SwiftVets.com

[GM Strong]

Today is the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Stalag VIIA Moosberg, Germany. Thousands of Allied airmen and soldiers, as many as 80,000 were in the Lager (all nationalities). Some had been POWs for over 4 years. American and British airmen had been marched in the bitter cold in January from Sagan SL III and from SL IV. This was the single largest liberation of POWs in Europe and a day not to be forgotten. As one of Patton's tanks tore a huge hole in the wire, Thousands of men were now free once more. As the American flag rose over the clock tower in the town there was first silence and then pandamonium of cheers and tears. Later, when General Patton came in and addressed the Kriegies, his first words to them were said to be. "I'll bet you sons-a-b*****s are glad to see me.' They were. My dad was one of them. Bless'em all.

http://www.moosburg.org/info/stalag/indeng.html


The Liberation of Stalag VII A Moosburg
It is 0600, 29 April. The attack of Combat Command A is due to be resumed at this moment. The command post is located in Puttenhausen, Germany.

The 47th Tank Battalion is eight miles to the southeast where it halted operations at 2300 last night. Lieut. Col. Bob E. Edward's 68th Armored Infantry Battalion is three miles north of the command post, having run into hard resistance late the preceding day and having been ordered to halt in Mainburg to avoid running into a known night ambush.

Soon now, reports should arrive that the battalions are moving, and the guns of Joseph J. Murtha's 500th Armored Field Artillery Battalion should be heard. At one minute before 0600 a strange group strode into the headquarters of Combat Command A, to meet Brig. Gen. C. H. Karlstad, Combat Commander. It consisted of a German Major, representing the commander of the Moosburg Allied Prisoner of War Camp, Col. Paul S. Goode of the United States Army and a Group Commander of the British Royal Air Force, the senior American and British Officers respectively, imprisoned in the Moosburg Camp; a Swiss Red Cross representative; and Col. Lann. The German Major brought a written proposal from his commander for the creation of a neutral zone surrounding Moosburg, all movement of Allied troops in the general vicinity of Moosburg to stop while representatives of the Allied and German Governments conferred on disposition of the Allied Prisoners of War in that vicinity.

The German proposals were rejected and the party was given until 0900 to return to Moosburg and to submit an unconditional surrender offer - or receive the American attack at that hour; a CCA staff officer was dispatched to General Smith.

German SS troops moved outside the city and set up a defense perimeter. They opened the fight.

By 1030 the SS were lying dead in the fields and along the roads, grey-white faces and open mouths, twisted and staring sightlessly at the cold, blue sky above; and American medium tanks were roaring through the cobbled streets of the ancient city.

The 47th had split in two columns, one led by Maj. Kirchner and the other by Col. Lann; and Gen. Karlstad went into the city with the 47th. Gen. Karlstad picked up a German officer as guide, and with Lieut. Joseph P. Luby and Lieut. William J. Hodges took off for the prison camp proper.

The jeep mounted a .30 caliber machine gun; as it swung up, there were several score armed German guards outside. Luby rolled into their midst, his jeep stopped, and with his hand on the gun called: "Achtung!" The group surrendered.

General Smith arrived at the camp shortly thereafter; an American flag was raised.

Official estimates of the total Allied prisoners freed at Moosburg were 110,000, including an estimated 30,000 Americans, officers and men. Besides a series of seven prisoner of war camps, the Division captured a German garrison of 6000 men at Moosburg.

Once the sharp, pitched battle by the SS was over, the German defenses crumbled. The 600-man 47th Tank Battalion took 2,000 prisoners; the 600-man 94th Reconnaissance Squadron took 2,000 more. Division total for the day was set at 12,000.

Scenes of the wildest rejoicing accompanied the tanks as they crashed through the double 10-foot wire fences of the prison camps. There were Norwegians, Brazilians, French, Poles, Dutch, Greeks, Rumanians, Bulgars. There were Americans, Russians, Serbs, Italians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Australians, British, Canadians - men from every nation fighting the Nazis. There were officers and men. Twenty-seven Russian Generals, sons of four American Generals. There were men and women in the prison camps - including three Russian women doctors. There were men of every rank and every branch of service, there were war correspondents and radio men.

Around the city were thousands of slave laborers, men and women.

All combined to give the 14th the most incredible welcome it ever received. The tanks were finally slowed to five miles an hour as they went through the camps - the press of men in front of them was so great. Men, some of them prisoners five years, some American Air Corps men prisoners two years, cried and shouted and patted the tanks.

"You damned bloody Yanks, I love you!" shouted a six-foot four Australian and threw his arms around a jeep driver.

