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Upstarts
ground, hundreds of leaflets flutter down over a half-mile area. We fired quite a lot of
them during the latter part of the war. They were printed in German, and tended to tell
what a soft life prisoners led in American PW enclosures and how hopeless the German
cause was. The most effective was the "safe-conduct" pass, printed in both German and
English, entitling the bearer to be secure from unnecessary roughness if he surrendered.
We knew that propaganda leaflets were successful, because (1) German troops
were strictly forbidden to read them, under severe penalty and (2) almost every captured
German soldier had one of the safe-conduct passes hidden in his boot or his undershirt.
A couple of days before VE Day the division was halted in place just inside the
border of Czechoslovakia. The 915th was near a delightful little village where the
inhabitants were so glad to see us that they had a street dance every night we were there.
Don Thomson and I thought that something spectacular should be done to
celebrate VE Day. The populace had hauled out a lot of previously concealed Czech
flags, and they were red, white, and blue, the same colors as the American (not to
mention the French and Luxembourger).
Don suggested that we fire a salvo of smoke in the national colors at high noon on
VE Day.
"We don't have any blue smoke," I protested.
"But we have violet. Nobody's going to quibble about a little thing like that."
"OK," I said. "You're probably right. But we'll have to find an unpopulated area,
so people won't think we're shooting at them."
We selected a forested hill not far from the village and in clear sight, where
everyone could watch. A howitzer from each battery would fire one round: A Battery red,
B white, C violet.
We were trying to keep our plan a surprise, but at this point we had to let the
battery executives in on the secret, so they would each have a crew ready to fire when the
time came. But then came the first glitch. A Battery was out of red smoke.
"You can't be," I said. "My records clearly show you have one round of red
smoke, and one is all we need."
"We fired it by mistake last week, Major. Somebody took it for a propaganda
shell. I didn't notice until it was already loaded, and - " "Why the hell didn't you report it
then?"
"Well, sir, I was afraid you'd make me unload it. And you know how that is." I
did. Unloading required pounding on the front, or fuze, end of the shell to
dislodge it from the tube of the howitzer - a ticklish business, to be avoided at almost any
cost.
"We still have the propaganda shell, he he suggested. "You want us to fire it
instead?"
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