Chapter 14

Bad Hersfeld, 1945

 

 

I found my two sergeants in the mess hall drinking coffee, waiting for me to come from Patton’s office. We were ready to leave after taking a few minutes to inventory the truck. From above my head, I could see the General standing at a window looking into the square. When he saw I was about to depart, he gave me the thumbs up and backed away out of view. He no doubt would have come down to see us off, but he didn’t want to draw undue attention to us.

I was quite surprised at what I found, but then Oddlie is a professional. I guess you can say he is, since he has survived behind enemy lines for some two years.

The bicycles are not those new balloon-tired rigs, the ones slow and hard to pump. Those he has chosen are of the European racing variety. They cruise along at a smooth fifteen miles an hour with hardly any effort. They are old and beat up, as might be expected; however, the working mechanism is in first-class condition. They even have spare tires, the narrow kind, tied in a figure eight and looped over the seat post. In addition to the duffle bags, containing our new clothes, are three backpacks. The packs are neither American nor of German army issue, which would have given us away. They look as though they might have been purchased by mountaineers from an outfitting shop at the foot of the Jungfrau or somewhere. There are even homemade sleeping bags and a change of clothing, made by a garment maker in Munich. Oddlie has left nothing to chance. Oh, and also in the duffle bags are the walkie-talkies he spoke of.

Carl and Eric are bewildered at what’s going on. But neither of them says anything. They just know something big is about to happen, and they know I will brief them when I’m ready.

The three of us pile in the front seat and set off toward Munich. Some of this city has been taken, while some parts are still holding out. Oddlie says our forces are being aided by deserting Wermacht soldiers. He says, some of the German veterans have threatened the burgermeister if he carries out his plans to make a stand. They have had enough of war, and they don’t want to stand-by and watch their city shelled any more than it has been. The fact is, General Doolittle’s Eighth Air Force bombers have caused widespread destruction. There are a few buildings untouched; most of them, however, have been destroyed or left partially intact, about the same as other major cities in Germany. But continued heavy shelling may completely destroy anything of value left standing.

We drove for a few miles on a country road, and then connected to one of the many autobahns crisscrossing the nation. We had the highway practically to ourselves, except for Red Ball Express trucks high-balling passed us every few minutes. The Red Balls are coming from coastal cities. They began carrying fuel, ammunition, and food directly to the forward troops almost as soon as we had a beachhead. They are being driven by colored infantrymen, who have played a major role in our success in keeping the Germans off balance. Incidentally, after getting some bad press at a couple of engagements in Italy, the coloreds have distinguished themselves. They were the first into Orfurt. Can you picture those poor dying prisoners looking up at these colored infantryman busting down the gates of Buchanwald and taking over? Some of these people had never seen a colored man before. Black must have been the most beautiful color they had ever seen.

 

Finally, when I knew they could stand the suspense no longer, I told Carl and Eric what we were going to do. I started by telling them I had volunteered us for a hazardous mission. I saw the look of apprehension on their faces. After all, they had come this far, and the last thing they wanted was to be killed in the last few weeks of the War. And for nothing, as they saw it. What at this late date could be worth volunteering for? Combat was all but over. And you didn’t have to be a general to realize it.

I reviewed the Merkers’ gold operation in which we had recently been involved. I told them the diamonds would probably last us the rest of our lives if we didn’t live too extravagantly. Since we took them, I had gained a better insight into their worth. My new estimate was considerably less than the wag–the wild-assed-guess–the one I made at the mine. Then, too, as I had told them previously, it would have to be split three ways–actually four or five, when you included the fence. Still, there would be plenty left; but I wanted more. I had the bit in my teeth; I was off and running and I wanted more. I couldn’t speak for them, but I was sure they felt the same way.

There was no rehash of why we hadn’t tried for some of the gold. We knew that swiping as much as a single bar would have gotten us caught. However, making off with some of it had been uppermost in our minds at the time we helped Colonel Bernstein’s detail transport it to the waiting trucks outside the mine. The workers moving the loot had been picked at random, on purpose, from the ranks of an infantry outfit guarding the entrance to the main tunnel.

