The Anvil and the Hammer1
“Jetzt sind Sie der Ambos, und ich der Hammer”2
[US Army Interrogators’ Motto, WWII ETO]3
James Gagiikwe © 20074
RIGA 19125
Bloomfield left the rococo lobby of his small hotel and stepped into the frosty embrace of the pale mid-morning sun. With less than half a kilometre to walk it wasn’t worth the bother to hail a carriage. “A short, brisk walk will warm me,” he thought. His full-length coat, gloves and Astrakhan hat covered enough of the exposed bits. “Still,” he mused as the wind off the gulf greeted him at the first corner, “I wouldn’t want to be out in this more than necessary.” Rubbing his ears briefly with his gloved hands he muttered “b u r r….reminds me of Chicago.”6
The modest height of the buildings and the flatness of the land in Old Riga served to accentuate the spires of the city’s cathedrals and churches. He turned left towards the Duna River, the cobbled thoroughfare that stretched out before him. Row after row of 17th century Hanseatic buildings, dressed in ornately carved stone, marched away towards the river. Looking for a specific shipping office he lifted his eyes until birds, faces, statues, animals rampant, filigree, all crowded his vision. Heavy, dour, yet actually more appealing to him than the ‘Jugenstil’ architecture that was beginning to infect the newer part of the city. “Perhaps the buildings exist for the sake of the carvings?” Attention wavering, he nearly collided with another pedestrian, earning himself a challenging look and a coarse word from the offended Balt. 7
Despite the chill, pedestrians were purposefully moving in and out of different establishments, shipping offices and banks, law offices, men’s clothiers, a hotel, restaurants, signage in Russian and German. A few signs in English denominated the well-established overseas branches of that nation’s commercial houses. Predictably, he saw no signs in Lettish. He did see one motorised lorry, marque unknown, and several of the expected horse-drawn carriages and goods wagons, mostly heading to the quays.8
He came to number 17, a simple grey building with white window trim, much less ornate than its neighbours. He looked the building over for a moment; entrance and two front windows on the first two storeys, dormer windows marching up the sloping snow covered roofline, interrupted twice by chimneys. All this indicating the standard pattern; first floor offices, upper storerooms, and residence above. He mounted the stone steps. At each side of the oaken door a brass plate heralded the names of the commercial occupants. One plate was in Gothic script, the other in Cyrillic - “Wolther Heinemann and Sons, Shipping Agents”.9
He found the vestibule dim after the winter morning sun. Taking a moment to let his eyes adjust, he removed his coat, gloves and black astrakhan, and hung them on the coat rack to his right. The hallways was not warm, but was out of the wind. Looking around he saw the requisite picture of the Czar holding a space sufficiently visible for protocol, sufficiently inconspicuous to declare that this was a Baltic German office. Two chairs sat forlornly against a wall. Baltic pine dressed dado walls, with an ageing style of wallpaper covering the upper walls. The hallway was gas lit.10
A few feet up the hallway a sign on the first door to his left informed him that the office he sought was there. Entering, he found a clerk seated at a cluttered desk, totally engrossed in a ledger. An open door behind him showed other, lesser clerks working in an inner office. Another, partially open door at the side of that room led, from the aroma, to a kitchenette. Around him Bloomfield observed a chart adorning one wall, listing all the shipping movements anticipated that month. He stifled an inappropriate laugh, as he was struck by how much the clerk reminded him of a Dickensian character. Another desk, pigeon holes stuffed with papers, stood off in a corner unattended, along with a worn and uncomfortable chair awaiting visitors.11
Holding out his visiting card, he spoke to gain the clerk’s attention. “Good morning. My name is Herr Bloomfield, and I have brought a letter from Berlin for Herr Johan Heinemann.”12
Not lifting his eyes from the ledger, the clerk motioned to the empty desk, mumbling, “Place the letter there. Good day.”13
Without having taken offence at the clerk’s less than welcoming manner, Bloomfield, in his characteristically direct manner, reached down and across the table from his significant height advantage, and removed the pen from the shocked clerk’s hand.14
“How dare….I, ah…I…” his protest dying out as he surveyed the young man standing in front of him. Bloomfield spoke in a benign tone. “I am instructed,” he began in English, and then switched to German, “I am instructed to give the letter personally to Herr Heinemann. I intend to do just that.” He had the clerk’s full attention. A smile had followed his declaration of firm intent, but there was no smile in his eyes, only insistence.15
Stocky, fit, square shouldered, erect, with a bristling moustache, high forehead and standing just under 6 feet tall, he looked remarkably like a fit Teddy Roosevelt. Indeed, so much so that his classmates at Cornell University called him TR, after the former president. That presence, and the quality of his tailored suit, convinced the clerk that deference might be more appropriate than defiance.16
Repeating his original request, “TR” brought the befuddled clerk back to action, and offered his card a second time. “Would you please inform Herr Heinemann that Herr Bloomfield is here from Berlin with a letter from Professor Sering. The clerk backed skittishly away from his desk, “Yes sir, immediately sir. Would you pleased be seated while I speak to Herr Heinemann?”, and left the room. In a few moments the chastened clerk returned and requested the young gentleman to follow him. Leading down the short hallway and into Herr Heinemann’s office, he backed out quickly and closed the door. 17
The office reflected the austere “business only” attitude of the outer rooms. Herr Heinemann, a portly man in his mid-fifties, advanced from behind his massive antique desk, and greeted TR formally. “Herr Bloomfield, is it?” he asked as he assessed the English language business card in his hand.18
“Yes. Herr Johan Heinemann?” An affirmative nod in reply. “Sir, I am carrying a letter for you from Professor Sering of the Konigliche Universitat in Berlin.” With this he reached into a suit pocket and withdrew a small parcel, which consisted of an outer envelope embossed with the seal of the university, and containing two plain envelops addressed to Herr Heinemann.19
“Please be seated Herr Bloomfield” Returning to his own chair the businessman unsealed the outer envelop and retrieved the letters. One was marked “Private and Confidential”, which he placed in his top drawer and locked it. The other was simply entitled “Letter of Introduction”. This second he opened and read.20
___________________________________________________________________21
Konigliche-Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat22
Herr Johan Heinemann BERLIN23
Wolther Heinemann and Sons, Shipping Agents24
Kalku 1725
Riga, Kurland26
My Dear friend Johan,27
Greetings to you and Lilli, Walther and Inge and their children. I also send greetings from our mutual friend Theodor Schiemann.28
I have pleasure in introducing to you Herr David Bloomfield, of Chicago, Illinois. Herr Bloomfield is also carrying my private correspondence to you.29
Herr Bloomfield has been studying German advances in Agricultural Sciences under my tutelage during 1910 and 1911. He has proved to be an apt pupil. I can attest to his good character, high intellectual attainment and business acumen. A rare combination in one of his years. In addition to his higher studies at Berlin he has a baccalaureate degree from the College of Agriculture at Cornell University, having studied Chemistry and Biology there. His family are manufacturers of industrial and agricultural chemicals, and he has supervised hybrid grain and fertiliser trials at his company’s experimental farm in Illinois.30
The results of these trials are of particular interest to me, with regard to the need for higher grain yields from Germany’s historic suppliers from the eastern lands. During 1912 Herr Bloomfield plans to travel around the Baltic at his own expense, to observe first hand the agricultural practices of our Auslansdeutche.31
I suggest that it will be to your commercial benefit to speak to this young man about increased agricultural production in Kurland and Livonia. [His observations will also be of great value to me personally. As you know through your correspondence with Herr Schiemann I am in earnest in my desire to see a re-peopling of Kurland and Livonia by our race. Likewise, with regard to a rapid overcoming of our Food Deficit.] I will consider it a great personal favour if you can use your many business connections to assist Herr Bloomfield.32
You will find that this young man is fluent in French and German, is polite [after the American fashion], and is an excellent conversationalist. Any assistance and consideration you may be able to extend to Herr Bloomfield will be personally appreciated; and I assure you, will be well appreciated by Theo as well.33
My best wishes for a prosperous year.34
I remain your friend,35
Herr Doctor Max Sering36
Faculty of Science,37
Chair of Agriculture38
November 24, 191139
___________________________________________________________________40
The businessman placed the letter on his leather bound blotter and sat forward in his chair. “So, young man, your learned professor speaks well of you, and Herr Schiemann is an old friend and émigré from our region. Indeed, his nephew Paul has his offices here in the Old Town. While Max explained the purpose of your travels, I would prefer to hear the explanation in your own words. This will help me determine how to fulfil Max’ request to assist you. But first, may I offer you some refreshment…tea perhaps?”41
“Tea, yes, if you please, strong and sweet.” TR replied as he adjusted his position in the uncomfortable high-backed chair. Heinemann pulled a cord by his desk, and the clerk appeared at the door in a few moments.42
“Sir?”43
“Bring us the small samovar and some pastry, Dieter. Herr Bloomfield and I will be discussing business for the remainder of the morning.”44
“Yes, certainly, Herr Heinemann. As quickly as possible.” He eyed the young man with obvious displeasure.45
Heinemann settled back into his chair and folded his hands over his ample paunch. “While we wait for Dieter to arrange refreshments, perhaps you will tell me when you left Berlin and how long you’ve been here in Riga.”46
“Gladly….I planned to leave Berlin after Herr Professor Sering penned the letter. However, he then met with Herr Schiemann, and asked me to delay my departure. Herr Sering then wrote you the private letter. I used the time to do additional research into the effects of the “Bauernlegen policies”. A problem in obtaining the necessary travel documents then added to my delay.47
Heinemann tapped the top of his desk. “Thank you for delivering that letter.” He had no problem imagining its contents. He was deeply glad it was delivered safely, as he had no wish to end his days in Siberia. Sering and the Kurland émigré were too well known for their “Ostpolitik” views about the re-germanification of the Baltic provinces. For reasons of his own he shared those views, as did his private circle of “Deutsche Vereine” friends.48
The clerk re-entered, carrying a ornate silver serving tray, upon which rested a small and equally ornate samovar, a silver tea service, Dresden china cups and a plate of sweet pastries. Placing the tray carefully upon the side table, he re-lit the container of paraffin under the pre-heated samovar. “Will that be all Herr Heinemann?”49
“Yes, Dieter,” he said as he rose from his chair to prepare the beverage for his guest. The door closed and he continued, “cream?” A negative nod. “You were saying?”50
“Because of these delays I have only travelled to Riga this month, arriving two days ago. I spent a day unpacking, and another walking around the city canal’s park ring….Oh, thank you, this looks refreshing,” he said as he accepted the proffered tea and ‘kuchen’. He paused for a sip and a bite.51
Heinemann returned to his desk with a cup and a liberal pile of kuchen. “I must say that most of Riga’s American visitors seem to come from New York. I don’t recall any from Chicago…..” This observation was followed by some nibbling. “…Max’s letter says that your family manufactures chemicals and fertilisers.”52
“Yes, that is correct. We have two plants, one on Connecticut to serve our eastern markets, and another in Illinois to service the Midwest. We manufacture industrial solvents, explosives and fertilisers. My personal interests are in soil chemistry, hybrid grains, and fertilisers. Economically and socially, America needs to improve its agricultural production in the near future if it is to increase her foreign markets, and meet the demands of her rapidly growing population.”53
“A need not unlike that of the Baltic provinces,” the Balto-German businessman observed. “We here in Riga have traditionally been the Baltic gateway in and out of Russia. We stand, primarily, at a crossroads between Russia, Germany and Sweden. And,” he punctuated with a laugh, “ we try to travel all three roads simultaneously!”54
The two men addressed their tea for a moment. TR put his aside on the small end table and resumed his conversation. “During my undergraduate studies I spent my vacations working on a project at our company farms, testing the relationship between selected soil types, hybrid grains and new fertiliser formulas. The results, as far as any were published, drew the attention of Professor Sering, who wrote from Berlin, and suggested that I study current German agricultural research. That led to my recent two years in Berlin. It was Professor Sering who suggested that I tie together and complete my doctoral studies with a tour of the Baltic.”55
Heinemann finished chewing his current morsal. “I must admit that I am no farmer; and I couldn’t tell you one piece of dirt from another. But part of my business is to increase the agricultural trade of the province. Indeed, Germany is facing a ‘Food Deficit’, and increasingly turns to Kurland and the Ukraine as her “bread basket”. To do this, as I have been forcefully informed by Max many times, we must adopt more scientific farming methods. As you are aware from your studies, the “Bauernlegen policies” enacted almost 100 years ago created larger and more efficient landholdings. I draw many of my clients from among these landholders. The more my clients produce, the more I can export; and the more this firm prospers. Tell me Herr Bloomfield, what would you like to do here in Riga? 56
“I have given that some thought, and would especially appreciate the opportunity to meet estate owners who, in your opinion, are the most open to scientific improvements in agriculture. I understand that there is a regular flow of information between Germany and the Baltic provinces, as well as between the Russian heartland and her Baltic provinces. I would like to be introduced to estate owners who are actually applying these practices. They would be best able to help me research the potential provincial agricultural conditions. Would it be possible for you to assist me in such a way?”57
The Hanseatic trader appraised his guest and said, “You look like you know how to do more than just study. Are you more interested in talk or in participation?” He paused to focus his thoughts. “My advice to you is this, Herr Bloomfield; ….and I freely admit that it is pragmatic advice… and perhaps more than a bit self-serving….Riga is the gateway to the Baltic provinces. In my opinion, Lithuania is too backward to merit your attention. However, from Riga you can venture into Kurland and Livonia with ease. These are the areas I know best, and from which I draw most of my business, a fact that Max knew well when he referred you to me. Just off hand I can think of three or four estates where modern agricultural practices are being systematically employed, though with varying results. I will gladly give you referrals to those landowners, if you will consider several months’ stay in the area. I would suspect that some of them might want to use your expertise on a professional basis.”58
“I am honoured that you would respond in this way to the Professor’s letter, Herr Heinemann. Could you explain your suggestion further, please?….I had not actually envisioned prolonging my stay in one area. However, I think that I would be both imprudent and discourteous not to consider your suggestion seriously.”59
“My point is this, young man, and I speak in confidential bluntness. The old Teutonic nobility, the owners of such vast estates in the Baltic provinces, no longer hold a secure place in the Czar’s imperial system of administration. Relationships are changing; we feel for the worse. It is urgent therefore that we revitalize the value of our estates and commercial enterprises to the Czar. We must, if you will, become absolutely indispensable to the welfare of his dominions. I, and certainly others, feel that this must be accomplished through a combination of means.” He paused cautiously, and then asked…”Are you familiar with Professor Sering’s and Herr Scheimann’s concepts of “Ostpolitik”?”60
Bloomfield smiled a disarming smile and answered, “Herr Professor Sering spoke at length of his views during his lectures. As an American I do not interest myself in the politics of European powers. My interests are scientific and agricultural…not political….or….ethnic.”61
“That being the case, let me just say that one of the means we advocate for the restoration of relations with the Czar is through improved agricultural production. The others are not relevant to your proposals.” Heinemann poured a second cup of tea, signally an end to confidential discussion. “I renew my offer of assistance Herr Bloomfield. May I suggest that you allow me several days to make enquiries? I would be pleased to meet with you again on Friday.”62
