NAAFI Card - the Navy, Army and Air
Force Institution - part of the welcome we
shortly received in England
Late that afternoon appeared a
horse-drawn flat-topped cart on which was what I can only
describe as a bath, under which a fire was blazing. The
whole get-up was convoyed by Russians. Some on the cart
were evidently the cooks, stirring whatever was cooking
in the bath, with some scooping up chickens and
dispatching them, to throw them to the riders for onward
treatment. What a stew that must have made! They even
tried to round up one of the cows, but the Americans
stopped that and gave them cigarettes in lieu. I wonder
if they had the ‘trots’ next morning after that
meal, the way I suffered after the hot pork. They were on
the road to freedom, with a long way to go, so perhaps
they didn’t care. What must the villagers have
thought when they heard that Russians were passing
through? Those lads must have lived well on their
journey. I like to think that they might have passed
through Freiburg and dispatched some of those geese into
the bath! Pick ‘em up and put ‘em down.
Seeing the cow being chased gave me an
idea and I walked to one of the cow sheds, with the idea
of obtaining milk. Busily cleaning out the cowshed was a
young woman who was a conscripted worker from the
Ukraine. When I asked for some milk, she told me I must
return early in the morning at milking time and invited
me to visit the building which was the living quarters
for her and her compatriots. The inside was very much
like the inside of our huts: three-tier bunks, but this
time boys and girls lived together. They wanted to know
what had been happening and were amazed to learn that
they, like us, were free. When the conversation turned to
milk and why I required some, I mentioned that it was to
use with coffee. At that their ears literally pricked up.
Telling them to wait, I went back to the American
sergeant who gave me some packets of coffee, which I took
to them. They were profuse in their thanks, telling me to
be at the cowshed at six in the morning.
I don’t suppose many of us slept
very long that night. Excitement was still in the air and
I was up and about long before six o’ clock - or so
my watches told me. On entering the cowshed I saw the
young lady sitting on a one-legged stool, milking a cow.
She told me to take a similar stool, showed me where to
sit and told me to begin milking. I had never milked a
cow in my life and, when going through the motions of
pulling a cow’s teats, produced nothing. Even the
poor old animal mooed and looked back at me to see who
was operating at its other end. I might just as well have
used its tail as a pump for all the good I was doing.
Eventually the milk-maid came to my assistance to show me
the correct way and, much to my surprise, the cow
condescended to release some milk. Not a lot, but the
sound of the milk falling to the bottom of that bucket
made me think of a picture of a milkmaid jetting milk
from a cow’s teat at a cat sitting expectantly
nearby. After a while my wrists had had enough, but I had
obtained about half a bucket of milk. The milkmaid asked
if I had finished and laughed when she saw the amount I
had obtained. Saying: "Komm", she took the
bucket to a calf which, with one slurp, emptied the
bucket. Looking at my amazed face, the girl gave a lovely
laugh, which was something I hadn’t heard for a very
long time. Then she went back to the cow on which I had
been operating and the milk began to flow into the bucket
with a musical rhythm. We went back to their dwelling,
where she gave me a large metal container of milk. I gave
them my tin of nine cigarettes and a bar of American
chocolate to the girl who, as she was saying her thanks,
began to cry. What a contrast it was to the pleasant
laughter of a few minutes before - again something I
hadn’t heard in a long time.
There had been an issue of a breakfast
pack of American "K" rations, containing dried
egg powder, which to me was a revelation, a packet of
coffee, some biscuits, cigarettes and even toilet paper,
amongst other goodies which I have forgotten. By now four
of us naval lads had teamed up, the French frying pan was
brought into use, coffee made with milk and so our first
Freedom breakfast was fried egg powder and biscuits
washed down with hot coffee made with fresh milk. We had
plenty of firewood by breaking some of the wooden fences.