Unfortunately for us, Bernstein had a foolproof system to prevent pilferage. He had two officers inventorying every bag as it was loaded in a Jeep trailer. The senior man in charge of each three-man transportation detail signed for the load. When they arrived at the entrance, where they were unloaded, another inventory took place. Each bag, containing two bars each, had been sealed with an American finance officer’s seal. There was no way of getting into the bags, nor was there any way of losing a few off the trailer in transit. Bernstein was way ahead of us, and we knew it. He was a professional at handling money, if nothing else. He even went so far as to post an armed sentry at each of the few addits connecting to the main tunnel.

I had given Carl and Eric the gold coins the night we took the diamonds. The first chance they got, they sewed them into the lining of their field jackets.

We had no idea how rare they were. Within days of Roosevelt’s election in 1933, the government started taking them out of circulation. It was part of the president’s Depression recovery program. There was a fine of ten-thousand dollars to be levied on anyone not authorized to hold gold after a certain date. They would later, as I said, become very valuable; but as of now, we had no way of knowing what they were worth.

“Are you guys interested in acquiring some ingots–I mean, are you interested in a lot of gold? Are you interested in taking a shot at maybe a truckload, without Colonel Bernstein looking over our shoulders?”

They both looked at me. Eric, who was driving, looked over at me for longer than I felt comfortable. Carl nudged him, and he re-acquired the road without crossing too far over the line separating the two lanes.

“I would expect it will entail some hazards. But I trust, Captain, the hazards will be commensurate with the rewards, so to speak.” Carl, waxing mock-eloquent for our amusement, had a big grin on his face as he contemplated another stash of SS gold. After all, that was our new job–finding and liberating Nazi gold. In our view, the operative word was liberating. We had pretty well convinced ourselves that the system wasn’t going to return the gold to the Jews it was taken from or to their close relatives, either.

The first couple of hours were spent discussing my new friend Oddlie and what he had told me. I wonder if Odilio is really his name. It could be, I guess. It’s German. And his academic bona fides could be for real, as well. They probably are, since the OSS is noted for recruiting intellectuals of one stripe or another. Their ranks include professors, writers, musicians, and even a few artists; they are the kinds of people Colonel William Donovan, their founder, figures have more imagination and intelligence than your average. I guess they have to have something going for them, something a little different from the rest of us, in order to operate and to survive. Whoever chose the ones I knew personally did a good job. I never knew one who was a lemon or a bad apple.

There’s going to be one major deviation from the way Oddlie briefed me. After some thought, I decided to change things. The idea of the three of us pedaling into Salzburg, which was where we were to meet Oddlie’s pal, seemed a little much to me. We would be just a little too conspicuous, and to what purpose?

My idea is to have Carl stay with the truck while we cycle into the city. I want him to stay hidden in one of the hundreds of copses of trees close to the highway. When he sees some of the lead elements of Seventh Army or the French moving forward, he’s to fall in some distance behind one of their convoys. Once within walkie-talkie range, he will breakaway from the column and keep the two of us informed of his new location. According to my timetable, we should have secured the gold and be waiting to make the transfer by the time he is in position. You understand, we can’t be driving around in German trucks in the midst of American tanks, not if we want them to continue resembling trucks and not a wheelbarrow full of bobby pins.

I plan on transferring the loot to our larger, heavier vehicle and then taking off for someplace. This someplace thing has not been worked out quite yet. But first things first. First, we have to get the gold without getting ourselves killed by the SS, who, as I have said, are not exactly a bunch of pushovers. They are not exactly babes in the woods. And they must have plans of their own to avoid an ambush at the lake. Frankly, when the euphoria of becoming very, very rich wore off, I became very worried. This worry thing set in when we were about 150 miles from Munich.

