Steven Karras Read online

  The Jewish holidays came around and since the 1st Division, being made up mostly of men from New York, Delaware, and Massachusetts, had a large contingent of Jews, among whom was Lieutenant Colonel Gara, the commanding officer of the 1st Engineering Battalion, and many others. The chaplain of the 18th Infantry Regiment, Captain Stone, was a rabbi from Massachusetts. For Yom Kippur, a motion picture theater in Licata was used for services, and truckloads of men came from various parts of the division. Some half dozen or so noncoms from division headquarters went by truck early in the morning to attend services. At around noon, these services were recessed to be continued later on in the afternoon. Those of us from HQ walked the streets of Licata and saw a very nice-appearing, clean-looking restaurant. It bore a sign in the window: “Off Limits to United States Troops.” Nevertheless, we went in and were only too happily greeted by the owner, who indicated to us that the reason this sign was in the window was that the U.S. occupying forces did not want to deprive the local population of any food. Yet he said that there was plenty and he would be happy to serve us.

  No sooner had we ordered wine and pasta when the door opened and in came two MPs, one being Sergeant Eddy, whom all of us knew very well. He was apologetic, saying he had to take our names and serial numbers and report us. Needless to say, we lost our appetite. I already saw in my mind the disappearance of my sergeant’s stripes. Later that evening, I received a telephone call from Major Lancer, the division provost marshal. It was Major Lancer with whom I had developed a mutual respect over several months, since I kept a situation map as a hobby, showing the war’s progress throughout Europe, including the Russian front, based on intelligence reports reaching us daily from English, French, and Eastern European sources, and he wanted to be kept abreast as to the war’s progress. He started the conversation as follows:

  “Sergeant, do you know what I have on my desk?”

  My response: “I am afraid so, Major.”

  He continued, “I wouldn’t worry about that, but how you as a Jew could be in an off-limits restaurant, eating on Yom Kippur, that you have to make up with your Maker!”

  One of the more memorable events during the Sicilian campaign was when General Patton had slapped one of the men of the 1st Division, after calling him a coward while he was awaiting admission into the field hospital, having been ordered there by one of his superiors. This had caused a national uproar, resulting ultimately in an order from Washington that Patton himself had to apologize to the troops for this behavior. When the campaign was over, one afternoon the entire division was ordered to assemble on a large field in South Sicily, to await the general’s arrival. Before he came, the chief of staff of the 1st Division, Colonel Mason, mounted the platform and issued the following command: “There will be no booing when the general gets here!”

  Patton came wearing his pearl-handled pistols on his sides, mounted the platform, and in rough language talked of himself as only being interested in the objective, of being the person who does not pussyfoot around things and, in his wish to get things done, he may have overstepped the bounds of common behavior, but he should not be blamed because it was done in this spirit. As a whole, he spoke down to the men, making them feel as if he thought their intellect would not allow a normal tone of conversation. After this “apology” was rendered, I went back to our base, into the “war room,” where I found myself in the company of Lieutenant Colonel Curtis and Major Gale. When Major Gale asked Colonel Curtis what he thought of Patton’s speech, the colonel—a most refined West Point graduate, a real gentleman—responded, “Paul, listening to the general’s speech, to me, was as if I heard my own mother use the word ‘shit.’”

  During both the African and Sicilian campaigns, as well as later on, I corresponded with my brother, Norbert Spiegel (AKA Nachum Golan, the commander of the famous Golani Brigade during Israel’s War of Independence). He had joined the British Army in Palestine in 1939 as a member of one its Jewish outfits and became the sergeant major of its 1st Battalion. When I found myself in Africa, so did he, and Rommel was between us. When we left for Sicily, he was still in Africa, but then participated in the invasion of Italy. When I finally left Europe for thirty days of R&R in April 1945, his unit came from Italy to Belgium, where he then participated in the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Thus, two brothers in Allied Armies, fighting on the same continents, yet never reaching each other, had all correspondence being funneled through the army post office (APO), reaching us weeks after they were written, though the distance separating us may at best have been a hundred miles or less, It took twenty-five years from the time I had last seen him in 1935 until we finally were reunited in December 1959.

  Having determined that the invasion of the Italian mainland went satisfactorily, our division was reassigned to Great Britain. Thus in the late fall of 1943, we prepared to leave. Much to all our amazement, we were to board the Reina Del Pacifico, a British merchant ship that had carried us from Scotland to the invasion of North Africa. Being tired then of mutton stew three times daily, the rumor that she had been sunk had circulated shortly after the African invasion, not to anyone’s regret, but here she was again to carry us back to England.

  Reaching Britain, Gen. Terry Allen, having been relieved in Sicily to return to the U.S. to train the 104th Division, which he later brought back to Europe for its famous drive into Germany, was replaced by Gen. Clarence Huebner, who took command of the division. It was under him that even members of the general staff had to participate in frequent “close order drills.” Needless to say, he had observed a certain degree of sloppiness of military bearing of our troops, who too often had stared in the eye of death during combat. This did not endear him initially to those seasoned veterans, but obviously he knew what he was doing. It appeared it was necessary to instill properly soldiering demeanor.

