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    Luck was with me the other day when I spied an Armed Services edition of "The Collected Stories of Thomas Mann." To my mind, he is unsurpassed and unrivaled and these stories are his most polished gems. "The Magic Mountain" and the "Joseph" series were too metaphysical for me and in them I could only appreciate the smooth, rippling style – the superb description of scenes and clothes and the masterly character delineation. But in these shorter pieces he has not probed too deeply. What is even more remarkable is that such a man, so impassioned with the world of senses, so profoundly concerned with the inner spirit and soul, can write charmingly of his dog and still maintain the velvety cascade of words. His description of the manner in which strange dogs meet – the whys and wherefores of their sniffings – is at once simple and vividly beautiful. I commend the collection to you and if you need an appetizer for inducement, read "Mario and the Magician" in Fadiman’s "Readings I’ve liked."

    I read and enjoyed "Story of the Secret State" but was shocked immeasurably by the author’s eyewitness account of the Nazi extermination of Polish Jews. How can men become so bestial, so indifferent to suffering and death? Over here we do become callous to death, we see it in so many shapes and forms and so often. Yet it is a self-imposed skin-deep callousness. For instance, the other day several of us were walking past a dead German soldier and I remarked, "You know, he loved life like we do; loved women, jokes, home and firesides." At the time I thought this had gone unnoticed but today one of my then companions repeated it to me, showing that he was inwardly moved although outwardly callous. For all the dead Americans I have seen, I can never help but feel a strong, wrenching inside when I pass another body, yet I doubt that anyone near me senses my feelings. To that extent and for that purpose we dope ourselves. But in the concentration and extermination camps there seems to be nothing of the sort. If there isn’t a positive enjoyment, a sadism, there is at least no repulsion. Nor has it been born of desperation or inflamed vindication. No, I cannot understand it.

* * *

    I was trying to tingle my frozen feet by kicking them up against my tank when an infantry column went by. One doughboy was carrying the base plate of a 3-inch mortar weighing 42 pounds and another, ammo weighing 45 pounds. I looked at the hill they had just mounted, at the slush and their mud-caked boots. I looked at one frail, bespectacled, sensitive little fellow who held his rifle at high port, for some 200 yards ahead there were Heines. In civilian life, no doubt, he had punched an adding machine in a nice warm office. His thin legs were covered with muck. As he went by, I grinned and said, "Rugged go, huh Mac!" and he responded with congenial determination. The next night we bivouacked in a woods. It was bitter cold, wet and the wind was biting. I was cursing war, Hitler and everything else and climbed out of the tank to confer with a doughboy who had dug in some 10 yards away. Our shells and Heine shells were whistling overhead and nothing is more devastating than a tree burst. The doughboys had their uniforms and two blankets for all four – nothing else. They were climbing into their foxholes, on the bottom of each were puddles of water. Nevertheless, they were cheerful snuggling into them as though they were as dry, warm and commodious as featherbeds. And yet I have heard where some begrudge the infantry man’s $10 combat pay! In these few incidents I have related, there is no description of the blood of actual battle. They are, rather, descriptions of the less perilous life of a combat doughboy. Bow down to him and praise him.

* * *

    The Christmas season remains the time of year when mothers and wives are the most lonesome and when soldiers are the most homesick. This deplorable, heartrending, miserable mess that now embroils the world could be permanently put to sleep if the good that is inspired in us by Christmas were to become a daily habit instead of an annual celebration.

* * *

I have not a great deal of respect for Bernard DeVoto and certainly sided with Sinclair Lewis and Van Wyck Brooks in their recent fracas with him. But occasionally he turns out a beautiful essay such as the one in the Harper’s you sent me in which he writes of the Boston race riots, Governor Saltonstall’s Pontius Pilate reactions thereto and prayers in church for the D-Day soldiers. One paragraph reads:

    "I think we need Christian pastors who believe the Christian doctrine of the nature of man. Or else we need Governors who believe the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. Each is as hard as stone – as the stone which will be set in public buildings and memorial churches and carved with the names of men who died while we knelt to pray for them. Their blood will cry out to us from the ground unless, absolutely and with no exception whatsoever, we prevent the staining of the ground of any American town with the blood of anyone who happens to differ in faith or race from the majority of that town."

