CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Fort Sam Houston, Camp Bullis Army Base Military Police Office, Bexar County, Texas, Northwest of San Antonio, August 24, 1962, midmorning
Breakfast was good: bacon, over easy eggs, wheat toast, corned beef hash, milk, and a jelly Danish. Both law officers enjoyed Uncle Sam’s largesse, and felt fortified for the day of interrogation lying ahead of them. Rick Saunders—on the other hand—did not particularly enjoy his watery scrambled eggs–with no salt, pepper, or Tabasco sauce–fried corn meal mush, graveyard stew, and the quintessential favorite of US military people since the Revolutionary War which can only be served on a shingle. His already foul mood worsened when two burly Bexar County Sheriffs Office Jail guards rousted him from his cell with the creamed chipped beef only half-eaten and escorted him rudely to a small conference room on the south end of the police building. He was handcuffed to a heavy steel ring welded to the tabletop and to another on the floor.
It was 0900. Tucker entered the well-secured conference room accompanied by four jail guards who stationed themselves in the four corners of the room. Their stances and facial expressions conveyed a silent but completely apparent attitude of vigil, indefatiguability, and intense purpose. None of them blinked if he received a side glance from Saunders. It was unnerving.
SAC Nicholsen entered the room as the first of the two law officers who would tag-team the questioning that day.
“Hello, Major Saunders. I am the senior agent in charge of the Alaska CID. We spoke on the phone yesterday morning.”
“What is the meaning of this? Have I committed some sort of crime? Why handcuffs? I guess you made your point about being able to question me whether I agreed or not.”
“I ask, you answer. That’s how this works. As for the situation, you will remember that I offered you the option of a courteous phone call which you refused. Rudely, I might add. You are here and will tell me everything I need to know because what I need to know is important. We Army people do not take kindly to our generals being murdered, and it is my mission to find out why and by whom.”
Appropriately whipped and chastened, Rick waited morosely for the first question.
“Did you kill Gen. Gabler?”
It was a shock and was meant to be.
“I most certainly did not.”
“Who did?”
“I have no idea.”
“How do you profit from the general’s death?”
“I don’t … well, I think there is some small amount set aside by his will for me.”
“How small?”
“I don’t know the details. He was a stingy and ungracious old curmudgeon; so, it is altogether possible that he left me nothing for twenty-five years of service to him.”
He saw the look on the SAC’s face and instantly regretted having opened himself up to questions about his personal relationship with Gen. Gabler.
“Hmmh,” Tucker hummed, “it would seem that there was something short of brotherly love between the two of you, Rick. All right if I call you Rick?”
“No. You got me back on active duty. You can refer to me as Major Saunders or sir, whichever suits you.”
Once again he regretted his rude pomposity. He knew he should be cultivating whatever goodwill he could with this hard-nosed cop. He resolved to school his tongue in the future.
“Of course, sir. You and the general had a long and varied career together. I want you to tell me in detail about how he treated you, how he treated other people; and I especially want to know specifics about his aptitude for disciplinary action and his methods. I want to know about whose feathers he ruffled in the Army, who he disliked, and who disliked him. Then, I want you to give me a very detailed account of your postwar service in Europe. As you might have surmised, I already know quite a bit; so, lying by commission or omission will be futile. Do you want me to repeat my outline of the interrogation?”
“No, I have it. He was Lt. Col. Gabler when we first met as World War Two was beginning to look like the US would be involved. He was in charge of training boots for the Seventh Infantry Division at Fort Ord in California, and I was his exec. I was a lieutenant jg back then. We were a good team, I guess. It was obvious that he was on the joint chiefs’ short list for promotion; and his star would rise; and I would not get anywhere on my own; so, I stuck with him. We shipped out for North Africa to fight the Nazis with the first units to land there. Our first battles—Operation Torch—were with the Vichy French army assigned by Hitler to prevent an Allied amphibious landing at Casablanca or the establishment of a beachhead. From there, we led men into almost every major campaign in the European theater. Both of us were wounded, and both of us were decorated during the rapid advance towards Germany after D Day. We were caught in what came to be called the Void, because the tanks and other armor so far outdistanced the infantry. After the liberation of Germany, we ended up in Alaska—on Chichagof Island—for a few months where a rudimentary POW camp was set up to hold the Germans captured in the battles on the Aleutians.
