Rambling Anecdotes

Il fato (fate)

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 saved his family.
 
Japanese complaint about Australians

"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."
 
Post-war sweep of Germany for Nazis

"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.
 
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.'
Click to expand...

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