Beyond The Call: The True Story of One World War II Pilot's Covert Mission to Rescue POWs on theEastern Front by Lee Trimble & Jeremy Dronfield

Author:Lee Trimble & Jeremy Dronfield [Trimble, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2015-02-02T22:00:00+00:00

13.

RISING TIDE

Hey, Yankee!”

The raucous shout echoed across the busy street. Robert, Lieutenant Barnett, and some of the crew, out for a stroll through Lwów for fresh air and exercise, stopped in their tracks and spun around, startled.

“Yankee!” Two wild-looking men in ragged greatcoats were running across the street toward them, waving their arms. They skidded to a halt in front of the American officers, gasping for breath and blurting out that they were former prisoners of war and in Russian hands and boy were they glad to see some Americans. . . . Robert, glancing past the two men, saw a pair of Russian soldiers hurrying across the street after them, unlimbering their rifles.

The Russians caught up with their charges and tried to intervene. Robert held up a hand, flashed his passport, and ordered them to back off. His ability to deal with Soviets had come on greatly since his first arrival in Poland. They respected the voice of authority, and he was learning how to wield it. It helped that he was becoming a familiar figure around Lwów, and the ordinary Russians believed him to be a man of some importance.1

Once the two fugitives had got their breath back, Robert took their names. They were Sergeant Rudolph Vergolina2 and Jim McNeish, a Scotsman. They had been on the move for weeks since being liberated, and were overflowing with joy at seeing Americans.

This time Robert didn’t even bother with the city commandant. Taking the two men under his wing, he ordered his walking party to about-turn, and walked them back to the hotel. The Russian soldiers tagged along behind, all but forgotten.

Entering the lobby, Vergolina and McNeish experienced the same sense of awe that Beadle and Gould had felt—the warmth and comfort, the exquisite, opulent decor, and the air of Victorian gentility were almost overwhelming. Robert arranged baths and beds for the two men, adding them to his ever-growing tab. It was wonderful to see the joy they took in such simple pleasures as being able to shave and wash with soap and water, and how strange the prospect of sleeping in a real bed seemed to them. When they were cleaned up, they were taken down for dinner, which they ate like animals, scarcely pausing for breath.3

Gradually their stories came out. Vergolina did most of the talking. He was a Milwaukee man, and a lively spirit, a fellow of almost irrepressible cheerfulness who seemed to have taken his dreadful experiences in his stride. He was striking to look at, with heavy, pronounced features accentuated by the gauntness from months of near starvation. He’d been a medic in the 2nd Infantry Division, detached to a unit that landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day.4 Somehow he’d survived the hellfire of the landing and was reunited with his regular platoon, which arrived on D + 1. They were immediately thrown into the ferocious fighting to hold the beachhead. After only a week on French soil, Vergolina was captured when a counterattack by an SS battalion overran his platoon’s position.

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