  There in England, I delved heavily into reports of the German order of battle, to a point where information of many German units was at my fingertips, even to the point of how many men were left in certain companies and what morale problems existed between a certain company commander and his men. Frequently, such information totally disarmed some prisoners of war when being confronted with it by me.

  While also there, I had the opportunity to go to London from time to time, where not only had I located a girl from Gera (my hometown) who had escaped to England, but also frequented Jewish service clubs with other comrades. The Jewish community of England reached out to Jewish soldiers from other countries, enabling them to spend the Sabbath or other holidays with a family.

  In the late fall, I was sent to Plymouth, a port city in the south of England, to work in some of the chief planning offices for operation Overlord—the invasion of Europe. It was there that we worked closely with British, Canadian, and French counterparts, incorporating naval, air, and ground forces specialists. Detailed studies of what were later to become Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, and other sectors were studied in most minute detail. This planning not only pertained to the U.S. targets, but incorporated British and Canadian sectors as well.

  Sometime in April 1944, I received a call from the British Military Intelligence office. It came from Major Marsden, whom I had last seen in Algiers at the conclusion of the North African campaign. He was concerned with establishing a special section within the G-2 branch of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF), General Eisenhower’s command. The G-2 branch would evaluate enemy documents to rapidly extract both tactical and strategic information. He wanted me to join this group.

  It was just about that time when an order came from SHAEF that higher headquarters could not initiate the transfers of personnel from lower headquarters, and thus deprive field units of valuable personnel. He asked me to phrase a request for transfer, indicating that an opening existed for me in his unit, wherein my contribution to the war effort would be of higher overall value than remaining at division level, thus also giving me a personal opportunity to advance in grade. So I submi
tted my request to the chief of staff of the division, Colonel Mason. The following day I found it back on my desk, Colonel Mason having written across in red pencil, “Disapproved.” I called Major Marsden and informed him of this.

  Just about that time, when we were working feverishly to prepare for the invasion, it seemed SHAEF Headquarters had succeeded in convincing the chief of staff to allow me to transfer. Thus three days before the invasion, I left the 1st Division to travel to London and go to the offices of the G-2 Document Section in the Kensington area of London. The place was swarming with noncoms of higher grades than my own—master sergeants, technical sergeants, staff sergeants—in addition to enumerable young officers. When Major Marsden spotted me, he shook my hand vigorously and said, “Sergeant, I am delighted you made it here. You are the only man with field experience. You will lead our advanced echelon into Normandy.” This was certainly not what I had expected. I had finally looked forward to sleeping in a bed with sheets and, after two exhausting campaigns, had thought that I would spend some time in the rear.

  Now it was up to me to establish contact with the forward headquarters of First Army, in order to assist in instant evaluation of enemy documents falling into our forces’ hands. I was assigned to a three-man team to leave for Normandy with one jeep. We landed in Omaha Beach days after D-Day, unattached, unsupported, groping our way, supplying ourselves from wherever we ran into combat units. I carried an order originating from SHAEF that read:

  “Restricted”

  To Sergeant Siegmund Spiegel 32190831, Headquarters Detachment SHAEF

  1. This is to certify that the above named enlisted man has been directed to proceed by rail on or about June 1944 from present station to Southampton, England, reporting upon arrival to the Port Commander for surface transportation to carry out an Assigned Mission.

  By command of General Eisenhower:

  E. C. Boehnke Colonel AGD

  Adjutant General

  We tried as far as possible to make contact with the Canadian First Army and the British First Army, in addition to our own units, relaying whatever gathered information we had laterally. We occupied a farmhouse as our temporary headquarters, which just had days before been evacuated by a German Army unit that had attached a battalion of Ukrainians serving in the German Army. No sooner had we gotten there than we got a hold of the personal diary of German Field Marshal Kluge. What a revelation! It described in detail his arguments with Hitler, contradicting Hitler’s wishes in execution of the defense of Normandy, and some of the methods demanded by Hitler as being militarily impractical. The entire book was translated overnight, typed on stencils, run off, and distributed laterally to the various units confronting Kluge, forwarded to the rear, and sent back to England. Within a day (almost impossible in those days), broadcasts emanating from England destined to reach German troops quoted excerpts from this diary verbatim. Ultimately, Field Marshal Kluge died by his own hand.

  Early in August the breakout of Normandy occurred. After the fall of St. Lo, a city for all intents and purposes totally destroyed, the lines became fluid. It was then that on August 7, 1944, having learned that German Army headquarters near Mayenne had been overrun, our team was to proceed to the Third Army G-2 Section. By the time we reached there, the frontline had again changed, and instead, we were to head toward Falaise. As we approached Vire, even small arms fire became hectic, and our infantry troops lay in ditches near a road intersection. We stopped and checked with an MP as to the current situation. He indicated that we could not proceed through the village but would have to bypass it.

