Chapter 16 - A New Cemetery

CHAPTER XVI - A NEW CEMETERY

A Graves Unit without a cemetery, is like a brick-layer without bricks. That is the way we were having to operate. Some were taken to Hanover, in the British zone, others we had to rebury in the same grave.

We were to get two cemeteries, one for each half of the zone. At the last minute it was decided to have one for the whole zone. This was to be near Bad Tolz, on the Northern edge of the Bavarian Alps.

Another officer and l were given the task of getting accommodation from the Americans. In the British zone this wouldn't have been a very difficult job, but was a different story in the American zone. Our first difficulty was that the site chosen for the cemetery was in an area used for American leave centres. It was naturally busy. When we finally managed to find a suitable place, we tried to requisition it.

We were bashing our heads against a brick wall. The British Army has a terrific reputation for paper, but the American Army is ten times worse. We took the letter by hand to every officer who had to sign it (by post it would have taken between six weeks and two months). In the end, we had sixteen signatures and had covered two thousand miles.

When we got back to our H.Q., we began to plan the actual job of occupying our new building. It was an old castle dating back to 1700 and was owned by a German Baron. His wife was half Jewish. The building had been confiscated by the Germans. The furniture had been taken to Frankfurt where it had been bombed and completely destroyed.

The Baron now had neither furniture, fuel or staff to occupy the place. He was quite pleased we were to move in. It also had workshop accommodation for our vehicles.

It was decided that I should lead the advance party. I went down there to live on my own for twenty four hours when I was to contact the local supply people and draw bedding and rations. In the end, I had to spend a fortnight down there on my own. In many ways I enjoyed the real peace. I got the work done. I had everything laid on for the tired men arriving during the small hours of night. I even had their beds made.

We found the Americans rather difficult to get on with. At first they told us we could have practically nothing. Then they promised us everything. When it came to the actual issues, we got a rather poor assortment of furniture and other kit.

Their paper work, as far as stores were concerned, was fairly simple but one could never rely on the stores being ready at the time stated. This wasted a lot of transport. We were short of transport. They had originally promised they would deliver our stores.

We had some trouble with our senior NCO?s. They found they had to live and work under normal conditions. They had been accustomed to leading a life of more ease, luxury and independence. The men on the other hand, seemed to accept things as they found them, and soon made themselves both comfortable and happy.

It is amazing how quickly a unit, particularly a working unit, can move. All its office side, its stores and workshops are to be set up, before it can start work. But the first working party was soon out of our new quarters.

The cemetery also had to be opened. Here we discovered many obstacles. The plan had been drawn up in an office from maps. When we transferred the plan to the ground, we found the actual plot was considerably smaller. So the plan had to be cut drastically.

Another problem was a slight hollow in the centre. Although the hollow was only four feet deep, no one seemed to have realised that this was sufficiently deep to obscure altogether the memorials erected in it and generally give the cemetery an unbalanced appearance. It had not occurred to anyone to find out what type of soil lay below the grass sward. We had another shock, when we discovered it was heavily packed shale.

For a time it began to look as if the site must be abandoned and a fresh one sought. But eventually the place began to look, at first like a civil engineering project, and later a cemetery. I think we were possibly a little too critical.

We had the opportunity to create a thing of beauty. Each of us was anxious to achieve this. I doubt if the average member of the public thinks like this. They take the site of a cemetery for granted.

We soon slipped into a hectic routine. We had no time to lose before the cold weather set in, making the roads impassable. I was allotted a vast area East of a line running North/South through Munich, excepting the town of Nuremberg. The difficulty was the distances involved. We might have to travel up to Wurzburg or Bayreuth, and through to the borders of the Russian Zone. Then across fields to isolated bodies and aircrews.

My sergeant used to leave early on Monday mornings with a complete list of the cemeteries to be visited during the week. He toured round 24 hours ahead of me. He instructed the burgomasters in each town and village to have the appropriates graves open in their cemeteries ready for our arrival next day.

