What Was It Really Like?

Discussion in 'Veteran Accounts' started by AliciaN, Mar 10, 2005.

  1. AliciaN

    AliciaN Junior Member

    I am a student at belton high school in Belton Tx.. I am doing research on the day to day life of solders in the war. If anyone would like to give me any first hand accounts or knows any info about this topic i would love to hear it! when my project is done i will post all the info i have here so everyone can see what it was like. Thanks so much!


    ~ For those who have drunk from the same canteen~
     
  2. jamesicus

    jamesicus Senior Member

    Here is areal life account -- check out especially the letter at the end.

    A good friend of mine (aged 86) who also fought in WW2 gave me permission to scan and publish these items pertaining to his brother who fought with the 90th Infantry Division of Patton's Third Army.

    James

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    James was awarded the Bronze Star for heroism and the Purple Heart.

    There is a sad, but often typical, footnote relating to James Watson. After enduring intense fighting as a member of the 90th Division, and being twice wounded in combat, he returned to his home and family in Chicago after dischage only to be killed in an automobile accident eight months later.

    James' brother, Bob Watson, provided me with a fascinating letter he wrote. As you can see, it didn't scan very well (first page for example) ..........

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    .......... so Bob had it transcribed for clarity ..........

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  3. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    You want to learn what it is like? OK Learn from a British Soldier. Great, here we go then. Go outside into any field, dig a hole just large enough to get below ground. Essential, for the mortars can come at any time.

    Dug your hole? Fine, that is where you sleep that night, and in similar circumstances for every other night till the war ended, with luck it will not rain, if it does then you get wet. In the morning, you struggle to maintain some sort of normal existence, find some water to rinse your face, and have a “hack“ at shaving. Boots have been on for weeks sometimes! Feet get very sore. It is a life designed for troglodytes rather than human beings.

    As summer moved on, morning dew can saturate and chill, even on dry nights, dew soaks your uniform though down to the skin, it is cold and horrible clammy, you have not had your hair washed or cut for months. Yet we all try to present some sort of civilised military appearance. Some mornings, walking forward through soaking corn or grass you become soaked right through, and your clothes harsh with damp, play havoc with the skin.
    It is not a life that I would recommend to anyone. It is hard in the extreme, and to top it off, cold, uncomfortable, sore, and with feet that are in a bad way, you have to go into action, whatever that may entail.

    If you fell sick, really sick, not day to day stuff, then you would be removed, the MO would take care of that. Very few were ever that sick. Even those that had suffered battle exhaustion were expected to pull their weight.
    When at last the Monks at Euvelwegan gave up their beds for us..We could not sleep in them. Ordinary things like colds are not “Sick”

    If anyone wants to assimilate what it was like? Easy! Get a big bag of hard tack biscuits, lots of tins of soup, a shovel. Now go out into the fields, dig a hole to get into it, now, during that day keep moving, every time you stop, for whatever reason, dig your hole. Stay out in the open for 6 months, no haircuts or washing.

    You hair will get matted with soil where you have slept in your trench. Leave your boots on for weeks on end. Be expected to dig about three holes during the day, sometimes being dragged off before you finish. While this is your way of life, there is also the enemy to consider, he will make your life as uncomfortable as possible. It may be that you have been out all day, just about exhausted, then through some emergency, be dragged out again, all night. During your time out in the open the enemy will be doing his level best to kill you, and, in as unpleasant manner as possible to add to your general misery!
    Not realistic? But it is just that, totally realistic. Just walk out of the house and dig and hole and live in it without the comforts of home.

    Not nice, but that is an honest appraisal of what it is like to live outside exposed to all the nature can throw at you, and at the same time fight a war. It is certainly the life I led from Sword Beach to the German border
    Sapper
     
  4. Kiwiwriter

    Kiwiwriter Very Senior Member

    Sapper, great piece. I would only mention that Bill Mauldin wrote a similar but shorter description of front-line life in Italy, in which he adds the requirement to carry vast amounts of supplies on your back while marching, and that you would have to hire a lunatic to periodically shoot at you from a variety of directions with a high-powered rifle or machine-gun. Your account is superb.
     
  5. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Cheers Kiwi.
    Sapper
     
  6. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    While thiss has drifted off course, it is a good time to add this little cameo about the SS

    To understand the SS properly, you have to delve into the mind of the pigs that went under the name of SS,

    For years they had it drummed into them that "They" were the master race. “Seriously"... They were not only the "Master Race" But the Staff Guard; the SS were the cream of the master race.

    It is even easier to understand this idea, if you consider that at one time every SS recruit had to be a "Perfect Aryan” They had to have perfect teeth etc, no one except near perfect young men could aspire to the ranks of the SS. They were even given a sort of “Mystic” presence by Himmler. There were several branches of the SS.

    The Waffen SS being the fighting SS. So, to be captured by inferior British troops, was to them, a truly hateful thing to happen. In fact their fighting qualities, though top class, were in no way superior to the best of ours, and in some ways, less so, For I can think of a few from our side, that I would fight shy of upsetting.