 

We were almost talked out after a few hours. To make conversation, Eric asked me why Patton was circling around and coming back down to Linz. I replied by asking him how he knew, since it was supposed to be classified. They both looked at me as though I was some kind of recruit, but neither said anything. They knew all the details ten minutes after they sat down in the mess hall. They knew Seventh Army was about to take Munich. Why then did General Patch not push on to Bavaria and Austria? Why involve Patton? Why did they need him to come all the way down from Leipzig to Lintz?

I answered as best I could, without having been invited to attend any of Eisenhower’s staff meetings.

“You both know General Patton is far and away the best field general in the U.S. Army. And when historians finish tallying up all his accomplishments, I think they’re going to agree he’s been the most successful general in the history of warfare. But where he’s the best at what he does, he’s no politician. From here on out, his statesmanship, and his ability as an administrator, will be the yardstick by which he’ll be measured. Then, too, he has made some off-the-cuff remarks that hasn’t set well with his superiors and the Congress–he told the press somewhere along the line that he thought we should press on to Moscow while we still had the chance. Needless to say, he knows more about communists than your average congressmen, and he doesn’t like communism. And if Third Army ever meets the Russians, there might be trouble. And of course, the negative press will make him look foolish if they can. That’s one of the reasons he’s not going on to join up with the Russians.

“But there are other more important reasons. The Allies had agreed we should stop at the Elbe River and wait for the Russians to take Berlin. But they didn’t reckon with George Patton. He has other ideas, or so they now think. They’re afraid he’ll ignore orders and press on to Berlin if they give him a chance to go north from Leipzig to the Elbe. They can’t visualize him waiting for any Russians. He doesn’t care; it’s not his way. He knows nothing will happen to him if he does. He has the overwhelming support of his soldiers and the American people. Generals Bradley and Eisenhower are afraid this might happen. At any rate, they feel they can’t take the chance, so they’re sending him to Austria. Then, too, Eisenhower has more than a passing interest in this place called the Obersalzberg, where we’re headed.”

 

We made contact with a brigade from Seventh Army northeast of Munich. We bummed enough gas to replenish our fuel tanks; then we received a briefing as though we were on a routine scouting patrol for General Patton. No mention was made of any specifics. All we were supposed to be interested in was where the German lines were, and if they expected any opposition. This long talk we had with their intelligence people led us to believe we were going to have a nice uneventful cycling trip through the beautiful German countryside. We could, however, expect to encounter enemy patrols about fifty miles this side of Salzburg.

The Germans had set up artillery positions, and two divisions of panzers, backed by a division of Waffen SS, a few miles on either side of the autobahn leading to Salzburg. They were located around the northern end of lake Chimsee. It was obvious to us they were there to slow down General O'Daniel's Third Infantry Division, which was part of Seventh Army that would be racing for Berchtesgaden in a matter of days. What the French were going to be doing on O’Daniel’s right flank, they didn’t know.

There was a reason for the German holdout, which occurred to me half way through the briefing. The Waffen SS had been told to delay our forces until after the 24th of April. The reason had nothing to do with the War; it was over. I knew why; it was obvious to me why. It was obvious to me and to the generals, and to Oddlie, if not to anyone else, including the briefer, who kept repeating, rhetorically: “Why do they fight on? They’re finished. Why don’t they surrender? We don’t know why.”

Well, I know why. The gold is why. The future of this elite group of dedicated SS warriors is at stake. And Eisenhower and Patton are bound and determined to deny them the means to survive, even if it’s in name only. Without the gold, the Waffen SS will simply become a page in the history books.

 

We left the autobahn outside of Munich about 25 miles, and took to parallel country roads. You have to see these roads to appreciate the scenery. Untouched by war, there is seemingly an endless parade of small gingerbread villages and hamlets, lined up like dominoes, all of them unique, yet almost indistinguishable from each other. Each one is clean and manicured, as are the fields reaching to the roads. They resemble a golf course at an expensive country club. Even in the midst of war, they are manicured; we have Hitler to thank for this. One of the good things he did was to decree that each man takes care of his own property. As for those passing by, woe to the litterbug who thinks he can get away with something. I wondered who maintained the grass and pastures bordering the autobahn and these village roads. There are no workmen out and about. We were soon to learn why.

