Page 7 - The Peorian, Vol 3 Issue 2

The Past 7
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He wisely dropped his weapon
and within a few minutes was
marched off as a prisoner of war.
He said had his weapon been
loaded he would have most
certainly fired at his would-be
captors, resulting in his certain
death.
Carl was marched off by his
captors and eventually deposited
with a dozen other American
prisoners. They took one boot
from each man and they were
then left guarded and they
remained there over night. “In
the early morning we were
marched off, our fingers laced
together over the back of our
heads. Our new home was within
a stonewalled courtyard and
imprisoned in a room. The stone
walls were about two feet thick
and by then I think we numbered
about seventeen men.”
Carl and his companions were
later marched a few miles down
the road where they came to
another stonewalled courtyard
and taken to a room where they
remained. “The Fourth Division
was on its way inland and
eventually that led them to an
estate where we were being held
prisoners of war. Rifle fire, mortar
fire and chips of stone were
ricocheting around our cell far
longer than I care to remember.
We were behind some thick stone
walls we thought would give us
adequate protection except from
what was coming in through the
small windows.”
Hunkered down, the men
weathered the storm that was
coming at them from both
armies. “Suddenly a wild-eyed
German rifleman rushed into
the room threatening us with
his bayoneted rifle. He jabbed
his rifle at me. ‘Ruskie?’ ‘Nein!
Nein!’ I yelled. ‘Englich?’ ‘Nein!’
I slowly turned my shoulder
toward him pointing to the
American Flag attached to my
jump suit. ‘American,’ I said.”
What happened next surprised
every man in the room and
would give them a memory that
they would never forget for the
rest of their lives.
“The soldier broke into
a wide grin as he yelled,
‘AMERIKANISCH!’
‘AMERIKANISCH!’ He then
leaned his rifle against the wall
and grabbed me in a bear hug.”
Quickly one of Carl’s buddies
grabbed the rifle and headed
outside. It took a few moments
for Carl to untangle himself
from the overly friendly German
before he was in the next room
selecting a P-35 pistol and a
BAR type rifle from the stack
of guns that about 12 Germans
had deposited on the floor in
their rush to surrender to the
Americans.
“Germans were surrendering
faster than we could take their
weapons, so we herded them into
the inner rooms with their ‘Potato
Mashers’ still sticking out of their
belts.”
As the chaos encircled the
Americans an effort to contact
the Fourth Division was made
to let them know that Americans
had control of the area. One of
the men spied a bugle hanging
on the wall. He began to blow on
it as loudly as he could, hoping
the men in the Fourth would stop
firing.
Continued on page 8
Carl Porter in his military uniform, with the paratrooper emblem on his cap.