Reason for volunteering for the paratroops:  ''They got paid more.  (Paratroops received ''jump pay'' in addition to their regular pay). He figured if he was going to have Germans shooting at him, he may as well make more money for it.

Examples of ''interesting people'' he served with:  Dad claimed there was a soldier in the company who had been convicted of murder, but had been released from prison on condition he join the paratroops. Another man he said was an oddball who actually enjoyed combat. Still another apparently couldn't keep away from the ladies and kept being hospitalized for venereal disease. No names, which may be just as well.

General James Gavin:  Dad apparently thought he was a good officer. The one remark he made about him was, ''He took care of the men.  

Circumstances of getting wounded: In Belgium on February 4, 1945, Dad was wounded, hit in the upper left arm by a piece of shrapnel from a German mortar round (this was during the advance into the fortifications of the Siegfried Line). He was pulled under a bank by a medic (I think Dad said the medic was Indian) and given first aid before being evacuated to the rear. While being driven back he was exposed to the cold winter air and caught a serious sinus infection. He was treated at the 62nd General Hospital and on February 15 was awarded the Purple Heart. He told me that his shrapnel wound wasn't as bad as the sinus infection, which eventually required the doctors to drill a hole in his nose and scoop out the pus in his sinus cavity with a wire hook. (He also suffered from dysentery at some point and this gave him a sensitive stomach for the rest of his life).

Wobelein concentration camp:  My father told my mother that after this camp was liberated by the 82nd in 1945, some of the inmates beat to death some of their former guards.

The Russians:  Dad said the first Soviets to arrive in Berlin were tank troops and pretty well disciplined, but those who arrived afterwards were, in his words, ''like the hordes of Genghis Khan.  He understood the Russians wanting revenge for what the Germans had done in Russia, but felt they went too far. On one occasion, he and a friend rushed into a house where a German woman was screaming and found a bewildered Russian soldier just standing there. My father's friend, a Pole who spoke Russian, asked the man what was going on. The Russian just shrugged, puzzled by the woman's reaction. As it turned out the German woman was terrified of Russians and had just started screaming for no reason when the soldier walked in, apparently fearing the worst. (The Russians had sacked Berlin pretty hard with Stalin's permission after capturing the city and committed a lot of rapes). On another occasion, Dad said a Cossack officer asked an American officer in Berlin if they wanted to fight them - not because they had anything against the Americans, but simply because they loved battle. (The offer was turned down). These Cossacks came from the wild steppes of Russia and Dad remarked, I don't think some of them had ever seen a toilet before.'' Nonetheless, he used to give the Russians his cigarette rations since he didn't smoke.

War Trophies:  Dad took a couple of Army belts as souvenirs from two German prisoners his company captured, but I do not know the circumstances of this. Apparently, one of the Germans spoke English because he told my father that they had to surrender because they had no ammunition. Dad was less than sympathetic, replying, ''But it was all right when you had all the ammunition and the other side didn't.'' (Dad loved these belts and since they were perfectly good he actually wore them quite a bit. I guess he figured there was no point in letting them hang in the closet collecting dust.) During the Berlin occupation, Dad also took the opportunity to go over to the Soviet side and take a tour of Hitler's underground bunker. During this, he picked up as souvenirs a German edition of Hitler's book Mein Kampf and an SS 8-year service medal.

German V-1 Rocket Bombs: Another recollection of my father's was hearing the noise of the German V-1 rocket bombs flying overhead on their way to targets in London and Antwerp. He said they made a ticking sound like an old Model T car.

Dead Germans:  He remembered coming across Germans who had been executed for treason (the Gestapo and SS were going through one last orgy of mass murder just before the war ended), stating that ''They had obviously not been killed in battle, they'd been killed by their own people.  

Combat Reflexes:  He told a story that indicated how combat reflexes became second nature and lingered for a while afterwards: after the war, the first commercialist airliners came out. A jet engine sounds similar to an incoming artillery shell. Once a jet flew over Dad's apartment and the next thing he knew he had thrown himself flat on the floor. He had reacted without even thinking. His combat reflexes were still there.

The Black Market: Tobacco was used as money in Germany right after the war. This made Dad's cigarette rations like extra pay. At some point he used them to pick up another interesting souvenir: a magnificent German Olympic barbell with plates made in Hamburg for which he paid 12 cartons of American cigarettes.


Submitted by David W. Amendola, Son