  We made our way down into a valley on a one-lane farm road when the “burp” noises of German submachine guns became nearer and nearer. It was there that I observed to Captain Curts that the valley was “too still.” Even with the noises from small arms fire, it gave this whole scene a feeling of eeriness. I even recall using the German word unheimlich (eerie, uncanny) then. Just then all hell broke loose. Maybe seconds, maybe minutes, had elapsed when I found myself raising my head and looking around. Our jeep stood mangled across the road and me twenty yards distance from it. Captain Curts was lying on the road, his legs inside his combat boots swelling, seeming to burst the leather. The corporal, Trombley, was crouching in a ditch and bleeding profusely from his right hand where shrapnel had penetrated it.

  At first impulse I thought we had a direct hit from an artillery shell. I crouched over the captain, trying to administer first aid to whatever extent possible, while Trombley was tying a tourniquet around his own arm. I remembered that just nearby, where we last had talked to the MP, there was a forward first aid station. I tried to make my way back to get them to evacuate the captain and the corporal. In the confusion of combat and operating strictly on instinct, I must have crawled the wrong way, further into German territory; I suddenly noticed a stack of mines not yet buried, and some hastily covered. I knew then that we had hit a “Teller” Mine (thirteen pounds of explosives). I turned quickly, even certain of hearing German voices near me, and made my way back.

  I found the first aid station where the medics immediately wanted to evacuate me, but I insisted on leading them down to the scene of the blow up. We were all brought back and immediately taken farther back to where ambulances were ready to take casualties to the nearest field hospital. My carbine was lost, but I had to surrender my .45 pistol, which I carried at my side for some time. I was sent to the field hospital, where I was admitted with multiple contusions and injuries to my left knee and ribs, blast burns, and shock. The captain’s legs were both shattered.

  There I was on a cot, in a tent when the German counterattack was underway (it captured one of our field hospitals). Convoys of ambulances brought heavily wounded GIs in, and they remained on their stretchers set on the barren floor. When I saw this happening, I called the hospital administration officer and asked to be discharged, since my condition was not anywhere as serious as the men who didn’t have a cot.

  That morning, an orderly came with a batch of Stars and Stripes, which had just arrived from England. In it I saw a brief item that got me very excited: the Russian army had liberated Lwow, a city in Poland where I last knew my parents had lived. Of course, I was not aware then of what had happened in the interim to Jews, including my poor parents, who were massacred in Lwow by the Germans in the summer of 1941. Just then a Red Cross girl entered our tent asking us whether we needed writing paper, razor blades, or whatever else she had on hand to distribute. I asked her, “You are with the American Red Cross, right? You have contact with the International Red Cross?” When she nodded her response, I showed her the article in the paper, gave her my parents’ names and last known address in Lwow, and asked her to immediately initiate steps to locate them through the International Red Cross. She looked at me as if I were shell-shocked, not having expected that a wounded soldier would worry about something happening on a front far removed from current combat in Western Europe. I assured her that I had all my senses and got her assurance that I would hear from the Red Cross. Sixty years later and I am still waiting.

  I was sent back to England to recuperate on a C-47, which practically skimmed the waves of the English Channel, even to the point that spray hit the windows. When I asked one of the crew why he was flying so low, he explained to me that if he were to fly at the normal altitude, his silhouette would appear in the sky and either German fighter planes or even U-boats could shoot him down, whereas when he skipped the waves, the plane made no silhouette. We were able to reach Dover, and then the plane gained altitude to scale the cliffs.

  After one week I returned to London and, immediately thereafter, back to Normandy to rejoin my unit. In the interim, Paris had been liberated. Our unit moved into an apartment on Avenue Fock, one of the more attractive avenues in Paris emanating from the Etoile and the Arc de Triomphe. The house we had occupied, as in most other instances, had just been vacated by German officers. To the best of my recollection, the owners of the building either had to flee or we
re deported by the Germans because they were Jews.

  For a few days, we were much concerned with rounding up French collaborators with the Germans, and German officers who were attempting to continue to live underground in Paris. On one such mission I had teamed up with a lieutenant commander of the U.S. Navy, a middle-aged, midwestern schoolteacher who appeared to have received his commission through somebody he knew, rather than what he knew about intelligence matters. He relied fully on my guidance in telling him what could and could not be confiscated as we searched businesses and the homes of those who had worked closely with the Germans. Our stay in Paris did not last too long, since the front moved rapidly eastward.

  From there it was onto Rheims, where it was sad to see the cathedral surrounded by sandbags to at least a story or higher to avoid the destruction of this historic gothic masterpiece by the instruments of war.

  As soon as the first major German city, Aachen, was in the process of being captured, three of us from my team immediately went in. What a strange sensation: much destruction; white sheets and rags hanging from windows and from building ruins; and to me, personally, a feeling of deep satisfaction. While at that time I did not know what fate my parents and the millions of others of Jews had met, there was a satisfaction in seeing the “invincible” Third Reich having suffered a major defeat on its own soil. Not too many civilians were in town. Destruction was all over. Being on the west side of the Rhine River, it had been cut off from supplies reaching it from east of the river. Those civilians who we interrogated all swore that they would not have put up resistance had it not been for their being forced to do so by the Nazi officials. Unfortunately, it took quite a while before the river finally could be crossed.