The rifle fire soon ceased and we were all running around the camp
excited and yelling. It was just eight days less than a year that I
had been held prisoner and, as happy as I was, you can imagine the
feelings of the men who had been held for two or three years. We saw
a tank coming down the road into camp, ran to the main gate, broke it
down and rushed out to meet them. So many of us climbed all over the
tank that you couldn't even see the metal. The soldiers in the tank
threw out whatever food and cigarettes they had to us. The second
tank rolled into camp and General George Patton, with his two pearl
handled revolvers, was riding on the top of it. He was one general
who was right at the front with his men. Our cheers of celebration
were just deafening as hundreds of us poured out of camp and ran
around the countryside, thrilled to be free. Before long guys
returned to camp with horses and wagons, buggies and anything else
they could find.
I understood that some men packed up their belongings and started
west toward France as they couldn't wait any longer. They traveled
west by catching rides on the supply line vehicles. Most of us,
however, stayed in camp as we had been told we would be transported
out in a couple of days. When the day came to depart I left the heavy
overcoat and took only what I needed. I took the baseball suit and
the Royal Air Force blanket along with me, but somewhere near this
time I must have discarded the long orange sweater that had served me
so well during the cold of winter. We marched out of camp a couple of
miles to a large flat grassy field where DC-6 planes were going to
fly us to France. It was a nice warm spring day and we had to wait a
couple of hours for the planes so we spread out our blankets on the
grass and sat down to chat. It was a special time because we were
just beginning to realize that all the friends we had made would soon
be separated from us, never to be seen again.
The planes finally came and when it was time for me to board I had to
make a big decision. I stood there looking at that nice blue air
force blanket laying on the ground. It was so heavy and I didn't know
whether or not I could carry it all the way home or not. At the last
minute I decided to leave it there on the grass. I have always
regretted leaving it and bringing the baseball suit instead. Bruce
and I got onto the same plane and flew to a place along the French
coast. Along the way we flew over Paris and I at least had a chance
to see it from the air. We were put in an area with barracks known as
Stage 1 and were told to stay in that area only. Bruce and I found
beds together, left our gear and walked down to the mess hall. We
each got one of the cheese sandwiches they were passing out and they
were really something. They were two slices of white bread each two
Inches thick with a one inch inch thick slice of cheese in between.
The bread tasted like angel food cake to us after all that hard black
German bread; it was unbelievable how much flavor there was in white
bread. We were to eat in this area only for the first day, as, due to
our weakened condition, our diet and amount was to be limited. The
second day, in Stage 2, we went to a different, mess hall and on the
third day to Stage 3. Each day we received more food. As there were
no fences between these areas some guys would go to all three mess
halls for the same meal. The man named Irons (who had won the
mustache contest back in Sagan and still wore the mustache here in
France) was in the bunk next to me and at night we heard him moving
around at all hours. We later discovered that he had a helmet full of
food and was eating all night. Some of the guys got sick from eating
too much and there was a rumor of one man dying from eating too many
candy bars.
It was almost Mother's Day and each man was allowed to send a
Mother's Day greeting telegram home. I sent one to my stepmother so
everyone at home would know that I was okay and heading home. After
three days here we were taken by truck through the city of LeHarve,
France through narrow streets with the French people waving along the
way. When we arrived at the harbor a liberty ship was waiting for us.
After coming over on such a huge ship, this one looked like a rowboat
and we weren't too excited about crossing the Atlantic on anything so
small. We got on board and were surprised that there were so few of
us, about 200, and that we were not at all crowded. the bunks were
hammocks put up below decks and I was in the bow. We sailed across
the English Channel on water as smooth as could be and enjoyed this
part of the trip. When I was out on deck I stayed in the middle as
the ship was so narrow you could stand in the middle and see over
both sides. We sailed to Southampton, England where we joined a large
convoy heading home.
Being an American ship, the food was wonderful and I had no
seasickness to spoil my appetite. The meal just alternated between
steak, chicken and turkey. After each meal we took oranges, apples,
or bananas up on deck and ate them while laying in the sunshine.
Although there were only about 200 of us, one meal we ate 75 jars of
peanut butter. The seas were quite calm the first few days out, so we
spent most of the time on deck to avoid the dark and unpleasant below
decks area. There were ships all around us and I could count twenty
plus destroyers for escort as there were still German subs operating.
At about the middle of the Atlantic we ran into very stormy weather
with high seas. When you were an deck it sometimes looked as though
our ship was alone and the other ships would come up from behind the
swells only to disappear again. While laying in the hammocks trying
to sleep at night we would hang on to keep from falling out. The bow,
where I was, would come way up out of the water, shudder quite
violently, then fall to hit the water hard. The force was so hard
that it gradually broke all the light bulbs in the ceiling. This
weather was probably normal for the Navy, but airmen were not used to
it and worried about what might happen. After a few days like this
the weather improved for the remainder of the trip home.
When we emerged from the storm there were only about one third of the
ships left in the convoy and we wondered what had happened to all the
rest. We later learned that they had turned off for other ports. The
guys from the South were heading for southern ports and those of us
from the Northeast were going to New Jersey ports. As we neared the
U.S. the seas were much calmer and for a couple of days we enjoyed
sitting on deck and watching the porpoises swim around the ship. We
landed in New Jersey and were taken to Camp Dix from which we had
departed a year and a half before. It was late May and we were
looking forward to being home by Memorial Day.