Soon after ‘chow time’, as the Americans called
meal-time, army trucks began to arrive to transport us to
a captured airfield, which was serving as a reception
area for us. And so I left my last place of captivity,
not picking ‘em up and putting ‘em down, but in
the comparative luxury of an American Army truck. We rode
for a couple of hours, winding round country lanes. We
had been released about forty miles from that airfield
and when we arrived we were told to find a billet in one
of the empty huts which had previously housed enemy
airmen; the interiors weren’t much of an improvement
upon our previous living arrangements. Better lighting
and better lockers, but three-tier bunk beds, together
with similar tables and stools.
By the time I arrived at that airport
those once-new boots I had put on early in January had
been just about walked off my feet. The end of the
"Wheatsheaf" brand boots had arrived. I
searched for the American sergeant, who by now was
calling me ‘Limey’ - the name any British
sailor is known by to the cousins on the other side of
the ‘pond’, because in the Tropics a daily
issue of lime-juice is given to all personnel of the
Royal Navy. Showing him my footwear I enquired about the
possibility of obtaining a pair of boots. He directed me
to a hut, the inside of which was lined with American
Army service boots. A soldier was stacking them to create
space. When I told him that the sergeant had sent me to
find a pair, I was told to help myself and he let me know
that the boots had been collected from men who had been
killed in action. I sorted through the unstacked heap
until I found two boots which fitted - a pair of high
lace-up boots with sturdy support for the ankles. My poor
old pair of worn out black boots I secured to one another
by the laces and carefully placed them on the top of one
of the prepared stacks. That pair had served me well and
deserved a good rest. Vive la "Wheatsheaf"!
That is the best recommendation I can give to that brand.
On my way out of the hut the soldier
asked me if I wanted a ‘K’ ration and, without
my replying, told me to follow him into the adjoining
hut, where cartons of packets were stored. Having had a
breakfast pack, I asked for a lunch pack, whereupon we
went to a stack of cartons and I began to open one and
remove a pack. He knocked my hand away and told me to
take the whole carton. I stood amazed for a moment; this
was a repetition of Mad Sunday. He told me to share the
carton with my buddies: "There’s no shortage
here; you’ll be fed up with them before long."
I thought to myself that he should have been living with
us for the last four months.
Expressions fail me when it comes to
trying to describe the generosity of the American
Services whilst I was at that airfield. In no time at
all, long trestle tables were set up - and I do mean
‘long’. Each table groaned with anything and
everything I had dreamed about whilst in that state of
deprivation. They were piled high with bars of chocolate,
cartons of cigarettes, soap, all kinds of toiletries,
books, newspapers, comic papers, ‘K’ rations -
in fact, you name it and it was to be found somewhere on
those trestle tables. To cap it all, there were American
uniformed ladies behind the tables saying: "Help
yourself, honey. There’s plenty more for you
boys." They were just heaping things on us. It just
wasn’t happening - but it was! After those years of
famine, one would have expected a mad rush, but no; there
was such a huge assortment available that you could
compare it with walking around a supermarket with a
shopping trolley today, with those girls urging us:
"Help yourselves, honey." Each day, more
released P.O.W’s were arriving and the amounts on
the trestle tables were constantly replenished. We lived
on ‘K’ rations which were heavenly. And the
weather was fine, as if trying to make up for the harsh
winter.
One day the American sergeant caught up
with me and took me off in a Jeep. At the far end of the
airfield was a stone-built hut with padlocked corrugated
doors. He used his machine gun to shoot off the padlock
and inside we found we were in a parachute store. Besides
wanting a gold watch, the sergeant now wanted a cuckoo
clock, so he decided to fill the back of the Jeep with
parachutes. We drove around the villages, where he
attempted to exchange a parachute for a cuckoo clock or
even a gold watch, but none were in evidence. He did
collect a good number of eggs and some smoked hams,
though. The only name I could think of for a cuckoo clock
was a ‘bird clock’, calling it a
‘Vogel-Uhr’ and making cuckoo noises, but it
didn’t seem to register and the villagers looked at
me with sympathy, as if I was ‘bomb-happy’.