“I would be grateful for the time to consider your kind offer Herr Heinemann.”63
“Say 11 o’clock on Friday?”64
Obtaining the name of TR’s hotel, the older man rang for Dieter to see him out, and bid him good day. After locking his office door he sat at his desk pondering the discussion, and finishing off the last kuchen. He was certain that Bloomfield should stay long enough to influence several progressive noblemen. He presumed that this seemingly naïve American would also, unwittingly; advance the Ostpolitik designs of Herrs Sering and Schiemann and their increasingly ethnocentric “Deutsches Verein” friends.65
Upon finishing his tea, and unlocking the top drawer, Heinemann removed and opened the confidential epistle. When he had finished digesting its contents he threw it into the small fireplace and watched it burn. Then he wrote a series of notes to 5 provincial landowners, “German Association” members all.66
* * * *67
The sun was out and the temperature hovering around the point of frost as Bloomfield retraced his steps down Kalku Street. He was relaxed, having made several friends over the intervening days. Sering’s letter of introduction was not the only one he carried. He had built the beginnings of an information network now. This would provide commercial information for his family’s business. It would also provide information to the family’s intimate political connections within the US State Department. Yesterday he had wired his bank in Chicago to establish a larger line of credit here in Riga.68
Arriving as scheduled at Kalku 17 he was ushered directly into Herr Heinemann’s inner sanctum. After polite enquiries about each other’s state of health the Baltic businessman got straight down to the matters at hand. “Have you considered my suggestion, Herr Bloomfield?”69
“I have indeed. I can give you my commitment to your proposal, pending an authorising telegram from my family in the USA. I fully expect my family’s endorsement, as it fits in with my academic plans…. and with the business contacts they have asked me to make. I have already begun the necessary enquiries into my travel documents and banking needs. In addition, I can easily take the train to Berlin for any academic needs.”70
“That is excellent, truly excellent,” the man effused. “I will be pleased to offer my good offices in assisting both your passport and banking issues while you are away from Riga. I can even recommend a private secretary to assist with your research.”71
“For that I thank you, Herr Heinemann.”72
“I have been in contact with several landowners since our first meeting, as I promised. Of that group I have had a firm and immediate invitation from a young estate owner in Kurland, Herr Lothar von Schwendau. I have arranged a carriage to convey you to his estate, just north of Mitau, on Monday morning.”73
A broad grin spread across TR’s face. “Herr Heinemann I can’t thank you enough for your kindness. This is more than I imagined.”74
“Please remember, I have a self-interest in my clients becoming more productive,” said with a conspiratorial chuckle, “My kindness will be repaid, I am sure. Now, can you be ready at 6 am on Monday? You’ll need an early start, as the thaw will make the journey longer. I’ll have the carriage pick you up at your hotel.”75
“That would be most suitable.”76
”It is agreed then. Now, would you like a cup of tea and a pastry?”77
* * * *78
The 40-kilometre journey from Riga to the hamlet of Schwendau had been long and cold. In some places the road was hard and stony, in others nearly a bog. The road network met his limited expectations. They had passed through forests, with a range of poor villages and past a few estates along the way. Some properties looked prosperous, others not so. The peasants working the estates lived in a range of housing, from tidy cottages to the meanest tumble-downs imaginable, seemingly dependent upon the condition of the estate and their distance from the manor house. Not a few buildings had been burned some years before by the look of things.79
There was a sullen wariness in the few faces he’d seen along the way. Men looked at the carriage with open contempt, the women hardly looked at all. The harsh conditions and hard feelings that had birthed the 1905 uprising throughout Russia clearly remained. It had been a topic of political conversation in Berlin, and then again among his recent contacts in Riga. From this TR gained some minor understanding of the bloodletting the peasants had wrought upon the German noblemen and their Lutheran pastors. 80
These elites in turn had heartily endorsed the vicious reprisals against the peasants. The seeds of hatred remained, infecting both sides. The Baltic-German overlords clung to their inherited privilege, oblivious to the real needs and aspirations of their subject peoples. The Letts and Livs simmered in sullen resentment. And the Russians, seeing the vaunted Baltic Germans bested, had begun to loose respect for their commercial and administrative value to the empire. One insecurity was begetting the next, a geometric progression, TR was sure, towards some unseen and malignant end.81
The carriage swung off the main road from Riga to Mitau, and drove up a private lane towards a manor house. He identified last year’s stubble in the fields he passed, wheat, rye, and oats. An orchard, its young trees recently planted, replanted?, covered a small knoll. He saw a large two-storey building, mixing recent construction with older facades and foundations. A walled courtyard containing stables, barns and outbuildings surrounded this manor house.82
Outside the walls, at some distance from the main house and hard against a dense grove of trees stood two smaller houses. As the carriage pulled up to the entrance two stable hands came out to hold the horses. Bloomfield got out stiffly from the landau and, with the help of the driver, began to remove his few bags. The door of the manor house burst open, and a man in his mid-thirties emerged, dressed in expensive, but utilitarian cloths. Shorter than TR, thin, pinched face, abrupt movements, wiry, he barked out commands imperially to his workers, one of whom picked up TR’s bags, while the other led driver and carriage to the stables.83
“Welcome! Welcome, Herr Bloomfield!,” the estate owner said with an eager voice as he charged down the steps and shook his guest’s hand with obvious delight. He rushed TR up the steps and into the house, chattering all the time. “I’m so delighted you have come. Herr Heinemann speaks highly of you and your research. We will have so much to discuss…” This patter went on for several moments without TR being able to say a word in reply.84
In the hallway von Schwendau dismissively introduced his wife Freyda and his 6-year-old daughter Irma; then proudly showed off his two-year-old son, Heinz. “My little Crusader,” he burbled with pride. This verbal whirlwind continued around TR until he was settled in his room and the door finally closed. He had been informed that the evening meal would be served in two hours, to ‘allow him to refresh himself’.85
He stretched his frame out wearily across the bed. “Well, I wonder if that manic slice of minor German nobility would be so hospitable if he knew that his prize guest was a spy, and a Litwak?” He smiled, ran his hands through his travel dusted hair and turned his musing to the list of questions he had prepared for the landowners he’d meet. Two sets of questions, really. One regarding commercial and academic issues. The other….well, ‘research’ – inquiry, intelligence gathering – was one of his fortes, just as assessment and innovation were others. He would have to let each landowner, unknowingly, set the scene for his second set of questions.86
Returning to the present he mused, “I wonder what Muti Weiss would think?” 87
His greatest professional desire was to equip others to be effective food producers. He could already see European war clouds looming, with fears about food production so clearly helping fuel the storm. He had quite consciously lied to Herr Heinemann about being a-political. The proto-racist and ethnocentric ‘Ostpolitik’ of his academic supervisor in fact infuriated him. These inflammatory issues had only made his prior recruitment by family friends in the State Department sweeter.88
Lying in a bed mere kilometres from his maternal heritage drew his thoughts back to the family he hadn’t seen in almost 3 years. The rift in his family caused by his mother’s marriage to a Gentile had yet to heal. Indeed, his own sense of ambiguity, having been raised in a non-religious and moneyed home had only intensified during his time in Berlin. There he saw Jews practicing their religion without much overt prejudice. Meanwhile, other ‘secularised’ Jews worked hard at assimilating into “good Germans”, trying to become indistinguishable from ethnic Germans. In Riga he had met a similar ambiguity and dichotomy. His own Evangelical faith, remarkably discovered at Cornell, was something he nurtured but was still exploring.89
Practicing Jews of several conflicting stripes fed from the spiritual springs of Wilno’s ghetto. These in turn attacked the non-religious assimilationists, those trying to be German – or Russian, and not quite getting it right. He smiled reflectively and shook his head, “No wonder European Jewry produced Sigmund Freud!” He sighed and put his most secret thoughts aside. Getting up he unpacked and prepared to have a meal with the ‘whirling dervish’ who owned this estate.90
As he unpacked he smiled the smile once reserved for the football field; that cold one that opponents glimpsed only moments before he crushed them.91
* * *92
Chapter 293
Battle Creek 197194
It was Sunday afternoon, and I was doing background on a piece on local judges for next week’s magazine supplement. It wasn’t going to win me a Pulitzer, even if I could have proved that a certain Probate Court Judge had a too cosy relationship with a certain local investment firm. I’d just finished a phone call, between innings, and turned up my small desktop radio to catch up on the Tigers–Brewers game. I’m a Tigers fan, and didn’t care to listen to the Twins-Orioles game also broadcast that day. Besides, I liked Ernie Harwell’s broadcasting style, and George Kell’s commentary.95
Subdued typing, one ringing phone and a quiet three-way conversation by the water cooler attested to the low level of activity in the office. It would heat up in an hour or two as reporters dragged in to finish off stories for Monday’s edition of the Battle Creek Enquirer and News. In the meantime, being a [sometimes] ‘investigative reporter’ I could afford to relax and listen to the game, at least till editor Bill Meredith got back from his late lunch. 96
“….its Tigers 4, Milwaukee 4 as we start the ninth. Tiger fans, we’re having a slug-fest today! This has been a wild, seesawing game, with both teams producing erratic pitching. The Tigers have already slammed out 10 hits, starting with Willie Horton’s first inning homer, his 11th of the season….97
Ed Brinkman up to bat as we start the ninth…Lopez hurls…Ball 1. The Brewers are on their fourth pitcher, but I don’t know if Lopez is up to the task of pulling Milwaukee’s fat out of the fire. …. The throw, Ball 2. No, it looks like Lopez has run out of steam. Not that Detroit’s pitchers have been any better…The windup, the pitch, strike!…2 and 1 on Brinkman as Lopez takes the sign from Brewer’s catcher Ellis Rodriguez…Here it comes, Ball 3. Doesn’t look good for Lopez from up here, folks.98
The Brewers started their scoring with a weird and wonderful display of poor pitching from Tiger’s starter Dean Chance. Milwaukee garnered two unearned runs on a throwing error and a wild pitch. Chance was pulled in the second after serving up another walk.99
Ball 4 and Brinkman gets a free trip to first. Looks like Lopez and Chance learned their game at the same school. Detroit relief pitcher Fred Scherman comes up to bat….Lopez serves up his first pitch. Hit!. A stinging drive that catches Lopez off balance at the mound and drops short into left field. Brinkman is already halfway to second as Scherman pounds towards first….Lopez signals the fielder’s choice throw to second baseman Tommy Harper!…A wild throw!, just out of reach. Both Detroit runners pull up safely. Lopez has the look of defeat about him, Tigers’ fans.”100
I don’t know, folks. This is a wild game. Men on first and second. Good scoring position for Detroit…”101
I took a trip to the ‘head’ and missed a batter.102
“What a game! What a game! Bases loaded, with McAuliffe on first, Scherman on second and Brinkman on Third. 2 and 0 for Jim Northrup. The throw, a bouncer, catches Tommy Harper out of position. Brinkman slides, safe! Throw to first, way off line! Safe! Another run batted in for the Tigers and still the bases are loaded. 5 to 4 in favor of the Tigers. It’s a great day for Detroit fans here at Milwaukee.103
The Milwaukee manager has signalled the bullpen and is walking out to the mound. That’s all for Marcelino Lopez. Larry Bearnarth is in for the Brewers. Al Kaline is up to bat for Detroit. Nobody out. Kaline is 1 for 3 trips to the plate today. Going into this game hitting 237 he’s got plenty of season left to build up his average.104
First pitch from Bearnarth. Kaline hits a scorcher up the rightfield line!…Its fair! Its over the wall and into the third row! Homer number 4 for Al Kaline!….”105
Despite my smirk at the Brewer’s discomfort I turned down the radio when I saw Meredith return to his glass cubicle. I got back to work on my article. Bearnarth gave up two runs, and was pulled for Dick Ellworth. He managed to put away the next three Detroit batsmen. But the damage was done; 9 to 4 heading into the last half of the 9th.106
Jerome, our go-for, came out of Meredith’s office and headed my way. A cross between ‘Jimmy Olsen’ from Superman, and some adenoidal teen from the Our Miss Brooks series, Jerome was a gangly 16-year old with aspirations to become a great journalist. He had a long way to go. So did I for that matter.107
“Mr. Middleton,” he chirped, managing to rise through three octaves as he did so, “Mr. Meredith would like to speak with you, please.”108
“Thanks, Jerome.”109
I walked to the front of the building and stuck my head into Bill’s door, “Yes Bill?” Wearing his usual worried face he waved me in and got down to business.110
“Got a call from John Sabin after lunch today. A client of his law firm has been over in England getting a medal from Queen Elisabeth.”111
I knew the name of one of Battle Creek’s most competent attorneys from the research into my current article, and from listening around the traps. But I lifted an eyebrow at the unexpected linkage between the Queen of England and the Cereal City. “Oh, yes?”112
“Yah. He was a pilot in World War I, and it seems the Brits waited 50 years before they got around to awarding him a medal. John thought it would make a good human interest story.”113
“Anyone I know?”114
“Karl Ritter, former Chairman of Pak-Tech International.” He handed me a memo with the summary of his conversation with Sabin.115
“Jn. Sab – Ritter, Karl G. Frmr Chrmn Pk-Tck Int’l116
RAF WWI QE2 DFC Hum-int?? Mdtn 6/6/71!!!”117
This got my attention. I didn’t know Ritter personally; out of my league. But in a town totally dominated by the food industry, the subsidiary industry of packaging was a big player. Everything was subservient to Kellogg’s and Post Cereals. It was common knowledge that only the Battle Creek Packaging Machine company, bought out and asset stripped in ‘64’, had been bigger that Pak-Tech Int’l, formerly Midwest Packaging.118
“Don’t know the man, boss.”119
“I do, somewhat. Besides being an industrialist, he’s served on the city council, belongs to Rotary and the Country Club. Churchgoer. He’s quite a guy; still waters type; but he has the respect of lots of people in this town. Must be in his mid-70’s by now, It doesn’t surprise me that the Brits owed him a medal. He served in WWII also, but doing what I don’t know.”120
I re-read the memo as Meredith asked rhetorically, ”What angle do you want to take?” 121
I knew his editorial policies, so I said,” Well, first I’ll find out when he gets back. Do as much checking around before then. See what kind of human-interest story I can get a handle on, then follow that. You want it for the June 6th edition” A curt nod. “Hey, maybe there’s a tie-in with D-Day. And with the industrial angle. I’ll sniff around.” I tried backing away from policy, “What about dirt?”122
Meredith pushed his glasses down his nose and looked over the top of them from his 3-inch height advantage. I knew that look. He didn’t like gossip columns. He’d gotten his Pulitzer the hard way, he earned it. He liked facts.123
“Sorry.” I left his office and walked back to my desk; running through my usual pre-research checklist mentally. I turned up the volume on the radio while I wrote myself some preliminary notes.124
“That’s it sports fans. Bill Voss’ ninth inning homer, his fifth for the season, wasn’t enough to save Milwaukee from the claws of the Tigers. Detroit 9, Brewers 5. That puts Detroit in third spot behind Boston and Baltimore. This is Ernie Harwell….and George Kell….signing off for the Detroit Tigers Baseball Network.”125
I turned off the radio, grabbed the White Pages and picked up the phone. Ah hour, and three calls later, I walked back into Bill’s office. “Ritter just got back from England, and is on vacation at his family cabin on the Au Sable. Be back in a few days. I reached his daughter and left a message for him to call me as soon as he gets back.”126
“OK Brad. Follow it up, I want a summary by Friday.”127
Now I had two articles to juggle, but that fits my style. I wouldn’t win the Pulitzer on this one either. 128
“Jerome!” I yelled across the room. He came trotting up, all puppy expectation. Too lazy to use the phone, I handed him a request form. “Take this to the “morgue” and ask Sandy for everything we’ve got on this guy.”129
“Yes, sir.” He trotted off to the newspaper’s archives. Two minutes later the house line buzzed.130
“This is Sandy, Brad. Why the request on Ritter? What’s happening?”131
“Meredith wants a hum-int story on him.”132
“Oh. Great!” she enthused. “He’s a tremendous fellow.”133
“You know him?”134