    As you can readily tell, we are not in contact with the enemy all the time but when we are, dramatic incidents occur which, since I was involved and remained unscathed, probably would interest you. Let me relate one of them that occurred in the Bulge. The town of Oberwampach is in a valley between two hills, on each of which is a road. Oley’s and my tanks were located on one of those roads near the crest of the hill and adjacent to two houses in which a squad of infantry was quartered. We had pulled into this position late at night and throughout the night we could hear German tanks on the other hill across the valley. When dawn came we could see no Heine vehicles but could spot some men in foxholes. These were quickly put out of action by our artillery. Things quieted down and we assumed the enemy had "parteed" – an oft-used word stemming from the French word partir – when a forward observer spotted some Heines trying to set up mortar in a woods on the right of us in the valley. Artillery laid down on them and so did Oley. Suddenly Oley yelled, "Tanks, Johnny! – Heine tanks! Get the artillery." One of the houses blocked my view but I shouted to the telephone man in the house and, as I did, saw Oley’s tank belching out armor-piercing – AP – shells. I was about to try to maneuver my tank into a position so that I could help in the action when I spied a number of German infantrymen, in white camouflage uniforms, surging through the valley. They were clay pigeons for my tank’s co-axial .30 caliber machine gun and I could even see their bewilderment as Tom, my gunner, fired into them. Naturally I was focusing all my attention on the Germans and helping Tom guide into them. It was pure luck that caused me, for some reason, to look back up to my left toward the crest of our hill. Tom claims that I first yelled, "Oh, my God!" but at any rate I did shout HE – high explosives – and grabbed the power traverse switch to turn my turret and the gun barrel around to the left. For bearing down on us – and at the time I saw him not 40 yards away – was a Heine half-track with a German officer crouched on its hood, hand grenade in hand. The power traverse worked, my loader was quick in getting the HE shell in, and Tom was accurate both with our cannon and machine gun. In not more than 15 seconds the half-track had been put out of commission – the Ober-Lieutenant had only suffered relatively minor shell-fragment wounds – and the Heines’ hands were up in the air. In no time at all I was out of my tank and, carbine in hand, waved the German crew into the house where the infantry was. That was the most intense moment we had but for the next two days we had to deal with more counterattacks. My memories of that time are fitful sleeping, constantly disturbed by one of my crew shaking me and whispering, "Here they are again," and then long periods of listening and watching and occasionally seeing and shooting.

* * *

 

    Rather a disjointed affair, this letter. But all goes well. My driver had to go back for some tonsil treatment but according to a letter I just received from him, is on his way back and our crew will once again be intact – and a damn good crew it is. In the past fighting there was a moment when it looked like it was the end. But to a man the entire crew stood stalwart and ready without one "Let’s get out of here," as is so frequently called out in other tanks. No, they were all ready to take on whatever was coming and to give it everything they had! I love them all.