    I am sure that some rather large Sgt somewhere or other, fed up with the sheer overweening arrogance of these black uniformed piles of dog crap. Would give one of them a thumping, It just had to happen somewhere or other.

    It was not only our troops that loathed the SS, the German army did as well.
    Two or three years after the war, I met up with one of them on holiday in the Purbeck Inn here, his approach had not changed, arrogant to the ninth degree. It is probably the nearest I ever got to a bit of murderous savagery, luckily for him there were others near to hand to prevent that happening.

    I hold them in complete contempt, the sort of loathing I have for something horrible crawling up my trouser leg.

    I still do.
    Sapper
     
  7. AliciaN

    AliciaN Junior Member

    Wow! this stuff is great!! I want to thank you guys for what youve done its a great help!! Oh! hey sapper i've been in a the feild next to my house digging a whole just like you said. I know i sound crazy but im gunna do it all and see what its like. We just went on spring break and im not coming out till its over or I physicly/mentaly cant take it any more. It will be 8 days if I last the whole time and im trying to stay as real to it all as possible I cant simulate years but hey I really dought if I could take years of it. I'll let you know how i do this will be intresting Oh and my best friend Scott is coming with me so i wont be alone (its still the really world and there are bad people out there who will go after a young girl even if she looks crazy and is dressed in a ww2 solders uniform) i have a uniform (just a copy) from a local army store and my friend Samantha is making rations we've got it all but the real guns (we are taking look a likes just cus we want to do umm some imaginary reinactment in our time out there) we even have packs. Im never gunna forget this Scott is asking his uncle to come his father was in ww2 and has studyd everything about the war wed like him to come so he can keep us true to everything. Well ok yeah his uncle is coming scott just called and told me as i was typeing (wierd) but anyways this is the last you'll hear from me for a while wish us luck.


    ~May the wings of an angle shield you from all that is shot to harm you~
     
  8. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    AliciaN
    take my advice and stay in the warm...There is no need to experiment on the conditions of long ago. Besides, you may finish up sick being exposed to the weather. My posting was an attempt to describe exactly what life was like for the troops in the field...Not for young people to try it out.

    Enjoy the life that you have, there is no need to try out what it was like,and get sick in the process. Enjoy all the fun of youth, enjoy all the things that we lost though that evil madman Hitler.You only have one time when you are young ....Emjoy it to the full Alicia, dont try sleeping out in holes in the ground,
    Sapper
     
  9. Kiwiwriter

    Kiwiwriter Very Senior Member

    Originally posted by sapper@Mar 11 2005, 01:25 PM
    Cheers Kiwi.
    Sapper
    [post=32098]Quoted post[/post]
    Was I right about hiring the lunatic to shoot at you?
     
  10. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Certainly did Kiwi sent out a fighting patrol and got him. What I could never understand is how a sniper (Left behind) and continuing to kill can expect to come out when all is up, and surrender. my attitude to that is no way paly. No way,

    But to my amazment at times, they did just that, and got away with it.
    Funny world, what made it worse? was that some of them maintained their arrogance. Not for me mate.....not for me.
    Sapper
     
  11. stage

    stage Junior Member

  12. Kiwiwriter

    Kiwiwriter Very Senior Member

    Originally posted by sapper@Mar 14 2005, 12:22 PM
    Certainly did Kiwi sent out a fighting patrol and got him. What I could never understand is how a sniper (Left behind) and continuing to kill can expect to come out when all is up, and surrender. my attitude to that is no way paly. No way,

    But to my amazment at times, they did just that, and got away with it.
    Funny world, what made it worse? was that some of them maintained their arrogance. Not for me mate.....not for me.
    Sapper
    [post=32187]Quoted post[/post]
    The arrogance of German captives was a big problem for the British, Canadian, and American commands that held POWs, according to the books I have read. The first guys hauled in were Afrika Korps men, U-Boat crews, Luftwaffe pilots, who all thought they were basically invincible. Sorting out the "blacks," "whites," and "greys," was the work of the famed "London Cage" at Cockfosters. There were incidents in which "blacks" killed "whites" who were seen as informers and finks. In the US, several German POWs got court-martialed and hanged by the Americans for killing one of their own who was informing on them. The Allies tried showing the POWs films of Germany in defeat, but the POWs were unimpressed. It was only when POWs from late 1944 and 1945 came shuffling in, saying, "You should see what the RAF did to Hamburg," that the arrogance began to wear off. The concentration camp films also helped. Another factor in breaking German POW arrogance came when they were riding in trucks from the forward collection points to the camps in the rear. They were genuinely amazed at the immense Allied supply system, with endless truck convoys, vast ammunition dumps, rows and rows of planes on airfields, and for the first time realized that Goebbels was a liar.
     
  13. sapper

    sapper WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Arrogance? Oh mate, I will give you arrogance!