Yes. We both attend Redeemer Lutheran Church, and my dad worked in his company most of his life. If you need more than the archives, call me.”135
“I’ll do that, thanks.” I hung up. “Church…sentimental hypocrites…‘bah-humbug’.136
* * * *137
It was a good thing Meredith had given me a week. Ritter didn’t call back until that Thursday, June 3rd. I had time to read through the clippings on Ritter, his family and business. Quite a few over the years, small social pages ones, mostly by ‘Mugs’ Cronk, covering weddings, etc. And several business news articles, chiefly about his involvement in the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers’ Institute. Sandy, true to her word, had given me some very useful personal and business background filler. But no gossip, much to my disappointment.138
The outside line rang at 9 am. I like to answer quickly. I barked, “Hello, Enquirer and News, this is Brad Middleton speaking.”139
A polite, deep and confident older male voice replied, “This is Karl Ritter, Mr. Middleton, returning your call. What can I do for you?”140
Right away I thought that it might be a good idea to use some phone etiquette. “Mr. Ritter, my editor has requested that I arrange an interview with you, to do a feature article about your trip to England. Is it possible to meet with you sometime in the next few days?”141
“Mr. Middleton…”142
“Call me Brad, please.”143
“Brad….” He used my first name with reluctance “…I don’t know what interest my recent trip would be to anyone. I just attended a reunion, and a large number of us met very briefly with Queen Elisabeth and Prince Philip.”144
He wasn’t biting. “Well, Mr. Ritter, some prominent people,” only one actually, I thought to myself, “have requested that we give the community an opportunity to get to know you better.”145
Mr. Mid…Brad…I still don’t think so….”146
A hard fish to land. “If I may, Mr. Ritter, it isn’t often that people from Battle Creek meet the Queen and her consort….Perhaps we could do this….How about we talk ‘off the record’ and after that, if you still don’t want to give me an interview, then that’s fine, we’ll drop the idea.” I lied; Meredith would have me do an assigned article even without a first-person interview. “Besides, sir,” I tried my clincher, “our archives show that you’ve been interviewed by the Enquirer and news three time in the last 40 years. You’ve already set a precedent, and its way past time for another interview.” 147
“Young man”, …. I hated being called that!… “I guess you’ve got me. When and where would you like to meet?”148
“Would today, at noon, be convenient? I would be pleased if you would be mu guest for lunch.” I named a hotel restaurant near the Federal Building.149
Ritter countered firmly. “Mr. Middleton, that’s very kind of you. However, I could really use a walk today, after all the travel I’ve done lately. Allow me to invite you to lunch at the Country Club. The walk there and back from my home will do me good… Say 12:30? Park in a visitor’s bay, and ask for me when you get inside. I’ll arrange for the table.”150
“That’s very kind of you sir. I would be happy to. Thank you very much.” My budget would be even happier. I could barely have afforded the meal I had offered him, Meredith, wise man, saw to it that my expense account was minimal.151
“Fine, see you then,” he rang off.152
I walked down to Meredith’s office and knocked.153
“Kumonin.”154
“Boss, I’ve arranged an appointment with that Ritter guy at 12:30 today.”155
“Great. He happy with the idea?”156
“Not really. I’ll have to sell him on an in-depth interview. I told him it would be an “off the record” chat, but I’ll swing it OK.” Bill nodded. “I’ll be away from the office from 11:45 till 2.”157
“Long interview,” he said suspiciously.158
“I have to change clothes. We’re meeting at the Country Club for lunch.”159
“I don’t even get invited there! Mind your manners Middleton!” He smiled, but not benignly.160
“Yes, sir,” I grovelled. Having only been on the staff for a few years I had yet to build a secure niche.161
Back at my desk I went through my notes again and prepared a set of possible indirect questions to pose. I called Julie, asking her to set out my best [only] suit. Then I finished my article on local judges. No expose, but it might influence a few votes in the next election. We had a crop of geriatric cronies wearing robes. Too much ‘inbreeding’ between judges and local special interests. With luck I could get a few leads from the article that would lead to more substantive exposure. Cereal City has a seamy side. So did I.162
“Jerome!” I yelled, holding the completed article in the air. He grabbed it as he sped by.163
Come 11:45 I walked out to my ageing Falcon and drove out to Lakeview, to our small, heavily mortgaged tract house on 22nd. I’d grown up in Lakeview, went to high school there. My principal, Karl Randall, had gotten me interested in journalism. My grades weren’t good enough to think about entering college; but he gave me a great start on the yearbook staff. By road, I only lived 6 kilometres from Ritter’s house, but a much greater distance socially and economically. As a journalist I had taken a swipe at a few local ‘big heads’ in my brief career. But what I’d learned about Ritter pictured him as an all-right guy. I didn’t know how to handle decent guys. Too cynical I guess. “There must be a downside to this guy,” I thought.164
“Hi sweetheart,” I greeted Julie with a hug and a kiss. Well, a light hug. At 8 months she wasn’t in any condition for heavy hugging. She leaned back against the doorframe, resting, and arms akimbo. “Hi, yourself, ‘Pop”.” This was our first pregnancy. We’d delayed getting married. First came a hitch in the Navy, as Yeoman [clerk/typist] would you believe, compliments of the Draft. A tour in the Mekong Delta was thrown in for [no] good measure. A lot of my journalistic cynicism grew out of that experience.165
We got married in ‘67’. Then there was 2 years at Kellogg Community College as an English-Lit student and a cadetship on this local rag. Julie worked as a waitress at “Wynn Schullers” in Marshall till I graduated and started fulltime at the Enquirer and News. We both wanted a girl. After the baby was born my editor planned to give me one afternoon a week to drive over to Olivet College to work on a BA in English Lit. It was looking like a busy couple of years.166
I showered and changed quickly while Julie nattered about her day; mostly spent sewing and looking through baby catalogues. My suit wasn’t a winner, but it would have to do. I rushed out the door with another brief kiss. “Bring me a doggy bag,” Julies requested. I drove over to Goquac Lake, parked in one of the visitor’s bays and walked into the attractive canyon-stone building at the tick of 12:29.167
A club employee came up to me immediately, asked if I were Mr. Middleton, then directed me into the large dinning area. Several tables of lady golfers were lunching off to one side of the room. A table of businessmen looked up when I entered, and then returned to their conversation. I recognized a local real-estate developer and a banker. All were dressed in expensive simplicity. I filed their names away in my memory for another potential ‘expos&#;. At a table for two, looking out over the lawn to the lake, a remarkably fit older man stood awaiting my approach. He was a full head taller than I. Dressed in tailored but casual slacks and a golf shirt he looked very much at ease. Something I did not feel. He was on home turf, I wasn’t. My carefully planned trap began to rust shut.168
Ritter, I knew from my research, was 74 years old. He looked 60. Widowed, remarried, 2 adult children and some ‘grands’. His black hair was lightly salted with grey, somewhat receding. His face round, but not podgy. He stood just under 2 meters tall, was probably taller as a young man. A little stocky, but no fat. A calm, welcoming smile on his face, and an extended hand as I approached. “Welcome, Mr. Middleton.” His handshake was firm but not aggressive. He motioned to the other chair and said, “Please feel free to take off your jacket and relax. This isn’t a very formal place.”169
I was grateful. “Thanks,” I said in relief as I placed my jacket over the back of the chair and sat down. “And thanks for agreeing to see me.”170
I noticed that his eyes smiled even if his face didn’t. “As you said, I’d already set a precedent; even if most of those interviews were given to an old family friend. The lunch menu is a bit light this time of year, so I’ve taken the liberty of ordering for both of us. Mrs. Ritter would have joined us, but she had prior commitments.”171
“Your choice is OK by me, Mr. Ritter. Perhaps I can meet Mrs. Ritter some other time?”172
“Soup, salad and a ‘club sandwich’ OK with you?”173
“Great,” Julie will kill me; BLTs are her favourite.174
The waiter came promptly with our soup. After a pause, Ritter began talking before I could start my veiled interview. “Are you a local, Brad? Married?”175
I noticed that he was more comfortable with my name now. “Yes, sir. I was born and raised here, went to school at Lakeside High. My wife and I are expecting our first child in a few weeks.”176
“Congratulations. What are you hoping for?”177
“We’d both like a girl to start with.”178
“Your wife won that argument, did she?” he said with a smile.179
“Well,” I said between mouthfuls of the marvellous pumpkin soup, “I figured that if she won that one, I’d win the next. I understand that you have two children and a troop of grandkids.”180
“That’s right Brad,” he began as the waiter came to take away our first course. “My son is the General Manager at Pak-Tech International. He has two children, one of each. My daughter is an English teacher,” a wishful pride in his eyes, “like her mother. She has twin girls and a boy.”181
“Bet that keeps you busy at Christmas!”182
“And at birthdays and anniversaries too, let me assure you.”183
Our salads and club sandwiches arrived. The next few minutes were spent eating and more small talk. Ritter was friendly but alert. Slowly, I came to the conclusion that his earlier reticence towards an interview might have actually been due to simple modesty. I wasn’t comfortable with modesty, simple or otherwise. Eventually we got around to the point of the meeting. I tried to be indirect, draw him out.184
“What would you like to tell me about this trip to England?”185
Ritter wiped his lips with his serviette and leaned forward. For the next 10 minutes he detailed the reunion for 100 WWI flyers organized by the Canadian High Commissioner, Charles Ritchie. Most were Canadians who had served in the RFC/RAF or the Naval Air Service during WWI. With maddening modesty he avoided his part in the proceedings and focused on the other participants. One of his few surviving friends from those days, he said, was a retired RCAF Air Vice Marshal. Another was a mining magnate who had weathered all the ups and downs of Canadian mining speculation.186
Leaving from Toronto the veterans had travelled to England by chartered jet. Most had their wives with them, as did Ritter. Two days after arrival, a Wednesday morning, they were bussed from their hotels to Buckingham Palace. Palace staff arranged them in order of entrance, passed out clip-on nametags and then led the elderly men, wives and or adult children through a door into the thrown room. The room was about 30 by 60 meters, hung everywhere with paintings large and small. 187
The queen stood smiling, wearing a peach-coloured calf-length afternoon frock. Prince Philip stood next to her. An equerry read a citation and the nominated individual came forward, to receive a small box from the Queen, and a handshake from the Prince. Then the remainder of the veterans were introduced to the Queen. After a kind word to each from Her Majesty they moved on to greet the Prince. The ex-pilots and their guests were arranged along the wall of the ornate room, while the Queen and Prince moved slowly around the room, speaking with each person.188
All this was interesting background colour, but didn’t give me much information about Ritter’s role in the event, or of his wartime experiences. I let him talk a moment or two more. He must have sensed my impatience.189
“Is that the kind of off the record material you wanted to talk about, Brad?”190
“Well, Mr. Ritter, even though this wasn’t a real interview, with notes and all, I do have a few specific questions I’d like to ask. Is that OK?” Ritter pondered for a moment, steepled his fingers and said, “OK.”191
“What kind of medal were you awarded, and what exactly did you do to earn it? And, why so many years late?”192
Before he would answer Ritter stalled by asking, “Coffee? Dessert?”193
“Just coffee thanks.” He signalled the waiter, who came over and took our request.194
Then he told me the bare bones of a story that would take me three more years to unravel. It didn’t take me long to see that there was more here than just an article for a weekend magazine section. I never guessed how intertwined Julie and my lives would become with Ritter and his wife.195
After the coffee, and a small tray of cookies, he began.196
“I was awarded the DFC, the Distinguished Flying Cross, for a few days flying I did in October and November, 1918. It was the end of the war,” his eyes twinkled, “you might recall from your highschool history class with…Miss. Arnold.”197
I choked aloud at the mention of that old drone, but managed a smile over the lip of my coffee cup. In answer to an unspoken question he said, “I was on the Lakeview Board of Education when they hired her in 1937.” I smiled in pain at the memory of her classes.198
“It was the end of the war, and things were a bit chaotic. I served on the Italian – Austrian Front, in the 28th Squadron of the RAF. It was still the RFC when I joined in 1917. I’d had a bit of an accident and spent several months recuperating. By then it was March, 1919, and I was mustered out to return to the USA. In the meantime, the remnants of the squadron had been assigned to occupation duty in the disputed territory between Italy and the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Apparently, my squadron commander had put me up for a medal, but my records had been misplaced, and then just gathered dust. Someone doing a squadron history uncovered them a few years ago. The British apologised last week for their delay. It didn’t matter to me one way or another. I went over to England to have a holiday and meet up with the very few of us left from the 28th.”199
I tried a few more questions, but Ritter wasn’t forthcoming. Eventually he said, with calm assurance, “As this was only an ‘off the record’ chat, Brad, I think you have enough for your needs.”200
I must have looked as crestfallen as I felt. I’m not a good actor. Ritter then suggested that we meet in two weeks to continue the interview. That wouldn’t suit my editor, but it would have to do. I could piece together enough details, and make some more phone calls, and have another chat with Sandy. As it was, events overtook me, and I lost sight of the longer article. Meredith allowed a short article, with my promise of a long feature to follow.201
___________________________________________________________________202
Battle Creek,Enquirer and News June 6, 1971203
BRITAIN REMEMBERS204
Distinguished Flying Cross Awarded to Local Businessman205
Long ago, in a Sopwith Camel somewhere over Italy, a Battle Creek youth named Karl Ritter flew and fought for the British in the final days of World War I.206
Ritter, now 74, recalled those days in a chat with Queen Elisabeth one Wednesday this May, during a reception at Buckingham Palace for 112 American and Canadian veteran fliers. These men had served in the Royal Air Force and Naval Air Service. Ritter had been recommended for a medal at the end of the war, but due to a clerical oversight, had not received it at the time. Queen Elisabeth made amends for that tardiness on behalf of her government, awarding Ritter the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions against Austrian forces in late October and early November 1918. 207
The Queen and Prince Philip chatted with the pilots during a tour of the palace’s vast picture gallery. Ritter, who served as a lieutenant in the Royal Air Force’s 28th Squadron, was accompanied by his wife, Dr. Maria Ritter. “The Queen and Prince were delightful and we enjoyed every minute of it,” Ritter said.208
Ritter served as an Intelligence Officer in WWII. After VE Day he assisted his former Austrian enemies as an officer in the US Occupation Forces. 209
___________________________________________________________________210
New York City211
December 30, 1917212
Four disappointed young men walked into the crowded hotel bar. While one went to order beers, and another got a plate of five-cent sandwiches from the buffet table, Ritter and Williams found an open table. They ate and drank in silence for a while. Finally Sam Porter spoke the sentiments of three of them.213
“I going back. If I catch this afternoon’s train I can be home for New Years. If the RFC doesn’t want us, then I guess I’ll go join the US infantry.” 214
“Yeah, me too,” concurred Williams. I really wanted to fly, but it looks like the door is closed.”215
They returned to their silence and eating, until Ritter saw the RFC recruiting Sergent enter the hotel bar, and begin preparing a tray of sandwiches for the officers back upstairs. Ritter jumped up, said a hurried goodbye, and rushed out of the bar and up the stairs.216
Not to be put off by the Sargent’s earlier peremptory dismissal of the hopeful American recruits, Ritter had a fast forming plan. While the Sergent was occupied downstairs, Ritter would find the RFC recruitment officers that they had come to see, and get a fair hearing.217
On the third floor of the hotel he retraced his steps to the room that represented the RC’s only authorised recruiting station in America. Straightening his shoulders, and adjusting his tie, Ritter slipped into the outer office, saw that it was indeed empty, and went to the inner door, opened it, and barged in, and came to a stiff attention.218
Three RFC officers looked up in a start at the intrusion. “What is the meaning of this?” a Major enquired angrily across the top of his teacup. “How dare you come in here!”219
