 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
Upstarts
As I remember it, the river here ran through a narrow canyon between steep hills,
but I never really saw it by daylight, so I might be wrong.
A river crossing is never really easy, but this one was a lot easier than the first,
because there weren't enough Germans and German equipment to put up a truly effective
resistance. Their unsuccessful winter offensive had left them short.
In any event, I believe it was by the following night that the bridge was in and the
bridgehead was deep enough for the artillery to follow.
Crossing a floating bridge is always an adventure, and although I have ridden over
many a river on them, starting with the Sabine River between Louisiana and Texas, I
have never gotten used to the sensation. The ones we used were called ponton (not
pontoon) bridges, and were made up of a line of open boats called pontons lashed side to
side, with two steel treadways laid across the top for the right and left wheels of vehicles.
The treadways were wide enough to accommodate anything from a jeep to a tank, but I
always wondered what would happen if my driver was unable to keep going straight and
we jumped the track. In addition, the bridge undulated as the weight of each vehicle
pressed down the ponton it was crossing. Anyhow, I was always glad when we reached
the other side.
As somehow we always did.
Once across, we went in low gear up a steep winding road that ascended the wall
of the canyon and through a darkened town at the top.
[Note: a year or so later, when I was visiting my father in Santa Fe, I told him
about our crossing the Moselle twice. He was interested. At the end of WWI, as a new
second lieutenant, he had been stationed at a place he called "Kokum-on-the-Mosel," and
he wanted to know if I had seen it.
Sorry, I said, I never heard of it.
We continued the conversation, and he asked about where we had crossed the
second time. I tried to describe the area, and he said, "That shouldn't be very far from
Kokum. Sure you didn't at least see it on the map?"
"I sure don't remember it." I paused. "How do you spell it?"
"C-o-c-h-e-m. "
"Good Lord! Yes, that's the place I drove through when we crossed."
But since all I had seen passing through was a lot of darkness, I couldn't answer
any of his questions, nor tell him whether and how much the place had changed.
However, I have often wondered about the spelling: it is a German town, but in
German, I would expect it to start with a K. And if it were in French, I would expect the
ch to be pronounced sh. Can anyone help me?]
[Note 2: My son Bill suggests that it might be a Gallic name, dating before the
French spoke a Romance language.]
On beyond Cochem, we came to our destination and set up our CP in a German
farmhouse which showed signs of the family's hasty evacuation when they had been told
that we needed their home for a few hours.
194
|
 |
|