War Stories

Since several people seemed interested in "hearing" more stories, I thought I'd go ahead and write some out. I'll give some that I heard from Opa over the years since he fought all over Germany, in France and in Russia. From what I've been told (and he confirmed), Opa was always the first one to volunteer for everything. Whatever needed doing, he was always stepping forward to do it. When he first wanted to join the military, he applied to an SS Officer but was decline for being too short (had to be at least 6'0), then applied to some other specialty group and after being denied that, finally joined the army and placed in infantry. Towards the end of my grandfather's life, my Uncle Wayne wrote to Germany to try to get Opa's medals returned to him (which were taken when he was captured). Unfortunately, we never could give them enough information to find exactly was division he was in, etc.

When they needed someone to blow up the bridges along a specific river (never asked which river), Opa volunteered and went up the river with a small group placing bombs beneath all the bridges.

While walking with his division through a field where the grass had grown above their heads, they were attacked. The division kind of scattered, half going to the left side of the attacking army and the other half going to the right. His friend went left and Opa went right. His friend never made it.

While laying in a trench firing on the enemy, Opa described the trench as the most disgusting place. Filled with bodies, blood, urine and feces, the ones still alive had to lay there returning fire. When he turned around to say something to a friend, his friend was laying dead from a bullet to the head.

Another night, with the enemy close, he again was stuck in a trench in the dead of winter. To make it worse, he was forced to lay at the bottom of the trench in all the blood and urine to avoid being seen by whichever enemy they were fighting at the time. Whenever the men had to go the bathroom, they had no choice but to just go where they lay because they couldn't risk getting up.

On one occasion, his division came upon a church that they thought the Americans would use to take cover. His commander told him and the rest of the men to go burn the church down. Opa told him he wouldn't do it because he was catholic and wouldn't burn a church. So Opa stayed with the commander while the rest of the men went on. As soon as the men got to and inside the church, the Americans came - along with a bomber flying overhead that destroyed the church with one bomb. Being the only two that survived, Opa and his commander fled back to a german-occupied town.

One day Opa was talking about being captured by the Russians. He never talked about what it was like in the camp, but when he got to the part of escaping , Heidi looked a bit upset and asked, "Did you kill anybody to escape?" I almost laughed at the look on her face when he replied, "You damn right too!" My mom simply said, "Well, honey, it was war."

The saddest story I heard from my grandfather is one which some may say is only sad for his friend, but when Opa told it to me (some 50 years after the fact) I think it still weighed heavily on him. Opa joined the army when he was 17 and I'm not sure at what point this happened, but I know it was after they'd been in the service a while and both thought they'd die before it was all over. This was a friend he met since joining the army.

He and this friend were talking one day and his friend said, "You know we're going to die in this war. I just want to go home and see my mom again." Opa agreed, but obviously they couldn't desert and so his friend suggested a plan. His friend told him that if they got injured, the army would let them go home. So his plan was for the two of them to shoot each other in the arm or leg so they would be discharged. Opa was going to be shot first and held up his left arm. Before his friend shot, he stopped him and told him to shoot his right arm because he thought the left arm was closer to his heart. "I can tell you're nervous, so why don't you shoot me first." So Opa took his gun and asked where the guy wanted to be shot. "Shoot me in my leg - right here above the knee." Opa did.

The guy was bleeding so bad, Opa never took his turn and instead carried him back to the closest hospital. He waited there until after the guy's surgery and went in to see him.

"My leg. My leg hurts so bad."

Opa lifted the blanket to look and saw that they had amputated the guy's leg from the knee down. The guy didn't know because he was still medicated and thought he could still feel the pain in his leg. Opa put the blanket down and never told him. After he left the hospital, he only saw him once years later in a train station, but he couldn't bring himself to go up and say anything. I believe that is one of a thousand things Opa carried with him the rest of his life.