When we got within artillery range of the units at the Chimsee, we hid the truck in the trees and Eric and I took to our bicycles. We had several days to get to Salzburg, plenty of time.

The closer we peddled toward Salzburg, the more we were seeing the influence of Mozart. Now the quaint hotels and businesses, those with broad sides presenting to the passer-by, are painted with breathtakingly beautiful murals depicting the muses. There are endless clouds, cherubim, and angels entangled in golden gossamer, resembling paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. No military scenery is to be seen here in these backwaters of the Reich. At times, the reference to Mozart and his music, and to his home in Salzburg some 60 miles further on, is less subtle. Occasionally, we see a giant grand piano or a violin with bow, treated with the same theme of celestial beings playing ethereal music on a canvas of wet stucco.

Eric was the first to comment concerning this paradox. Here are people capable of painting barns with Madonna and child en repose; and at the same time, they are responsible for the hellish scene at Buchanwald. It’s remembrance of things Buchenwald that jerks us up by our boot straps when the surroundings tend to lull us into some esoteric reverie. I couldn’t help but remember again the comment of Eisenhower’s about how our troops really never had anything against the Germans. They were just doing what Hitler made them do. It was all a rough game, but a game seemingly without hatred or rancor. It was, that is, before they saw or heard about the Buchenwald concentration camp. Then Muthausen and Dachau, and the others that added frosting to a ghoulish devil’s cake. And it instilled a latent zest for combat in many a borderline malingerer.

Fortunately, the War was winding down for the Germans. Fortunately, indeed, because Seventh Army supported overhead by squadrons of marauding aircraft spoiling for a fight, was shifting into an even higher gear. The Germans were completely worn out, while our troops were just getting their second wind.

We peddled along the back roads for a reason. These fighters are patrolling uninterrupted along the autobahn, and we are well inside their fire zone. They are hunters, hunting for anything German that moves. Occasionally, we watch as one peels off and comes down across the treetops. We can see clearly the anti-tank rockets slung under his wings. And occasionally, a gaggle in a rat race would buzz the countryside, looking for anything moving that is a challenging target. We watched three just this morning in trail. We decided they might be having a shooting contest where bets were on about who could knock over a haystack. The one who uncovered an artillery position won the bet. It was common practice in France to conceal anti-aircraft artillery inside fake haystacks. These young pilots had no doubt seen gun-camera movies of the sides of haystacks coming down, and the gunners running pell-mell across pastures, seeking cover where none existed, as high velocity machine guns and cannon shells sought out and destroyed their target in a flash. At any rate, it’s a scene to warm the cockles of any fighter pilot worthy of the name.

But for Eric and me, it’s anything but a game. Because, dressed as we are and on bicycles, we are the prey. They are hawks and we are rabbits. When surprised, we could easily have been the subject of some would-be ace’s description of how he chased two Germans. Then, demonstrating with his hands, he would show his friends at the bar that night how he strafed alongside the road–knowing our first instincts would be to take cover in the ditch in front of his guns.

Needless to say, our own aircraft were our worst enemy. We had planned on encountering enemy artillery. But there was none to be found.

There are sounds of exploding shells way off in the distance. But it’s only background noise–a kind of periodic crescendo to some staged Wagnerian opera, where reluctantly we are the principal players.

It was late afternoon. Neither of us was tired, but we were afraid. We wanted to draw the curtain on this drama until after the sun went down and we knew the hawks had retired for the night. But then the hellish-looking Northrup Black Widows came out with their radar. And low-flying Martin Mauraders, with their stubby wings and powerful engines, could be heard on the way to their targets. But so far, we had not been attacked. We figured they were after bigger fish, maybe a weary locomotive or a convoy struggling to make the dolomites and perceived safety.