Ignoring the major, and addressing the Colonel who was standing by the window, Ritter said evenly, “Sir, my name is Gus Ritter. I would like to volunteer for the Royal Flying Corps.”220
“Ritter? Isn’t that a German name?” asked the major in an acid tone.221
“So is Battenberg, sir,” Ritter answered coolly.222
The major turned puce, and choked on his tea at the mention of the royal family’s German lineage. The Canadian chuckled aloud, and the Colonel got a brief twinkle in his eye over the bold answer.223
“And what,” enquired the Canadian accented third officer in the room, “makes you think that you are suited to the RFC?”224
“I have 4 years of cadet corps training at Culver Military Academy. I have completed two and a half years of university, and I have extensive experience in my family’s engineering works. I applied to the US flying service, but they haven’t answered my application yet. When I read about this recruiting office, I and three others came out to New York to volunteer.”225
“And where are the other three? enquired the Colonel.226
“Sir, we came earlier today to apply, but your Sargent turned us away as unsuitable.”227
“Did he indeed?” commented the Canadian. “What has become of your compatriots?”228
“They are discouraged, sir, and have decided to return home.”229
“And where is home?”230
“Michigan, Sir.”231
“But you had the temerity to return, interrupt our lunch break, and demand a hearing? summarised the Colonel.232
“Not temerity sir, perseverance, if you please.”233
Just then the door opened and the Sargent entered carrying the officer’s food tray. He turned pale at the sight of Ritter standing amidst ‘his’ officers. He gave a questioning look at the Colonel as he set the tray on the table.234
“Sargent,” instructed the Colonel, “please take this gentleman into the office and process his application immediately.”235
The Sargent eyed Ritter with chagrin and came to attention, “Yes, sir.” 236
“I believe, Sargent,” affirmed the Canadian officer, “that we have found this candidate most suitable.”237
The chastened Sargent led Ritter out.238
* * *239
That night, as the train made its way across the snow covered New York farmlands, Ritter sat in an envelope of mild unbelief mixed with excited anticipation. Through the frost covered glass he could see a few lights in distant farmhouses. The villages and towns they passed through on the way to Toronto were silent in their wrapping of snow. He thought of his family’ proud that he’d volunteered, anxious for his welfare in the midst of a butchering war. 240
In a day he would be at Camp Borden, beginning his ground school training. He got his diary out of his overnight bag, and began to make notations in his fluid copperplate hand. As he wrote up his notes for the day he wondered how his grandfather Louis Ritter would have reacted to his decision. 241
Louis had immigrated to America in 1861. Just off the boat, he volunteered for service in the Union Army, serving in 8th New York Infantry Regiment, the First German Rifles. He ended the war in a Provost detachment, and then moved to Michigan to farm, marry and raise his ‘American’ family. From him Ritter had learned his fluent Bavarian-accented German, and his sense of grateful patriotism to America. He had died in the summer of 1914, being spared the pain of seeing the beginnings of WWI.242
Eventually Ritter dozed. A new year, a new country, a new prospect lay in front of him. 243
*244
Vittorio-Veneto245
November 1918246
Anna Louise was 4 months old and recuperating fully. Julie felt confident in taking her with us to dinner at the Ritters’ house. Confident too in Dr. Ritter. They had stood with us and our extended family throughout the operation.247
It was a typically crispy October evening. Julie had Anna Louise rugged up and I strapped her into her car bassinette. The trip from Lakeview to Country Club Drive went quickly in the twilight. “Bet the fairways will be frosty in the morning,” Julie commented after we passed the clubhouse. It was straight on 7pm when we pulled into the circular driveway. The house looked like a Frank Lloyd Wright design, and seemed eminently suitable to the neighbourhood. But if we hadn’t been treated so much like family by the Ritters I doubt that we would have come to dine in such surroundings. It was a long way, socially, from our clapboard house on the other side of Lakeview.248
The Ritters were ‘just plain folks’ in a thoroughly authentic way; no pretence or sham. After their prayers and support at Anna’s birth I was forced to start revising my opinion of ‘Christians’. That was hard.249
Ritter awaited us at the front door, gave mother and daughter a light kiss, and ushered us in with a friendly greeting. I would learn later that the Ritters had a housekeeper, but always gave her the night off when they had company, so that they could serve the guests themselves. Mr. Ritter led me into the living room after taking our coats. Mrs. Ritter held the baby while she and Julie gravitated into the kitchen. I could hear them nattering in the background as Mr. Ritter engaged me in my favourite topic, little Anna.250
Being grandparents they already had a complete assortment of ‘baby equipment’ with which to entertain an infant and parents. Mrs. Ritter had set up a baby cot in the dinning room, and Julie was already giving her a breastfeed. Getting her settled was easy, and there were soft toys on the crib if she awoke during the meal.251
I had expected ‘conspicuous consumption’, but found that the house was neat, clean, comfortable, but above all, simply furnished. Mrs. Ritter’s European origin was reflected in some furniture styles. The fireplace was made of the same canyon stone as the country club. The mantle held a range of family photos. But, beyond that there was no ‘show’. I relaxed.252
I had a peek at the photos while Ritter went to get me a cup of coffee. Despite our growing friendship, I was still a reporter with a story I wanted to write. I needed more grist to build questions around. I soon saw why it was a large mantelpiece, to hold all those family memories.253
Starting on the right was an old silver frame holding a turn of the century family group, mother, father, four children, 2 boys and 2 girls. Next came individual portraits of the children, obviously taken a few years later. Then wedding pictures of the two sisters, and a male not Karl Ritter. A young and dapper Mr. Ritter, kitted out in an RAF uniform looked out from the next photo with the nonchalance only the young can muster. Then a wedding photo, Ritter and his first wife. This was followed by several family photos of Ritter, wife and two children. Finally three different pictures.254
In one a man dressed in a WWI era uniform I didn’t recognise. His face was careworn and sombre. An oaken frame held a wedding photo, very European, of a young man and woman. Lastly was the wedding photo of Ritter and his second wife. Enough questions here to keep me going a long time.255
Ritter came in with our coffees and sat down by the picture window overlooking the lake. Lights twinkled around the edge of the lake. “Anna’s certainly looking stronger every day, Brad.” He began.256
“Yes, sir. It really takes the weight off our hearts to see her improving so quickly. Julie has really looked forward to getting out tonight. We have been out twice, to see her folks and mine, but that is only a block or so away, and, well, it isn’t really a ‘night out’ if you know what I mean.”257
“Yes, I understand.”258
We were just finishing our coffees when Dr. Ritter called us into the dinning room. This room carried a more European flavour. A large oak table, with fabric covered high backed chairs sat in the centre of the room, a lace tablecloth carried a full set of fine china and real silverware. After working at Wynn Schulers, Julie was at home with all this. I was out of my depth.259
Julie had helped carry in the first course, over the objections of Dr. Ritter. While a spry 69-year-old, it was clear to Julie that their hostess might secretly enjoy some assistance carrying in the food. With the baby asleep in the cot, Julie had her hands free. Discretion is the better part of valour, and I followed our host’s example, and stayed out of the way.260
In his own home, and according to his own custom, Ritter said grace, and we began an excellent meal. The dinner was spent in happy conversation. Mr. Ritter had a wealth of tales to tell on his own children. And Dr. Ritter used her experience to tell some hilarious anecdotes. Looking back I can se that their love and faith permeated the evening, and extended additional hope to us regarding Anna’s complete recovery.261
After dinner Julie volunteered to help Dr. Ritter clean up. I suspected that she wanted to talk privately to the doctor about her concerns for Anna’s physical and mental development. Ritter invited me into his den-*bunny*-office. It was a traditionalist male domain – library/retreat/office.262
As we sat down I began with “Mr. Ritter, this has been a really relaxing night. Thanks a lot. I hadn’t realized how worn out I was. This being a dad is hard work.”263
“The Doc and I are glad you could come over. It’s tremendous to see the improvement in Anna. You’ve had a hard start at being a dad, and I’m sure you’ll have more trials ahead of you. But I can tell you what a help prayer, and faith in God, has always been to me as I’ve faced parenting pressures.”264
I didn’t want to get into a ‘religious’ discussion; especially when I knew that he really meant what he said. I changed the topic.265
“Mr. Ritter, my editor still wants to do that feature story on your flying experience. How about it?”266
“Frankly, Brad, I don’t enjoy reliving those experiences. I think you can relate to that.”267
“Yah,” I admitted slowly. “I still get flashbacks sometimes.” The flashbacks were very livid, my nightmares waking Julie and giving me the sweats. Any simple noise could set off my nerves. Once or twice I thought I was going crazy, unable to shake the memories. Sometimes the wounds still ached…..268
The VC must have spent days getting into position undetected, triangulating, humping in the mortar rounds and RPGs. Our shore base supported patrol craft on the Mekong. The gunboat crews knew what to expect, sort of. Me, I just pounded typewriters all day, filling in forms, and writing up meaningless reports for the Intel people. Besides, a seaman should be at sea, not stuck on shore. I kept telling myself that, but deep down I had to admit that I was just scared spitless. The memories of that night attack were still with me. Yeah, I could relate to Ritter’s reluctance.269
“Brad,” Ritter began, pulling me back from my unpleasant reverie. “This evening, I’m going to tell you some of what I experienced. If you still want to do that article, I won’t tell you not to. I think I can trust your judgement”, he flashed a conspiratorial grin, “despite your being a journalist. I don’t think you will want to distort or sensationalise anything. Deal?”270
I’d learned to trust this man, and it was nice to be trusted in return. For Anna’s sake I owed him some slack. “Deal.”271
He got up, walked to a closet and took out an aged plexiglass windscreen. Handing it to me he explained, “This was salvaged from my Sopwith Camel in 1918.” 272
The yellowing material was punctured with a star-shaped hole on the left side. I held the fragile piece of history, feeling the texture, poking my index finger through the bullet hole.273
* * * *274
The two fighters, like squat dragonflies on algae covered water, bombs underslung, trundled awkwardly across the still spongy infield. The pilots repeatedly ‘blipped’ their warming engines as they swung their waddling machines expectantly towards the November dawn. Warmth and tea beckoning, weary mechanics, their ranks shrunken by the Influenza, shuffled their way towards a hut. In the lead aircraft, as he gave the field one last look, the pilot began to pray, “…into thy hands, oh Lord, do I commit my spirit….”. A wave to his wingman, engines roaring, they began their roll across the turf.275
Hesitant dragonflies, weighty on a field not yet dried from last week’s rains, needed space and time to gain momentum. The Lombardy poplars surrounding the racetrack sped by quickly. Wet threshing fell away as two tailskids came up. Two sets of wheels furrowed on, unwilling to forsake the meadow. Finally, reluctantly, drunkenly, the fighters pulled themselves into the damp air, crossed the motorcycle track and jerked themselves over the ring of trees. Over the Monte Berico they caught the rising thermal, and rode it towards their assigned altitude. The petrol thus saved would be useful on the flight back.276
Finally, leaving the environs of Vicenza behind they began the 51-kilometre flight towards the Piave River. Off to their left stood the Dolomites, unwelcoming sentinels wrapped in a mantle of torn clouds and wet rock, reflecting in spots the advancing morning light. Enlarging before them lay the Veneto; walled villages and towns clinging to hillsides, vineyards, farms, small forests of beech and red pine; streams and rivers with their bridges and roads and crossroads.277
The bridges. The roads.278
Since October 24th, and the end of the recent storms, the former rains had given way to heavy broken cloud. The Influenza still raged. The battle ahead still raged. Still feeling the after effects of the Influenza, the lead pilot held his nose and blew, trying to unblock his ears as they neared 5,000 meters. 28 Squadron, like so many others, was working and flying under-strength. Influenza killed as surely as a bullet, debilitating survivors like famine. On the first day of the attack he vomited twice. Occasional feverish sweat still irritated the skin under his goggles and soaked the fur lining of his soft leather helmet. His powerful arms, he anticipated, would feel like rubber after a few hours in the air.279
Cautious now, he sought the canyons between the clouds, leading his wingman in a bobbing weave from cloud formation to cloud formation. Two pairs of wary eyes searched above, below, behind, but especially into the sun. Despite many raids on their airfields the Austrians still maintained a few aggressive pilots. The sun was fully up and the earth below crawled with movement, clearly discernable even at this height. 280
Lines of men, machines, wagons, canon, ambulances, trucks, snaked along the surface, all heading northeast. Rising columns of smoke caught in the morning winds and fed the clouds. The turmoil below, silent only because of the noise of rotary engine, increased in density and agitation as he neared the Piave. Looking below him the lead pilot searched for metaphors – None seemed adequate to express the panoply of devastation and chaos stretching away into the distance, unless it were some biblical imagery. Crossing over the river the two pilots turned towards their next reference, Coneglione, where, a few days before, the armies had ground to a temporary halt. Here they saw more vineyards, more red pines, more smoking chaos and converging lines of men, horses, wagons, trucks. An army advancing.281
Now, banking due east towards the Livenza River, he saw….The bridges. The roads.282
Hyperalert. Dry throat. A quick check of guns and bomb toggle. A wave and a signal to his wingman. A banking turn, and a slow circle north of the Meduna where it flowed aggressively into the Livenza, swollen from last week’s rains. Moving north again, in a second wide circuit, no other aircraft visible, no balloons, and no flak – yet. To his left lay his assigned targets.283
He recalled last night’s briefing. “Your half-flight,” began the Canadian squadron commander, will take off at 0630 and proceed to the Livenza River between Brugnera and Vittoria-Veneto, north of the Meduna, via Coneglione. There you will bomb and strafe troop concentrations on or near the bridge. Create a bottleneck, choke them. The Army is already punishing them at Vittorio-Veneto. They broke once this week at the Piave, thanks to some British battalions and you, Ritter. Lets see if we can do it again. Our other half-flights from here, and the advanced field at Treviso, will follow up the first sortie at regular intervals throughout the morning to compound the damage, striking targets of opportunity along the Pordenone road. That is all. Good luck.”284
The bridges, the roads, impersonal things; they had come here for them. The sun was well up, almost 0715. He waggled his wings and began his dive, coming in from the east, coming out of the sun. His wingman followed 500 meters behind. Accelerating in a shallow dive now, he lined up on the centre of the bridge, the chaotic mass below taking on increasing detail and individuality.285
* * * *286
The rancid ammonia smell of fear pervaded and subdued all other smells. Pine needles, grape leaves, manure and autumnal rot, none could compete with the stink of men in defeat. The soil, no longer mud from the recent rains, not yet dry enough for choking dust, was a slime beneath their boots. Boots propelled by fatigue, propelled by the embittered memories of dissident nationalities. Propelled by British and Italians behind them, who would not stop. Propelled by canon. Propelled by plunging, darting aircraft that stitched and gutted troops in a roar.287
His regiment, slogging towards new lines behind the Livenza, had broken one morning, the Czech levies first. A swarm of Camels, like feasting wrens, had darted and torn at them in their trenches. One in particular bombed with pinpoint accuracy. Butchered, the Czechs had voted against the Empire with their feet, dragging the rest of the regiment with them. A British battalion came on unhindered there, the line gave way, and this retreat began.288
Bereft of officers, by death, wounds and drunken default, his veteran company relied on him, their Wachtmeister, to lead, control, to mother them. They marched now, automatons, heads down. Glazed eyes focused only on boot heels ahead, minds turned inward. They had been marching since 0300, unfed, thirsty, to tired to complain. At least they were heading home. The Austrian Imperial Army had decided, in unvoiced consensus that it was heading home.289
