the 3rd Army , and wound up eventually joining the 7th Army . Together , we took Bonn and then Frankfurt with a few skirmishes along the way . We lost a few people , but not many . The Germans launched a few attacks with their 88s , a sort of equivalent to M-7s we had , but fortunately not much happened .
Still , we knew that the people we were fighting — these SS units — weren ’ t going to give up . Or if they were ready to give up , they didn ’ t show any signs to us at that point .
There was of course “ Bed Check Charlie .” This was a German plane that flew over all the Allied camps at night , mostly to bug the troops and only occasionally drop a bomb . It would also preoccupy our antiaircraft units that would go after these planes . It was usually more of a nuisance than a real threat .
There were some bigger attacks from the 88s that we were able to fire back against as we continued further south toward our objective : Munich . We assumed if we could take Munich , the Nazis would collapse .
As we continued on our path , the Russians were moving through Central Germany . During the Battle of the Bulge that Russian line created what amounted to a stalemate that allowed us to stay on our route toward Munich . Truthfully , we didn ’ t know what to expect once we got there . We knew the SS headquarters were down there and we knew the Germans were still adamant at that point that they wouldn ’ t give up the fight . But at our lower level , we didn ’ t know too much .
I was attached to a small part of the 20 th Armored Division at this time , called Combat Command B , which consisted of our artillery battalion , a tank battalion , and a few infantry vehicles . As we moved farther east , our command came across barbed wire and a big moat surrounding a camp of some kind . We had no idea at this point what we had discovered . We did notice as we continued our approach that there was a large building housed inside this camp . It had to be the SS headquarters . There were white flags hanging from the building , so we assumed we would be given easy access to the camp . But , there were two main obstacles that got in our way . First , a series of deep ditches that formed a moat around the camp . Second was the barbed wire that provided a formidable defense for our tanks to break through . Then , as we were about to embark on that task , shots rang out from snipers on top of the building despite the fact that they had the white flag waving . Several people were killed , including our colonel who stood up in his jeep at that point to see what was going on .
That was very tragic . I know the family and , in fact , his son is a retired colonel and a good friend of mine .
At that point , we realized that the white flags were phony and we directed our artillery and fired on the building , putting an end to that resistance . We then managed to cross the moat and break the barbed wire to access the camp . We were only a small part of a larger effort to liberate this camp . At the same time , you had the 42nd and 45th divisions converging .
This created some confusion among the ranks since the 45th Division was told about the camp , “ It ’ s yours , take it .” The colonel from that division was the one who was trying to establish order . Then other divisions came in headed by a general and they had a big fight as to who was in charge . Still , we got in and were able to smash the gate .
That was at on April 29 , 1945 .
The next day , a few of us were selected to go and get a closer look at the camp to see what had really gone on here . We were shocked by what we saw at camp Dachau . Thousands of people , deportees from other areas in Germany , had been sent in by railcar . But they died from hunger or were shot if they lagged behind . There were 37 railcars full of bodies . People had been jammed in several hundred to each one . That was a dreadful , dreadful site . The railcars were sitting inside the camp . As if that discovery was not tragic enough , we then came upon where they had been burning bodies in the crematorium . We found out this had all been handled by Polish prisoners . There were 22 barracks originally made for 200 men each , which had about
THE YOUNG SOLDIER WITH THE 20TH ARMORED DIVISION , ALAN LUKENS .
2,000 in them . Each one — I forget the math exactly — but I know they counted later and there were 35,000 prisoners in there . These barracks were overseen by people called kapos . These were German criminals who were drafted by the SS to run the camp . They were really awful individuals , and they were told if they weren ’ t nasty , and didn ’ t kick people around , they themselves would get shot . So the enmity of the prisoners was on the kapos , not the German people .
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