Nigel Cawthorne (13 page)

I pushed my assault gun up against the open door of the shack and cried: ‘Hands up!’ No reaction. I looked into the shack and recognized American luggage and equipment. At the side, there was a bench with a box full of roasted cutlets on it. It was noon and I was hungry. With a cutlet in hand, I went round the corner with the intention of giving a sign to come to my comrades. At that moment, an American came out of the door, just two metres away. I shot from the hip – but I remember seeing the Yank pulled his gun as well … It was dark when I recovered consciousness. My hands and feet were cold. I slowly remembered what had happened and felt around. Next to me, lay someone else. I touched his face. It was as cold as ice. The American lay next to me and was dead. I thought: ‘You must go to the barn. There are straw and covers.’ I dragged myself along … I found something smooth – coverlets. I covered myself and sank again into unconsciousness. When my coverlets were torn away, I awoke. Three Americans stood in front of me, their guns aimed at me. It was day. When the Yanks recognized that I was heavily wounded, they dropped their guns and emptied my pockets. I noticed that my wallet and paybook were already missing. Later I came to the conclusion that my comrades had decided I was dead and took my things. The Americans had a chat, then they carried me to the kitchen, covered me with a coverlet, took a chair and put chocolates and biscuits on it. Then they disappeared. I tried to eat a piece of chocolate, but found I could not bite it. I touched my face, felt encrusted blood and pappy meat. Only now did I really understand that I had got a serious shot to my head. I got a fever and had fantastic visions. It became dark, then it was dawn again. In my visions, I thought I had been lying there for eight days. If no one found me I would die of hunger and thirst. I started to pray and cried for my mother. But suddenly I awoke. Outside there was the bark of a machine-gun and I heard German combat cries. I got up and rushed outside. The dead American was still there. I fell down, crawled along and cried: ‘Medic! Medic!’ … They took me to an evacuation hospital at Bitburg. We lay there in emergency beds in the corridor, Germans and Americans side by side … One day there was a bomb attack. Window glass broke. The plaster burst from the walls and ceiling. We were seized with panic. A leg amputee slid downstairs and cried … Later I learned that my company had been annihilated.

I heard another round of American shells approaching. Instinctively I threw myself down, and so did my messenger. There was the noise of explosions in the tree tops overhead, and I felt a hard blow against my upper left arm. Fumbling about, I felt a hole in the sleeve of my camouflage jacket above the elbow. We got up to have a closer look and I felt blood running down my arm under the jacket and along my hand. I told the sergeant of C Company who had made me familiar with the situation that I had been wounded and that he would have to lead the company temporarily. I and my wounded messenger would walk to the battalion’s dressing station … We were immediately taken care of by the battalion’s doctor, and I went to Major Ripcke to advise him of the situation at C Company and of our injuries.

When the morning came, I asked the battalion’s doctor to arrange for the transportable wounded to be transferred back to the regimental aid post as soon as possible … Those able to walk or limp went on foot, while the rest were carried on stretchers. As I had lost plenty of blood, the doctor had given instructions to move me on a stretcher … Then we approached the place where the artillery fire had been heavier the night before … I ordered the transport to stop and explained to all the soldiers that it was now essential to cross this section as fast as possible after the next burst of fire … I ran, holding the side of the stretcher for support … I immediately went to the regiment’s command post to inform Colonel Lemcke of my injury. He gave instructions to get his car ready to have me and my wounded messenger taken to the central dressing station … I asked the corporal of the regimental staff to get my American kitbag from the company HQ where I kept my ‘treasures’ – such as my American quilt, coffee rations, US food rations, cigarettes and the like, all things from US supplies.

On the way to the central dressing station of 12th Volksgrenadier Division, we had again to pass the street crossing under American fire. This little game had become routine work to the driver. When we entered the central dressing station of the 12th VGD, we heard that it was being transferred to another place and that wounded could only be taken in the following day … We moved on to the rear and, some time later, passed the central dressing station of the Waffen-SS. My upper arm was bandaged and the medical orderly had said that medical treatment was a matter of extreme necessity … A doctor took care of us immediately. After he had taken off the bandage and examined the wound, he said that it looked rather bad and that an X-ray examination and an operation were needed. I was so thoroughly down that I took only a weak interest in this. Before I was undressed I asked that all my belongings be put in my American kitbag after wounded soldiers had told me things were stolen at dressing stations and military hospitals … Some time later I was given an injection which carried me into the land of dreams. When I woke up, I found myself back on a stretcher in the corridor. Jackboots passed in front of my eyes. I dozed off a few times, before I realized where I was. My first reaction was to grab for my left arm to find out what had been done for my injury. Horrified I found that there was a dressing, but no arm. It came like a blow that I realized that due to the shell splinter I had lost my left arm. In a way, I refused to believe that this was so, because up to then I had still been able to move the fingers of my left hand … I feel certain that, had I only been treated at the division’s dressing station, my arm would not have been amputated.

After I had mentally overcome the fact of this arm amputation, my life spirit woke up again. I remembered my wristwatch which I had on my left arm, so I asked a medical orderly to have a look at the severed limbs to find my watch. He returned some time later to tell me that the watch was in the left breast pocket of my tunic, the doctor had told him. I asked him to open the kitbag beside me and to find the watch. He found the watch, closed the kitbag and with a feeling of relief I fell into sleep again …

I and some other wounded were placed on a lorry which was cushioned with straw bags, and we were taken to the rear area. The journey seemed endless, the roads became worse and worse, and the bumping of the lorry became more violent and more frequent. The wounded beside me groaned more often, and later started yelling with pain. I called for the medical orderly who was sitting beside the driver, but he showed no reaction. Only after I threatened to fire my pistol into the driver’s cabin, the lorry stopped. The orderly told me that the driver was lost. I told him to stop at the next dressing station and to have the heavily wounded taken care of.

