Rozell, Matthew - A Train Near Magdeburg by Rozell Matthew

Author:Rozell, Matthew [Rozell, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-09-08T04:00:00+00:00

Carrol ‘Red’ Walsh

Now let me tell you, that was the way to fight a war! We just ripped up through France, into Belgium, and into Holland. We were the first troops in those areas, and boy they were glad to see us, I tell you! We would have rations in the tank—cigarettes, chocolate, 10-in-1 rations,[*] and K-rations[*]. We were throwing them out, these people didn’t have much to eat, so they were so glad, and we were glad to be giving them these things. And then we ran out of cigarettes, and we almost died! Cigarettes, you know, who wants them today? But back then that was a big thing for us—we lived on cigarettes! God, we were taking coffee, ground coffee seeds, and wrapping them up in newspaper and smoking them! Honest to Pete, we gave our cigarettes away until supply caught up with us, but we were getting all the wine, the cognac bottles they were giving us, and we were running out of room. So we would take them in the tank. The shells were in these racks on the side. We got so we were throwing some shells out and putting the wine bottles in. [Laughs] We knew we could get more shells, but we wanted that wine and the cognac.

We were in this place called Cambrai, and the Germans were running one way and we were going the other way. Anyway, we were on the line, and there was a nice Belgian lady coming down and offering a drink to all of us. I think that might have been calvados, which was the worst stuff that ever was, it burnt real bad.[*] There was this new kid [replacement soldier] from New York City, he didn’t drink. He was a student at Columbia, so he was no dummy. We said to him, ‘We know what [the drink] is, and what it would do to you if you just took a good shot?’ [Laughs] We told him, ‘Gee, it would be against proper diplomatic policy to refuse a drink—it would be ill-mannered! It certainly wouldn’t hurt you just to take one sip offered by this woman, so that she would know that you were grateful,’ and so on. So he agreed, [laughs again] and he was standing on the deck of the tank and he took it in hand. We told him, ‘Now whatever you do, throw it down fast.’ That was the worst thing you could do! [Laughs harder] He leaped right off the back of that tank, yelling!

When that happened, I was 23. Now actually I was kind of an old guy for the time. I was old, and I was looked upon as old. A lot of the infantry guys were eighteen, nineteen years old. [Takes more serious, reflective tone] Oh yeah, I was considered an old guy. Now let me tell you about the combat I was in. Like I said before, you couldn’t remember what your mother looked like; you thought you had been there forever.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.