Citizen Soldiers_ The U.S. Army from the - Stephen E. Ambrose [88]
Elsenhower's mission was to get a sharp, clean, quick end to the war. The Russians were going to take Berlin anyway. The best way to carry out the mission was to overrun Bavaria and Austria before the Germans could set up their Alpine redoubt. Eisenhower ordered Ninth Army to halt at the Elbe River, First Army to push on to Dresden on the Elbe and then halt, and Third Army and Seventh Army, plus the French army, to overrun Bavaria and Austria.
American POWs were a major concern. The Germans held 90,000 US
airmen and soldiers in stalags scattered across central and southern Germany. Rescue missions became a primary goal.
WHEN THE POW camps were liberated, the GIs usually found the guards gone, the POWs awaiting them. The sight of an American or British soldier was a signal for an outburst of joy. Captain Pat Reid of the British army was in Colditz prison, a castle in a rural area of central Germany. The prisoners were Allied officers, "bad boys" to the Germans because they had escaped from other stalags. Colditz was supposed to be escape-proof, but these incorrigibles kept escaping (one via what may have been the world's first hang glider), although few made it to Switzerland. Reid described the moment on April 15, a day after the guards took off, when a single American soldier stood at the gate, "his belt and straps festooned with ammunition clips and grenades, submachine gun in hand." An Allied officer cautiously advanced towards him with outstretched hand. The GI took it, grinned, and said cheerfully,
"Any doughboys here?"
"Suddenly, a mob was rushing towards him, shouting and cheering and struggling madly to reach him, to make sure that he was alive, to touch him, and from the touch to know again the miracle of living, to be men in their own right, freed from bondage. Men with tears streaming down their faces kissed the GI on both cheeks-the salute of brothers."
At Moosburg, Allied POWs who had been marched away from the oncoming Russians, under horrible conditions and at great risk, were gathered-some 110,000 of them, including 10,000 Americans. Major Elliott Viney of the British army was among the POWs. He kept a diary. April 29, 1945: "AMERICANS HERE! Three jeeps in the camp and all national flags hoisted. The boys brought in cigars, matches, lettuce and flour. The scenes have been almost indescribable. Wireless blaring everywhere, wire coming down, wearing Goon bayonets and caps. The SS put a panzerfaust through the guard company's barracks when they refused to fight."
To most German soldiers the sight of a GI or Tommy standing in front of them was almost as welcome an event as it was for the POWs. Those who surrendered safely thought themselves among the luckiest men alive. In mid-April, Sergeant Egger recalled, "I fired at a deer in the evening while hunting but missed, and five German soldiers came out of the woods with their hands up. I bet they thought we had excellent vision."
On the autobahns German troops marched west on the median, while Americans on tanks, trucks, and jeeps rolled east. Sergeant Gordon Carson, heading towards Salzburg, recalled that "as far as you could see in the median were German prisoners, fully armed. No one would stop to take their surrender. We just waved." Private Webster couldn't get over the sight of the Germans, "coming in from the hills like sheep to surrender." He recalled "the unbelievable spectacle of two GIs keeping watch on some 2,500 enemy."
The 101st was riding in DUKWs. Most GIs were riding on vehicles of every description, always heading east. A few infantry, however, were still slogging forward