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"Since there were only four of us, we decided that two would sleep for a while and the other two continue a roaming watch so as to patrol all four sides of the mansion. After about eighteen hours, we could no longer hear the sound of battle, and decided to head back to the beach before we would be listed as missing in action."
"So you left the comforts of your new lair..."
Harv: "We left the house alright....this is the funniest part of my experience thus far. A group of enemy soldiers came running out of the woods waving and screaming at the top of their voices with their rifles over their heads!"
"Screaming in Italian?"
Harv: "We did not understand what they were yelling, and we were too frightened to even draw our side arms. They were all Italians except one was German, and did comprehend enough English to let us know they were OUR prisoners...can you imagine that? There were at least 14 or 15 of them. They insisted that we take them as prisoner's of war. We let them go into the house to get some food and wine as it had been days since they had eaten."
"You guys must have been wondering what the heck to do with them."
Harv: "When we finally left the house and approached the beach, the army troops that were there grabbed their weapons and were ready to fire at us, until we showed them we were the American Navy, and that the others were our prisoners. I guess it did look strange as the enemy were still carrying their weapons!" (Laughs)
"That's too much!"
Harv: "The Italian's and the one German very methodically stacked their rifles in a very neat pile and put their hands on top of their heads to show that really had surrendered. Can you imagine how funny that was?"
"Oh man yes!"
Harv: "Here we come....these four dumb swabbies not even guarding them with weapons...coming down the beach with the enemy in tow carrying theirs! How on earth could WE be given credit for capturing these many enemy troops?"
"We really had a good time with them, but it was getting on and we eventually came in contact with a navy brass who placed us on another LST."
"Where to this time?"
Harv: "We headed back to Arzew so they could decide what to do with us next. I still think that the number LST was the 1068, but I am not sure now. It was here that I met my good (recently re-found buddy)."
"So you were both heading back together at this point then?"
Harv: "Yes, we were heading back to Arzew, but our ship was hit, and to this day we are still not positive whether it was a mine that we had collided with, or a sub directly torpedoed us.""It was lucky that there were no casualties. We were then picked up by a navy transport and taken to a SURVIVORS rest camp in Scotland."
"Do you remember where in Scotland?"PG1 | PG2 | PG3 | PG4 | PG5 | Main
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