The ethnic levies, the perpetual ‘nationalities question’, had voted with their hearts many months before’ but kept their place by disciple. The discipline had finally stretched, then torn. The Wachtmeister, like his exhausted and diminished company, all Austrians, longed to go home also, but responded to his leadership, and maintained a semblance of discipline. They followed orders. They marched.290
For almost four hours they had pushed along the road towards the still distant town of Pordenone. Crowded, choked roads. Start, stop, drag, push, quicken, move, and halt, all in the timeless manner of beaten armies. The guns behind rumbled, still threatening. Incipient chaos threatened to surround them. The November weather was a misery, cold enough for coats, warm and humid enough for sweat. The roads a jam of infantry, caissons, wagons, the rare staff car, horsemen. All with one intent – cross the bridge, get on the other side, further from the British, closer to home. Periodically the stream clogged, like a rising flood diverted by a logjam, and forced the flow through vineyards, around farmhouses and outbuildings. Fences went down, fields became temporary highways and open latrines. Fights started. Officers roared.291
Myriad refuse, the hasty debris of retreat, the crudescence of fear, littered the roadsides, decorated farmyards. Coats, packs, souvenirs, ammunition, rifles, anything of weight that impeded flight, all hurriedly cast aside along the line of march. Broken wagons and dead horses intermittently occupied the road verges and corners of fields, dragged there to maintain movement. At the edge of a vineyard, under a copse of beech trees, some officers monopolised a field kitchen and its single menu item; boiled horseflesh.292
Funnelled as it neared the bridge, the various elements of the defeated army converged, coagulated and compressed. In the angry crush on the western approach to the bridge two teamsters had thoroughly entangled their exhausted teams. As the horses collapsed under the press, that whole wing of the army ground to a halt. A cursing, angry, anxious, impatient halt.293
The Wachtmeister sensed rather than heard the forward elements drag to a stop. A perceptible psychic shudder moved up the line, travelling the 2 kilometres back to him like a rising wind. Then came the low moan of frustration, followed by the rattling of equipment and the tensing of bodies. Looking up he brought himself to full wakefulness, and found that he was on a small rise overlooking the turmoil ahead. Provided with such a pessimistic panorama he called his men to a halt. On their left a small villa and vineyard offered sufficient space for rest, if he were quick enough.294
Turning wearily he spoke to the man behind him. “Korporal Gosche,” then pointing, “take our men into that yard, as quick as you can before Oswald’s company wakes up to it.” A quick low word of command and the soldiers flowed into the open space, sagging down immediately against walls and tree trunks. Out on the road the officer-led companies were slower to react. Finally, like a disturbed school of fish, the regiment broke into parts and oozed off the road into whatever degree of comfort they could find. Leaning on his rifle the Wachtmeister eased stiff muscles down next to his one remaining Korporal. Gosche had reached into a pocket to pull out his last onion.295
Stretching his weary legs, he fished in his own haversack for his shepherd’s pipe and ersatz tobacco. Taking his time getting it alight he flicked the silver lid down and leaned back to savour this rare moment. The fume of onion mixed momentarily with the pungent smoke generated by the concoction of dried leaves, rope clippings, and some preciously hoarded Latikia. A blue-grey smoke to match his blue-grey uniform. Around him the remnant company was following similar coping strategies. Nineteen men. Around them the army was dissolving. He wanted to get these men home without further loss.296
Home. These salt miners, farmers and clerks, surviving veterans and fortunate replacements. Gosche, from his home village. Trakl, Schmalz, Weinheber, Schilling, the rest. Most, like himself, 25 going on 95; aged, rhematic, beyond the boyish innocence and imperial pride that had greeted the war. He had fought, been promoted twice, and wounded, given a medal. Vanities. He had nothing to prove with regard to manhood. Plucked from his second year as a policeman, conscripted into this regiment, he had metamorphosed during the deadly, tedious ebb and flow of the Italian Front into a different man.297
Not fear, nor cowardice, nor disloyalty brought him to this homeward direction. Simply the vague, but building, awakening that the buffoonery of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was drawing inexorably to a climax. The last letters from his sister Maria reflected the civil turbulence, confusion, and deprivation, now faced by those at home.298
Somewhat refreshed, he tapped his pipe against a heel and looked around at his men. Most had turned to soldierly tasks; checking rifles, ammunition, packs, water bottles, feet. Returning from the outbuildings, Meidingger, a compulsive scrounge, had failed to discover a single egg, much less his usual chicken or sausages.299
He smiled wanly at the Wachtmeister, hunched his shoulders in defeat and sat back down next to Trakl, to continue their chat. The Wachtmeister pulled himself up, and turned towards the bridge just in time to observe, and then hear, four black and orange explosions in the milling mass at the western end of the bridge. A growing locust filled his vision, “Camels!” he shouted. Reacting to the rush of adrenalin, some threw themselves behind walls; but most grabbed their rifles and turned to look where their sergeant was pointing.300
* * * *301
The bridge grew in his vision. A swollen sea of men and materiel was jammed at the western approach, with a greater mass fanning out across the roads and vineyards back towards Coneglione. In the distance he could see that the flash and smoke where the battle continued to rage. The central span of the bridge was relatively free of troops, as few could now get past the jammed wagons, swearing teamsters, rearing horses, and enraged officers. At the eastern exit of the bridge, through the village and down the road hurried the vanguard of this wing of the retreating army.302
A squadron of cavalry and a few motor cars were a kilometre ahead of that, now turning into a large villa on the eastern side of the river. On both sides of the river flood levee embankments stood. Natural fortifications behind which the Austrians could retire and hope to stop the Allied advance. Embankments against which frightened men would be pushed by an aircraft’s guns, and from which the concussion of their Cooper’s bombs would rebound. The resultant fear induced trampling would injure as many as bullets and bombs.303
As he rapidly approached the last 1,000meters of his shallow dive, the light glinting off the upturned helmets of the cavalry showed that he had been spotted. He could not hear, nor would have been diverted by the few ragged shots that were sent his way. The confusion of the western end was visible in individual relief now. A bottleneck indeed. Patiently, expertly, as he had practiced so often at the ground attack range at Southampton, the pilot lined up on the western-most span of the bridge.304
With great deliberation, he simultaneously toggled the bomb release and fired his twin machineguns. Dipping the nose of his Camel fighter after clearing the bridge, to compensate for the lightened weight, and the recoil of the guns, he levelled out at just 15 meters above the road. Yawing back and forth he stitched death through crowded ranks. Narrowly he missed the pines that dotted the roadside. Above the engine and the guns he thought he could hear, as a murmur, the cacophony of panic he had created.305
Immediately behind him the 4 Coopers bombs exploded. One, glancing off a girder, exploded on the surface of the bridge itself, shredding the officers and men attempting to untangle the wagons. One wagon began to burn. The second bomb hit the landward face of the northern bridge abutment, hurling shrapnel into the troops jostling there. The other two bombs bracketed, obliterated, a squad of men just the other side of the bridge abutment. Caught in the multiple concussions and inward stampede were officers, men, wagons, and horses of another regiment.306
The mass of men rent in the middle, turned and surged against those troops and transports pushing in at the edge of the carnage. Yet to fully register the four explosions, those forward facing troops momentarily pushed back. Irresistible force - immovable object, shattered and surged outward. A draught horse, entrails dragging, with a keen of a woman’s scream, charged its bloodied exit through a dozen men. Trampling, hurling, kicking, the endless screaming. 300 meters on it stopped its mad career, shivered once and dropped, all four legs poleaxed together.307
North and south of the bridge, panicked men sought the futile safety of the embankment. Others, nearer the fields, ran to flee the arch of the ranging fighter. Still others sought the solidity of houses and outbuildings. Further back down the line, with time and distance to reflect and steel themselves, others prepared to fire back.308
The wingman had deposited his bombs now; with less exactitude, but greater sanguinary effect, among the bunched wagons a few dozen meters up the road from the bridge. The two fighters now rampaged up and down the disintegrating line. More men died, more men ran. More horses bolted and more wagons overturned. On the east bank an enraged general officer whipped his chauffeur to a halt, and began shouting orders to his staff. A machine gun opened up impotently from the eastern side.309
* * * *310
200 meters short of a farmhouse the pilot pulled into a steep climb, then jinked right, then looped back into his second run. He turned to the right of the road and pursued a brigade-sized unit of men. He put two short bursts into their midst and the shoal broke up. A climb and a jink, left, right, up, down to throw off any fire. Looking for his wingman, he glimpsed him strafing troops pinned against the north embankment.311
Gaining altitude, the pilot circled across the river, and came back down the road, strafing the officers’ vehicles gathered there. Across the bridge and down the road again at treetop height, yawing left and right, seeking new targets. Short, aimed bursts, lethal as shark’s teeth. Troops further back on the road were still exiting into the cover of vineyards, copse, brook and drains. He went hunting for them with his remaining ammunition.312
Another brief pass would exhaust his small supply of bullets. He saw a formation of men, 12 perhaps 15, in a loose square next to a small villa. Seemingly un-panicked, they were methodically firing at him. He turned to attack them, on principle. He jinked and yawed, then settled down into a stable firing run.313
* * * *314
“Fire!” 15 rifles fired in unison. “Fire” Concussion again. “Steady! Lead him! Fire.” The aircraft was so threateningly close. “Good. Steady.” Bullets began to stitch the ground through the intervening men, horse, wagons, and vines. The machine gun bullets stopped their advance. “Fire!”315
The Camel staggered perceptibly, then turned away sharply at just 100 meters. “Lead him, lead him. Fire!….Reload…..Fire!” The Feldwebel watched as the Camel gained altitude. “Cease fire.” In just under half a minute his men had fired 8 volleys at the attacking Camel, 120 rounds. 316
* * * *317
A searing pain ripped through his right calf. In reflex he jerked his hand away from the joystick to reach down to the hole in his Sidcot. Then he turned his attention back to the square of men. Just as his bullets reached the square his guns cycled to a stop, out of ammunition.318
He watched in vague detachment as a hole formed in the windscreen. Instantaneously something hit his head like a sledgehammer. He pulled up, daylight turning to red, then to grey. In that moment a dozen bullets had hit his fighter, severing a strut, holing the gas tank twice, and causing the engine to take on a pained note. Already semiconscious, he heard little. His fighter pitched forward towards the vineyard behind the square of men. A lower wing and the wheels hit a line of vines, swinging the craft in a half circle. The propeller caught on a vine and flipped the plane upside down. The pilot hung head down in his harness, leather helmet only inches above the dirt. Blood rushed to his head, and the wound, and dripped into the soil. The smell of petrol collected in the cockpit as it leaked from the tank. The rotary engine sizzled. 319
Hands reached for him, tore at his harness. Dragged from the cockpit and away from the fighter, the dazed pilot was subjected to a frenzied rain of boots and rifle butts. Then a scuffle and the torment ceased. The grey turned to black.320
* * * *321
Men of Oswald’s bedraggled company reached the broken plane first. Enraged by trauma and defeat they lashed out at the wounded pilot. The Wachtmeister and his more disciplined men broke up the maltreatment, and drove the ineffective officer’s men away. Trakl and Gosche tended the wounded man while the Wachtmeister posted his men around the plane, waiting for the Field Police to arrive. A relaxed guard, with their knives they souvenired bits of fabric, and gave the piece with the planes’ number to the Wachtmeister.322
Corporal Gosche reported, “He’ll probably live. The wound in the leg exited cleanly. The head wound is superficial and knocked him out. Lost a lot of blood. The beating did more damage, possibly a few fractures. He’ll be out for a good while longer. Trakl’s bandaged him up.”323
When the Field Police arrived, the Wachtmeister took his men behind a small knoll further way from the road and had them rest. Eventually the officer-led remnant of their regiment did likewise. 324
Debris and remains were being removed from the road when the second, and then the third, half-flights from Vicenza arrived and repeated the punishment at the bridge. A Vic of 8 black dots circling overhead signalled the proximity of light bombers. It would be a long morning, and he was glad he’d moved his men.325
After the bombings they eventually passed over the bridge at 1450, and took up their positions behind the Livenza. They stayed just long enough to receive new orders, to retreat toward Pordenone. They expected that more Camels were waiting for them there.326
ITALY 327
April, 1945328
Staff Sargent Davidson poked his head into the alcove, “Gus, Colonel Sapienzo wants to see you in his office.”329
“Tell him I’ll be right along,” he answered over his shoulder. He tossed the transcript of the interrogation onto his desk and walked into the hallway. At the G-2’s door he knocked and waited for a response. He was a decade older than the colonel, and they were on good terms, so his entrance was non-military. “You wanted to see me, Lou?” he asked as he took the only available chair.330
The bullnecked former Newark, N.J., police officer looked up from his desk, chewed his ever-present cigar over to the other side of his mouth. ”Yah, Gus. Dever’s 7th Army just took Augsburg. I just got reassignment orders for you to join 36th Division. Somebody wants you up there in a big way.” Sapienzo handed the file over.331
Ritter took the proffered sheets and read through the orders and his movement papers. Indeed, he had been reassigned: 36th [Inf] Divisional HQ, 7th Army. Report to Augsburg by 1200 hours on Monday, April 30. “Crim’nitly Lou!, that’s day after tomorrow!”332
“You sure must know somebody with clout, Gus! Your orders say you’ve got priority from here to Paris, and on to Strasbourg.” The colonel stood up, Ritter saluted and they shook hands. “Take care, Gus.”333
“Thanks Lou. Clout or no clout, it sure is a surprise. I thought I’d get to stay here in Italy until the show finished.”334
* * * *335
An L5 had been waiting for him at Strasbourg to make the 220 kilometre flight west to Augsburg. Already flying low, it skimmed the trees and dropped quickly onto the auxiliary landing field next to the autobahn, 6 kilometres west of the recently surrendered city. Trundling over to the tree line, Ritter swung the light plane around and brought it to a stop next to the service vehicles. A supply dump sat under the trees, where an ambulance sputtered to life and drove out to the L5.336
A tall older man in an ‘Eisenhower jacket’ climbed out of a jeep parked 20 meters away and sauntered towards the plane. Ritter grabbed his duffle bag, hat and briefcase, thanked the regular pilot for letting him fly the last leg, and turned to look at the approaching man. As he neared, Ritter gave him a sloppy salute, which was jovially returned in like manner. “Hello TR,” he said with warmth. “You the fella’ that dropped me back into the war?” Ritter dropped his bag and gave his long time friend and former professor a firm two-handed shake.337
“I’m the one alright.” They started towards the jeep. “How’s Susan?”338
“Last I heard, she’s fine, TR. Anne will graduate from Olivet in a few days. David wrote me from the Philippines, but it took three months to reach me. May be a while till the mail catches up to me now, thanks to you. What do you hear from Kate?”339
“Same as you, the kids this and the kids that. You’d think they were still toddlers, and not in their 20’s! Guess we’ll be fathers-in-law soon enough.” TR stopped short of the jeep. “Look, Gus, I pulled strings to get you up here for a real good reason. Things are popping. I don’t see how the Germans can hold together much longer on this front, unless they really do have an “Alpine Redoubt”. I know that Mark Clark will start his push in Italy soon; but Kesselring is an old fox. I just thought you might like to see a different kind of war.”340
“Real thoughtful of you TR,” Ritter said in mock irony. “But I doubt very much if that’s the real reason you used your well known connections to hustle me up here like some VIP.”341
