BACK INTO GERMANY

On July 13 the division moved back into Germany and B Company went to a little town of Issing, a mere village, that smelled to high heaven of manure piles. DeFoe, Fry and I moved into a house occupied by an old man and his wife. The old man was "Pop" and his wife was "Mom", and we got along famously. We brought them cups of coffee from the mess hall or a piece of soap from our rations -- and we had our laundry done for nothing more!

Our guard here turned out to be even better than at Hall. For a 24 hour period one squad guarded a power dam several miles from the town. Two hours on guard, sitting (at night) inside out of the weather, reading or writing, and then (in the day) six hours off to hunt, swim, or fish. We really did hate to leave this place. Black and I one morning hunted ducks with our M-l's but gave that up and went swimming in the ice-cold water below the falls. (Black had returned to the company in June while we were in Innsbruck. Crabtree and Compton had been sent home.) A few minutes lying on the rocks in the sun, and we took another dip. In the afternoon we went "fishing" with our rifles. In 30 minutes, we had five fish averaging about 20 inches each. First we would slip along the bank until we spotted a fish below us in the water, then bang! And if luck was with us, the concussion would kill the fish. Then all we had to do was to get it out and this brought about the most fun. Having no luck in trying to pole them out we finally decided one of us would have to undress and swim out for them. Black went first, then it was my turn....how cold that water was and how hard the fish was to hold on to! But we got our fish and that night had a fish fry.

After about 14 days of this our company was sent to a small camp south of Munich to process discharged German soldiers. I got my first break in the army here when they asked for someone to work as a typist in the orderly room. I took the job and soon found I had very little to do. The small amount of typing amounted to nothing and I was free of all guard and training (we never did do any processing).

DeFoe, Fry and I made a trip into Munich one day and got a good view of the totally bombed city by taking a tour sponsored by the Red Cross. We saw many famous places -- most of them blasted into ruins now -- and had a glass of beer in Hitler's once-famous Beer Garden.