American Valor Quarterly Issue 1 - Winter 2007 | Page 9

There were women who collaborated with the Germans, they were kissing us, too. But the Dutch didn’t waste time taking care of the traitors. Right away, they rounded them up, grabbed the men right off the streets and killed them. The women got what was due them, too. The Dutch threw them into the middle of the street, ripped off their clothes, shaved their heads, beat them, publicly shamed them. They deserved it. What should you do, kiss them? They were sent off like homeless lepers. We saw them wandering in the countryside and we didn’t say a word to them. We knew what they were, what they done. Someone probably killed them eventually. Dutch, “Where does it hurt?” It looked like she was going to help him. He pointed to his shoulder, and she started hitting him over and over with her pocketbook right on that shoulder, screaming something like “Moffe! Moffe! Moffe!” She’s screaming at him, and he’s screaming in pain. Turned out the woman had put a brick in her pocketbook. She made my day, she made everyone’s day. We asked around what the woman was yelling and found out there was no translation for it in English, but it was something like “evil.” Bill: The Dutch underground found us right after we landed. Told us where the Germans were, what their plans were. They hated the Germans, wanted to get in on the killing, Babe: We were the first platoon in the city, and we secured too. Gave us accurate info, became part of our combat team. the bridges over the Dommel River and set up outposts. I One of them was John van Kooijk. A good Dutchman. A had orders from Bill to set up my machine good source for us. He pointed out who the collaborators and the rat finks were. gun by a footbridge going over a small Told us everything. He stayed with us, and canal next to a set of row homes. I’ll never fought the entire war with 2nd Battalion. forget that spot, and actually when I went back to the spot ten years later, and asked I think they put an Airborne uniform on him, too. The Dutch women sabotaged someone about the footbridge, the man the Ger man telephone lines and said, “You have a good memory. The communications, we found out later. people have moved now, but yes, there was a footbridge there.” The days after we secured the bridges, word came from the Dutch underground We set the gun up and had it facing a to get the hell out of town. The Germans secondary road on our right coming into were planning to bomb Eindhoven that the town. We had the larger roads coming night. We didn’t have the fire or air out of the woods already secured. All our support to do anything about it. As we guys were in place and we were waiting were marching out, we felt like hell. The for a counterattack, and one of the heads of the underground—they wore “Wild Bill” Guarnere during World War II. people in Eindhoven must have felt like an orange band on their arms so we knew who they were— we abandoned them. But what could we do? There was no came over and said to Compton, Toye, and Bill, “We have way we could have spread the news fast enough. Put it this a horse and wagon coming up the road with about eight way: Eind means land, hoven means farms—land of farms. German soldiers, and a large artillery piece on the back of There were green pastures as far as the eye could see. the wagon. Would you give us the pleasure of taking them Everything was too spread out. If we stayed and tried to inform the people, we would all be dead. We sat in our out, instead of you?” foxholes and felt terrible. We looked at each other and Compton said, “If anyone deserves to take them out, it’s the Dutch.” They suffered The next day, the nineteenth of September, I went out through five, six years of occupation. So we said, “Go looking for Able Company to find my buddy James Diel. I ahead.” They hid on the side of the road in a doorway, and found a couple kids from Able, and asked where he was. when the horse and wagon made a move with the artillery They said “You just missed him. He was on the road and a piece, the Dutch opened up and killed all of them. All except shell hit him, cut him right in half.” It was a shock. He was one, a tall blond-haired, blue-eyed kid who was badly my sergeant back in training, and he was a good buddy, but wounded in the left shoulder. He was holding his shoulder, I couldn’t stop to think about it or I’d be buried there, too. moaning in pain, and they marched him over toward us so When someone got killed, you just got more fired up for headquarters could get some information out of him. We the next battle. I ended up getting his dog tags, I have no were all hollering, “Suffer, you son of a bitch!” when an old idea how, but after the war, I gave them to his family. Dutch woman in her eighties came out, and asked him in American Valor Quarterly - Winter, 2007/08 - 9