Soon after my return to Munich, the battalion was on its way to Northern France. We settled near the city of Laon and spent the next 4 months mostly training. The drill masters had their heydays again and chased us around under the maliciously twinkling eyes of the onlooking Frenchmen. My sergeant in particular had an infamous lust to see us wallowing in the mire. Irate and almost boiling over we anxiously waited for a chance to strike back. Luckily his birthday came along. “Write a mean poem,” the corporals urged me, and I did with fullhearted pleasure. To make it nastier they spiced it with a dose of peppy insults. My sergeant turned purple at his birthday party and smiled wryly while desperately trying to maintain his composure. “If I ever find that guy who wrote that poem,” he remarked weeks later with bitterness, “I will tear him to pieces with my fingernails.” Thank God, his suspicion never fell upon me.
On weekends we occasionally toured neighboring cities such as St. Quentin and Reims, whose famous cathedral with its grandiose rosette above the front portal is a masterpiece of medieval art. But many of my comrades were more interested in girls rather than artifacts and therefore headed straight to the brothels, which in France were disguised as harmless restaurants. Our men were really starved sexually. Women of all kinds showed up in our remote village from as far away as Paris looking for adventures. Thus they avoided the risk to be recognized as fraternizing with the Germans, a deadly sin in the eyes of patriotic radicals. After the liberation of France, thousands of women were humiliated or even injured for that reason.
One sightseeing excursion led us to the battlefield of Verdun. The entire region was left totally untouched by the French authorities since 1918 in order to keep the national consciousness permanently aware of the ravages brought upon France by its eastern neighbor. My heart was deeply moved as I walked along the ditches running side by side, sometimes only a few yards apart, where powerful armies have fought for more than 3 years for every inch of soil until fresh troops from the United States finally tilted the scale against Germany. Countless soldiers had perished here and the cemeteries nearby speak a vivid language of the holocaust 25 years earlier. Endless rows of white crosses make it unmistakably clear what war really means. Unfortunately, the lesson seems to be forgotten by each new generation invading this planet. Or else how was it possible that we were again in the midst of a cataclysmic war in such a short period of time?
The originally very reserved attitude of the French population softened with time and a fairly good mutual relationship developed. I myself had contact with a few families which I visited occasionally for a nice chat if this constitutes the right word for ridiculous gestures and stuttered phrases. The friendship has gone so far, I might say, as for me to borrow a bicycle needed to peddle through the countryside and buy eggs, a welcome supplement for my family’s meager food allotment. But we all, Frenchmen and Germans alike, felt the vibrations of a new pandemonium brewing over our heads. The subject was so much on everybody’s mind that a pamphlet circulated among us containing the prophecy of a French saint whose name slipped off my memory. Let me repeat in a few short sentences what he said. War-loving nations will raise their heads and in a victorious drive push the conquest to distant countries within the first two years. The next two years they will be thrown back, although they defend their gains tenaciously. During the last period of war, they will be surrounded and defeated. When the troops of the chastised nations enter the Holy City (Rome), France will be liberated. Paris will be spared devastation because of the chastity of its women. The last phase sounded somewhat exaggerated to German ears. They did not see the French metropolis exactly as a heaven of angels: The prophecy, however, was a source of great hope for the French people and its accuracy was miraculously confirmed by the dramatic events unfolding soon.
