His Deeds:

Drafts" From His Book

Western Front:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His Deeds:

Drafts" From His Book

Western Front:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Western Front Chapter 6:

At the far end of the corridor two stretcher bearers were in attendance. They were unmoved by our arrival and looked us over as if we were something the postie had dropped. Anyone who could still walk was not absolutely serious. Couldn't blame them really, they saw them coming in every day, and in all conditions. The fellows were immune to suffering, seeing so much over the years but they did know the priorities when they saw them and one of the medics got up and led my companion down to the lower floor and that was the last I saw of him.

"What happened to him?" The other medic asked. "I don't know," I said, "he hasn't said a word since I met him." He then asked what unit we came from and I told him from the bunker line along the Saar, Volksgrenadier Regiment 76 and was just going to explain how we got here when he said "Ahh! don't tell me, mit der Feldküche." That rotten pea soup chariot must have been known all over the district. The medic then took a closer look at my bandage, a dark brown filthy mess, part of it soft and still oozing blood but suggested keeping the rag on a little longer as it would only hurt if he took it off, besides, they didn't have much to replace it with either. Pointing to the bottom of the stairs he said, "This place is full up." I glimpsed his wrist watch and it showed 1.30, which meant I and my silent partner had been crawling round the countryside for about seven hours.

His offsider returned and took me down to the lower floor dressing room. It was indeed a large bunker, much larger than ours, with a fair sized generator as lights were working everywhere. In the dressing room they completed papers and hung them round my neck ready for the field hospital. They had run out of tetanus but said I'd get one in St Wendel, if I got there! I was not too worried about the needle, I'd had a few in the past so should be reasonably immune, but didn't appreciate his last remark. Why `if' we don't make it?

They gave me a shoulder sling to rest the arm and said to make myself comfortable on the floor, if I could find a space. "It's not always like this," he told me as though he felt obliged to apologize for the crowded mess. "It's only since yesterday that the casualties keep coming at an increased rate and we can't cope any more." He said the ambulances had already made two extra trips to St Wendel and wouldn't be back before early in the morning. I asked the medic what had happened to my 'shadow'. "He is already upstairs, and will be one of the first to the loaded" he said, then as an after though, "if the ambulances don't get wiped out on their return run."

They did arrive, just after dawn. Two ambulances and two trucks and they carried a fresh medic crew from St Wendel. The vehicles were still not enough to carry all the wounded in one trip, so some would have to wait for their return trip later in the day. I was lucky to be on the list for the morning and was allocated a seat on one of the trucks, the ambulances being reserved for the serious cases like my silent friend from the previous night. Boarding the vehicles we could hear the tremendous machine gun and rifle fire from over the hill, from the bunker line where I'd left my mates. From the noise massive slaughter was probably going on there and this place would be full again by nightfall, though a medic assured us the noise wasn't much different from the previous days. Little time was lost loading and the two ambulances took the lead. There were eight wounded and two medics on our truck and we sat on wooden benches along the sides with walking space in the middle for our minders to attend to the moaning and groaning of their charges.

The tarpaulins were tightly closed and there was no look- out placed to warn the driver of any impending air attack, but the medics weren't worried about that, assuring us the Red Cross markings on the top gave us all the protection we needed. An open back, with a look-out on the tailboard would only draw suspicion. It looked like the Americans adhered to the Geneva Convention, perhaps not exactly for their love of Germans but because there were a number of Americans in various German prison camps.

We reached St Wendel with no incidents and I must say I felt jolly relieved when we entered the relative safety of the Lazarett, which was run by nuns and sisters. It must have been a sanatorium or some sort of spa in the better times before the war, the kind of place where the rich had the opportunity to get rid of their excess money with very little trouble. It was a large place though didn't look expensive any more and was overcrowded, with wounded transports coming in steadily from all sections of the West Wall. General Patton and his Third Army must be doing quite a job on our troops on the Saar but perhaps the Americans were having a torrid time as well, judging from the number of casualties sitting around in Uncle Sam's uniform.

****

`The West Wall prolonged the War by six month and cost the Allied in dead and wounded, more than that suffered by the US Army in Korea and Vietnam combined.'

****

We were told we would be having showers and then be examined by doctors, but as the hospital shower facilities were limited in coping with the increased intake of wounded we could be in for a wait. And a long wait it was, but then it didn't matter. I was reasonably all right and if I didn't move the arm too much the pain was bearable, but I was really hungry and could have done with a bite of something. I hadn't eaten anything since the night before last though, looking around none of my fellow sufferers had an overfed look, with the exception of the Americans sitting there together. I was pretty sure they would have something to nibble in their numerous pockets, only were canny enough not to produce it while being watched by the `Nazi Krauts'. All stretcher cases had been removed to some other part of the hospital and were probably getting a nice bath and a clean up by the nuns and nurses. I wondered what my `shadow' would look like when they removed the rags from his face.. Nuns and nurses came with trolleys and distributed mugs of hot soup. I was ready for it and I didn't care what it was but two Americans across from me couldn't have been too hungry; they took a look and pushed it away with disgust written in their faces but a couple of our blokes soon gobbled it up with immense relish.

