21.
THE FALLEN
HOSTAU, CZECHOSLOVAKIA,
APRIL 28–30, 1945
Only twenty-four hours after Tom Stewart had spent the night huddled in a chair in Lessing’s apartment, he became the new commanding officer of the village of Hostau. Horses gazed serenely at the men in green fatigues and combat boots as the soldiers moved quickly around the farm’s perimeters, establishing checkpoints, inspecting for enemy elements, and creating drops to collect weapons. Most of the grooms at Hostau were prisoners of war—Russians, Poles, and Yugoslavs as well as a smattering of other Allies. With the coming of the Americans, they would soon be sent back to their ranks.
Stewart had orders from Reed to secure the perimeters around the farm’s three outlying locations. He headed out in his jeep, bringing Lessing along. The two rattled over the roads between Hostau and Zwirschen, an outlying village a few kilometers away where the stud farm had additional pastures and stables. The countryside was quiet, but from time to time, small children approached calling out requests for chocolate, closely followed by their worried mothers, scolding the children to stay away.
When Stewart and Lessing arrived at the stables in Zwirschen, they found a state of near insurrection. A Russian groom stood waiting near the road. The man was six feet five, built like a brick, and wore a menacing expression. Stewart quickly sized up the situation. The Russian and the other prisoners of war who had been conscripted to take care of the horses had rebelled, certain that German defeat was imminent. Now the pair from Hostau confronted a chaotic situation: Each Russian groom had several stolen wristwatches on his arms, and the local people cowered in fear of the newly freed prisoners.
Just beyond in the pastures, horses grazed peacefully, each worth a fortune on the open market. These Russians, already emboldened enough to pilfer watches, would no doubt be quick to steal the much more valuable horses—if they didn’t sell them first for the value of their meat, or to passing refugees heading west who would happily hand over jewels and other heirlooms for a horse to pull their wagon.
The hulking Russian who had assumed the role of leader of the group started toward Stewart, his face contorted into a threatening frown. If the groom understood that he and the American were allies, it was not evident from his expression.
Stewart knew that he needed to get the upper hand immediately. He gestured to Lessing to hang back. Although Lessing was tall, the big man looked as if he could knock both of them over in a single blow.
“Give back the watches,” Stewart demanded, his voice showing no sign of fear.
The Russian stepped forward. Stewart held his ground. The air crackled with the electricity of direct confrontation.
“Give back the watches! Now!” Stewart commanded. Lessing hastily translated.
The Russian just sneered and shook his head, pulling himself up to his full height—he was half a head taller than Stewart and twice as broad, his arms muscled and his hands callused from the hard work of wielding a pitchfork on the farm.
Lessing waited almost without breathing. He expected Stewart to walk away and let the Russians keep their spoils. What difference would it make to the American? The Germans were the defeated enemy; why would an American step in to defend them?
Instead, Tom Stewart leaped at the Russian’s neck; he was a blur of movement as he punched the hulk in the face with a full fist, then grabbed him, turned him around, and kicked him in the pants.
The giant toppled over into the dirt.
A moment later, the shocked Russians handed over all of the watches, which Stewart returned to the astonished onlookers. Soon, the Americans had set up regular patrols and sentries around the stables and pastures of Zwirschen, and order was restored.
LATE THAT SAME AFTERNOON, Hank Reed rode through the main street of Hostau in the passenger seat of his battered green jeep. Along the narrow thoroughfare, white flags fluttered from every window, and people called out and waved as he passed, creating a festive air. Jim O’Leary steered the vehicle through the main gates of Hostau and pulled up in front of the farm’s stately headquarters. After 281 days of battle, Hank Reed had arrived back where he’d started—among horses. Stewart and Quinlivan greeted Reed and brought him to review the farm’s military staff, now held as American prisoners of war.
Colonel Rudofsky stood at the head of the line. He studied the American commander’s face, wondering what kind of man he was about to encounter. As the colonel approached, Rudofsky noted that Reed was a good deal shorter than he was but seemed taller somehow—he walked with American swagger, as if he had just stepped off a movie screen. Rudofsky was surprised that the man’s manner was friendly yet respectful. He noted no hint of scorn in the colonel’s demeanor.
Reed walked down the line of conquered officers, offering a cigarette to each of the men to set them at ease. Only Rudofsky declined. Reed could not help but notice the high color on the German commander’s cheeks and the sheen of sweat on his brow. He had already made the acquaintance of the two German veterinarians, but here before him was the Czech-born head of the German stud farm. The man’s extreme discomfort was hard to miss.
The first order of business was to tour the farms. Reed offered Rudofsky a seat in his jeep, hoisting himself into the back, where he balanced on some boxes. If he noticed the German’s look of surprise to be offered a place up front, Reed graciously paid it no heed. O’Leary took them all the way around the perimeters of the stud farm and as far as the outlying pastures where Stewart had stemmed the insurrection earlier that day. Everything was in order. In the fields, white mares grazed peacefully, while their dark-coated foals cavorted at their sides.
The next order of business was a tour of the stables. Sperl translated as Rudofsky gave detailed information about the farm’s operations. Reed encouraged the enlisted men to come along and have a look. The colonel’s enthusiasm for the horses was unmistakable, and it soon rubbed off on the rest of the group.
RUDOFSKY AND REED SURVEY THE CAPTURED HORSES IN HOSTAU.
One young private, as he stood gazing at the mares, remarked, “These horses look pregnant, sir.”
Colonel Reed turned to the young man with a chuckle and said, “Where do you come from, Private?”
The young Italian-American replied proudly, “The Bronx.”
