Evening star., 1948-05-02
Liberation in As
Continued From Page C-1)

whispering. forgetful Of the pride
of boundaries.
Kriegy friends slapped one an
other on the back and said, III see
you in Duluth"-or New York or
Los Angeles or Cleveland. More
tanks rolled into the camp. A jeep
Struttered in and a delirious laugh
swept the camp.
All through the afternoon the
excitement continued. Fences
started going down and somebody
set fire to a barracks. A more
sensible person yelled, Lets save
the hole for 'goon' prisoners, and
that sounded like a good idea. so
the destruction stopped.
Toward sundown men started
gathering in little groups, trying
to convince themselves that they
were free and reminiscing so they
could appreciate their freedom. A
Capt. Dick Shuck of PENNSYLVANIA
talked about q scene in Muskau
Germany, when the Sagan evacuees
sought shelter from the blizzard in
glass factory filled with open fires
pyramiding almost to the ceiling.
The men were barely alive after SO
hours in subzero weather. under
nourished and ill-clad. Capt
Shuck says he will never forget
how Col. Jacob Smart, who was
later to testify in the Gen. Bennett
Meyers case, stood before one of
the eerie fires high up in the dark
ness. and. in q Wagnerian scene
yelled orders in an attempt to get
every man a place to at least sit
down.
Service for Roosevelt
Most of the men talked about
the death of President Roosevelt
a few weeks earlier. They would
never forget the service they held
the day after his death, when word
came over their radios that their
leader and the hero Of Europe had
died, Even now, three years later.
they describe in detail how spon-
taneously men Of many nations
clad in tattered turbans and CT
coats or kits and GI hats-fell into
rigid military formation and stood
'everently while Scottish chaplain
conducted a service. They remem.
Der how, when the sermon was
the men stood respect
FULLY. silently in position, then
slowly and mournfully drifted back
% their tents or barracks.
The fraternity that prevailed that
night was somewhat dispelled the
following day, largely due to the
Russians. Running wild over the
countryside they went on a rampage.
Some OF them discovered some wood
alcohol. According to most reliable
count, IS of them died an inglorious
death.
The following day Gen. Patton
himself, riding on the crest of his
last big drive, came into camp and
congratulated the men. Later two
Red Cross girls rode in on a truck
and the men frankly and cleanly
UorShiped them.
Then the camp began breaking up.
kreigy life was over and the men
separated from barbed wire friends
who would be met again in home
owns or luxurious recuperation
hotels. Some of them would try to
;apture again the comradeship Gre
ated by barbed wire by founding
organizations like Washington's
5arbed Wire Club. They are still
Meeting three years later, trying to
'ecapture the perspective on free
1om they had back in "Goonlan nd, :"
where enough food-any kind of
iood-and any kind of room in
America sounded like paradise.
They still try to recapture their
feelings the day the flag went up
over Moosburg, but as Capt. Arthur
Oreyer Of 107l South Edison street
says. ITS hopeless to try
20 re-create the scene. but I know
hat none Of use have seen another
ike it-before Or since"