Excerpt from Chapter 7:
It was the Christmas weekend when we arrived and we
remained in Ehrenbreitstein over the following week and
into the new year. New Year's Eve we were given leave
into Koblenz. Considering the long walk down and back
and not knowing where to go and curfew at 1 a.m.
precisely, it wasn't much to look forward to. The choice
was either celebrating in the canteen or going into
town, and Jakob from my gun crew, talked me into going.
Without bookings and the fact it was already gone 9 p.m.
when we reached town, it was a risky venture. We were
lucky to get into a Weinstube by 10 p.m. and found two
empty seats by a table occupied by a family. The empty
chairs were reserved for two of their friends who hadn't
shown up so we were invited to join them which we
happily did as the family had two good-looking daughters
and Mum and Dad offered to share their drinks, which was
just as well as we discovered it was a swanky expensive
place and it's doubtful we would have managed the
waiter's tip, not to mention the drinks.
We had a very nice evening, though much too short as we
had to consider the long walk back to the fortress. We
managed a few dances with the two girls, kissed the New
Year in, making sure to include Mother, and arranged to
meet again the following Sunday.'Dad' agreed
wholeheartedly, between puffs on his expensive-smelling
cigar, and since it was Mother's idea he couldn't do
anything else.
The meeting didn't eventuate, however, as the following
week we were once again on rail transport. This time the
destination was Roetgen, between Monschaw and Aachen,
the Hohe Venn in the Hurtgen Forest, for shooting
exercises with live ammunition at moving air targets.
Four guns on trailers had been transported there and
each day five crews were assigned to struggle with the
guns uphill to the top of a mountain, one and a half
hours' hard pulling and pushing. There was no truck or
personnel carrier to do the job - "hardens you up and
keeps you in trim" we were told by our superiors. Our
crew was called out on the second day after our arrival
and we struggled with the cannon on the rough mountain
track and it was jolly hard work. By the time we reached
the top we were exhausted and worn out. The target plane
was scheduled for 10 a.m. but it was all for nothing as
morning clouds drifted in shrouding the mountain top in
fog.
We spent two weeks in Roetgen and our crew had two more
of those uphill struggles to endure. One was successful
enough for us to get a few rounds into the target.
Aiming had to be pretty accurate as the tow line wasn't
terribly long and one small mistake could very well be
the 'downfall' of the plane as well. We had had some
towing practices before but this was the first with live
ammunition and we felt very lucky not to hit the plane;
some of the projectiles seemed to get awfully close to
it and must have given the pilot a few anxious moments.
Time ran out and we were recalled to Ehrenbreitstein.
Two days later our gun crews' names were among four
pinned on the notice board with the request to pick up
marching orders. We were provided with two days salami
and Kommis (black bread) and marched with a Leutnant to
the railway station and late in the evening left Koblenz
for another unknown destination. During the night we
passed Trier and crossed into France at Thionville by
mid morning, past Metz and on to Verdun and Fort Duomont
(the memorial to the fallen of First World War). The
realisation that we had left our homeland, maybe for
good, dropped on us like a ton of bricks. For the first
time we felt abandoned and the 'bone house' up on the
hill didn't help our morale.
The Leutnant said our destination was Mourmelon le
petit, a troop training and grouping centre in the
champagne district of Chƒlons sur- Marne. " That's where
all the good bubbly comes from ", he told us with an air
of superior knowledge. Well, we had heard of it but very
few of us had ever drunk it. The Leutnant probably had
and we were determined to sample it too if we ever had
the opportunity. We pulled into Chƒlons Sur- Marne
shortly after noon where a couple of waiting trucks took
us to nearby Mourmelon le Petit and from there to an
airfield where a squadron of FW 189 short distance
reconnaissance planes was stationed for training.
Each crew was allocated an Unteroffizier, over him was a
Unterwachtmeister, and a Wachtmeister and heading the
whole outfit was an Oberleutnant and a Leutnant, the
same officer who escorted us from Ehrenbreitstein.
Although we were assigned airfield protection we were
still without guns and were told they were waiting in
Paris to be collected together with vehicles so
Unteroffizier Langhans, the Kapo of our crew, was
detailed for this undertaking and by some stroke of luck
he chose me to go with him to take delivery of the
armaments. The movement of military personnel in and out
of Paris was tightly restricted by order of the German
High Command with certain formalities to be gone through
before entry passes stating the reasons, together with a
medical clearance, were issued. All that for just two
days running around in Paris on military affairs.
We took the express train from Chƒlons, past Opernay and
arrived in good time at the Gare de L'East. The station
commander's office checked the legitimacy of our visit
then allocated us accommodation in the hotel 'La Lune'
at the bottom end of the 'Champes Elysees'. We took the
Metro to the 'Arc de Triumph' and walked the rest of the
way. The arms depot was situated in the Fauberg St.
Germain, a straight run by Metro from the Elysee
station. All day we were busy going through the check
list before every thing was loaded on rail transport the
next day so we didn't see much of Paris though managed
to sneak a quick glimpse of the city from the Eiffel
Tower's middle platform, the top platform being closed
or for miliary purposes only. On the evening of the
second day we took our return train from the Gare' de
L'East and arrived at Mourmelon at midnight and our guns
and personnel carriers arrived the next day at the
railway siding near the airfield.