Indeed, if I recall correctly, the Allied Forces marched into Rome on the fourth of June, and two days later, well known as D-Day, the great invasion started at Omaha Beach. A wave of excitement rippled through France temporarily dimmed only by the heavy losses of the attacking paratroopers. I heard the number 3000. The invasion, however, was successful in spite of fierce resistance, expanded quickly inland, and built up a front line between Caen and Bayeux in Normandy. Our time had come. On the ninth of June, we took off. The sun was shining brightly on that wonderful spring day and I almost felt like being on vacation as our convoy rolled at moderate speed through the lovely countryside of Middle France. At dusk, we were on the outskirts of Paris. From the northern heights, I could see the Eifel tower and Mont Matre. What a feeling to be in Paris, the famous city. It made me happy to have caught at least a glimpse of its glamour before we turned westward in direction of Dreux. The night sank down, cozy and warm, and the monotonous rattling of the truck lulled us into a soft dozing that was suddenly interrupted. Dreux had just been bombarded to make it inaccessible for the German troops on their rush to the front. Minutes later the big birds appeared in the sky heading for Paris and illuminating the night with Christmas trees. But unseen by us, German night fighters equipped with a newly invented thermo-sensitive radar system had sneaked behind them and shot them down. 15 in 11 minutes. An unbelievable toll. The raiding of Dreux proved to be in vain. We soon found a bypass and sped with the rising sun toward the west coast. The drive was dull along the narrow, absolutely straight, and seemingly endless road.
Unbothered by enemy action, we reached shortly before night’s fall a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Numberless ships were anchored along the beach and attacked in just that moment by German airplanes. The sound of thundering naval guns met our ears and a hail of tracing bullets lit up the sky. From the distance, it looked like a fabulous firework. Our convoy hid in a forest nearby. I myself kept away from the trucks and opened my tent at the edge of a small glade and soon got lost in a well-deserved sleep. A series of ear-shattering explosions very early in the morning made the earth tremble. Bewildered I jumped on my feet and saw fighter bombers raiding our hideaway. Mercilessly they threw their deadly load into the wood, for a few minutes only, but long enough to cause serious casualties. The reception was bloody and costly. Our battery was forced to move out in a hurry. Primitive crosses were hastily carpentered for those who had met their destiny. Without further delay, we rushed to a village between Bayeux and Saint-Lô spending there roughly a week. The rural life in that area paddled still along with ease, just occasionally roused by a huge roar echoing through the hills like a thunderstorm. Never before had I heard such monsters firing. The enormously loud sound came from battleships and I wondered about the kind of projectiles they hurled over at us concluding from the big splinters I found in the fields. Anyway, they did not do much harm. The entire invasion army seemed to still be in the process of unloading. However, everybody knew the peace will not last long. German artillery arrived in numbers and ordered the farmers out, who desperately tried to save their possessions. To no avail, of course. The houses were flattened to prepare a clear shooting field in anticipation of the attack. The presence of howitzers and guns of all calibers in our neighborhood, however, was not desirable and could seriously jeopardize the effectiveness of our work which required a minimum noise level. Thus we moved again, this time to a deserted farmhouse far away from the cannons. I have mentioned before that our task was to pinpoint the exact location of enemy guns. How did we do it? Well, it was a sophisticated process based upon the sound wave emanating from a firing gun. Four microphones were set up along a circular line stretching over a couple of miles as close to the enemy as possible. They picked up the sound wave and relayed it to a central station, where it was recorded on a film. Thus 4 distinct sound patterns appearing at different times delivered the mathematical material to calculate the gun’s position provided the surveying was performed correctly, the weather adjustments had been accounted for properly, et cetera. There were many uncertain factors to be observed. The method, nevertheless, yielded pretty accurate results.
The farmhouse we occupied was roomy and comfortable. Everything was left in its place. A bunch of cattle grazed outside. Nobody milked them and their udders were swollen. Dozens of others laid in the pastures killed by artillery, blue colored, and bellies inflated, their legs pointed skyward. A ghastly picture, not to mention the penetrating, nose-irking stench. For a few days, we enjoyed a fairly idyllic peace until our high-powered communications system began operating. In no time we were traced down and several batteries zeroed in on us. From that day on, we received fiery greetings in ever-increasing frequency. Of course, we learned quickly to distinguish the signal: 4 booms first, then a subtle tone rapidly swelling to a howling hurricane, which abruptly ended in earth-shaking explosions. The deadly darts buzzing in unexpectedly really sharpened our ears. Like wild animals, we were ever alert to run for safety wherever we could find it in the few seconds left. Even the cows knew how to deal with it. At the first knock, they whipped their tails up and leaped to the next barn. Once we caught one, tied her to a tree in an effort to squeeze a little bit of milk from the poor thing.
