The First Time I Saw Paris by Norman Spivock

Then there was Siefert, from my company but not my platoon. One night, just after our arrival, he was on guard duty, the worst of all duties. Guard duty was a twenty-four-hour detail. You had to stand guard at your post for two hours on and four hours off, times four shifts. Each post had a number, and if you needed assistance, you called for the corporal of the guard. Private Siefert was on guard duty shortly after we arrived at Camp Lucky Strike when he suddenly called for the corporal of the guard. It seems Siefert had been constipated from the day we left the States, during the entire voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, and through the first day at camp. While on guard duty his body signaled to him that state of affairs was about to end. He urgently called to be relieved of his post, to relieve himself of other matters. Unfortunately, the relief from the corporal of the guard arrived too late and the relief of other matters arrived too soon. Siefert's problems were compounded by the lack of laundry facilities, which had not yet been set up.

Every day, each man got a canteen cup full of hot water to be used, in sequence, for cleaning teeth, washing face, then washing maybe socks and underwear, and finally for shaving. That is, we were to use the water for what needed the most sanitary water first, then on down the line through what dirties the water the least for its next use. You now understand Siefert's laundry problem. Shoes were another problem we all had. Leather shoes are not generally waterproof, so we were issued shoe dressings intended to make them so. Many a night some guys would sit around the potbellied stove, softening the waterproofing substance on the stove, and then forcing it into the leather and seams of their boots. Despite our efforts, we got mild touches of trench foot, a condition named after the afflictions soldiers got from standing in the trenches in World War I. I even developed a touch of it in my big toes, which became numb. It took several months for them to recover.

While on a hike (of which we had many), I encountered another economist's delight. We entered a little town where we got a rest break. A Frenchman wanted a cigarette and happily offered one egg for one cigarette. Within two hours, the price had gone up till he begrudgingly offered one egg for a full pack of cigarettes, and he got takers.

But there was a war going on, and we were to get personally involved. We were sent to the front by rail in "forty and eights," which are French railroad boxcars with letters on the exterior specifying that the car can carry forty men or eight horses, although we Americans luxuriated by assigning only thirty-two men to a car. It is not a means of travel I would recommend, even to the adventurous.

We arrived somewhere. In the movies, it seems even the lowliest private is aware of the entire situation as much as the commander in charge. Not so. Someone would say, "We are in Luxembourg," and we would all believe him. If we were in Luxembourg, it was a place where the streets were paved with mud. As at Camp Lucky Strike, the mud was two inches thick. No respite from the trench foot conditions.

Our division moved about a lot, being transferred from the command of one general to another, finally ending up in Patton's army. We had truly interesting times, such as crossing the Rhine. The river had already been crossed by troops to the north, as they had captured the bridge at Remagen.We were a few miles to the south, at St. Goar, and had to fight our way by rowing little assault boats across the Rhine to St. Goarshausen, directly opposite. We would have preferred to have detoured and taken the bridge, but our vote didn't count. It was rumored (and you never knew which rumors, if any, were true) that St. Goar is where Hitler kept his yacht, and we had just captured it. Could be.

The night before the expected battle to cross the Rhine, many of the religious among us attended services. For my part, I located a foxhole (left by a German, I assumed) I intended to use if we were attacked. I hoped it had not been booby trapped that would set off if I jumped in. I decided to check it out with just my hand. I started, as I normally would, with my right hand but, on reflection, decided that if I were to have a hand blown off, I would rather it be my left one. So I gingerly checked it out with my left hand. There was no trap, and I still have my left hand.

In our infantry battalion, there were four companies: three were foot soldiers with rifles, while the fourth was the heavy weapons company with thirty-millimeter, water-cooled machine guns. I was with the machine guns. Our assignment was to set up our machine gun on the top floor of the City Hall, overlooking the river. We could see our buddies crossing in assault boats, each boat carrying about fifteen men.

To my right, upstream, was a rock called the Lorelei (we were told) where a German twenty-millimeter cannon was posted. Across the river, the bank was lined with a stone wall, about fifteen feet high and running the length of the town, which bent away from us to accommodate a stream joining the Rhine. To the left of that junction, in front of the wall, was a sand beach running a few feet out from and along the wall and extending upstream and out of sight. That little beach was where the assault boats headed. The soldiers disembarked there, then sprinted over the beach, up the stream, and out of sight.

Because of a bend in the river, the twenty-millimeter German cannon could fire on the boats only after they had passed the half-way mark. A mortar hit and destroyed one boat and all aboard. After that, the mortar was put out of action. The German cannon fired unsuccessfully. We watched as each boat rowed its way across the river to land on the little beach. Upon leaving the boat, the soldiers would run, one at a time, along the wall and up the creek to safety, out of our sight. The cannon finally settled on that run as its shooting gallery. It was like the ones in a carnival, except our soldiers were the targets, running from the boat, along the wall, and upstream along the little beach to safety, while the German gunnerstried to time the arrival of their shots to hit them.

One soldier, while making his run over the beach, had his helmet knocked off by a bullet from the cannon. (Why didn't he have his chin strap fastened?) Who would stop in the middle of a shooting gallery to pick up something? To our dismay, he did. Just as he turned back a step to get his helmet, a burst of bullets hit where he would have been had he not stopped. He hesitated a moment, then again ran for safety. Just after he took his first step forward, a burst of bullets again hit the spot he had just left. He safely disappeared from our view. Had he been hit, he would have been the only one hit on that run.

<< Back | Next