-- continued from page 227, Chapter 25, Shower of Frogs
Some men became so belligerent that when food was brought in to them on Sunday morning they sent it back. Sunday afternoon the Kommanderfiihrer came in to collect the boxes. He saw the mess and instantly exploded. It was a sight to see and hear. He screamed and shouted and beat on the table. It was scary. It was also amusing. He bellowed out that the boxes were to go back to Stalag VIIA.
"Why?" he asked rhetorically. They were to be made into shoes. He bellowed that now he'd get his hind end chewed. He got his breath and went on to say that he'd probably be sent to the front. Some joke, I thought. All Germany was a front. It was difficult for some of us to keep a straight face and keep from saying, "Maybe he'll go to the Russian front, God help him." Once he made his exit, we laughed uproariously - or at least some did. Others appreciated the danger of retaliation. Both reactions were understandable.
In the middle of April, I began to hear the names of cities that lay in the path of the upcoming U.S. armies, the cities that stood between us and freedom. just where they were in relation to me I was never sure, but I heard the names of Augsburg, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Freiburg, and, of course, Munich.
On April 20, we had another airborne landing scare, after which we were ordered to follow the Postens. We joined some Bauers and were told to help dig gun emplacements. Again the old wailing about the Geneva Convention. We all dug. We saw less and less of our guards, now, while more and more soldiers swelled the population of Hurlach. Our guards now punched holes in all food cans. We hated the bastards for this.
The time was ripe for rumors, and the town was rife with them. We were to be shot. "It's Hitler's orders," one POW said with conviction. "Where d'you get that stuff?" another asked ."I read it in the paper at myBauer's," he said.
A POW sneaked out his Bauer's paper, and we scanned it for the information. It was not there. No such story. It then came out that a Bauer had told the Kriegsgruppe story just to see what he would do. He fell for it. He was not alone. A radio report came in that 360 American soldiers were found dead in Italy. We concluded that meant POWs. Some felt we'd get the same treatment. Night after night we feasted on a banquet of rumor. Some of us were making plans to escape. Others were picking spots to hide out until the U.S. Army came through Hurlach.
But all was not grim in the barracks. There was vigorous ribaldry. One of the Brooklyn POWs hollered across the room to his Italian buddy from New York, "Hey, Meatball, would the Dagos kill three hundred and sixty Americanos?" The answer was a familiar hand gesture. A POW insisted, "Mix with these people, men." He went on to say, "Get around. Mix in. When they speak, say, 'Nichts verstandl' and they'll bring out the maps."
In anticipation of our departure from Hurlach, Meatball had composed a parody of "You Are My Sunshine." With the women of Hurlach in mind, he sang, "Oh please don't take my Gefangener [prisoner] away." We felt good. Four of the POWs had been together through basic training, action, Stalag, and Kommando. They spent a good deal of time entertaining each other and, Willy-nilly, the rest of us with bad imitations of Englishmen, recitations of the feminine possibilities in Hurlach and how they were overworked, all the while engaging in great bouts of scuffling.
Red, the Irish-American paratrooper, had dropped into Normandy minus a helmet and rifle. So, for the twentieth time, "Hey, Red, where'd you get captured-England?" "Oh you, Bud," he replied in a loud voice.
Sunday, April 22, as on other Sundays, we cleaned the barracks, bathed, washed clothes, mended and pressed trousers and shirts (God knows what for). We also had time to ourselves. March and April brought to an end my third year in the army. There was no reason to be gloomy, however. Spring had come to Hurlach.
There was plenty of sunshine, and it was gloriously warm. The evidence of war was many in Hurlach, but around the edge of the village, in the fields and woods, I could hear, without being able to hum a single tune, Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony. It sang through the countryside, and it supported me in the closing days of my prison life.
Tuesday, April 23, we were again ordered to stay in the barracks - nichtarbeiten.I certainly did not object to nichtarbeiten. I was tired of working. I sometimes wondered if the day would ever come when l'd no longer work for the U.S. or German Army.
Some of us were childishly stupid about the food the Bauers brought in. Joseph, a former Ranger, moody and temperamental, answering a question only if he felt like it, not only refused the food brought in but also wouldn't take the food offered every day at the Base. This spited the Bauer, Joseph believed. Others felt the same about the food brought into the barracks by their Bauers, then ate food from other Bauers.
After the incident with the Kommunderfzihrer, the airborne scares, the digging of gun emplacements, and the rising tempo of military activities in and above Hurlach, we started pulling guard duty in the barracks. Monday we worked. Monday night we stood guard. Rumors reached epidemic proportions. There was greater activity in the guardhouse. Our hopes were up one hour, down the next. It simply could not be much longer now. We speculated on our method of release. Hurlach would probably be overrun by the Americans. But who knows?
Late Tuesday night, April 24, the POW on guard awakened us in the barracks. He was excited. We listened until dawn to artillery fire while low-flying aircraft crossed and recrossed the moonlit sky above us.
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