A sudden barrage interrupted us. We ran and dived into the next hole. Returning minutes later we found the cow unharmed but trembling all over. Needless to say, there was no milk on that day or any other one. To illustrate our life I would like to tell still another story. In the backyard stood a small shack with an oven where I used to prepare pancakes. One sunny afternoon I went to make myself a meal when a comrade from the staff entered for a brief visit. Unfortunately, our friends from the other side were in a bad mood and began shooting. I knew where to hide and pressed my thin body quickly under a high wine barrel leaning against the wall. My visitor, a stranger in such situations, however, danced around, afraid and confused like stung by a tarantula, grabbed finally a pack of dishes – there was nothing else at hand – and ducked down in a corner holding the dishes over his head. It was so funny. I could not help but burst with laughter. A rare joke, indeed. A bright moment in a series of dreary days. Yes, a gloomy life it was, which let our smiles dry out. The food situation in particular was so inadequate. We really starved. Our supply usually arrived very late. What a delight it is to gobble down a warm meal at midnight. The bread was full of greenish mold inside, and the sausage we received daily tasted like rubber. Only butter was plentiful. After all, Normandy is butter country. To satisfy my stomach I had no alternative but to look around. Like a hungry wolf, I roamed in my spare time through the neighboring villages only to find everything empty. Others searching before me had done a diligent job. Just accidentally I found a bag of black flour in a deserted stable, a gem that I guarded with the eyes of an eagle. The pancakes I fried myself tasted like a gourmet dinner and kept me going. The flavor sometimes lured Lt. X – his name is erased from my memory – out of the house. “I am so hungry,” he used to remark, and his eyes seemed to fall out of the sockets. Understandably so. The officers were not much better off than we were. Besides I had some affection for the lieutenant. We often talked about our private lives and several times he did me a favor. Weeks later, when I got lost, he wrote Moock a nice, consoling letter full of concern about my fate. I hope and earnestly wish he survived the war.
“During some nights the pounding rose to such a frenzy that none of us dared to leave his relatively safe corner.”
Beginning of August our situation had changed for the worst. Hundreds of guns bellowed continuously on the other side. Ours were wrecked or lacked ammunition. No German airplane ever appeared in the sky for relief. Shells rained down on us in unbelievable numbers day and night. All hell was loose. During some nights the pounding rose to such a frenzy that none of us dared to leave his relatively safe corner. Our communication cables were almost permanently torn to pieces, the air trembled to roaring fury, and the feeling of being lost sank slowly into our consciousness. In the last 3 weeks, I had watched the ever-flashing enemy guns extending from west to north and south. The circle seemed about to be closed way behind us. Were we in a mousetrap? Our refuge could not be held anymore and we moved from one spot to another almost every night. Food arrived irregularly. We slept in rat-infested horse stables or in attics full of cobwebs. For weeks there was no opportunity to wash underwear. My uniform, the only one I had, seemed to be glued to the body by dust and the sweat of months. Who cared? The overriding concern was to survive. Don’t get hit. Like wild animals, we were hunted by day and night. The doves, as we called the small Allied reconnaissance airplanes, monitored every move we made. No better than a herd of cattle we were driven to where they wanted us. Again and again, we bounced against an iron ring of tanks and guns. I had lost all orientation at least until we crossed the Orne River and turned northward toward Falaise, the center of the final battle. On the banks of the Orne, I wrote a letter to Moock, the last one to slip out of the bag. My hands trembled and the words were thrown on the paper haphazardly. The letter confirmed only what she had heard every night secretly from sender Calais. “The Normandy front is crumbling. Hundred thousands of soldiers face extinction or prisonship.” The last chapter began in the Battle of Normandy.