After a few kilometres we arrived at an SS dressing station close to the front line … Artillery fire could be heard and we used an empty food tin to urinate. Beside me was an American second lieutenant lying on a stretcher. He received the same treatment as us and was looked after by the nurse. My dressing was renewed … Although the nurse did her job with extreme care – almost with tenderness – I was beginning to see stars. When the doctor noticed this, he gave me a glass of brandy which helped. As soon as a fresh supply of petrol arrived, we were taken to a military hospital on the Rhine. From there a hospital train carried me to a general hospital at Oberfrohna near Dresden.

‘Thank God,’ exclaimed the gunners. ‘This is an end to the constant bumming around.’ … During the inspection, the soldiers find that the spirit bubbles are missing from both guns. ‘These idiots,’ yells
Stabsgefreiter
Ide, ‘that is sabotage.’ Without the spirit bubbles the guns cannot be regulated vertically or horizontally. It is a great pity for all the money spent on the guns. The missing spirit bubbles that cost only a few marks make the guns useless. This makes front-line soldiers lose their courage to see things through. Another reason for cursing the whole war. But what is the use of that for ordinary soldiers. They have to continue holding out their neck for the fatherland.

While our batteries had to cadge for a couple of shells, the enemy supply units drove to their vast supply depots and woe betide the depot commander if he failed to make the required quantities available at once. Where our gunners fired 100 shells, 2,000 shells were fired back from the other side and what we called co-ordinated fire was normal harassing fire in the eyes of our opponents … From morning till evening American fighter-bombers dominate the sky, firing at anything that moved, no matter whether a vehicle or a single man. Only full cover and not the slightest movement ensured survival. In addition bomb carpets are dropped by small units of 20 to 30 four-engined aircraft on recognized troop concentrations.

During the night before 13 January 1945, the Americans shot as much as they can. The shells fell within the German lines. There was a hell of a noise. The soldiers were lying underneath the tanks or have found shelter elsewhere. The Americans want to fire a lane into the German front in order to get east faster. Someone screams: ‘Enemy tanks.’ Everyone shoots as much as they can … The night is as light as day because of the exploding shells. Everybody is nervous. A German tank drives over a poor soldier. Some soldiers lie in the trench and lower their heads. Though all the rattling and cracking, Paul suddenly hears a scream. He turns around and sees one of our own tanks standing in front of him. It had driven right over the legs of some poor fellow. Half an hour later the uproar is over. It gets quiet again. Carefully, everybody who is still alive crawls out of the foxholes. The wounded are bandaged and carried off. The other soldiers inspect the whole area. Behind a hedge eight killed Americans are lying … The dead are searched for something to eat. The soldiers are always hungry and the supply does not work at all. Regular meals have been a thing of the past for some time. Whoever finds anything eats it. The Americans had enough on them. Dry bread, tins of all kinds and even toilet paper are in the combatants’ packages.

A direct hit struck the command and reconnaissance vehicle. Three men were killed at once. Private First Class Kessler was alive, but shaken. He stood there white as a sheet. Death can pass you by so fast.

The command and reconnaissance car was at the crossroads. The three dead soldiers were lying next to it. Han said, after he saw his killed comrades: ‘They have had an easy death. Nobody had to suffer.’ Shell splinters had cut off the head of Master Sergeant Preiss … He was a good guy, but that does not count in a war. Corporal Wachter’s head was smashed and there were lots of holes in his coat. The man had a foreboding about his fate … On the night before, he had said: ‘I will not see my family again, nor my Saxon home.’ ‘Why should you not survive the war? We all still have this hope at least,’ Paul interposed. ‘No, I can feel it.’ ‘It will turn out all right,’ said another soldier. ‘No, not for me,’ was his point of view. He survived this discussion by a few hours.

There was no time to mourn. The very next moment shell fire may start and then there would be even more dead and wounded … In a small village graveyard the three soldiers dig a grave. They put the dead into it and have a short memorial. More ceremonies are not foreseen for front-line soldiers. The soldiers shovel earth back into the grave and the war continues … One less day at the front. But how much is one day?

The beaten troops move though a wood on the hillside. Suddenly, enemy tanks appear on the opposite slope. The soldiers move further into the woods where they will be fairly safe. At least the infantrymen think so, but it is a mistake. As soon as all the German soldiers are in the woods the shell fire starts. Screaming and crying for help is all over … Second Lieutenant Fetten and Paul walk along a farm path. Then there is a terrible crack close by and everything is over. How long the two of them lay on the ground they could not tell. Paul hears the second lieutenant calling: ‘Lange, Lange, do help me. It has knocked off my leg.’ Paul struggled to his feet. He was hurt too … The boy takes out of his coat pocket the extra leather belt he carried for the purpose and ties it tightly around the right leg just below the knee … Perhaps the belt will save the life of the young second lieutenant…

‘I cannot carry you any further,’ said Paul. ‘I am quite hurt myself.’

‘No, just see to it you get away. I shall try to crawl to the village. Here I would freeze to death,’ said the lieutenant.

Paul tried to get up and follow the other soldiers, but the front part of the shoe on his right foot is not under his control. The foot must be shot to pieces. There is no time to have a look at it and there is no medic available. Everyone is fleeing. After a few hundred metres, Paul throws away his gas mask, steel helmet and field bag. Everything is just too heavy. Since getting wounded he has not seen his rifle and has not even thought of it. A few soldiers take him and he puts his arms around their shoulders. Then they march on towards the next village. An SS unit is posted there … As soon as all the wounds are dressed, Paul hobbled to a straw bed to wait … The medics left him, saying that he will be picked up in the evening. If it is the Germans that come, everything is okay. Should the Americans come and find him, it cannot be helped either.