A weary bearded American paratrooper climbed on a tank and kissed the tank commander. Tears streamed from his cheeks. The women had flowers, and they threw the flowers on the tanks and in the jeeps. Italians and Serbs, tired and drawn, jammed around the vehicles, eagerly thrusting out their hands to touch their liberators, weeping.

An American Air Corps lieutenant kissed a tank. "God damn, do I love the ground forces," he said. "This is the happiest day of my life!" "You were a long time coming, but now you are here!" There were no words to express the feelings of these men.

As the German guards were formed in columns of four and marched away, each man carrying two or three loaves of black bread, some of the tankers took the bread from them and tossed it over the fences to the Allied prisoners.

Tec/5 Floyd C. Mahoney of C-47 freed his own son, a lieutenant in the Air Corps.

In roaming the town, the 47th and the 68th uncovered almost a score of arsenals, loaded with German machine guns, pistols, rifles, panzerfausts, all sorts of small arms.

The tanks of S/Sgt. Claude E. Newton, S/Sgt. William T. Summers, Lieut. Hack and Lieut. Boucher led the chase through town; Moosburg was not all the battalion wanted. There was a bridge across the Isar; and this bridge was blown as Newton's tank moved into the first span.

Among its own men liberated, the 47th found Tec/5 William Weichelt, Corp. Laufor Cobbledick, Tec/5 Edward Kulawiak, Corp. Gilbert Maines, Pfc. John Nestorek, Tec/5 John Wertz, Pfc. Verle A. Kruger, and Corp. Robert D. Hills.

German prisoners taken included boys of nine, fully uniformed and armed, and girls of 17 and 18 - also uniformed and armed.

By night, the Division was established along the Isar, and behind it were unbelievable scenes - mile long columns of German prisoners being marched to the rear, a light tank in front of the column and a light tank in the rear - each with its lights on full blast - and fields with 2000 Germans in a bunch, being guarded under lights, while among them lay the burned out German vehicles caught in the fight that morning, the German dead lying in grotesque positions as Graves Registration Officers moved among them preparing for burial - all the bloody incredible litter of a battlefield just passed, under the bright lights of the overwatching vehicles.

And through the streets roamed streams of Allied prisoners, newly freed and not quite sure what they wanted to do, but they wanted to do something.

They broke into liquor - schnapps and champagne and cognac and wine - in cellars and kitchens and wine shops and warehouses.

They got into food - chickens and pigs and lambs and geese, potatoes and eggs and ham and bread - in pantries and kitchens and living rooms and stores.

They found clothes - shoes and pants and shirts and coats - in closets and trunks and windows and suitcases.

Ex-PWs and ex-slave laborers, ex-concentration camp inmates, soldiers and civilians, men and women, young and old, from every nation in Europe, drunk or sober, crying or laughing, they roamed the streets that night and reeled along the sidewalks, singing, shouting, kissing, wearing tall silk hats gotten from God knows where, carrying stoves, geese, pictures, cross-bows and sabers.

Through that seething jam the American Army was trying to move back more German prisoners of war, columns four men wide and half a mile long.

And - Up through the mad bacchanalia the combat troops were trying to move, tanks and endless lines of silent infantrymen from the 68th Armored Infantry Battalion, faces set and hardly seeing the weaving scene about them, eyes straight ahead and with trick men have who are going into combat of catching their lower lip and holding it caught between their teeth.

The dying nation dissolved into a snarling, giggling montage of human shapes, like a color fantasy on a movie screen where the eye is not able to see nor to understand, but only to snatch at endlessly shifting swirling jumbles of shapes of the wildest human emotions, and joy is translated into a dissolving cone of orange fading quickly into red and black and green and ravage.

British ex-prisoners of war rode bicycles through the towns - freed prisoners took most of the bicycles and motorcycles and autos with which Germany was so well supplied. Slave laborers, men and women stood by every road, making a "V" with their fingers and grinning and throwing flowers. "Endlisch frei, endlich frei," said one, and a private first class of the French army introduced himself and gravely said:

"It is very fine that our governments understand each other, and our generals and ministers, but I would like to tell all the American privates first class that I am eternally indebted to them and eternally grateful."
_________________
8th Army Korea 68-69

[kate]

[GM Strong]

[kate]

[kate]

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

This is incredible!!!

Wow! Just.... wow! We've seen some connections take place in the hunting for a buddy forum, but who'd'a thunk it... that your two fathers were there at the same time and under such different circumstances?

Amazing.
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[Me#1You#10]

Kate & GM...

What a marvelous discovery...and I'm tickled pink that this forum was instrumental in making your connection.

[Beatrice1000]

Kate and GM - My goodness! You share a piece of history, from both sides! It is so interesting to read your stories and see the pictures and see you both connect to one particular event so long ago -- Just incredible!! You must be totally amazed.