You might well ask why the Germans put up little or no fighter opposition. If you’re curious, I should tell you it was all planned this way. Well into the air war, air staff reasoned the best way to eliminate German fighter superiority was to destroy the factories themselves. Then somebody got the idea that all machinery ran on ball bearings, so the main ball bearing factories at Schweinfurt were hit, with a staggering loss to our bomber groups. Then, when we lost even more aircraft due to their fighters and heavy concentration of anti-aircraft at Schweinfurt, another somebody came up with another solution. Instead of hitting the fighter factories, where they simply disbursed operations in some cases, and the ball bearing factories, where we realized they might have squirreled away enough for a dozen future wars, we changed tactics. Both strategic and tactical air power then went after oil refineries and transportation almost exclusively. That changed the complexion of the War overnight. Soon, most of their aircraft sat helplessly on the ground waiting for fuel that never came. And their trains were ideal targets made for low-flying fighters and medium bombers. They would skim along near the ground, while pouring cannon and rocket fire into the steam engines. A burst, and then a pull up to avoid fragments of steel from the exploding boilers. The only danger for them was staying too long on the target. Soon we dominated the air space, first over France and then over Germany.

General James Doolittle approved another tactic helping write fini to the Luftwaffe. Soon after he took command of Eighth Air Force in England, he authorized his fighters to leave off the escort of bombers and to roam out ahead of the bomber fleets. Our fighters caught the Germans, in many cases, trying to take off to engage our bombers. They destroyed hundreds, and then stayed on to strafe the remainder on the ground. Entire airdromes with their complement of aircraft were destroyed. Within a few months the sky was full of low-flying adventuresome boys, some no more than 21 years old, shooting up the German countryside unopposed. Now, there was no time for a siren warning to take cover. The fighters were on the hapless Germans immediately, and life became even more unbearable. By day, we devastated their larger cities with high-explosive bombs. And by night, they were rained on by the British dropping small white-phosphorous missiles; the ensuing firestorms resembling Dante’s Inferno. Then, just when the inhabitants thought they might have a brief respite, low-level fighters and fighter-bombers struck them. On top of it all were the ground forces. Attempting to keep up with Patton’s Third Army, they never let the enemy catch his breath. It was Patton’s policy never to allow them to rest and regroup. With no air support, the enemy moved from one disorganized retreat to the next, suffering a tremendous number of casualties, prisoners, and loss of badly needed equipment and material, until mercifully for him, it finally came to an end.

I estimated we were about 50 miles from Salzburg when we saw the first real signs of war. A panzer, with tread blown off and ravaged by fire, was skewed cross-wise in the road. The crew must have been incinerated immediately after encountering one of our fighters. As we cycled around it, we could plainly see the hole the armor-piercing rocket had made in the turret.

We had seen war before, and I thought the two of us were steeled against such scenes. But out here in this beautiful pristine Hanzel-and-Gretel-like garden, the hulk that was once a tank seemed so incongruent and out of place. It seemed bizarre and gut-wrenching, knowing what had happened to the crew inside.

The next village was the first, but it was not to be the last, where we noticed plain cloth at the windows instead of the usual curtains.

Throughout Germany, Belgium, and Holland, homes were decorated with hand-made lace curtains bordering the windows. It was as though some intramural contest was afoot to see which housewife could make the best and most unique lace curtains. The houses were constructed near the roads or the sidewalks in most cases. In Holland and Belgium, large bay windows beckoned the passer-by to observe the interior of the home. Each one was spic and span, as though it had recently been spring-cleaned. It was obvious the residents were proud of their homes and wanted everyone to observe family life within. This was the subject of much conversation, especially among G.I.’s who came from the back woods and the large industrial cities of America. The contrast in life styles was sobering, and tended to favorably change the opinion of many an American and British soldier who was seeing the people in Hitler’s Europe for the first time.