They walked the last few meters to the jeep and Ritter threw his things into the front, and climbed in back with TR. Behind them the refuelled and loaded ‘Casevac’ Stinson, engine bellowing, pulled its broken human cargo into the air and headed for Stuttgart. Their driver pulled on to the autobahn, and began working his way through the convoys and around Augsburg. The highway was crowded with supply trucks, rear echelon and replacements, all trying to catch up with the rapidly advancing forward units. Along the roadsides were an intermittent litter of burned and broken enemy vehicles. 342
TR explained as they rode. “Gus, until we beat these people I’m parking you someplace useful. You’ll be assigned to G2/CIC with 36th Division. But the real reason I pulled strings had to do with winning the peace, not the war.”343
“Yeah, us two retreads aren’t going to make much difference in all this,” he motioned left and right towards the swarms of men and materiel flowing around them.344
“But we can make a difference after the war, Gus. Roosevelt and Churchill are treating Austria and the Austrians as a liberated country rather than as a belligerent. They’ve agreed to carve up the country in occupation zones. One corner for the French, for the sake of honour. The US gets a large slice surrounding Salzburg. The Brits get a bit in the south. The Ruskies have already swallowed Vienna and the east. We are all supposed to be lovie-dovie friends after the war….but I have strong doubts.” He paused as the driver slammed on the brakes to avoid a stalled GMC truck.345
“What’s that have to do with me? Ritter asked as they eased around the truck.346
“I had you transferred because I want you with me in Austria during the occupation. I already know….”347
“Because you pulled strings…” Ritter interjected.348
“I already know…” TR began again, ignoring the jibe, “…about my post-war assignment because I requested it before I ever came over here.”349
“Helps to have friends in high places, does it TR?”350
“Stop mocking for a while, Gus, and let this ol’ teacher finish his boring lecture, will ya?” …I asked to be assigned to the US Occupation forces as part of the Civilian Affairs branch. I’ll be working with civilians to get their agriculture and commerce up and running again. CIC won’t turn you loose, but at least you’ll be available. General Patch wants you assigned to Divisional Intelligence until the war is over.”351
“But why drag me up here now? Couldn’t it have waited until Clark got me up there with 15th Army Group?”352
“No, and here’s why. 7th Army is moving so fast that the Germans can’t make an effective stand anywhere. We’ll get there long before Clark does. Why even ol’ George Paton himself had to move aside to let Patch roll past him. 7th Army is heading straight for Austria, Gus, weeks ahead of their estimate.”353
“I can see that TR,” Ritter commented as they approached a temporary POW holding cage. It covered most of a large meadow. Barbed wire had been put up as a perimeter fence to enclose an area the size of 3 football fields. A half-platoon of Chafees and another of halftracks were stationed outside, covering the prisoners with their guns. The line of POWs waiting to be admitted through the gates stretched back over half a kilometre. A long, slow line, start – stop, plodding wearily forward in the April midday sun. The cage looked full already, and Ritter wondered where they’d fit all these additional, forlorn men. The hundreds inside were milling, standing in small groups, staring out of the wire, or just sitting in bored knots on the ground. The meadow was already trampled flat, spring growth crushed.354
“Sargent, pull over a sec.”355
“Yes, sir, the driver responded to Ritter’s order, and pulled out of line.356
“You OK, Gus?”357
“Yeah.”358
The jeep edged its way to the road verge and came to a halt. Ritter stepped out and walked to the edge, overlooking the cage. Ritter stood and watched the desolate line crawl forward and into captivity. TR joined him. The two stood silently for some time, while Ritter gazed over the mass below him.359
“In the last war, TR, I was never down in it, like we are now. Infantry were ‘things’, not individuals. The last week of the war in Italy I must have strafed and bombed thousands of troops. It made me sick. It still makes me sick.”360
TR knew Ritter well enough to let him speak uninterrupted. 361
“I vomited twice that day, told myself it was the after effects of Influenza. But it was disgust…and guilt. The last day I flew…the day I was shot down…the lines of retreating Austrians stretched for mile after mile across the Venetian plains and among the hills. The roads were packed as tightly as that POW cage over there….It was so easy….so efficient. We dropped our bombs at chokepoints, and then went in with our machine guns. I’ve since learned that the British soldiers moving up from Vittorio-Veneto wept as the came up the Pordenone road. The Austrians hadn’t stopped to bury their dead.”362
“But those men down there….TR it brings me great satisfaction to see them surrendering. I don’t admire them. Courage in an evil cause is no virtue. The really admirable thing was to stand up against them, and fill these cages as quickly as possible.”363
They turned and started back towards the jeep. In the east distant sounds of fighting could be heard every time the traffic slowed. They followed the sound of artillery until they came to XXI Corps headquarters.364
KUFSTEIN365
April-May, 1945366
Starting from Garmisch Partenkirchen, the small convoy carrying General Stack’s advanced headquarters unit reached Kufstein at 0800 hours. A few hours behind, Stack would move his HQ to Kufstein, bringing the rest of the 36th Division. Then the 36th would move up the Inn River to link up with the 7th and 5th Army units already moving to converge south of Innsbruck. The recent snow still clung to the ground, and the passage of so much armour and trucks had chewed up the road badly. The spring-like weather was gone, and a frost had settled in, even at this lower elevation. An MP at the southern end of town directed Ritter to the Gauleiter’s office, now regimental HQ. Ritter watched as Austrian civilians in very small groups, and under the watchful eyes of armed GI’s, made their way solemnly to Sunday morning Mass. Several men in motley quasi-military uniforms sported the red-white-red of the Austrian Resistance. One bell chimed, a single timid sound, calling the worshippers to thanksgiving, grief, release, sorrow, whatever emotion they had reserved for this day. A single bell, chime of freedom not yet brave - or foolish - enough to peal in confidence. Pre-war Austrian flags hung from balconies. 367
Ritter entered the slightly damaged building and found a staff Sargent among the organized chaos. Showing his CIC badge he asked, “Where can I find Lieutenant Grundowsky?” 368
“Down that hall, second door at the back, sir.”369
“Thanks Sarg.” He walked through the open door and into an interrogation, albeit a friendly one. The lieutenant, obviously someone’s prize linebacker before the war, was questioning a thin, middle-aged Austrian civilian who wore the Resistance armband over a heavy woollen ski jacket. A lieutenant of armour sat in the corner, listening, with little comprehension, to the conversation. The interrogator’s brand of German was slowing the flow of information.370
Ritter took in the scene and then addressed the interrogator. “Lieutenant Grundowsky? I’m Ritter, CIC, from divisional G2. Can I be of service?” To the other lieutenant he nodded a greeting.371
A strong Texas accent replied with a “Good morning.”372
“Yes sir!” the relieved young man said. “The radio said you were coming up. Sure glad to see you. This is lieutenant Lee, 12th US Armoured. And this gentleman is Herr Beiswengger, and member of the local Austrian Resistance. He came in a few minutes ago, trying to tell me something about some VIPs up the road a-ways. Know any German?” 373
“With a name like ‘Ritter” I better know a little,” he answered with a broad smile. Ritter crossed the room and introduced himself to the local anti-Nazi. Grundowsky went to stand by the tank commander. 374
“They are very prominent, Herr Ritter. French generals and politicians…very prominent!….Premiers Daladier and Reynaud, Generals Gamelin and Weygand, General De Gaul’s sister, Clemanceu’s son, among others.” A relieved Beiswengger explained to the comprehending Ritter.375
Ritter whistled!….”More than just prominent, Herr Beiswengger!”376
“As you say. Please, we are very anxious that you free the Frenchmen as soon as possible. There are many SS still loose, and we do not have the weapons or numbers to free them ourselves. Our information from the commandant himself is that he is very anxious to surrender to you Americans before the SS or Hitler Jugend can intervene.”377
Ritter explained to Lee and Grundowsky, then he leaned out the door and bellowed, “Sargent!” The noncom trotted down the hall. “Get some hot coffee…and some C-rations for this man, on the double.” Behind Ritter the embarrassed Grundowsky nodded his assent, having failed to be hospitable himself.378
“Yes, sir.”379
“Lieutenant, lets go find your commanding officer. Lieutenant Lee, you want to tag along?”380
“Sure.”381
Ritter explained the coming food and coffee to a grateful Beiswengger, then followed the two officers as they went in search of the CO.382
* * * *383
Twenty minutes later, at the side of Lee’s Sherman, Ritter joined the tank crew, and a corporal and 3 privates from the 142nd Infantry Regiment. Across the turret was painted the name “Melissa” and the detailed picture of a belly dancer. “We’re going up the road a piece, and let some important Frenchies out of their prison. Ritter here, from CIC, speaks ‘frog’ and German, so he’ll do the negotiating, if there is any. We’re to secure the facility until a full company can be sent to relieve us…. Ritter.”384
“The Austrian Resistance says that there are Wermacht stragglers all over the roads, and in Worgl. They are just waiting to surrender to somebody, but we don’t have time to ride herd on any POWs. There may also be Waffen SS units around. They are still hostile and unpredictable, so keep your eyes open. Just the same, don’t get trigger happy, understand Corporal?”385
“Understood,” the wiry veteran replied.386
“Lieutenant Lee is in tactical command from here on in.”387
“Let’s mount up!”388
The crew climbed aboard first, dropped down into the metallic beast, and took up their positions. Lee stood in the commander’s cupola, leaning on the ‘50’. The foot soldiers clambered on next, veterans of finding some comfortable seat among the gear stowed externally. Ritter mounted last, and grabbed the pintle next to Lee so that they could converse. The driver started the machine into life and they moved down the main street and the edge of town.389
Two hundred meters past the village an incongruous sight greeted Ritter. The soldiers had gotten used to it over the last few days, and acted blasé. A squad of MPs shared the crossroads with two unarmed German Feldpolizie, complete with their ‘dog collars’ and direction paddles. Seeing Ritter’s puzzlement the senior MP shrugged his shoulders and grinned. As the tank ground its way past the group the MP’s called up to the men, “Ya’ll come back agin, hea’!”390
Less than another 200 meters on, in a farmyard near the River Inn, fully a hundred German soldiers milled around in the heatless mid-morning son. The post-seasonal snow was trampled down and the yard muddy. An officer stood dejectedly in a doorway. Arms, stacked precisely at a distance from the soldiers, were decorated with handkerchiefs. Several dozen soldiers stood around a makeshift fire, eyes on the rumbling tank.391
As the tank past this picket line of defeat a pack of Chesterfields arched across the intervening meters in answer to someone’s plea of “Tobak, bitte. Zigaretten, bitte.” A dozen men converged in noiseless intensity upon the GI’s gift. “Danke, Joe, danke.” Followed the tank’s progress during the interval between dispensing and lighting up.392
“You been out here long, Lieutenant Lee?” Ritter started the conversation after they’d passed the troops.393
“Yup. With Patch since we landed at St. Raphael. This is our second “Melissa”. It was slow going till we got past Vosges. Sure has been a road race since then….How about you, you a re-tread, if you don’t mind me asking?”394
“Don’t mind you asking. Yes, I’m a retread of sorts. Actually I was a fighter pilot with the RAF in WWI. I volunteered for the CIC in ‘44’ because I couldn’t stand to see young men like you doing all the fighting, while us old codgers just stayed at home.” They both laughed. “Truly, though, I wanted to be around when the shooting stops, to do something with the peace. I wangled my way into the CIC because I can speak German, Italian and French. I served 5 months down in Italy, under the 7th’s old boss, General Clark. Then someone in SHAFE had me transferred up here ‘cause they figured it would all be over soon, and they wanted me in Austria.”395
They talked about home; Lee was from Texas, as they rumbled up the road towards Worgl. The steep hillsides cautioned the crew to be alert. There could be a rabid Hitler Jugend behind a tree, ready to send a panzerschreker round into them; or worse, a Tiger tank hidden in some farm building. Ahead, Ritter and Lee saw a German officer step into the road and motion for them to stop. The GI’s tightened the grip on their carbines, but kept still at a word from their corporal. Lee spoke into the intercom and the tank rumbled to a stop. “Time to earn your Spam.”396
Ritter climbed down and walked over to the where the officer stood. After a wary greeting at a few paces the two men drew closer and began a brief discussion. The German, a major, motioned up the road twice, and Ritter gestured towards the tank. A polite touch of the cap, and the major returned to the small chalet from which he had emerged. A more senior officer met him at the door, and they both stepped back inside.397
“What they want?”398
“Wanted to know why we weren’t pushing up the road with our whole Division. Said none of their people were going to stop us. I told them about the surrender, and white flags, stacked arms and Nazi insignia.” Lee spoke into the intercom, and they rumbled off again. At the southern end of Worgl enquiring soldiers, anxious to surrender, stopped them again. They crowded around the tank, inspecting this metallic symbol of retribution. Ritter answered their questions briefly. Another pack of cigarettes was tossed out, resulting in a brief scuffle. They turned towards the town.399
Here, fewer white sheets hung in the windows or from balconies. Faces peeked from behind curtains in second storey windows. A Kublewagon and a halftrack were parked outside the local Gauleiter’s building. A squad of Waffen SS, dressed in their ‘tarnjacke’, stood there, weapons slung, watching them with the open contempt of the professional Nazi elite. The GI’s glared back, to hide the tightness in their guts.400
They turned up the smaller valley to their left and put the town behind them, and proceeded up the twisting road to the Schloss Itter. Beyond that goal lay a series of ski resorts, and further east, a back road to Berchtesgaden. Meadow, forest, pines, houses, chalets dotted the road as it climbed above the river. As the elevation grew the cold increased and the snow was deeper. Under the trees old rotten snow lay below the layer adorning the branches. Pockets of fog were forming in the hollows and gullies. From the mist behind them the tops of hill were like islands in the sea.401
Ritter and Lee kept up a conversation over the labouring roar of the engine. At one point a side road, more a private drive, turned off the narrow highway and led up to a ski lodge of some proportion. The Americans observed that a great deal of activity was taking place there. Several lorries were parked on the circular drive, with soldiers coming and going from the lodge. Several halftracks and an ‘88’ were parked in a small field next to the main house. Lee pulled out his field glasses. “Looks like Waffen SS again.”402
“Yeah. And they’re busy little ants.”403
“I’d call Kufstein, but these mountains have been playing havoc with our radio ever since we turned at Worgl. Guess were on our own if the natives turn hostile.” Lee spoke into the intercom, and Ritter heard a shell slam into the breach of their gun. “Just a precaution.”404
“Wise man.”405
Two double S-bends later they came within sight of the Schloss Itter. Slung precariously on an outcrop, between the road and the Ache River, the Schloss looked more like a hotel than a castle. Surrounded by a high stonewall, the castle itself stood 4 storeys high, including the gabled dormer roofline. A long balcony extended along part of the road-ward and riverside faces of the building. A small courtyard stood between wall and building. A bridge led from the road to the carriage gate to the courtyard. A precipitous drop down to the river lay on the riverside of the supporting crag. The massive building was painted a dark and somewhat faded yellow, almost a butternut; and the windows, of which there were many, trimmed in fading white.406
The elderly guard at the gate sentry post shouted to those inside as soon as he saw the tank. He gaped at the Americans until two officers came out of the double gate. Then he snapped to attention. The two officer stood conferring, pulling on their gloves, and buttoned up their greatcoats as they watched the small American force approach. They wore no side arms. A word passed between the senior officer and the guard, and the old man stepped into the guardhouse, placed his rifle inside and returned to attention unarmed.407
The bridge was too narrow, and light to let them pass or carry the tank’s weight. Lee’s driver swung the tank wide, and stopped across the mouth of the bridge, blocking it. The gun swung into the courtyard. The two officers waited while Lee ordered the GI’s off the tank to guard on left and right. The tank crew popped their heads out of various hatches to watch. Ritter pinned on his CIC badge, climbed down from the tank and walked over to the two enemy officers.408
“Courtesy and tact, even with an enemy; and a soft answer turns away wrath,” he muttered to himself as he approached the men. The balcony was beginning to fill with men; French and German intermingled.; the audience watching the drama with not a little self-interest in the outcome. “The first shall be last, and the last first,” Ritter thought to himself as he eyed the upper storey scene.409
