Timberwolves
Oct. 22nd, 2004 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dream_labyrinthThe 104th Army Infantry Division, the Timberwolves, were AFAIK the first allied troops to reach my home town in 1945.
Which makes it very likely that it was one soldier of this division who had my Grandmother jump on his feet.
She had the habit, even at 18, to slide down the bannister instead of walking down the stair. And one time, when she reached the landing, she landed on the feet of an American soldier. That was the first war story she ever told me.
(I have tried sliding down the bannister. You gather a lot of speed, and it is rather hard to stop before you get off at the end of the railing.)
Why do I write that down? No idea, really. Why not? Actually, this is on my mind because the Timberwolves were in the newspaper a lot these days. A group of veterans visited Halle. I culdn't look at the pictures and think, "Hey, one of these guys might remember a young German woman stepping on his toes."
Halle (which is the town were I was born, not the town I live in now and where my Grandmother used to live) was very lucky at the end of WW2. There was a group of citizens who convinced the inhabitants to surrender, and convinved the Americans that there was no need to bomb the place. So there wasn't much damage done. (And even before, during the war, the things that were destroyed were the station and the bridges across the Saale river. Very little damage in town.
Anyway, I think our area was very lucky to have the Americans come first. The worst thing they did was leaving and handing over to the Russians.
Which makes it very likely that it was one soldier of this division who had my Grandmother jump on his feet.
She had the habit, even at 18, to slide down the bannister instead of walking down the stair. And one time, when she reached the landing, she landed on the feet of an American soldier. That was the first war story she ever told me.
(I have tried sliding down the bannister. You gather a lot of speed, and it is rather hard to stop before you get off at the end of the railing.)
Why do I write that down? No idea, really. Why not? Actually, this is on my mind because the Timberwolves were in the newspaper a lot these days. A group of veterans visited Halle. I culdn't look at the pictures and think, "Hey, one of these guys might remember a young German woman stepping on his toes."
Halle (which is the town were I was born, not the town I live in now and where my Grandmother used to live) was very lucky at the end of WW2. There was a group of citizens who convinced the inhabitants to surrender, and convinved the Americans that there was no need to bomb the place. So there wasn't much damage done. (And even before, during the war, the things that were destroyed were the station and the bridges across the Saale river. Very little damage in town.
Anyway, I think our area was very lucky to have the Americans come first. The worst thing they did was leaving and handing over to the Russians.
