The Frontier Kid

We stayed in Prague about a month (June 8th) when it ended , we then drove to Wecker Germany stashed and said a fond farewell to our armored vehicles and settled in to wait for a ship home(I remember sometime in nov.11of 1944 at a place CALLED ARROW COURT we were holed up waiting for ammo and replacement vehicles and men, I carved my name and date which was November 11th on the steering wheel of my track) our home here (a former SS training camp) was like staying at the Waldorf grand hotel compared to what we were used too. German cooks prepared our meals , nice looking girls waited on the tables, and for a pack of cigarettes a week we could have a POW make our beds shine our shoes and run any errands we might have, and believe me we kept them busy, if they made one error they didn’t get their cigarettes for that week. My buddy and I made good use of our time here, first a four day pass into Paris, completely toured the city and other things outside the city. Back at camp we confiscated (stole) a German track cycle and toured the Bavarian Alps and all the little towns around. Beautiful country, mostly untouched by the war, even the people were friendly. Our camp was near a canal. my buddy (King) and I would go swimming about every day, there would always be three or four kids 8 to 10 years old swimming there also, one day I lost my watch the deepest part of the hole and couldn’t find it, I told the kids I would give the kid who found it a pack of cigarettes, those kids dove for it several days and one finally found it boy was he happy to get the cigarettes, probably his dad was happier yet.

We stayed at this camp about four months before we could get a ship out. Finally we were notified that we were moving into a new camp (called Luckystrike) set up near the western shoreline of France to wait for the ship. Imagine 10,000 GI's on shore waiting and praying for that glorious transportation across the Atlantic into NY harbor. We did just that into NY harbor past the old beautiful lady (what a magnificent sight) up the Hudson river to a little disembarking camp for an overnight stay and then by train onto Indian town gap Pa. for discharge and home. It didn’t exactly work out that way when we got to this camp it was so full of GI's from different divisions that there wasn’t room for a rat let alone a GI. Headquarters gave the order for everyone to go home, can you imagine 10,000 love hungry men on the loose at a small place like Indian town gap, with only two roads leading out I might say that I was lucky for once as my friend Jim Clark all thru' the war and before lived in SUNBURY PA. he called his wife Clara to come( she already been alerted) she was there in about an hour, I rode into Harrisburg to the train station and called Ardis and told her to pick me up in Toledo Ohio train station. The next phase of this story is already on paper, so will have to go on from there.