It was on Mondays that we loaded all our kit onto the vehicle and generally made ready for Tuesday. Early to bed was the rule far Monday nights. It was between five and six on Tuesday mornings that we would roar through the dawn, watching the German villages springing into life. Often we would be traveling much of the day to reach the area in which we were to operate for the week.

We had been offered the hospitality of American transit accommodation. But it had its limitations. We were by nature of our work, shabbily dressed, and often dirty and smelly. We could not guarantee our time of arrival. If the men did not arrive in their billets by six in the evening, they could get no meal 'till breakfast.

I also had a fear about the transit accommodation. It could lead to partying. Starts in the morning could become difficult.

On each trip, I asked the men whether they would prefer to use American accommodation, German civilian accommodation, or sleep out under the trucks. But soon they Came to like the life of gypsies, and used to turn in under their vehicles.

The spirit of the men was terrific. They would be wet and tired, maybe even darkness had fallen, but they would soon have their trucks parked on a quiet piece of land. A cheery fire was soon going and some 'M and V' (tinned meat and vegetable stew) would be cooking over the fire, supported on two jack handles.

I had felt the standard of some of the men here was below that of the desert crowd. But once they left their luxuries, they became the same industrious humorous lot.

My regular gang included a Scot and a little Welshman. I shall never know whether I kept them on for their undoubted industry, or, their typical army humour, which could turn the balance when something went wrong.

We used to work hard all week. But on Friday mornings, everyone used to take extra care over their shave. This was the day of our return to the unit. Our transport always gave us trouble. But everyone accepted things in an extremely philosophical way.

I remember one night when our three tonner burnt out its dynamo. It was six o'clock in the evening and we were still eighty miles away from the unit. We phoned (not easy) for a tow. Then began an investigation of the ration box. By this stage it was at a low ebb. Someone produced two tins of peas, and another dragged out a tin of sardines.

By this stage we were on American rations. Lots of turkey and sweetcorn, quite exciting, but behind British rations for hard working men.

A fire was soon kindled beside the autobahn. The inevitable 'brew up' had begun. Soon after eleven, we decided to have our final brew up of tea. Then, if no vehicle turned up, we would go to bed.

We were just in the middle of drinking our tea. A somewhat disgruntled rescue driver was hauled out of his cab and plied with tea, much to his surprise and delight.

The long tow began. We arrived back at four in the morning. Back at the Schloss, our German cook always left a big pan of thick soup for hungry drivers returning in the middle of the night.

That brew, that wonderful casserole, was one of my creations as M.T. officer. It was available for vehicle recovery crews and the rescued, returning between midnight and six in the morning. Eventually I found recovery crews delayed their return to qualify for the delicacy.

On Saturday mornings, our load of bodies was buried. We handed our paperwork into the office, and then set to, to check the previous weeks paper work and sign all the documents.

The next week was then got ready. The sergeant, acting as advance party, was briefed. So the endless task continued.

The officers of the unit were entitled to four wheel drive Humber staff cars. Ideal for our job. But we had to use 15 cwt trucks. Then, on my twenty first birthday, a signal arrived informing us that three Humber staff cars were ready for collection in Hamburg.

I had always coveted these vehicles. I was delighted when the Major told me I was to go by rail to Hamburg on Monday, and collect them.

We arrived in Hamburg on Tuesday morning, after a 24 hour journey. We went to collect our prizes.

In the afternoon we did some odd jobs. I told the drivers they could leave with two of the cars the following morning. I stayed back to draw some more stores.

It was twelve on the Wednesday when I got away. I got to Hanover before dusk. I drove on, into the night, still at 30 miles an hour on account of the new engine. I slept for three hours during the night and later found the other two staff cars were doing the same thing, not twenty miles in front of me.