We had never been this close before to the Germans, and we were beginning to see them as fellow human beings who lived in families in homes, just as we did. Still, the specter of Buchanwald and the atrocities of the SS were not far from our minds. I kept wondering as we passed by a particularly cozy, family-oriented home if perhaps some SS Sturmbannfhurer might have lived there, and whether he might have had a hand in executing our prisoners and tens of thousands of innocent Russian civilians.

As I said, we had noticed a rather gray-looking cloth had replaced some of the front window curtains. Without thinking too much about it, we concluded they had taken down the curtains to preserve them from an advancing enemy. What better souvenir than hand-made German lace for one’s wife or mother? This is what we concluded, as we moved along. Now, as we stopped for a rest and a drink of water at a town faucet, it became even more noticeable. In this particular village all the front window curtains had vanished, and in their place was dingy cloth, obscuring the interior. A pillowcase was hanging from a makeshift pole, suspended from one of the upstairs windows. Then it dawned on us–these were bedclothes. They were tattletale gray, because they had no bleach. And they were not there to hide what was going on inside or to replace the curtains, as we first thought; they were hanging there as tokens of surrender. They were showing the white flag of surrender. Throughout all the villages, we were now seeing signs of universal surrender.

They must have gotten word of our approaching armies, and they had seen the remnants of their own in disorganized retreat and they had quit.

I was to find out later that the national radio was railing against those who were giving up or talking about doing so. In fact, Hitler, a few days ago, had his favorite general, General Fegelein, who would have became his brother-in-law, shot for counseling surrender for the good of the country and then attempting to leave Berlin. Now, regardless of the consequences, the citizenry of Germany were surrendering en masse.

A few miles farther down the road, we encountered our first deserting Wermacht infantry. They had thrown down their weapons and were in route-step home, wherever that might be. This was of no concern of ours, except they were clogging the road. Now we were seeing dead Germans, littering the sides of the road, victims of our strafing fighters. More burned-out tanks, trucks, and abandoned field pieces are to be seen strewn everywhere. Where a tank or truck had blocked the road, the next one had pushed it off to make way for the column behind.

Everywhere was refugees. And now the hawks could be heard overhead if not seen through the canopy of trees. The buzz of long-range Mustang engines, and occasionally the unique sound of twin Allison’s identified Lockheed Lightning’s, the aircraft the Luftwaffe called the fork tailed devils.

We are due in Salzburg in 48 hours. We figure we have plenty of time, although our progress has slowed almost to a walk. At one point we took the wrong road, which further delayed us. Road signs had been taken down in a futile effort to slow the coming Allied advance.

At one place we encountered a crush of civilians struggling to go somewhere else. Eric asked one of them pushing a wheelbarrow laden with her worldly goods if she knew how far it was to Salzburg. She replied with a blank stare that it was another 35 kilometers.

At the rate we are progressing, we won’t make it. We have to find a way to increase our speed.

We were briefed to go straight to a Hotel Imperial, someplace downtown. There we are to meet this American agent by the name of Ralph Wahl, who goes by his former name of Rolph Wahlmuller. We are to meet him in the basement at noon the day after tomorrow. I told Eric things were bound to change and there should be no problem. He asked me what we would do if we were further delayed and we missed him. I told him Wahlmuller had been instructed to stay put until we arrived. But I suspect he thinks I’m not all that sure of what I’m saying; I can tell by the expression on his face. We both know it will become a problem if he leaves without us, and we somehow fail to make contact. It could turn into an insurmountable problem and we both know it. What we intend to do about it, though, should be decided right now. But I’m reluctant to say anything, because I don’t know what to say.

It was soon after we passed through the next town that we saw tank tracks leading from the road across the green pastures into the trees beyond. We thought this would be a certain giveaway to our fighters. But then we saw more and still more. We decided it was an SS ploy to confuse them, since there couldn’t be that many panzers hidden in the trees. And we were right.

