Unsung Valor: A GI's Story of World War II

Message Center Chief: Berlin, Germany

Message Center Cnieí Berlín, Germany July 10, K)45-]anwry j, 1946 On July ί ο , Ι was out of bed before daylight and in the cafeteria at sunrise, ready to leave for Berlin» After breakfast, we picked up Κ rations and thermos jugs of hot coffee to take on the one- day trip. Those being transported in our caravan were mostly junior officers and female clerks. I was accompanying two women from the message center—Lenore Bobbitt and Esther "Dusty" Rhodes—riding between them in the back seat of a black Mercedes. The car, commandeered from our enemy, reminded me of German sedans in movies about foreign correspondents and Nazis. Another enlisted man, Hershel Page, was riding up front with the driver. Our wait at the motor pool was so long we assumed the senior State Department and military officers had to be accommodated in vehicles before us. We watched almost all the other cars depart before a driver showed up. If he worked in the Political Division, I had never seen him before. Maybe they recruited drivers from other divisions, because so many cars were heading to Berlin on the same day. Our lanky driver, named Orville, looked hung over and badly in need of a haircut and shave. He glanced at us in the backseat and growled, "Let's go," as if we, not he, held up our departure. Our gloom on the heavily overcast day deepened driving through the eastern sector of Frankfurt, along streets barely cleared of the rubble now piled high along the curbs. I first saw part of the city's ruins close up a few days after our arrival on a short trip into Frankfurt 286 with Sophie Tarzinski. In the downtown business district there were no streetcars, electric lines, water, gas, or telephone service. In the midst of the brick-and-stone wilderness, standing untouched at the edge of Grueneburg Park, was SHAEF's forward headquarters, the main L G. Farben Industries building, a high-rise that miraculously escaped the bombs. Now, a month later, driving through other areas of the city on our way to the autobahn, I saw, down almost every ravaged street, how totally devastated the rest of the citywas. Beyond the city limits, traffic on the side roads and autobahn was surprisingly light, perhaps because we were driving through the outskirts , circumventing most villages and towns. American soldiers in military vehicles passed, honking and waving at our convoy like old friends. The Germans on foot near the roads ignored us. Sometimes our convoy passed very close to farmhouses, as we detoured across farmers' cultivated fields, and whole German families looked down or turned their faces away from us. If I were in their shoes, probably I would purposely refuse to acknowledge a dusty caravan of conquerors too. Many German farmers had cleaned up their fields during the two months since the war's end and were planting crops. Other areas of the countryside were desolate, scarred by shell craters, collapsed or partially destroyed buildings, and the mounds of German soldiers' graves. We bumped and swerved from bad to good roads, sometimes circling spans of twisted or fallen highwaybridges and taking detours across shallow streams. The bridges that were still standing had shellpocked abutments, broken and twisted metal railings, and potholes in their decks. The fields, on either side of the autobahn, harbored the hulks of burnt-out trucks and tanks marked by the blistered paint of American, British, or German insignias. Despite this contrast of carnage and cultivation through the car's dusty windows, there were long, undamaged stretches of well-paved highway on the autobahn. Its four lanes, divided by a median, had been built to allow the rapid deployment of troops and military matériel in all directions across the country. Later, in the 19505, President Berlin, Germany zdj Eisenhower's memories of the German autobahn, along with General Clay's advice, inspired him to jump-start the economy by proposing the completion of the federal interstate highway system, already authorized by Congress» Farther down the road, we began smelling the stale odor of alcohol in the car. At first, no one acknowledged the fumes; I'm sure everyone thought the others were sober, especially the man driving us. He certainly drove safely enough in the early morning along the paved autobahn . But eventually, Lenore, Dusty, and I agreed the fumes came from Orville, the effluviums...