I drove on through a bitter dawn and finally reached our sub unit at Heidelberg at two in the afternoon. The following morning we headed through Munich for our headquarters at Bad Tolz, completing the final stretch of 250 miles.

Having such enormous distances to cover, our lives seemed to revolve round transport. It is in connection with some of our recoveries of broken down vehicles, that I have the most vivid memories.

It was about 11 o'clock one morning when one of the three tonners went helter skelter down a hill with its horn blaring. The ominous rattle suggested the clutch had gone. I sat on the grass at the side of the road wondering how we were going to complete the work left. Don't forget, the graves ahead of us were already opened. In the meantime, the fitter examined" the vehicle and confirmed the worst.

I left the little Welsh 'comedian' to keep the driver company and took the rest of the party to Nuremburg. Here, I ordered a fresh vehicle to a nearby cemetery where I still had some work. The intention was to send the new vehicle to our useless hulk lying at
the roadside.

I shall always have vivid memories of that village. We were at work on our graves. The body of a boy about ten was brought to what I took to be a mortuary. He'd probably died of T.B. He was to lie in state. My lads asked if they could go across to view the corpse.

I objected on the grounds that I felt their attitude was a little ghoulish, particularly as I thought the boy's mother and sister were not far away. Soon there were several spectators and one fellow actually taking photographs.

By six o'clock, my truck was still missing. So we went away to request another. Meantime, the first turned up. No wonder a driver wasn't judged by what he did when his vehicle was being driven. It was how skilled he was at getting it going again when it was broken down. That was what really mattered.

We pushed on, and got back to HQ late that night. Then I discovered that the second truck they?d sent out had broken down. While I was there, the third sent to recover the second also broke down. I went to bed.

We were not at that time issued with any proper recovery vehicle. We were in rather a flummox, when one of our vehicles broke a stub axle, so its front wheel fell off. This required a suspended tow, by a breakdown lorry with a crane.

We rang up the Americans and asked for a truck with a crane. But they could not, or would not oblige us. So, I set off in the dark, armed with a three tonner, two fitters and the M.T. sergeant. We took six jacks and endless wire tow ropes.

The scene on our arrival was rather amusing. A forlorn looking driver sat on the running board with his off-side wheel laying against the cab.

Not far away, was a gang of Germans, or crouts', as the Americans used to call them. The Germans were equipped like ourselves, ready for any opportunity to strip the vehicle of all parts they could lay their hands on.

We struggled in the dark and managed to raise the front of the vehicle about four feet off the ground. Then we tied the spring to the chassis width a tow rope. The tow ropes were wire, and very difficult to handle. They would not bend to a tight circle. The next stage was to tie the vehicle to the back of the three tonner. This was the way it was supported for its journey back to our workshop.

Climbing a hill, the towing vehicle broke down. It was four o'clock. We put a tow rope from our remaining 15 cwt, back onto the three tonner. We also started up the vehicle at the back with the broken stub axle. Thus, we tottered along for the last few miles. The soup in the cookhouse was magnificent.

It did not seem long since I had left UK to visit Germany. I was already due for leave. So, one grand autumn morning in October, I packed a few belongings, a lot of American food, and began my return journey to that fair land we call home.

I was once more on one of those great trans-continental leave trains which run from Villach in Austria, to Rotterdam in Holland. We sailed overnight to Harwich.

In the spring, there had seemed to be the faintest glimmer of hope in our country. But now that was dashed. Everywhere, more control, less goods. Always that short two syllable word, dollars. The crash was on its way.

Our journey back to Germany was remarkable for one thing. Due to a mishap to one of the ferries, we embarked on a small craft. The vast majority of officers had to sleep in a small troop-deck in the fo'castle.

I thought it was a long way behind my cabin as ship's adjutant. Then I listened to the idle and bitter complaints of some of the more senior passengers.

Particularly bitter, were the senior Control Commission Officials. They were our military government in Germany. I laughed, turned over, and was soon asleep.

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