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THIS WAS THE ETO Farewell to England . . London and the blackout the pubs and Picadilly, the subways and the Red Cross Clubs . . Charing Cross . . you can't miss it really you can't . . the beach at Bournemouth . . the Pavilion and the gardens and dodging the MP's . . the Trouville Club . . then coffee and doughnuts in an English port at midnight . . gangplank again and the green waters of the Channel . . and France dimly an the horizon . . the devastation that was Le Havre . . by 40 & 8 into France . . chateau life and French women and wine, and French bread, delicious and crusty . . and through snow and cold by interminable convoy into the rubble that was Belgium . . Ortho and grim traces, red in the snow, of the Battle of the Bulge . . and down then, into the ruins of Luxembourg under a Bomber's moon, into uncertainty and into the Line . . the river Sauer and night patrols . . first casualties and new-found confidence . . the night They crossed the river at Echternach . . the Siegfried |
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Line . . pillboxes and mines and sudden death . . and machine guns chatting intimately through the dark . . the Prüm, the Nims, and the Kyll . . Irrel . . death . . 88s . . and champagne and the Moselle Valley . . castles . . and the watch an the Rhine . . mail call . . oeufs . . and bomber vapor trails ribboned in the moonlight . . rain and mud . . death . . and into Central Germany . . loot and pistolas . . no fraternizing . . and convoy cat-eyes crawling through the night . . superhighways and the rot race is on . . the countless villages, each with its Church, its defenders, its billets, and its share of the dead left behind . . 10 in 1's, K's and C's and the GI's . . apple blossoms and Spring . . PX rations and German Beer . . death . . Polskis and Ruskis, French, British and Yanks, liberated and smiling, thronging the roads . . the dusty roads . . the SS . . an armored column forever moving out . . the Wehrmacht disintegrating, leaving itself in bloody fragments by the roads and in the ditches . . the gut-strewn death poses of fallen horses . . burned out vehicles and bloated bodies . . and finally the last missions . . Alles Kaput . . VE . . and rounding up the PWs . . the supermen . . Victory and with it remembrances of buddies lost . . of desperate days and death-filled nights . . of incoming artillery, and screaming meemies . . and of gallantry and heroism beyond believing . . This was the ETO . .
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