When I asked the sergeant why he didn’t bring one of
his German-speaking buddies, he replied that what they
didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. I often compare
him to Sergeant Bilko. When I recall that the right name
for that type of clock is ‘Kuckucksuhr’ and
that ‘Kuckuck’ is another word for
‘Dummkopf’, I realise it was no wonder that the
villagers looked at me as if I had a screw loose!
Very soon the airfield began to burst
at the seams with released personnel, but those trestle
tables continues to be piled high. Those good ladies
implored everybody to: "Help yourself, honey"
and then: "Don’t forget to take some home for
your folks!" As there was so much on offer I filled
my German rucksack with cartons of cigarettes,
‘K’ rations and bars of chocolate.
Then came the news I had been waiting
for. Next day all of us Brits would be transferred to a
British airfield for transport to the U.K. Next morning
we assembled outside our huts and several covered Army
trucks arrived. To my amazement we were to be escorted by
armed American soldiers in Jeeps and, more amazing, the
same sergeant was with us. Because we were to ride a
distance of about a hundred miles, we were each given a
small packet of biscuits and told to take a piece of
butter from one of the largest blocks I had seen in many
a year. Stuck in the top of the butter was a sort of
pallet knife and each person moved along the line to cut
out a knob before climbing into the lorry. When my turn
came to take some, something came over me and I sort of
lost all sense of self control. Taking the pallet knife,
I literally two-handedly attacked the butter and
succeeded in carving out a lump the size of a house brick
- all to put on a small packet of biscuits. At this
ridiculous action the soldier who was supervising the
distribution didn’t remonstrate or bat an eyelid. He
just calmly said: "What are you going to do with all
that?" Then I did feel like a Dummkopf and, when
sanity returned, I remember apologising, putting that
huge piece of butter back and taking a piece about the
size of a walnut. I wonder what a "trick
cyclist" would have made of that. Plenty
compensating for deprivation, perhaps.
In each lorry was a clean, new
galvanized bucket and, according to the sergeant, we
would stop at about lunchtime to find a house to supply
boiling water for coffee. Somewhere around lunchtime the
lorry stopped and the sergeant called for me to alight
with another fellow to walk up the drive of a house,
hidden behind some trees. The other lad was a Welsh
soldier. We carried the empty bucket; the sergeant had
several packets of coffee ready for the brew. He was also
carrying his machine gun, with which he banged on the
rather imposing door of the resplendant house and soon
the door was opened by a servant girl. I told her that we
wished for hot water to make coffee and she closed the
door, leaving us outside. We didn’t have to wait
very long before the door opened again and she invited us
into the kitchen. Here was a fairly young servant girl
who opened her eyes wide when I mentioned American
coffee, and even more when she saw the number of packets
of coffee which had been taken from the ‘K’
rations. A number of the packets were emptied into the
bucket, but I did manage to hang on to one to give to the
girl, who actually curtsied as she thanked me. With the
bucket nearly full with pungent smelling coffee we made
our way out to the entrance, to be met by an obese,
affluent German, who was evidently the owner of the
house. I described him as affluent because the waistcoat
adorning his ample stomach sported a gold watch chain.
How slow the American sergeant and I were. As we were
leaving the house, Taffy, the Welsh soldier, said to me:
"Sailor, ask him the time." Without thinking, I
said: "Wieviel Uhr ist es, bitte?" Whereupon
the affluent German gentleman lifted the gold chain to
take a GOLD WATCH from his waistcoat pocket. As quick as
a flash, the Welsh boy took the watch from the
German’s hand, unclipped it from the chain and said:
"This makes up for the watch I had taken when I was
captured." The American and I could only stand and
stare in astonishment. And neither of us in our amazement
thought to take the gold chain! The portly gentleman
began shouting: "Mein Uhr! Mein Uhr!" but we
took no notice and, with the bucket of coffee, walked
back to the lorry for a lunch of coffee, biscuits and
butter, shared with the soldiers in the guard jeep. Did
the American soldier ever find a gold watch? I wonder.