    One day I sneaked out of hospital with my crutches. A damn silly thing to do, got on the train and went home. only twenty miles, As I came out of the station yard on the opposite side of the road was a lorry full of German POWs.

    As I came alongside they started jeering because I was wounded, One bent over the tailboard jeering, so as I went past I lifted my crutch caught it at the point of balance like a club, and swung it hard, the thickly padded end connected right on the POWs chin. Whoof! He went out like a light! hung over the tailboard like wet rag, completely in another world!

    Unfortunately! A police Sgt and a PC had seen this, and arrested me, My injuries were so severe that it took them ages to get me to the cop shop. They sat me in the waiting room for about an hour, then not knowing what to do, released me.

    Never got jeered at again.
    Sapper
     
  14. harribobs

    harribobs Member

    As I came alongside they started jeering because I was wounded, One bent over the tailboard jeering, so as I went past I lifted my crutch caught it at the point of balance like a club, and swung it hard, the thickly padded end connected right on the POWs chin. Whoof! He went out like a light! hung over the tailboard like wet rag, completely in another world!

    nice one mate! that must have been sweet :)
     
  15. angie999

    angie999 Very Senior Member

    Originally posted by Kiwiwriter@Mar 18 2005, 04:13 PM
    In the US, several German POWs got court-martialed and hanged by the Americans for killing one of their own who was informing on them. [post=32271]Quoted post[/post]

    This took place in Britain - same thing:

    On Saturday 6 October 1945, Erich Koenig, Joachim Palme-Goltz, Kurt Zuchlsdorff, Heintz Brueling and Josep Mertins (three age 20, one age 21, one age 22) were hanged at Pentonville for the murder of Wolfgang Rosterg, age 35, at Comrie Prison Camp, Perthshire on 23rd December, 1944.

    They were tried by Court Martial and sentenced to death in July 1945.

    Details of the crime are on this page:

    http://www.islandfarm.fsnet.co.uk/German%2...t%20Britain.htm

    This is from a thread on murder in wartime Britain at:

    http://www.ww2talk.com/index.php?showtopic=1364&st=0
     
  16. nolanbuc

    nolanbuc Senior Member

    This thread not only solidifies my deep admiration for the men of the generations before me who fought the tyranny of the Axis, but it also gives me hope for the generation that follows mine. :)
     
  17. AliciaN

    AliciaN Junior Member

    Thanks to those who have added more!

    About my little jont outside..... It was actully kinda sweet. I like the scary uncertinlyness about it. But it was far harder then I thought at least it was warm for a bit. One night it was really cold and scott got extra blankets and a heater and we slepd next to eachother real close :) hehe! Anyways I really got the feel of it and had a ton of fun (more then my friends did there boat was grounded and the others got snowd in HAHAHA!!) But the truth is I will never do it again!!! Oh yeah the funnyest thing was just after a few hours scott had to go and ask what kinda bathrooms they had back then and his uncle said Anykind you want bush tree small plant rock river the list goes on Scott just looked at him wide eyed and i laughd for 20 minutes till i had to go found out it is a little easyer for guys then girls (hehe i cheated and use the one in the house) Anyways it was very informative and I wrote a little diary while we where there nothing much but it works. Ill post it if i get my scanner working. The little book is kinda neat i used real life stuff you guys gave me and others i had found and paralleld them to what i was find out and feeling on my jont outside. Well Im off finnaly take a bath! hehe Till next time!!!
     
  18. Kiwiwriter

    Kiwiwriter Very Senior Member

    Qutie right, Angie. There's more on that trial in "The March on London," by Charles Whiting, and "The London Cage," by Col. A.P.E. Scotland, who was the British officer who served in the German Army before WW1 and became the chief interrogator in WW2. :)
     
  19. AliciaN

    AliciaN Junior Member

    An update on how the projects going I have begun to make a memorial box for the Vet.s and the fallen that will hold copys of the documents you have let me use that i will age for affect as well as others I am collecting a long with the diary I am making. I am thinking of carving the front of the box. I'd like it to be enscribed with the words of the solders and there familys such as poems, quotes, or just a saying they had/have. On the side that is going to be for the fallen I wrote a poem myself that I like and am thinking of useing Its short and was for my grandfather but it really means a lot to me. Here it is:

    I Remember

    The tears I've held back flow freely,
    Your face I hold in memory,
    My lips kiss hard stone so cold,
    Unlike your own warm tender hold,
    Don't worry my brave defender,
    Grandfather, I Remember.

    ~Alicia N.

    Let me know what you think of the project and the poem, I hope you all will like it. When Im done I will scan pictures of it and post them here. Im asking permistion to use the items you've posted for me on the art project becuse it might be put in an art show and that is conceterd publishing. Thanks so much once again!
    Love,
    Alicia
     
  20. sappernz

    sappernz Member

    Lovely Poem AliciaN. He would be proud of you and I hope you encourage others of your age to remember those men
    If we forget the fallen it means they have died twice.
     

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