The colonel smiled. “Where I come from, we call it ‘in foal.’ ”
When the tour of the grounds and pastures was finished, it was time for the presentation of Hostau’s finest jewels, the stallions. When Witez was led from the stable, his shiny coat created a halo of light around him. He danced at the end of his lead shank, sinews snapping beneath his taut skin. His tapered ears flicked back and forth; his dark eyes seemed to contain infinite depths; and his hooves seemed almost to float above the ground. Reed drank in the sight of this flawless animal, from the arched crest of his neck, to the straight shafts of his cannon bones, to the high set of his silky tail. Witez’s bright expression spoke to something deep inside this hard-bitten soldier.
Satisfied that the stud farm was secured, Reed left Stewart with a small task force made up of several platoons of soldiers, and instructions to Rudofsky, Lessing, and Kroll to continue operations as usual, now under Stewart’s command. Reed then headed back to his headquarters.
THE NEXT DAY PASSED peacefully enough, but just after dawn on April 30, Stewart’s radio crackled with ominous news. An early-morning American patrol that had come upon a manned German roadblock that had been hastily assembled overnight, blocking their route of retreat back into Germany. Stewart quickly organized some of his men to head out to a small town called Rosendorf, near the edge of the forest.
Meanwhile, out in the field near Rosendorf, several miles from Hostau, the American patrol that had encountered the roadblock came under fire from the German soldiers sheltered behind it. Wiping them out with a swift barrage of machine-gun fire, the American soldiers set their sights on a small house close by. It appeared unoccupied but might harbor snipers inside. The sergeant in charge wanted to occupy the house—from that vantage point, the Americans could provide cover while the rest of the patrol maneuvered around the barricade—so he sent one of his men, Private Manz, to see if it was safe to enter.
Raymond Manz was still a few days shy of his twentieth birthday. A tall boy who wore size-thirteen shoes, he had been in the army since graduating from Detroit’s Southeastern High School in July 1943. When he posed for his enlistment portrait, his face was round and boyish; his military cap looked too big for his head. Almost two years later, as he clutched his gun and prepared to advance, he had grown into himself: a broad-shouldered, athletic-looking young man with curly brown hair and a sweet, diffident smile. Manz had already fought his way across the hedgerows of France and through the Battle of the Bulge. As he prepared to follow orders, the young private had no way of knowing that today, April 30, 1945, would mark a fateful turning point in the war. By the end of this day, Hitler would take his own life. In forty-eight hours, the Germans would surrender Berlin to the Russians. Allied victory in Europe was one week away. Manz and all of the men of the 2nd Cavalry stood so close to the end of the fight that they could almost reach out and touch it.
But the young private was not thinking about that. Firing his gun, he advanced rapidly toward the house. Within seconds, return fire sprayed from the windows. Manz took a hit in the shoulder and stumbled a reeling half-step back but did not fall. Pressing forward again, he blasted the house with a barrage of gunfire, providing cover so the rest of the platoon could overrun the barrier. A second shot hit Manz in the head.
By the time his buddies were able to get to him, he was already dead. Raymond Manz would never turn twenty. He had died moving toward the enemy, falling dead without ever taking a step back.
Around the same time, back at Hostau, Tom Stewart got word from his forward patrols that the group of Germans who had fired on them on the way to the stud farm had reassembled into an organized force and were advancing on the farm itself. Stewart was guarding the horses with a skeleton crew and did not have a reliable estimate of how large the attacking force might be. Stewart and Quinlivan assembled their small group in an attempt to push the advancing Germans as far away from the horses as possible. To strengthen his numbers, Stewart drafted some of the released POWs, including a Palestinian and a Maori from New Zealand still wearing their POW garb, to join with the Americans. Together they succeeded in keeping the attackers safely beyond the pasture’s perimeters. The battle raged for five hours, until the Germans retreated back into the woods and moments later came pouring out between the trees, carrying white flags. Stewart and Quinlivan had defeated the last bits of German resistance.
ON THE MORNING OF Monday, April 30, while Tom Stewart was fighting off the attackers, Hank Reed was in Schwarzenfeld, about eighty kilometers southwest of Hostau. Spring seemed distant as leaden skies dropped occasional snow flurries on the distinguished men assembled there. Colonel Reed and three other officers of the XII Corps, to which the 2nd Cavalry belonged, were being honored with the French Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre. The XII Corps command post was awash with important visitors. The day before, General Patton had visited XII Corps headquarters and told their commander, Lieutenant General Stafford LeRoy “Red” Irwin, that the war might be over in the next day or two. While no trace remains of the conversations between Red Irwin, Hank Reed, and General Patton regarding the horses at Hostau, all three knew that Stewart’s task force had captured the depot full of valuable horses. They understood that holding the stud farm in Czechoslovakia was only the first step toward getting the horses to safety. Reed stood at attention, eyes forward, as the heavy French sword tapped his shoulder. He was eager to get this over with, impatient to return to his men and their captured prize.
By late afternoon of that day, Reed was back at Hostau, pleased with the work that Stewart had done in his absence. Just like everyone else in the Third Army, Reed had learned many bleak things about the human race over the past twelve months. He had heard about the atrocities that the army had uncovered when they liberated Dachau—the horrors of train cars filled with half-rotted bodies, and the scores of prisoners, as weak and emaciated as scarecrows. But somehow he had been spared seeing those particular evils firsthand and instead had been given the task of freeing such beautiful horses. It was an unlikely and astonishing stroke of grace.
The war had destroyed many things, but one of the worst casualties was the loss of hope for a peaceful world. Yet every man who saw these horses at Hostau ended up with a smile on his face and an image in his mind of a world less troubled than the one in which he currently dwelled. That day, Hank Reed knew that for all of the sadness and loss and pain he had seen, he would accomplish at least one positive thing: Lovely and unbloodied, these horses were going to gallop safely into the postwar world.