As the guns were of an improved type it was necessary to
do some more training to familiarize the crews with
their handling so at the beginning of February 42 we
were sent off to yet another unknown destination. After
despatching our gear on flat top wagons we followed by
regular passenger trains, skirting Paris from the south
and came to rest just outside Versailles where an
underground 18th Century-type fort nearby was to be our
accommodation for the next week or so.
Standing on the grass-topped roof of the fortress we
could see Orly airport, a huge Roman Aqueduct nearby,
and in the distance Versailles and the Palace. Nobody
had the faintest idea why we had been sent there; we
were told it was just a temporary stay whilst awaiting
orders for the next move. Our equipment was still in
transit so apart from the usual foot drill there was
nothing else we could do. Versailles was only about 20
minutes walk via the aqueduct so we were permitted a bit
of sight seeing in town. The Palace was quite impressive
though a bit disappointing as all paintings and
artifacts had been removed for safekeeping. None of the
numerous fountains was working and the famous 'Spiegel
Saal' (Hall of Mirrors) was stripped of all its glitter.
Jakob and I decided to go for a meal as there were lots
of little cafes in town specializing in good, cheap
rabbit meals, washed down with a quart of delicious 'vin
rouge'. We told Langhans about it when we got back and
he just laughed. "Cats", he told us, "they served you
cats; did you not notice the ribs? Cats have square
ribs!" We didn't have ribs on the plate, but we never
went for a meal again. Langhans was just having us on.
Or perhaps he was right.
Our stay in that fort came to an end with the arrival of
our equipment at the rail siding. From then on we were
responsible for our gear and arrangements were made for
half the crews to travel with the guns on the flat top
wagon as guards while the rest travelled comfortably in
the separate personnel carriage. We pulled out in the
direction of Chartres, le Mans, Redant, Laurient, to
Quimperle, some 350 miles west, on the coast of
Bretagne. Nearby, on top of a rocky hill was an
impressive looking castle which was to be our home for
the next week or so. Unfortunately we never saw the
inside of that magnificent place as our quarters were in
the outbuildings. Horse stables, I suppose they'd been
at one time, or maybe pigstys, who knows? Maybe
Friedrichshafen had been right, after all... Quimperle
is only a small fishing port facing the Bay of Biscay so
why such an edifice was built there suggests the French
weren't on great terms with the Brits at the time!
We checked our guns and gear ready for service, and
fortunately, the weather being surprisingly warm for the
end of February, we were soon able to begin gun drill
and target shooting exercises. The safest place for them
was on the beach with the target plane coming in from
offshore to avoid possible damage and perhaps injuries
from straying shells. Sometimes, the plane was
announced, sometimes it came as a surprise attack. In
either cases it was extremely risky for the plane, not
to mention the pilot, since again we were shooting with
live ammunition. Sea target shooting was considered much
safer. The target moved slower, the towline was longer
and the Navy S boats were armour plated.
The weeks went very quickly and again we were en route
back to base in Mourmelon. The trip was reasonably
uneventful until we arrived in the Paris shunting yards,
which were huge, and watching all the activity from our
flat top carriage brought back childhood memories. Some
four tracks across stood a transport of large wooden
barrel wagons which Unteroffizier Langhans said he would
go over to investigate as he suspected (correctly) there
would be wine in them and if so, one was was bound to
spring a leak sooner or later, as the French had the
habit of drilling little holes in the bottom of anything
with a consignment note for transport into Germany. He
was back in no time. "Los schnell, get all the
containers you have, there is a large leak over there".
By the time we got there people were coming from
everywhere, French civilians and German soldiers alike,
all eager to get a share of the good old vin rouge. We
filled all our containers and returned to our transport.
In the meantime darkness had descended making it
extremely dangerous to dart across the tracks, dodging
fast moving shunting wagons. It didn't take long for the
military police to move in and stop the illegal tapping
and luckily for us we were shunted away to be hooked to
an outgoing transport. Langhans, who had had his snout
in the bucket long before we had our chance, was already
pretty far gone and became troublesome and in his stupor
pulled out his service pistol and started shooting at
imaginary targets. We managed to disarm him before he
could do any real damage and secured him to the gun to
prevent him rolling off and killing himself prematurely.
Langhans had already seen action in Russia and was
wounded in the drive to Moscow. When we arrived back in
Mourmelon, he faced court martial and was sentenced to
three weeks solitary imprisonment which he served in
Rheims military prison. We had three more weeks of
coordinated exercises plus a course in recognizing all
types of Russian aircraft in flight, then orders came
for the squadron to move out and we said good-bye to our
pilot friends. It was their job to fly the FW 189s
straight to Russia's Poltava airfield north of
Dniepropetrovsk. We watched them taking off, the pilots,
observers and rear gunners in their glass cabin between
the double fuselage, dipping their aircraft in a last
low fly pass then gradually fade away in an easterly
direction.