By: Stan Jordan
Here is a picture of a German loading list of August 2, 1944. The prisoners are loading on a train in Rennes, France, heading east into Germany to a P.O.W. camp. The last man on the page is Garner (Jack) Jordan, one of my brothers. He was injured and taken prisoner on July 4, 1944. I know he was taken prisoner in the hedge-row country of the Cotentin Peninsula west of Caen, and I think we were at a German hospital in Caen for a few weeks. The hospital was staffed by some French people and some English doctors. This page was sent to Jack’s children and they sent some copies to me. I will bring you some more of this story in the next few weeks.
See ya!
The Lobo Tank Busters
Patton’s troops are moving along at a fine rate of speed. They pulled off the highway at the edge of Paris and let De Gaulle lead some French soldiers into the city as conquering heroes. De Gaulle had spent the war so far in England.
The Germans pulled out of Paris and did not destroy the place. I think the officer in charge got in trouble with Hitler because he wanted Paris to be obliterated like Berlin. We got a memorandum from allied headquarters E.T.O. today: Don’t fire at box cars going east on the railroad because they might contain allied prisoners headed towards the P.O.W. camps in Germany.
Our specialty is trains pulling flatcars loaded with tanks, half-tracks, trucks or anything that the German soldiers might use. Such as today, we caught a train loaded with supplies in a little town called, Shalow St. Mar. It was sitting still for some reason a few miles east of Paris. It probably couldn’t get to its original destination because of Patton’s big advance. Anyhow, it was like a ship dead in the water.
There were a few flat cars loaded with new Tiger Tanks. Oh, what luck! We came in from the side with our rockets. The train was not moving, so we worked on setting them afire. We put a rocket down into the engine area and the bullets ruptured the hydraulic lines and it started to burn. That is just what we wanted. We only had twelve rockets because there were only three planes again today. There was a little switch engine attached to the front of the train and we blew it up, also. There was one multi-barrel, anti-aircraft in the middle of the train. It was sort of a trailer-like affair and it had protective steel plates to protect the operator. One of the boys put a rocket in the middle of the trailer and it really done away with the mens, guns and all.
We used up our rockets there on anything we could find. We headed back to England and our Airbase at Brighton. We are turning in early tonight, another dawn patrol tomorrow.
See ya!
Please Read This
In last week’s story about the carving of the owl out on CR 43 and the River Road East, the old owl is looking down a ravine as a sentry or guard. I mentioned it didn’t have a name of that ditch. Well, Jim Pendergrast, who is up on all the drainage ditches on all of Paulding County, said the ditch and ravine did indeed have a name. It is called, “The Wallace Ditch.” I remember being told long ago about 1950, some people on Wallace living over on 204. Well Jim, thank you so much.
I have also been told that the man doing the carving is Jason Stewart, not Ron Stewart. I thank you readers for all of your help.
See ya!