It was about an hour later; the road was thicker with civilians and deserting Wermacht than at any other time. Then we heard them before we saw them–a flight of P-47 Jugs, their barrel-shaped fuselages, stubby wings, and large round Pratt and Whitney engines, could be seen coming at us low across a field. We forgot our training not to take cover alongside the road. Lucky for us they were not after civilians; they began firing at a column of unseen SS panzers less than a hundred yards ahead of us.

When we scrambled for cover, we almost landed on a Wermacht soldier. We knew he was a deserter because he had thrown his rifle away, and he appeared to be as scared as we were. Eric made an attempt to talk to him: “Where are you coming from,” Eric asked. The reply he got was downright surly, and Eric became angry. Before I could stop him, he reached out and slapped the soldier hard across the mouth. Then he said something known only to the two of them. But I took it to mean he should keep a civilized tongue in his head if he didn’t want to be shot. The soldier was startled at the words as well as the blow. What kind of laborer would have the audacity to speak to a German soldier, let alone strike one?

“You are not conscripted labor,” he blurted out, “Who are you? You better tell me or I will cry out, and there are SS not far from here. You are spies, are you not? You better tell me!”

With that, Eric hit him again with his fist, making his nose bleed. This took all the fight out of him, if indeed, he had any left. Eric called him a deserter, and instead of bristling, as would a member of the SS, he cowered like a whipped dog. Then Eric surprised me again.

“Here,” he said, removing a large sausage from his coat pocket. He reached for a pocketknife and cut the guy off a large chunk and handed it to him.

He was obviously starving. He forgot us, his sore nose, the War, and everything around him as he devoured the meat. Eric watched until he had finished before speaking to him again. Then he apologized for not having any bread and wine to go along with it.

The soldier looked as though he was being kidded, which he was.

“Now,” Eric said, “tell me where you came from.”

The soldier answered by remarking that we were Americans. He said he knew this by Eric’s accent and by his largess. Here was an enemy soldier who was being fed. Nobody but an American would part with precious food along this road.

“Why did you say there were SS nearby. You were lying. If they knew you were here, they would shoot you on sight.”

The soldier never replied, but you could tell Eric was right by the expression on the soldier’s face. Eric explained to me what they had been talking about, and then asked me if there was anything I wanted to know.

“Yes,” I said, “ask him if there really is any SS in the area, and if so, where they are.” Before Eric could say anything, the soldier pointed toward Salzburg. It was obvious he could speak some English. As it turned out, he could speak quite well. He was an officer, who had switched uniforms with a dead member of his recent command. He told us this, as he spoke further about the whereabouts of the SS.

He said a column of SS panzers had overtaken his disorganized band of deserters. The tanks stopped long enough for a pee call and to mockingly ask them where they were headed. Before anybody could say anything, one of the tank officers sarcastically told them they were going the wrong way. He said the War was up ahead, toward Munich. He said there was only beer, schnapps, and the ladies where they were headed. Nobody smiled. The SS were never funny. With that last remark, the officer drew his Walther P-38 and shot the soldier standing next to our new guest. Before a member of the second tank could charge his Mauser, the deserting officer dove in front of the lead tank and then behind a tree. The column gunned their idling engines. They then turned and were starting to pull into the opposite field and disappear into the forest beyond. He said he heard machine gun rattle as they made ready to leave, and he suspected his group had all been killed. He said he was just now getting ready to go back to see if anybody was still alive when the American fighters attacked.

“Ask him if he lives around here. Ask him if he knows of another road to Salzburg that might not be so crowded.”

He said he was from a town a few more kilometers up ahead. He said there was a fork in the road. Not in the road exactly, but a kind of path leading from the promenade. He said we could make better time if we took it. He said it was unpaved and used mostly by townspeople who were traveling on foot and didn’t want to risk getting run over.

Most, if not all, of the towns of any size in Germany and Austria have a promenade street. Usually, it’s the second street over from the main drag. Vendors of all kinds have shops where they display their wares. Automobiles, for the most part, are verboten. This allows the townies to walk up and down on old bricks and worn cobble stones, conversing with their friends, and to just plain old-fashioned window shop, weather permitting.

