VE Day in Europe

Colonel describes this day at two separate times, detailing different, unique information:

1

I was in Kemnitz, Germany. It was in an area where we were to turn the territory – we owned it – we were to turn the territory over to the Russians. We had gone too far. And we were to withdraw; only AFTER we had turned this territory over to the Russian’s. It was to be their territory to occupy.

I’m waiting for them to come in, the unit had gone back. I had a task force with me of men, hand-picked men, to hold that territory right there. We’re waiting for the Russians to come in; in the meantime the civilian population was fleeing ahead of the Russian’s. They didn’t want to be in Russian-occupied territory. And word spreads among civilians. So they knew that this was to be Russian territory. They didn’t want that. So they were fleeing in front of the Russians. The roads were blocked with people: little old ladies with four wheeled carts, all their belongings in the carts, maybe they’d have a dog; maybe they’d have a cow. The roads were loaded! Just loaded! You couldn’t move through all these people!

We, being the task force that I had, had taken over a house. A nice house. We weren’t going to live like a... you know... whatever. We were going to have the best! We did, and we took over this house. In the living room, there was a baby grand piano... a Lieutenant with me. When the day was going on, everybody wanted something. They all come to the door, they wanted something. They wanted a pass to go somewhere, they wanted medicine, and they wanted food. Michaels was with me. 3 o’clock in the afternoon, Michaels just shook his head. ‘We’ve had enough of this, let’s go’. We went out in the backyard and we laid down on the grass. Took a blanket, laid down on the grass. Somebody took our picture, LAYING there on the grass on VE DAY! We were sleeping! We didn’t see this picture until a long time thereafter. But we were both sleeping on a blanket on VE DAY on the grass in the back of this blush house. That is how we spent VE Day!

The day went by and the people continued to come. Michael’s left. And I was stuck with the job of staying there. But eventually, they had pretty much gone. Then came the day that the Russians came and we were ready to turn it over to the Russians. The trucks came, non-descript, you would scrap trucks of the type that they were driving! They pulled up. An Officer got off and with him, I suspected an enlisted man. He became the interpreter between myself and him. Eventually, I got to know this enlisted man well enough that I felt that I could ask him questions. I asked him, ‘Those 1^st three trucks that got off... the men on those trucks disappeared. Where’d they go? And then, the 2^nd three trucks... they got off, but they stayed there in the trucks. The next 3^rd three trucks... they are still sitting there! Tell me, what’s going on?’ And he knew me well enough to tell me, ‘The 1^st three trucks... the men got off and they were going off into the countryside to get food. That was their first priority – food. And they disappeared. The 2^nd three trucks... the men got off and they were going to get places to stay – billets. Places where they could stay. The 3^rd... they are going to take over the installations in which they will be the guards. They could care less.’

This was the Russian Army that I met. Non-descript trucks. They were after food.

And this was a Russian enlisted man that was talking to me. But he felt that he had my confidence that he could speak frankly. And he made fun of the Officer. The Officer didn’t know what he was saying – he couldn’t understand English. But this interpreter spoke good English. And when he would make fun of his Officer, the Officer would nod his head, ‘Mmmhmmm, Mmmhmmm.’

2

"Between us [The United States Army] there were all these displaced persons: Poles, Slovak’s, Chek’s, all of them, who had no home. And they were fleeing in front of the Russians; they wanted to get into the American territory. And so from daylight until dark we were overwhelmed with these refugees. Clogging the roads, everything. We had a house, which was our headquarters. And we posted guards around it and so on, but they all wanted to come into the house and get a pass to go to here or there, or get something. We were just overwhelmed. So Major Michaels and I were stuck with the job of preserving order there. By three o’clock in the afternoon, after having gone through this since daylight, he said to me, he said, “We’ve had enough of this. Let’s get out of here.” And so we went out in the backyard of this house, nice place, and he got a blanket somewhere and we laid down and fell asleep. And while we were asleep somebody took that picture. I did not know they took the picture until I received it in the mail when I returned to the states.

Now that was May the 7th, 1945. Now what is that? 63 years ago was that? 63 years ago. And I’ve had that photograph ever since.

Ah! That's history!"

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