Having
an IPW Team, and an S-5 were something new and novel for the
Regiment in the ETO. But when the Nazi prisoners started
surrendering in droves, and fifteen towns were taken in a day,
both became more than handy gadgets to have around. They
became absolute necessities. No one who saw him in action will
ever quite forget Lt. Hart putting the German civilians through
their paces and in their places. Not could the great
numbers of PW's possibly have been handled were it not for the
IPW.
The
Team, which worked for both the 385th and the 304th,
had a busy time of it with more than 35,000 prisoners taken
before VE Day, and some 45,000 taken in the last round up after
the cessation of hostilities. And it was IPW men who did
the screening of all prisoners to weed out the SS and the former
members of the Nazi Party. No small job. In the
faster moving situations PW's were processed at Battalion level,
left in charge of guards while the team went on to the next
collecting point. And Battalions sometimes established as
many as three collecting points during the course of a day.
All of which meant a 24 hour day for the Team.
As for
the S-5 group in their AMG office, wherever it happened to be,
their tasks were no less difficult. Especially in the days
following VE, when thousands of Displaced Persons had to be
sorted, billeted, fed, and transportation arranged to collecting
or transfer points. At one control point alone, more than
5,000 DP's were checked daily.
And
when the Regiment spent any appreciable length of time in any
one locality there were all the public utilities to get back
into operation, and thousands of questions to be answered, and
people to be interviewed. Creating a semblance of order
and government from the chaos left by the fall of Nazidom was no
easy task. It will be no easy task, and perhaps the
experiences of such men as Lt. Hart and his crew will be handy
in the days to come. But getting in on the ground floor of
occupation work, they had all the roughest obstacles to hurdle.
Certainly
without the IPW Team and the S-5, the Regiment could not have
advanced so rapidly. As it was, all went smoothly and the
problems of prisoners and civilians and Displaced Persons never
became an obstacle to impede military progress.
