- Encounters With The Wehrmacht
-
- By December of '44, the Kommandos
had fought their way into Germany. Then,
- during the battle of the Ardennes Bulge, we were
pulled back and rushed to be in
- reserve just south of this big action, there to spend
Christmas. By spring, Company
- K had fought through Pfaffenhoffen and was poised as
a task force out of
- Bouxwiller to penetrate the Siegfried Line. In this
fighting, an armored force
- cut the highway on which a horse-drawn mountain
artillery division was retreating.
- Caught on the road between two armored
forces, they abandoned their equipment
- and hid in the surrounding woods until they saw the opportunities to
surrender. Following
- this period, the Kommandos made a second entry into the
"Fatherland". So it continued
- until we turned south through the French Alps mountains following
the retreating German
- armies into Austria.
- Recalling how Austria had
been taken over by Germany with no shots fired, we
- wondered what reception we would get from the
citizens of this battered country who had
- inadvertently become a supporting part of Hitler's
crusade into Russia.
- We had come down from the
snows of the Alps into warm, spring-like Innsbruck.
- Outside that city, a very special sight awaited our
war-wearied eyes, a Nazi airfield with a
- scattering of German jet fighter craft and light
bombers on the runways, out of fuel, and most
- of them sabotaged before being abandoned, like
broken toys.
- At Innsbruck, the city of
winter sports, we turned northeast, going parallel with
- the Inn River. Company K was part of a task
force riding on tanks and armored
- vehicles along the Inn Valley of Austria, pursuing
the remnants of Hitler's Wehrmacht.
- We stayed on the main highway and if there was no
military resistance, we would
- often go through the smaller towns without pausing.
The task force roared onward,
- expecting follow-up troops to deal with any hiding
German troops and other
- residual problems. Sometimes at the outer edges of
the waving crowds were men
- in military uniforms with no visible weapons, some
waving with the others.
- Finally came "That Most
Welcomed" day, when the word came down that
- Germany had surrendered making the European war
officially over and we
- were to cease all military action. So we found houses
to stay in, enjoyed real baths,
- laundered our clothes and waited for the next thing
to happen, hopefully going home.
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