of town and learned that we could tour around the area of Nice and Monte Carlo and the perfume factories at Grasse during our stay. Cannes was off limits to enlisted men inasmuch as it was reserved for officers. This was a good idea as our separation from the officers eliminated the need for constant saluting as we walked down the streets.
The beach at Nice was still off limits as it had not been entirely cleared of barbed wire, X-shaped steel girders, mines and other defensive equipment that the Germans had installed to discourage Allied landings. However, we were able to go into the countryside on tours and to see the gambling halls at Monte Carlo and to sniff the perfumes at Grasse. In the evenings there were band concerts and entertainment to keep us occupied.
This time we were in the Third Corps of the Third Army along with the 14th Armored Division.
By this time organized resistance had practically ceased and the Third Army was rolling ahead 15 to 20 miles per day. Despite this growing lack of resistance on the ground, we were amazed to find that the Luftwaffe was becoming active again - perhaps because we were so close to some of their main airbases.
On April 16, two ME-109's came in on bombing and strafing runs and our gunners reported hits on both planes. The following day, a flight of 20 ME-109's appeared over Altdorf but were driven off by our heavy firing. Although no planes were knocked down, the engagement turned out to be profitable as 74 enemy soldiers, impressed by our display of firepower, came out of a nearby woods to surrender. Jet propelled planes also showed up for the Luftwaffe's last stand and one was shot down by the sections guarding Division headquarters.
On April 25 we reached the Danube River near Ingolstadt but the main bridge had been blown up by the Germans. While we were waiting for a pontoon bridge to be put in place, a message arrived from Battalion headquarters concerning me. It directed me to proceed to the airport at Nuremburg, which was now safely in American hands, and catch a plane to Nice, France, for a 10-day furlough. It seems that I was about the last of the Battery's troops to get any time off from combat alert since we landed at Utah Beach, and I was lucky enough to be able to go to Nice.
I caught a C-47 airplane at Nuremburg and we flew nonstop to Nice.
The weather on the Mediterranean Sea was warm, clear and sunny when we arrived. Visibility was excellent and we were a little perturbed at our first sight of the Nice airport. It was flanked by sheer mountainous hills on the north side and it was easy to see the wreckage of quite a number of airplanes plastered against the hills. We hoped that our Air Force pilot had been here before and knew how to land!
I was assigned to a good hotel in the center of town and learned that we could tour around the area of Nice and Monte Carlo and the perfume factories at Grasse during our stay. Cannes was off limits to enlisted men inasmuch as it was reserved for officers. This was a good idea as our separation from the officers eliminated the need for constant saluting as we walked down the streets.
The beach at Nice was still off limits as it had not been entirely cleared of barbed wire, X-shaped steel girders, mines and other defensive equipment that the Germans had installed to discourage Allied landings. However, we were able to go into the countryside on tours and to see the gambling halls at Monte Carlo and to sniff the perfumes at Grasse. In the evenings there were band concerts and entertainment to keep us occupied.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
We cross the Rhine
Photo: General George S. Patton's first pontoon bridge over the Rhine River near Worms. Earlier in the war we had guarded this bridge while it was still on trucks in Normandy. The night that the engineers installed the bridge, our outfit was part of a diversion several miles south of the site where we pretended to set up for a river crossing in the dark.
While mop up operations along the Rhine were continuing, we heard that the actual Rhine crossing was supposed to be made by General Montgomery's British Army, the Canadian Army and the U.S. Ninth Army somewhere in the north. The British were planning it almost like another D-Day with thousands of troops boats, paratroops and pontoons involved. However, this became somewhat academic on March 7th when elements of the 9th Armored Division of the First Army discovered a railroad bridge still standing at Remagan and established a bridgehead on the other side of the Rhine.
View Germersheim, Germany in a larger map
The Third Army continued to push southward on the west side of the Rhine and on March 22 its 10th Armored Division made contact with the Seventh Army just south of Worms. That night, our Battery was one of those sent down to the banks of the Rhine to make a lot of noise and show enough lights and activity to make the Germans think we were attempting to cross the river near the city of Germersheim.
Actually, the crossing was being made very quietly further up the river at Oppenheim by the 5th Division of the Third Army, who established the first pontoon bridge over the Rhine. Patton's troops put two more bridges across in the next few days. Our turn to go across came on Easter Sunday when we went over the pontoon bridge at Worms. It was quite a spectacular sight to see the tanks and half-tracks move across the wide river on steel gratings attached to dozens of floating pontoons. In fact, it may have been the bridge we had guarded for a few days when it was on trucks back in Normandy.
After making the crossing, we turned northeast up the east bank of the Rhine and went through Darmstadt, Aschaffenburg, Lohr, Bruckenau, Neustadt and Schweindorf.
On April 12th we received via BBC radio the sad and disquieting news that President Franklin Roosevelt had died at Warm Springs, Georgia. We did not think that the change to President Truman would affect our war effort as we believed that the damned war was nearly over anyway. However, (he lead tanks of the 5th Armored were less than 60 miles from Berlin and we were sorry that Roosevelt had not lived to witness Hitler's surrender or demise.
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