    We pulled into a yard the other night which was part of a large estate and, pointing out where I wanted the tanks located, I rushed to the big, atrociously gingerbreaded mansion to grab room for our crew. There is always keen, and sometimes bitter, competition between the doughboys and ourselves for sleeping quarters. I was first to go into the mansion and, passing through a long, dark corridor, on the left side of which were doors opening into, in turn, a library, a salon and music room, I spotted a light beaming under a closed door on the right and immediately opened it. There, in what appeared to be a butler’s pantry, sat the household at dinner. Usually the household greets us at the doorway and follows, with expostulations and gestures, as we search for good rooms to sleep in and a stove to cook on. But not this household, for here was aristocracy – here was a Von something or other. An almost too lovely wife of, say, 30 years, rigged up in a most attractive skiing costume, with white socks topping long dark blue knickers and her hair – burnished gold – held in a hair net – quasi-page boy style. A tall Heidelberg-scarred husband, also in knickers, who might as well have had a monocle in his eye – ugly, anemic and Prussian. And the grande-dame with high neckchoker and gray hair in a net – tall and willowy with sunken cheeks. Picture it then. I am unshaven, dirty, with begrimed uniform, and have an M-3 sub-machine gun, all set to fire, laying across my right arm. They are eating off linen, with silver and candlesticks. Their attitude revealed the unspoken "Well, here it is now – remember we are proud, unashamed and unbent." The matriarch nodded in a queenly fashion and said, "Good evening." I inquired, "Do you speak English?" "Not well," she replied without falter. "I stayed with a friend in England for six months about 20 years ago. I believe I can converse with you." The first round was hers, walking away. I was momentarily the servant. But from there on I took over when I realized that here were the real, evil Germans and their wealth, culture and position should not entitle them to one whit better treatment than the average German. I announced, "We will cook and eat in this room right away and will sleep in the rooms across the hall. All of you will immediately prepare to stay in the cellar, if there is one."

    She was astute enough to know that any protesting words or gestures would be futile and complied with, "Very well." I am sorry to report that my fellow tankers were deferentially impressed and only by pressing the issue did I stop them from cleaning the dishes we used and let our "hosts" clean them, as has every other household in the past. Now don’t think I sat and watched these haughty people soil their hands with a smirch on my face.

* * *

    Mr. Roosevelt’s death was a shattering blow particularly since President Truman is so patently a mediocrity. But he possesses much honest competence and we have in past history many instances of where responsibility has broadened and enlarged a man. It is too early to estimate FDR’s niche in history but it is certain that it will be eminent and enduring. Nothing has convinced me more of this than the tribute paid him by the French, English, Russians, Poles, Slavs, et al we have liberated. Certainly it is not just because he was President of the U.S. that to a man all honor him as best they can with gestures and a mixture of various languages. One Frenchman asked me who was President now. I told him and added, "Not so good as Roosevelt." He responded fervently, "Nevaire, Nevaire! One so good as Roosevelt."

* * *

    You would be hard put to accurately imagine my present position. I am sitting in the front seat of our command jeep. Straight in front of me is a typical road in this area, saturated with running mud and water, all of which collects in the various bomb and shell craters that have scarred the road. Until yesterday the ever present dead horses and cows were splattered about, but under the direction of an MP these were buried by a group of closely guarded, undistinguished civilians. What is passing on this road? Let’s list the vehicles as they splash by: 1) a jeep with a trailer packed full with 5-gallon water cans; 2) an empty 2½ ton truck; 3) an ambulance with a mud-bespattered red cross; 4) a jeep with a .30 caliber machine gun mounted with a major in the front seat; 5) a 2½ ton truck loaded with ammunition; 6) more non-descript jeeps; 7) a jeep with 4 MPs in it; 8) a long Tom battery (155 millimeter); 9) a jeep spreading telephone wire; 10) a ¾-ton truck packed with "C" rations and thus a characteristic road in liberated Germany for five minutes. It illustrates, as much as anything could, the vast and complicated war machine. Except for the long Tom battery, all vehicles had different destinations but to the same units. To sit here and watch these seemingly uncoordinated units go by makes one feel that there could not possibly be a guiding hand – a Headquarter brain – and yet there is. When our ammunition runs low, our trucks get up to us – come hell or high water; when our radios get fuzzy or out of tune, there comes Corporal Wilke, our radio man, in a jeep; when our store of rations in the tank becomes low, up comes a 2½ ton truck with rations; our engine misses or we throw a track or we get stuck or we get knocked out and in a short while there comes the maintenance crew fixing what can be fixed, salvaging what can be salvaged.

