CHAPTER VIII VICTORY

	Troops rode on tanks and tank destroyers during the last two weeks of the final "push" . . . . .
Combat patrols were sent out to gather information and to keep an eye to the east . . . .
Newspapermen and photographers appeared on the scene and when the regiments began reporting red flares ONAWAY knew that the meeting was a matter of hours. But the Russians didn't come. The 76th waited impatiently. More flares were seen but still no Russians. There was no doubt about their proximity for hundreds of nazis drifted against ONAWAY's lines. Small skirmishes kept the division constantly alert. Combat patrols were sent out day and night to gather information, prisoners, and to keep an eye to the east for red flares. One nazi who surrendered to the 417th told of a large number of Germans who wanted to give up but who were being guarded closely by SS officers. He was given detailed instructions and sent back to the enemy troops located northwest of Chemnitz. That night elements of the 417th moved into new forward positions. ONAWAY's artillery kept up a barrage east of the enemy and the doughboys laid down automatic weapons fire to the north and south. An avenue of escape to the west was left open and down the avenue marched eighty-one nazis guided by the PW who had been sent back to the enemy lines.
The 76th began to settle down as the "rat race" turned into a waiting game . . . .
What was left of Germany was shrinking by the hour. Every Allied army was pressing forward steadily without much opposition. ONAWAY passed to the control of the First Army on 22 April, the same day that Russian forces were battering their way into the outskirts of Berlin. Newspapers throughout the world were hauling out the boldest and blackest type. Radio stations were on the air twenty-four hours a day. Was the end near? Even Germany's few remaining radio stations were admitting defeat while still quoting nazi leaders that there would be no unconditional surrender. Germany would not quit. ONAWAY continued its patrol missions, standing guard over military installations, governing the captured towns in its area, and waited for the final link-up of east and west. It was 25 April that the Russians moved into Torgau, sixty miles south of Berlin, and met a patrol of the 69th Infantry Division. Hitler's house of cards was crumbling very fast. Gen Patton's tanks were across the Austrian frontier, British troops were in Hamburg and the U. S. Seventh Army was marching in on Munich. Then one day the world heard that Hitler was dead. Admiral Karl Doenitz, who succeeded, declared there would be no surrender, but even as the German radio made this announcement all German troops in Italy and western Austria were surrendering unconditionally to Allied forces. In Berlin a ten-day battle was over, the Russian flag waving over what was left of the bomb-battered city. By 4 May the Russians had contacted the British in the Baltic region. There was not much left of Germany. It had dwindled to a mere pocket of resistance in Czechoslovakia and the Allied Armies were driving wedges into that.
Communications men were out day and night linking units from higher to lower headquarters . . . .
A message of tremendous import came to Maj Gen Schmidt from SHAEF in the morning of 7 May. It read: 1. A representative of the German high command signed the unconditional surrender of all German land, sea, and air forces in Europe to the Allied Expeditionary Forces and simultaneously to the Soviet High Command at 0141 hours Central European time, 7 May under which all forces will cease active operations at 0001 hours 9 May. 2. Effective immediately all offensive operations by Allied Expeditionary Forces will cease and troops will remain in present positions. Moves involved in occupational duties will continue. Due to difficulties of communication there may be some delay in similar orders reaching enemy troops so full defensive precautions will be taken. 3. All informed down to and including divisions, tactical air commands and groups, base sections and equivalent. No, repeat, No release will be made to the press pending an announcement by the heads of the three governments.
	Commanding Officer Combat Team 385 Col. O. P. Bragan. This was it, the end of one hundred and ten days of combat in Europe for the troops of ONAWAY. One hundred and ten days that had carried them more than 400 miles through the battles of the Ardennes, Rhineland and Central Europe, decorating their ETO ribbon with three battle stars; days that had taken them from the first battle at the Sauer across twenty rivers in the face of the enemy. Never repulsed, never halted, the 76th Division had contacted and defeated seventeen German divisions, capturing more than 33,000 prisoners.
We ripened fast. In one hundred and ten days the 76th Division had made its everlasting impression on victorious pages that ended the blackest chapter in the history of man. The star's were out on the night of 9 May. The GI looked over at his buddy. "You watch for red flares for awhile, I have some business to attend to," he said quietly. He moved over into a patch of bushes, raised his M-1 into the air and shot a whole clip at nothing - nothing at all.
Commanding Officer Combat Team 385 Lt Col Peter W. Garland, Jr.