I fell asleep and it was night when I woke. Two medics helped me to my feet, taking the tag from my neck and asked me to follow them. I had a quick look round the hall which was as full as ever, only different faces. More transports had come in while I was asleep. The Amis opposite me had gone and I wonder where to. They took me to the showers and cut off some of the blood-caked foot rag, saying a good soak was needed. When I returned a doctor was in the dressing room, a young Leutnant. A medic took the rest of the bandage off which left me gasping with pain and the wound began to bleed again. The Leutnant had a quick look and asked me to move my fingers which I was unable to do. He made an entry on my report tag, told the medics to give me a injection and a paper bandage and then he was gone.

one of the medics administered the tetanus into my backside with the elan of a champion dart thrower then took me to the kitchen and left me with the night duty nuns. They gave me a bowl of porridge and after inspecting my record told me I would be transferred to Bad Kreuznach Hospital for further treatment. They led me to a large room already filled and showed me to an empty straw sack in the far corner and I fell asleep almost immediately.

The sounds of trolleys woke me. I'd slept soundly and it was breakfast time and the nuns were dishing out hot coffee and bread and jam. We were told to be ready to be taken to the station where a transport was waiting to take us to Bad Kreuznach. Two large buses shuttled between hospital and the station, not marked with red crosses, but it didn't matter as the town was under the protection of the Red Cross Charter. The train, however, had proper Red Cross markings on its roofs and sides just in case, once outside the town's protective borders in broad daylight, a fighter plane took a fancy to a moving train for target practice.

A short trip of about 90 km and we were again safely under the Red Cross protective umbrella in the hospital town of Bad Kreuznach. The hospital there was similar to the one we'd left but had better medical facilities, though was equally overcrowded. We were told we would be checked over and according to the required treatment would be sent to various hospitals further inland for recuperation. After another shower and reasonably good evening meal I bedded down in a large dormitory with bunk beds and mattresses and was told I was due for an X-ray in the morning. There was constant traffic in the dormitory with new arrivals and nurses looking after their needs. I could hear the planes overhead, presumably on their way to an unsuspecting German city to bomb the life out of its civilian population.

"Our aircraft occasionally killed women and children"

"IIn spite of all that happened at Hamburg, Bombing proved a comparatively humane method?"!... Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris: Bomber Offensive)

******

And the Brits erected a monument to Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris to honour his `humanity'!

******

I hoped those bombers up there wouldn't mistake Bad Kreuznach for Frankfurt, which was only a few odd kilometres across the Rhine. About mid-morning I had my examination. The X-ray showed a fracture of the wrist bone and I was told I would be on call for one of the next outgoing transports. Two trains would be going sometime next day and I should be on one of them. Next morning, after a peaceful night the nurses were busy organizing the transfer by buses from the hospital to the station and just before midday the call came to board the bus. Two hospital trains stood parallel to each other at the station on loading ramps and by about mid-afternoon we were aboard in comfortable carriages with three-tier bunk beds and soft seating arrangements for additional comfort. All carriages were interconnected to give the medical crews access to the compartments and the steam engine had been connected from the start of the loading so it was all warm and comfortable.

The trains slowly moved out of the station, one travelling close behind the other and I was in the second one. We came to a halt at Gensingen, the first station out of Bad Kreuznach and we were then unaware of what went on outside. But since both trains had to travel through Mainz and Frankfurt which were prime targets for the British night bombers, the defense authorities were ordering that two four-barreled 2 cm anti aircraft guns be attached to each train for additional protection. The train in front, with the gun carriage already hooked at the rear, was scheduled to Gau, and to join the main line to Mainz and Frankfurt there and its CO was in a hurry to get through Frankfurt and the danger zone before nightfall.

Our train was to bypass Mainz by going to Worms and reach Frankfurt-Offenbach from the south. Our Medical CO flatly. refused to have any gun hooked to his train so we were delayed considerably by that dispute and left Gensingen station at nightfall and without a gun. Although we were stationary quite a bit during the night, caused by the inevitable air raid warnings, there was no actual raid in the Frankfurt area that night.

It was not until the early morning when it all happened. Our train was just outside Frankfurt main station, between Offenbach and Hanau and there was an attack by American fighter bombers. They came up from Aschaffenburg in low level formations, strafing and bombing the line to Hanau, Offenbach and Frankfurt main station and every train that happened to be on that line. I was on the top bunk and there was about a 5 cm width of window through which I could peep. I saw a Yankee plane flash past the window at not more than treetop height and in that fraction of a second I caught a glimpse of the pilot's face and I could have sworn he was looking straight at me. How lucky we had been that our Commander refused the gun protection. That pilot would have held his thumb on the trigger the whole length of our train and we would have been just another twisted wreck along the line.

We found out later that's exactly what happened to our other train. They had cleared Frankfurt and Hanau and came to grief just outside Aschaffenburg where their guns took on the attackers. The train was wiped off the line with a terrible massacre of the already wounded people on board. It took the engineers nearly all day to clear the line to Aschaffenburg and beyond before any traffic could proceed. We slowly got going again in late afternoon.

Aschaffenburg station was a complete mess and we travelled on makeshift tracks to reach the relatively undamaged main line to Würzburg. The nurses and staff on board dished out the evening meal before nightfall and blackout and I crawled on my bunk to savour another good night's sleep.

We left the main line at Gemünden and went on to Bad Kissingen, Ebenhausen and Bad Neustadt. All next day we travelled on secondary tracks through the Thüringer Wald, down to Lausha and Probstzella and by nightfall reached Jena and Halle where we were shunted to a side track for the rest of the night. Finally, in the early morning light we pulled into Saalfeld, a Red Cross town under the Geneva Charter, where we were hospitalized and, for some of us, `patched up' ready for yet more battles.

 

 

 

 

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