The two officers saluted him with gravity. He returned their salute, just as circumspectly, and stood at parade rest. If he had understood the Resistance man correctly, the prominent here were very prominent, and this was to be diplomacy, not war. The shorter of the two officers, a slender, almost aged man, spoke first. “I am Colonel Werner Staupznagle, Commandant of this…facility.”410
“And I, sir, am Counter Intelligence Corps officer Ritter, 7th US Army.” 411
“This is my adjutant, Leutnant Volerkt von Teidjeman.” The adjutant, 30-ish but with a paunch, looked like an ex-cop to Ritter; all he needed was one of Lou Sapienzo’s cigars. “Have you come to accept our surrender,” The commandant asked. “Our….’guests… are anxious to leave our care.”412
“Yes commandant, I have been ordered to arrange your surrender and to provide safe custody of your prisoners [until help arrives – he didn’t say] until the remainder of our troops arrive later today [which he was fervently praying they would]. How many men do you have under your command?” The answer amounted to an under-strength company. “Sir, would you please have all your command assemble in the courtyard; unarmed if you please. I will have our soldiers remain outside until after I have addressed your men…with your permission of course.”413
“Of course. Leutnant, order it so.” The beefy adjutant trotted off, while the commandant strode back into the compound, gloved hands behind his back.414
Ritter cupped his mittened hands and shouted in French to the expectant crowd lining the balcony. “My dear and patient friends,” he had to pause for an outburst of mild enthusiasm, “I bring you the greetings of General Dever’s of the US 7th Army.” More demonstration. “American regiments are approaching from Kufstein. Innsbruck has been liberated. Salzburg has been liberated. Free French troops under General Leclerc have entered Austria.” The jubilation at this announcement went on for some moments. “The German forces in western Austria have been ordered by their commander, General Foertsch, to surrender unconditionally at noon today. We have been sent to provide protection and assistance for you until such time as your incarceration can be safely ended. I must ask you to remain in your quarters until we have formally affected the surrender of the garrison. After which I shall be pleased to meet with your senior officers or officials to discus your needs.” A cheer went up, and the crowd joined in as someone began to sing the ‘Marseillaise’. When that finished a distinguished looking elderly man called down to Ritter that they would gladly comply with his instructions. The crowd then broke up as they began to return to their rooms.415
Ritter returned to the tank to talk with Lee. “I’m going to sweet-talk to our ‘friends’ inside. Get them to surrender formally, and maintain good order.”416
“OK by me.”417
The garrison had assembled and the adjutant had called them to attention. Ritter saluted the commandant and was led by him in a brief review of the ‘troops’. Men so old as to seem to need an old-soliders-home. Boys too young to understand defeat. A few maimed veterans still capable of mounting a guard. Ritter wondered how many of them had come with the Schloss when it was expropriated for this duty. The review over, the Commandant gave a brief announcement that they were being surrendered and that the American would detail the conditions. The company of redundant soldiers moved just perceptibly, some in shock, most in relief.418
Ritter pulled a sheet of paper from his Eisenhower jacket and began to translate into German. “Yesterday, General Foertsch formally signed surrender documents for Army Group “G”. As of noon today, Sunday, May 6th, 1945, all personnel within those boundaries shall cease all hostile acts against the troops of the United Nations. All German units are to disarm themselves immediately and remain in position. They are to immediately remove all Nazi insignia from their uniforms, and display white flags at their positions. They are to obey all commands given by officers of the armed forces of the United Nations.”419
Ritter waited for these formal instructions to sink in, then continued extemporaneously. “The governments of the United Nations have agreed among themselves that the nation of Austria shall be treated in the same manner as will be all nations occupied by the former Nazi regime. The Anschluss has been annulled. At the earliest possible moment the occupying powers will assist the people of Austria to elect a free and independent national government, and, upon the conclusion of a state treaty, will return full sovereignty to the people of Austria. In the meantime, troops of the United Nations will occupy the territory of Austria to provide order, and to assist in the reconstruction of the national economy.” The brought no visible demonstration, but Ritter saw several men smile, and not a few eyes brighten.420
“You will cease to be jailers, and take upon yourselves the role of servants to those you have been guarding. The Catholic and compassionate history of your nation requires that you do so. US Forces will arrive later today to occupy this area. Until that time, you will follow the orders of your commanding officer regarding the terms of surrender and the care of your former prisoners.” Turning to the commandant, “Please dismiss your men, Colonel.”421
The order given, the adjutant marched the men back into the Schloss to begin the process. Ritter and the Colonel remained, to discuss the details of surrendering. “Commandant, I will require the paybooks and personal details of your men, as well as a list of your former prisoners. Also, I would like an inventory of your rations and equipment.”422
“Very well. I will have Tiedjeman attend to it as soon as practical. Thank you for your explanation about the status of free Austria; it was well received by the men. They will willingly obey the surrender terms. Most of them are local men.”423
“I thought as much. Who actually owns this Schloss?”424
“The Hapsburgs.”425
Ritter whistled in understanding. The commandant accompanied Ritter out to the tank. Lee and his crew were dismounting as the pair approached. The 4 GI’s came over to listen in. They all stood on the Schloss side of the tank.426
Colonel Staupznagle – Lieutenant Lee.” Lee refrained from saluting, but gave a respectful “Good morning sir.”427
Ritter was about to ask Lee to join the commandant and himself in the commandantur when the sentry on the front balcony shouted, “Alarm! Alarm!” A thunderous ‘crack’ broke the morning calm. Almost simultaneously an explosion on the village side of the Sherman enveloped the vehicle in flame. Shrapnel flew upwards and outwards as bogie and tread disintegrated under the impact of the HE shell. All 11 men were thrown to the ground, but saved from injury by the bulk of the tank itself. A second round struck before they could all regain their feet, pressing them down again on the cold pavement. The tank slewed at the impact of the second round, pushing it further towards the gate. 428
Lee and his crew and combat experienced infantrymen responded immediately. “88! Everyone inside!” Scrambling, running low, the men charged through the gate. The commandant shouted orders, Lee shouted orders. Ritter translated two ways. The position of the tank kept the ‘88’ from targeting the gateway, but rounds of HE and flak started to pound into the wall and upper storeys.. Only the solidity of the thick stonewalls alleviated the potential damage.429
After 10 rounds the ‘88’s’ rate of fire slackened, which assisted the defenders. A heavy machinegun opened up from a dormer window, while German and American soldiers mixed in impromptu fire teams to find vantage points from which to return fire. Lee’s crew grabbed spare Mausers from the senior NCO. All the ‘guests’ were herded down to the wine cellar. The height of the Schloss and the steep grade of the road gave the defenders a good field of fire.430
Ritter and Lee found a second story window. “I can see SS, perhaps 2 platoons. One is moving up the edge of the road, the other coming through the woods.431
“Crack!”432
“The ‘88’ is still over by that lodge. There is also movement down in the village, but I can’t make it out.”433
The garrison’s machine gun reached out to the SS, slowing them. Those with rifles blasted away. The SS fire was disciplined and sometimes accurate. Outside the beleaguered compound the Sherman smouldered, its left track blown off and the mantelet damaged, completely useless.434
“Crack!”435
“They seem to be conserving ammunition.” 436
A German corporal sidled up to them and spoke to Ritter. “Sir, we have some wounded, and are running low on machine gun ammunition. The Commandant plans to lower one of the Frenchmen down a rope at the back of the Schloss. They want him to give a note to the first Americans he can find. Can you come with me to write a note?”437
“Sure,” Ritter said as he backed away from the window, and followed the corporal. He found the Commandant standing with an athletic younger man, still in good shape despite his incarceration. “Monsieur Jean Borota, the tennis champion,” was the introduction. 438
“My pleasure Monsieur Borota,” Ritter replied in French.439
“And mine,” he replied in English. Borota was hurriedly dressing himself in standard alpine clothing, attempting to look like a “local”. A red-white-red armband had been hurriedly pinned together for added insurance.440
The Commandant provided pen and paper and Ritter set about writing the necessary note.441
Hhhhhh442
Borota pocketed the note, climbed into the open window and lowered himself down the cliff face by the stout rope. Ritter and the commandant watched as he moved off along a footpath beside the river, unseen by the SS.443
“I am expecting our advance units to already be in Worgl, Commandant,” Ritter reassured the officer. Then he returned to Lee.444
“They made a couple a’ rushes, but didn’t fancy that last open stretch of road. The only way in, despite the holes they’ve blasted, is across the bridge and through the gate. They haven’t moved the ‘88’, and can’t get a clear shot at the gate. Ol’ Melissa is still good for something! I’ve talked to the adjutant, he’s got combat experience, so he’ll help the commandant keep their men’s fire discipline in line. Our corporal is doing the same with his squad and my crew. I got a couple a’ rifles for us from the wounded Gerrys.” He pushed one over to Ritter, along with two extra clips. “Sorry, that’s all that left.”445
Ritter edged to another window and looked out carefully. Besieger and besieged were exchanging a desultory fire. The ‘88’ continued its intermittent “crack!”. The corner of the wall and main Schloss were crumbling under repeated impacts. The machine gun was firing short bursts whenever they had a clear target. Ritter didn’t have any targets currently in view. The tank was still smouldering, adding its soot to the dust and ancient mortar kicked up by the ‘88’ shells hitting the stone walls.446
“Haven’t had any more flak rounds since you left,” Lee informed him. “No more wounded either. Those SS have taken a few casualties to, but they’re too tough for that to stop them for long. How’d the messenger go?”447
“He got away clean. A path below the Schloss leads back to Worgl. They dressed him up like a Tyrolean, green felt hat and all!” They both had a quick, tension-relieving laugh. The German corporal came back into the room and spoke to Ritter. “Sir, the Commandant reports that our men are down to one clip each, and 300 rounds for the machine gun. Your men are about the same.”448
Ritter translated for Lee, who advised “Tell ’em to hold their fire until the SS attack again. The Commandant needs to get a squad to cover the gate, in case any SS get that far.”449
“Yes, sir,” he said after Ritter translated.450
All firing from the Schloss stopped quickly. It took a minute or two for the attackers to note the change. Another minute passed, then the ‘88’ opened up again with a rapid rate of fire. The SS began to move forward confidently, firing as they came.451
Three “b-b-booms!” thundered up the road in quick succession, followed by three explosions straddling the ‘88’ battery, echoing off the hills. Dirt and flame cascaded upward. A second salvo followed immediately. Men were running away, and this time the halftrack blew up. Several sympathetic explosions followed. Carbine and heavy machine gun fire was coming up the road, increasing in intensity.452
“There’s a company of the ‘142’ fanning past the lodge. Some Krauts in a Kublewagon just escaped down a track into the woods.” Lee moved his glasses. “Two halftracks and a platoon of Shermans comin’ up the road!…Yep, them SS is a skedadlin’!” 453
Ritter and the schloss’s defenders could now see their attackers breaking into small groups, turn and run into the woods. Five minutes of firing was followed by a strange silence. Finally, a jeep pulled up and stopped near the dead tank. Slowly the defenders pulled themselves up from their various positions, and made their way to the courtyard. Ritter, Lee and the German officers walked out to greet the battalion commander.454
“We were already on our way,” he said to a saluting Lee as Borota stepped past them and waved at the other Frenchmen now crowding on the front steps. “Mr. Borota met us just this side of Worgl and we took the lead out. Guess it was a good thing, huh?”455
Ritter then did the introductions.456
“Guess we’re done here,” said a tired Lee. “Next war, I’ll take a desk job, and you can stay home.”457
“Deal,” smiled Ritter.458
Ritter looked at the ruined tank, “This mounted infantry stuff is too dangerous.” Then he turned and walked towards Borota and the VIPs; he hadn’t met too many French Premiers before. “I’d better brush up on my manners,” he smiled to himself.459
* * * *460
Sturmbannfurher Schwendt accelerated down the snow-covered forest path behind the lodge, his departure partially masked by the smoke and debris. Despite the lurching, Obersturmfurher Klausmann leaned over the rear edge of the Kublewagon and sprayed a long burst at the nearest squad of GI’s. The first bend took them out of sight of the advancing soldiers. Fear and anger spurred Schwendt’s wild driving, and he made no attempt to avoid minor obstacles, subjecting Klausmann to bone-crushing jolts.461
Three minutes later he slowed to a halt, turned off the engine so that the two fleeing SS officers could listen for sounds of pursuit. A few individual shots, American, and a short burst, German, off to their right half a kilometre confirmed that they were out of immediate danger. Schwendt restarted the vehicle and moved more cautiously through the woodland. There were no American troops guarding the bridge at Worgl. Darting across he took the first left and worked their way through farmsteads and chalets until they were up into the trees again.462
Twice they halted at the edge of meadows and scouted ahead before they crossed. Down on the main road they could see lines and knots of Wermacht soldiers sitting listlessly in fields. A jeep with a loudspeaker was driving slowly westward, broadcasting the news and conditions of the surrender of Army Group “G”. Their upland route along cow paths and farm lanes allowed them to skirt Worgl and stay parallel to the highway towards Innsbruck. It was slow going, out of caution. The River Inn lay below them to their right.463
They had worked themselves two kilometres west of Worgl and could see the town of Kundl ahead when twilight settled in. Not wanting to bump into an enemy patrol they pulled behind an outlying shed. Taking their machine pistols and personal gear they walked 100 meters up into the woods to bed down. Major Schwendt’s anger was tempered by the knowledge that his personal nest egg was well concealed. He and Klausmann ate some cold rations and discussed how to continue their escape to Switzerland. Three SS ‘safe houses’, purchased in mid-1944 for just such a use, lay between them and the border. The next one, outside Innsbruck, at this pace lay two more days away. After the two weeks it had taken them to get this far from Vienna, leaving mere hours ahead of the Red army, such a delay was tolerable, but only just.464
Klausmann took the first watch, waking Schwendt four hours later. At the end of his watch he woke Klausmann, crawled into a ball, his kit for a pillow, wrapped in a ‘borrowed’ greatcoat. The junior officer woke him before dawn. They spent half an hour watching the next section of path before moving off along their shunpike. 465
Twenty minutes later Schwendt had little time to react when he drove them into an American patrol sweeping the uplands. Throwing the scout car into reverse he tried desperately to make a backing turn. Klausmann’s aim was thrown off, and his burst went wide. A grenade detonated against a rock mere inches from the turning vehicle. The force of the blast, combined with the turn and the incline of the path, flipped the vehicle onto its side. The GI’s were on them before they could react. Pain shot through his right arm, and his head was bleeding. Three GI’s pulled him clear and searched him roughly. Off to the side, more GI’s were searching the dead body of Klausmann, killed by shrapnel and concussion.466
The GI’s quickly ‘souvenired’ Schwendt’s equipment and weapons, especially anything with an SS marking. They took away his greatcoat and tarnejacke, and made very sure he had no hidden weapons. Taking off his belt, the GI’s made him hold up his pants with his good left hand. As soon as the first shock wore off he began cursing his captors in the vilest language. None of them understood the words, but the message was clear. The platoon Sargent smashed Schwendt in the face with the butt of his carbine. That, and his injuries, sent him down for the count. While he was unconscious the GI’s searched the Kublewagon for documents and more souvenirs.467
* * * *468
They’d been at it for three days, Ritter and the other interrogators, vetting captured officers, especially SS officers. Ritter finished writing notes into the man’s dossier.