* * *

 

    We were in the process of taking a fair-sized town in which we had found little resistance. Oh, there was an occasional sniper from a window which forced us to throw several rounds into some of the houses and we spotted a Heine column of some 20 infantrymen retreating over a hill in the distance. But nothing else. Our tanks clanked through the streets, with the infantrymen riding on them. I noticed the door of a house begin to open and the face of a young man appeared. Instantly he beamed and turned with a beckoning gesture to his rear. At once, a little waif of a young woman – say 22 years – came out. She was thin and had an impish face which obviously never concealed emotions. The man pointed to our tank and the girl stared unbelievingly at us for a few seconds. She suddenly screamed "Viva! Viva!" clasped her hands together and then threw them outstretched heavenward. She babbled and punctuated each new burst of emotion by throwing her arms around the young man. Then started the frenzied throwing of kisses and mad dancing around like Ophelia, as we moved past and out of sight. Whether she was French or Polish or, perhaps, a German Jew, I do not know but it made me tingle all over to know that I had assisted in liberating her.

* * *

    I don’t believe I ever told you about "Brooklyn." At one of our tight spots, we shared a room with an infantry squad, all of the members of which we got to know quite well. One was "Brooklyn," obviously from Brooklyn. One night he mentioned having written a song for his C.O. and with little urging sang it for us, with a song plugger’s voice and style – like Irving Berlin or even Eddie Cantor.

    "Good," I applauded and it really was, "let’s hear some more of your stuff."

    Here was an extrovert of the first order and for a half-hour he stood in the middle of a Heine kitchen singing his songs and telling the story behind each with a smart vaudevillian patter. I began to doubt whether all these songs were his and told him so. At once he asked me the name of my girl – which I faked – and my home town. Not five seconds later, he was singing a catchy ditty about me, the girl, Cincinnati, etcetera.

    I told him to do the same for Mac, my driver, and he had just started when the guard rushed in and we had to rush out to repel the umpteenth counterattack. We worked a lot with those boys and Oley’s and my crew were always happy to see them.

    The other day "Brooklyn" rode on my tank and I coaxed him to write a song for us. At once he burst out with a really dandy tune, the first words of which were: "There will be no more falling arches, there’s no more walking Yank; going to hitch a ride, going to hop inside, going to Berlin on a tank." The tank stopped and "Brooklyn" was just about to write it all down for me when his squad was called to clean out a slight pocket.

    We tanks were in close support but the terrain did not permit us to be right with them. I guess I heard the shots – there were a lot of them – but I didn’t see him get it. I did see him, however, and fortunately he had died instantly.

* * *

    Well, at long last – VE Day. We tried to celebrate such a momentous event but it did not come with enough dramatic suddenness to stimulate any wile whoopee. I am permitted to say that we are in Czechoslovakia and were, indeed, the first American unit to cross the border. It is a real joy to be liberating rather than conquering. It’s France all over again with the mad, cheering crowds and the flowers. And then we have in the past month liberated hundreds of American PWs – Prisoners of War. Their harrowing tales, emaciated bodies and intense desire for vengeance do not make pretty pictures. Some have been enslaved since June ’44 and been subject to propaganda talks, for example, scientific proof that FDR is Jewish.

    Naturally, I do not know what is in store for us and haven’t even a creditable rumor. It seems to me that we have done our share. We have been continuously in the thick of it for ten months. Let me puff a little. General Von Weistheimer of the 11^th Panzer Division refused to surrender to any other unit but insisted on having "the honor" to surrender to the "elite Panzer-Infantry 90^th Division." We of the 712^th Tank Battalion feel quite proud because the 90^th Division, to which we were attached from Normandy to Czechoslovakia, is an infantry division. Evidently, our Battalion of tanks had so impressed itself on the character of the 90^th as to make the Heines believe it was an armored division.

    The day outside bespeaks the glory that must prevail in heaven on such an occasion. A gushing, clean spring winds its way down the mountain near this house and plays sparking games with the sun. Everything is alive and energetic and the only evidence that there was once a war is the masses of displaced persons who clutter the roads, pushing the inevitable baby carriages loaded with the most precious household items. They are returning home and I ache for the day of my return. I have survived this ghastly ordeal and am still whole, mentally and physically. I am rather proud of myself, you know, but sincerely believe I could not do it again.

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