Rambling Anecdotes

[4V50 Gary]

The 101 Airborne had a German born Jewish interrogator, David Bernay, who hated Nazis. His family including himself fled Germany while the going was good. Anyway, near Cherbourg they captured a civilian who spoke German. The Col. ordered David Bernay (the German speaking Jew) to take the man away and execute him (spies are fair game). No problem since Bernay hated nazis and had killed some already.

As they were walking away, Bernay give him an instruction in German. "You speak German?" the prisoner asked. When Bernay said he did, the prisoner asked him where he was from. Bernay mentioned the town and the German asked, "Do you know Herr Bernay?" "He's my father!" At this point the prisoner spun around and cried out, "Little David!" With that he hugged his captor. The German was an older man drafted into the labor service and wanted to surrender the first chance he got. Before the war he was the Bernay's house servant who help Herr Bernay and his family to leave Germany. Bernay returned the prisoner unharmed and they put him to work in the kitchen. Little David Bernay cried when he recounted the story to Nibley about how he almost killed the man who had saved him and his family.

[4V50 Gary]

"When the Australians cooked we could smell their food. What I found most irritating was one time when they shouted out their menu in Japanese."

[4V50 Gary]

"One day, one of my teammates and I, aided by the German Police, conducted one of our raids. We surrounded an apartment building and went from apartment to apartment starting at the top floor and working our way down, checking on the identities of the people we found.

In one apartment, I started to question a man who claimed to have been an ordinary soldier, but who stated he had lost his Soldbuch - the Pay Book which every soldier carried, and which listed every place he had been stationed and every unit he had been assigned to. For us, checking the Soldbuch often provided very useful information.

I ordered the man to raise his shirt, and there was the telltale SS Tattoo under his left armpit. I told him he would have to come with us. He asked for permission to get his jacket from his bedroom in the back.

He emerged from the bedroom swinging a rubber truncheon at me. I pulled out my revolver, closed my eyes, remember that there was no bullet in the chamber and so squeezed the trigger twice. The bullet hit him and broke his arm.

I had never fired the revolver before. I am sure that if I had not closed my eyes I would not have hit him. My reaction was one of sheer panic, when I saw him running at me with the truncheon.

This was a very fortunate shot, because he could have struck me with the truncheon even if I had hit him elsewhere. The revolver does not have much stopping power. I was extremely lucky."

Lucky fellow and the Army should have given its people more training. The other two pistols he was issued was a 1911 and a Walther PPK (32 ACP). The writer is a Counter Intelligence Corps man in WW II.

[4V50 Gary]

During World War II, "soldiers excused from duty while being treated for syphilis or gonorrhea were said to be 'whores de combat,' and the Good Conduct ribbon became known as the 'No-Clap medal.'

Clearly a play on hors de combat (out of combat implying wound).

[4V50 Gary]

Steel chambers that encases the bullet along with a bolt to seal the breech are not overrated. This happened to a boy who along with his friends snuck into a German training camp.

"I remember one boy wedging a rifle bullet into a tree then looking around for something to hit the detonator (meaning primer) of the bullet with. He found this nail and used a stone to hit into the back of the bullet casing. He struck it twice and nothing happened. The third time there was a almighty crack as the bullet explosed. There was a flash and puff of smoke. It scared the hell out of the boy, who had dropped the stone and the nail in fright and ran a distance away before stopping to look back. He had a small larceration on his hand. A small piece of the brass case had torn off and hit his hand. It was not that deep but it bled a lot. I actually sat down and took off my socks and gave him one of my socks to wrap around his hand. I told him 'Don't you forget to give that sock back.'"

Also do not throw rocks at undetonated bombs that are lodged in trees. One girls saw her siblings doing just that and when she recognized the thing in the tree, she shooed them away and told her papa (who in turn reported it to the Army).

[Hawg]

When I was a kid I used to smash .22 LR bullets between two bricks. They just made a small pop and nothing went anywhere. Later on I took one and put it in a hole in a piece of concrete and shot it with a pellet rifle from about 25 feet. It wasn't just a small pop and that case definitely went somewhere. I don't know how far it went but it was buzzing when it went by my head.

[4V50 Gary]

Hawg - you've just Witnessed for God's love and protection of lil'l children.

Meth is bad. We know the German Army distributed Pervitin, a form of meth, to soldiers and sold it commercially to civilians as well. Here's the account of one BundDeustcherMadel girl who crewed a 20 mm AA gun deployed against Soviet soldiers in Berlin:

"I took a lot of Pervitin. Once you had it you didn't care about anything and you didn't feel tired or anything. It was my way of dealing with my own pain and fear. It caused weird hallucinations and you would see strange things that were not there. People with you would think you were crazy because you were acting like a lunatic. I could not keep still and would pace around and be talking to people who were not there. They fetched a doctor for me and I went beserk on him. It took five of them to hold me down. They searched my pockets and found a few remaining Pervitin tablets. They confiscated them and then tied me up until the effects of the drug had worn off. It was horrible being under the influence of the drug and being tied up so you could not work off the energy that it gave you. They tied my hands and took my shoes off me, and tied up my legs so I couldn't even stand up. My parents were so angry with me when they were told. The doctor who dealt with me told my parents to make sure I did not use this drug again as e believed it was very dangerous and that I might hurt myself without even knowing it. After that I did not use it again, but I can see how some people, especially German soldiers, had become addicted to it. When you were high on it you felt like Thor. You felt like you could destroy the world single-handed. No wonder Hitler liked it so much."

I learned that the "pep pills" given to our paratroopers before jumping in Normandy were also amphetamine based.

[Ricklin]

The Germans are not the only ones that provide Amphetamines, how do you think the USAF manages to fly bombing missions to the middle East from the US Midwest?

[4V50 Gary]

With 6 mm plate! Ned Kelly Gang in Down Under armored themselves for a shoot out with the police. Weight is a mere 97 lbs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armour_of_the_Kelly_gang

I don't think my knees could take that extra weight for long. I surrender before the police get here.

[Aguila Blanca]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9nW4w5tHVM

[4V50 Gary]

Everyone knows about WW II Lend Lease where the United States provided material of war to the British Commonwealth of Nations, Republic of China and the Soviet Union. The Soviets saw the USA stenciled on American equipment and reasoned that it was a patriotic slogan that meant Ubiyat Sukinsyna Adolfa or Kill that SOB Adolph.

This concludes our Russian languish and hystery lesson for today. Class dismissed.