I was most interested in this path and something else: I wanted to know how we could identify the exact location of the panzer unit that had deployed across the field. Our German said there was a hamlet up ahead with a large mural on the first building we came to. He said it was a portrait of a nature scene, with a lake and two deer. You couldn’t miss it, he said. But he had no idea what I had in mind.

I planned to contact Oddlie or Carl or both, and to tell them where the SS unit was located.

The officer told us the Tiger tanks were planning to zero in on this road with their .88’s, and that any of our advancing tanks and infantry would not have a chance. Now I had to raise somebody on our radio and let them know.

He told us he had been part of an anti-aircraft battery positioned just to the north of the Chimsee. His unit and one other had targeted the autobahn and this particular road. He said anything moving to this point would come under deadly fire from the panzer unit in the trees and his former unit’s artillery. But he said there was not much danger from the artillery, because they had run out of ammunition. They had been waiting for re-supply for two weeks. When they gave up all hope of getting more, most of them left.

I knew I had no business doing this. I knew, but I also knew I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t do something. So I took a chance. Not that much of a chance, really, since the SS were the only functioning military unit in the area. By now, I doubted there was any Wermacht artillery at the Chimsee. But our new friend thought there might be some. I doubted they were using the same crystals we used, even if they were there.

Since all our radios were electronically interconnected, and had been since the Louisiana Maneuvers before the War, thanks to George Patton, I knew any one of our radios picking me up could relay it on to Oddlie. He, of course, would pass it on to the right people who would, in turn, pass it on to Weyland's fighters and fighter-bombers. The reason I wanted to contact Oddlie and not Weyland directly was because neither Weyland nor Patch’s headquarters would react to a strange call coming in without a code word of the day. Oddlie knew who would be calling him, and he had the right connections to get the desired action.

The three of us moved hurriedly down the road, passed the dead Germans and three burning panzers. We were looking out at the trees, where the rest of the panzers had marked up the adjoining pasture, when we heard a roar of diesels firing up. All of a sudden, the panzers moved out of the trees, across the field, and back to the road. The German officer volunteered his opinion: The panzers, he said, suspected the P-47’s had been low on fuel and had made only one pass at them before breaking off the attack. But they and others would return. He said the panzer commander wanted to move a couple of miles down the road and into another copse while he still had the chance.

Whether the panzers expected to survive long, once they began firing at our people moving up this same road, was anybody’s guess. Again, I was struck with the feeling they were fighting a delaying action. They were stalling for time. I figured they were going to expend as much ammunition against our people as they could. When Weyland’s fighters started unleashing their rockets, they would move further into the trees on foot. They would return when the fighters left and begin to shell the road again. For how long they would continue to do this, I had no idea. But up the road, our German told me, another unit would start it all over again. The SS, it was now apparent, intended to defend Berchtesgaden while fighting a delaying action. At least they intended to apply stiff resistance at specific points for a specific time. That was my opinion and the German officer’s as well.

I made a call, and picked up Carl after a few tries. I told him what was going to happen and where. I told him about the artillery at the Chimsee. I specifically warned him to tell the Air Corps not to attack the panzers now but to wait. I wanted them to wait until O’Daniel’s units reached this point. And here the German earned his piece of sausage and another. He knew how far we were from the next town. He knew the name and a couple of more checkpoints that would help our people in identifying the panzers before they started shooting.

Carl passed on the information and then got back. He said Patch’s headquarters, actually his corps commander, General Devers, had new orders for me. At first, Devers was confused as to who we were. Then he told Carl to have us stay put. He told him nothing was more important than for us to stay where we were and to spot for the Air Corps. He said he would have an infantry division, supported by tanks, at our present location in four or five days’ time. Carl was smart enough to tell the General he didn’t know who called him, and that he was not sure of his own position. I guess a court-martial was the last thing from his mind. I suppose he had a decision to make, Carl I mean; he had a choice of a medal or several million dollars in SS gold. It was no choice at all. He already had a handful of medals.