“Gabler made a name for himself as a POW camp commander; so, we were sent to Texas—right here at Fort Sam Houston to oversee the POWs who were being prepared for shipment to France. The Frenchies wanted forced laborers and were strongly of the opinion that they should get such unwilling workers as reparations from the jerries. They also felt that the jerries deserved every punishment that could be meted out to them. Ike and his SHAEF commanders and the brass all the way to the top agreed to send something like a million of our Germans back. In fact, we sent something like 750 to 760,000 of them back. Gen. Gabler with me as his assistant were in charge of that transfer which was a monumental task.
“Our last assignment before we both retired was to be the commanders at a huge POW complex called the Rheinwiesenlager camps. Our main posting was the final destination of the transcontinental journey for the repatriated Germans, especially those from America. It was the Moschendorf Transit and Release Camp, a miserable and inadequate holding pen for thousands of German POWs and translocated German civilians destined for Allied forced labor camps in the West. I hate to admit that, but I am sure you already know about it.”
Tucker nodded.
“When the Kriegsverurteiltes [repatriated war returnees] moved on, Gen. Gabler and I moved with them because of our accumulated expertise. Our next assignment was to an even worse place—called Bad Kreuznach—the Lager Galgenberg und Bretzenheim PWTE—Bad Kreuznach District, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.”
“What does PWTE stand for?” interrupted Tucker.
“Officially Prisoner of War Temporary Enclosures.”
“Go on.”
“We stayed there until the end. That’s where we mustered out.”
“What happened to the POWs?”
“Shipped on to be slaves in France; most of them to a particular cesspool called POW Camp 63 Brienne le Chateâu, France.”
“Were you or the general ever there?”
“No.”
“So, you don’t know what became of the men you guarded at Bad Kreuznach?”
“No. And to be clear about it, I don’t care. Those monsters got what they deserved. Not many of them made it all the way through. Good riddance, I say.”
“You have done a good job giving the short version of your careers, Major. Now it’s time to answer the rest of my questions—the who, the why, and the generation of personal enemies. We’ll take a short break. You’ve earned a little exercise. Get out to the yard for an hour, then we’ll meet back here for some lunch.”
It was no kindness and no privilege to be ordered to the exercise yard that day. San Antonio was having one of its infrequent weird storms—furious winds, torrential lashing rain, and frightening drum rolls of thunder and a sky rent with bursts of lightning coming in electrical sheets. Major Saunders took the moments of misery to think about his own responsibility for what happened in the Allied POW camps. There was a nagging repetition of Coleridge’s poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” which had the line, “He hath penance done, and penance more will do.”
Grill Sergeants Brig Food Recipes
Shit on a Shingle—Serves 12
Ingredients
-6 tbsps sweet cream salted butter sticks (total 4–16 oz), 6 tbsps all-purpose flour, 3¾ cps warm milk, 3 (8 oz) jars dried chipped beef, 3 pinches cayenne pepper.
Preparation
-In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Whisk in flour all at once to form a roux. Whisk in milk a little at a time, increase heat to medium-high, and cook, stirring until thickened. Bring to a boil, stir in beef and cayenne, heat through, and serve hot over toast (shingle).
Fried Corn Meal Mush—Serves 16
Ingredients
-2½ cps cornmeal, 5 cps water, 1 tsp salt
Preparation
-Mix together cornmeal, water, and salt in a medium saucepan. Cook over med. heat, stirring frequently until mixture thickens~5–7 mins.
-For frying, pour mixture into a loaf pan and chill completely. Remove from pan, cut into slices, and fry in a small amount of lard over medium-high heat until browned on both sides. Serve with sauce of your choice if available. Butter, salt, and pepper can substitute. Best if eaten quickly.
Graveyard Stew—Serves 12
Ingredients
-12 slices Wonder Bread, 3 cps whole milk, 12 patties of butter, lard, or margarine
Preparation
-Butter bread, heat milk to just below boiling. Soak bread in hot milk, then eat.