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Don Bennett's War

Chapter 26 - SS Armored Division

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The next day was foggy but not too foggy to see the notches in the trees next to the road in which set charges of dynamite. The enemy had left before they had a chance to set off the dynamite, thus blocking the road to vehicles. That night a favorable situation must have developed for we were called on to execute a forced march to a town 12 miles away. As we came close to the town, we could see that it was on fire. We never knew who set the town on fire, our artillery or the Germans themselves. We passed through the town and holed up for a few hours in an untouched building.

We were on our way again the next day, hot on the trail of a SS armored division. Toward evening we paused just back of a brow of a hill while some observers went ahead to look for the Krauts. They could see quite a distance as we were in open country now - clear fields on rolling hills. At dusk we moved down a trail toward a town. While passing a house, a Frenchman came out and started offering us drinks out of a bottle in his hand. I thought it was water and took a glass, and downed in on the run. I caught my breath a half mile down the road. this water was schnapps. As we came into town a farm courtyard, a woman gave us apples about the size of apricots. It was probably all she had. We met one of our tank forces in the town and spent the night and the next day reorganizing and begging food off the tanks, we got some, too! The tank force had moved out two hours before we arrived, and left a detail to delay us. Most of these were captured without too much of a fight and we had about thirty prisoners to guard for the night. Our squad had that job and we took turns (by twos) guarding them. I guarded by the door while another guarded those by the front room of the house. When more prisoners were brought, I stripped them of all weapons and possible weapons. I got a watch for a souvenir off one of them. One prisoner tried to escape out a window - he got out and a few steps away from the building before the other guard shot him. We got a scare when some figures started moving down the street. I held my rifle ready to fire, but as they came close, they put their hands over their heads and yelled "prisoner". When we two were relieved of guard duty, we were told to go down the street and pick up five prisoners. We cautiously moved down the dark street, keeping an eye out for any Germans, found the prisoners, and brought them back without trouble, and went down another street to where our platoon was resting in a house occupied by two nuns and two children. We had breakfast and moved out at dawn. We learned later that the Germans zeroed in on that house a couple hours after we left, reducing it to shambles, killing the nuns and children and also some officers from regimental headquarters who had moved up there.

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