K, take him back to the cage.” Two burly MPs escorted the junior officer out of the room. When they had gone, he cupped his head in his hands and let out a long sigh. Then he spent several minutes in prayer for wisdom and discernment, and the grace not to become hardened in the face of such evil. Eventually, Ritter stood and stretched, grabbed a file and his tin cup and left his office. A new twosome of MPs stood in the hallway with a battered SS major seated between them. “I’ll take the next one as soon as I get some java, corporal,” he said as he handed the last dossier to the clerk/typist. 469Five minutes later he was back, his cup refilled and steaming. “OK, fella’s, bring him in.” The MPs entered fore and aft, the POW sandwiched between. Seating him, they stood behind the chair until dismissed by Ritter. Once they were alone in the office Ritter decided to use the ‘friendly routine’ on this officer. His bandaged right arm was in a sling, and his face was swollen and bruised. He sat with rigidly defiant superiority.470
“Good afternoon, I am Karl Ritter, an Intelligence Officer with the 7th Army. I notice that you have been injured. Have you received proper medical attention? “471
“Adequate,” was the perfunctory reply.472
“Would you care for a coffee or a smoke?”473
“Both, thankyou.”474
Ritter went to the door and spoke to the MPs waiting there. Turning to the prisoner he informed him that, “They’ll be along in a minute.”475
“The papers taken from you identify you as Heinz von Schwendt, born Kurland, Latvia, February 23, 1910; and list you as Sturmbannfurher, 13th SS Corps, 17th Division. Is that correct?”476
A knock on the door, and the corporal brought in a mug of coffee, some sugar cubes, a tin of evaporated milk, and a pack of Lucky Strikes.477
Ritter played host. “Milk? Sugar?”478
“Yes, and two lumps.”479
Ritter fixed the coffee and placed the mug by Schwendt’s left hand. “Cigarette?”480
“Yes.”481
Ritter placed a cigarette in Schwendt’s mouth and struck a match. Placing the pack in and matches in front of Schwendt, he reached behind to take a tin can-*bunny*-ashtray from a small table. Schwendt inhaled the real tobacco and his eyes watered slightly. He continued smoking in silence, and Ritter simply waited.482
“Take your time Sturmbannfurher, I have all day.”483
After finishing the cigarette, Schwendt savoured the genuine coffee. “I prefer the Dutch mixture of coffee, but this milk makes your American brand acceptable, 484
The POW said to demonstrate contempt for this American.485
“You are welcome to another, if you wish…..My responsibility is to ascertain the details of your military service. I would appreciate it if you would tell me your story in your own words. Lets start from the end, perhaps. You were captured near Kundl, yet the rest of your unit, under General Berger, surrendered east of Salzburg.”486
Schwendt took several more sips before answering, “I was on detached duty and was unable to return to my unit. It was my duty to continue the struggle against ‘Bolshevism’ and the ‘World Jewish Conspiracy’ as long as my circumstances permitted me.”487
Ritter made a mental note of the lie. “If you were born in Kurland, why weren’t you serving in a Baltic SS unit? Perhaps you’d like to tell me about that.”488
“My family migrated to Germany in 1920, after the Latvians set up their farcical ‘democratic state’. I have never returned to Kurland, and never wish to. Germany is my homeland.”489
“Where did your family live in Germany?” Ritter was making notes for later verification.490
“Hamburg.”491
He was being evasive and Ritter knew it. “And in Kurland?”492
“I was only a child when we left,” the prisoner said with some vehemence, “I do not clearly recall.” 493
“You are 35 years old, Sturmbannfurher, and you were…lets see…10 years old when you emigrated….Surely, you cannot have forgotten such a significant thing as your birthplace?”494
“I…it was near the town of Mitau.”495
“That is near Riga, isn’t it?” A small thought, ‘the size of a man’s hand’, appeared on the horizon of his memory. He recalled that TR told stories about his time in Latvia.496
“Further south.”497
Ritter stood, took both mugs, and went to the door, requesting refills. While he did this, Schwendt awkwardly lit a second cigarette for himself, as Ritter hoped he would. The real tobacco and highly caffeinated coffee would soon begin to have an effect on someone used to ersatz substitutes.498
“Are your family still alive?”499
“Only my sister.”500
“Are you married?”501
“No.”502
The corporal brought in the mugs. Ritter played host again. Schwendt took several minutes to enjoy the coffee and cigarette.503
“Lets get back to your story,” Ritter prompted, “perhaps you could tell me what it was like growing up in Hamburg.”504
The coffee, sugar and tobacco were acting as drugs to the SS officer’s system, and he began to loosen up to Ritter. The corporal, by plan, brought in another mug of coffee in the midst of the story. Ritter listened closely for inconsistencies, omissions and half-truths. The caffeine and nicotine made Schwendt gabble on about the rise of Hitler and the opportunities the SS offered to a young man who hated Communists and Jews.505
Ritter noticed that Schwendt hadn’t mentioned his father at all. “Let’s talk about your estate in Kurland.”506
“What estate?”507
“Surely, Sturmbannfurher, as a member of the German nobility your family were landowners, and you lived there until 1920. What was your father’s name? And, what was the name of the estate?” 508
“My father’s name was Lothar,” he said with a tone of disgust. 509
“And the estate?”510
The POW seemed curiously agitated. “Schwendau”.511
Ritter searched his memory. A phrase was associated with the Schwendau estate. The ‘cloud’ grew. “My little Crusader” he said hestitatingly, half in question, half in statement.512
At that phrase a change of countenance swept over the SS officer. Not just the hardening of his facial features, nor the venomous hatred in his eyes; but his entire being blackened in repressed anger. Then just as suddenly the POW’s face slackened, his fists unclenched, his shoulders hunched, and his eyes took on the vacant look of other recent POWs. Ritter got to the point of his long process. “What were your duties in the SS, and why were you near Kundl and not with your unit?” 513
But Schwendt had withdrawn inwards. Ritter repeated his questions, and added, “Where did you serve during the war?” No response. Ritter repeated the questions one final time.514
In response the SS officer merely looked past Ritter and out the office window, repeating quietly, “I hated my father.”515
Trying to bring Schwendt back into the present, Ritter moved around the desk and spoke into the SS officer’s ear, “You are the anvil, and I…...I am the hammer.” 516
Schwendt’s only reply was to repeat “little Crusader” until Ritter called in the MP’s and sent Schwendt to one of the holding cells until a medic could look at him.517
“What were you doing so far from Salzburg?” Ritter asked himself after the prisoner was frogmarched out of his office. He picked up his filed telephone and asked for 7th Army G-2.518
* * * *519
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Unfinished chapters “Chicago”, and “Battle Creek” will go here eventually.521
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Salzburg523
1956524
It was Ritter’s first holiday since Susan had died in 1949. He was a grandfather, several times over. His younger brother John ran the company better than he did. Two years ago he’d resigned as president and taken on the chairmanship; with its figurehead duties, and quarterly meetings. Now he was at loose ends, and, if he’d admitted it, a bit lonely. For all his mixed history with Austria he loved the scenery; and even had a few friends there. So, here he was, staying in the same hotel where he was billeted from ‘45’-‘47’. He even had his old room back, compliments of Augustus, the owner. Now he was enjoying the last of his dinner.525
*526
The seventeenth Earl of Dorrington was consumed with malice as he deliberately mounted the stairs to his hotel room. Tonight, he vowed, he would have his revenge on his malevolent sister. She had humiliated him in public for the last time! Entering the room he went straight to the hiding place and removed both the gun and ammunition he’d bought covertly in Paris. In the ensuite he loaded the weapon with utmost care. Satisfied that it would accomplish his designs, he exited the room and waited in an alcove just off the landing. He knew that his sister would soon seek him out to rub more salt into the wounds she’d so recently and publicly inflicted.527
Ritter had enjoyed his meal. The scene at the far end of the dinning room barely breaking thorough his conscious awareness, so absorbed was he in the pleasure of being back in Salzburg after almost nine years. Lingering over a final coffee he signed his room number to the check, tipped the waiter, and left the dinning room. Climbing the wide staircase he realised that at fifty-nine he wasn’t as spry as he’d been when he last climbed these stairs. He was smiling inwardly at a post-war memory when a little girl pushed past him on the staircase. She hurried up each step; her body language spoke focused intention. She reached the landing a few steps before Ritter.528
Now! The seventeenth Earl of Dorrington leapt out from his hiding place, aimed at his sister’s face and squeezed the trigger again and again. The indelible ink from the water pistol hit her in the mouth and ran down her yellow satin dress. Screaming, she spun around and careered down the stairs, smashing into Ritter. Knocked off balance, Ritter tumbled down the stairs. 529
* * * 530
Everything was grey. He could smell petrol. Hands reached for him, tore at his harness. He was being subjected to a frenzied rain of boots and rifle butts, and a babble of German. Then a scuffle and the torment ceased as the grey turned to black.531
* * *532
Eventually the grey returned. A fog? Everything was a dull white. The German words continued, just beyond his comprehension. Was that his Susan he saw vaguely in his vision? He tried to focus. The black returned briefly, then fog again, and then clearer. No, it wasn’t Susan. A nurse. Was he back in the military hospital in Padua? The nurse wiped his forehead with a damp cloth, and called to someone out of sight. A female doctor came into the cubicle and examined Ritter as his consciousness returned. She listened to his heart, flashed a torch into his eyes and took his temperature. “You’ve had a fall, and have been unconscious for several hours.”533
“Where am I?”534
“In a private clinic. I am Doctor Maria Hauser. You have a few stitches in your scalp, and will have new scar to match the old one. Your head will hurt for a while, and you must rest, to make sure you have no further concussion. You also broke your wrist, and I have put that in a cast. It is only a minor fracture. But, again, you must rest until it is hardened.”535
“What happened?”536
“I think my brother can answer that better than I.”537
An older man entered the room, smiled at Ritter and sat down in the chair next to the examining table. “Hello Herr Ritter. I am Commissar Johannes Strobl, Criminal Police. I was in the Hotel at the time of your little accident, and had you brought here. It was closer than the hospital. And I know what a good doctor my sister is. How are you feeling now?”538
“A little less groggy. But now I know why the pain seemed so real while I was unconscious! What happened? The last thing I remember is leaving the hotel dinning room.”539
“I guess one could say, Jack and Jill happened, only it was Herr Ritter who fell down and broke his crown. Jill didn’t come tumbling after, because you broke her fall. And as for Jack, I suspect that his father gave him a good whipping. In short, a small boy played a trick on his annoying little sister, and you were caught in the middle.”540
“Good thing it wasn’t Hansel and Gretel then.”541
The Commissar laughed. “Very good indeed. But now you must rest. On my way back home I will stop and tell Augustus that you are all right. I will also have him send over your pyjamas and toiletries, if that is acceptable to you.”542
“Thank you, Herr Strobl.”543
“Johannes, please. My pleasure. We will talk again. Good bye.” Strobl and his sister walked out of the room and had a brief discussion in the hallway. Then the doctor re-entered. Ritter was more alert now. The doctor appeared to be in her early fifties, strands of grey among the auburn. She wore her hair in a bun, with a carved wooden comb. Her features were plain and regular. Her eyes were brown, and had a depth to them that Ritter found attractive. Her doctor’s coat did not do her figure any benefit.544
“Do you have any questions, Herr Ritter?”545
“When may I return to my hotel, and how long will it take for this wrist to heal?”546
“If there are no further signs of concussion, then you should be able to return to the hotel in the morning. As for the wrist, give it a month and then it can be X-rayed again. That will establish how well it is healing. How long do you plan to stay in Salzburg?”547
“I was planning to stay a month, and look up old friends and do some sightseeing.”548
“If you’d planned to hire a car, I’m afraid that driving yourself is now out of the question. That wrist needs to be immobilised for a while.”549
“That was the plan. But I can just as easily take public transportation or hire a driver for the day, Frau Hauser.”550
“Please, call me doctor … or Maria if you wish. I am a widow. We have met before, you know.”551
He smiled embarrassedly. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t recall. When and where?” 552
“Do you recall visiting the DP orphanage in the Salzkammergut with General Clark in December, ‘45’? I was one of the doctors there. After you and some others handed out presents, we met at the reception in the General’s honour.”553
“I certainly remember the visit. But I am embarrassed to say that I can’t recall the people I met. Please forgive me.”554
“You are quite forgiven, Herr….”555
“Karl.”556
“You are quite forgiven, Karl.” Her face turned serious. “But the orphanage needs another visit while you are here. Now you must rest. I will have the nurse bring you a sedative. Your things should have arrived from the hotel by then, also. Good night.” 557
“Good night Doctor … Maria.”558
A few minutes later the nurse brought in a bundle, and his sedative. “Whose clinic is this, nurse?”559
“Doctor Hauser’s. She is an orthopaedic surgeon, and a paediatrician. When she is not at the hospital she works here. Two younger doctors also have offices here. Please, once you have changed I am supposed to take you out of this treatment room, and give you a bed. I hope you don’t mind sharing a room with a 9-year-old boy? He broke his collarbone yesterday, and is still under observation after the doctors re-set the break. We are not a hospital, and they are the only two beds we have.”560
“I have no objections. As a matter of fact, I have a 9-year-old grandson. I’ll pretend I’m home.”561
* * * *562
Several more chapters to write563
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