FRONT LINE LIFE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 305, 26 December 1944, Page 4

FRONT LINE LIFE

AND ITS SURPRISES

INCONGRUITIES AND "JERRY"

(By J. C. WATERS.) GERMAN BORDER Here, at a front line outpost in thi German village of Hastenrath, eigh hundred yards from the Germans but in a temporarily static line, ii the division of armoured Guard; which made the break-through 11 Normandy and created a work record—ninety-three miles to cnas< the remnants of the Germans fron Brussels, then passing on to Louvair and racing forward brilliantly to cap ture inteact the Nijmegen bridge. The commanding officer is sur rounded by a grand young team o six-footers, men beloved by Mr Churchill, who fight with a smile Look into their wide-spaced eyes anc you find courage, confidence anc comfort. These are the eyes, yoi say, that make England great. One afternoon we had honey foi tea. It was German honey cap tured by the Guards during theii sweep through Oss. Champaignc For Dinner That night in the mess, while shells from an artillery duel rattlec the door and windows as thougr intruders were trying to break in this was the menu: Hors d'oeuvre chopped lettuce, potato and beet witr sardine, thick soup, fresh roast beef roast potatoes, beans and stewec apple and custard washed down witr champagne, which was captured from the Germans in the swift move on Brussels. Of course it is not like that when you are on the move. I slept to the accompaniment oi the Beethoven Symphony playec through my head in the bright moon light by guns from both sides. It is here that you get incongruity. I was in a warm Dutch border town bed in a Roman Catholic presbytery, protected by crucifixes and tanks, armoured cars and Guards. It was strange to find life going on much as usual in this Dutch front-line township. Children were playing in the streets and squares and a baby sprawled in a pi-am, not knowing or caring about the boomboom of the exploding shells. And and Dutch smiled and said, "Hello," and looked enviously at the stoutness of my boots. Guilty Comfort I have never before felt so guilty in comfort as I walked in the street of this no-man's town of shining door knobs and snowy curtains Everywhere in Holland, even ir these towns that suffered war's stabbing in tumbled buildings anc blasted roofs, you find polished dooi knobs and snowy curtains. There is a great game of tug-of-war going on on the Reich borders. When the Germans came they drove back the cattle, horses and pigs. The Dutch and Belgians could not hang on. Now, where the Germans have let go the Belgians and Dutch daily nip across to get what stock they can and bring back cartloads of sugar beet dug from the Fatherland's rich soil. It is an eminently fitting and fair game being played by men and women, young and old, for this is the sugar beet harvest. The Germans have cleared out from their little border towns. They went while shells were tearing at the cobble-stoned streets, leaying notes of appeal to the "good British" and the "good Americans." Hastenrath's pastor, admitting Nazi ill-usage of the Dutch and Belgians, prayed to the Allies for the safety of his church. This still stands, its spire riddled by German shellfire. In the villages we could see aci-oss the rolling open countryside they left their furniture but buried the food. Not All Gone I said that the Germans had cleared out. That is not strictly accurate. In Gangelt, still under fire, 200 imbeciles were left behind. Their three-storey building in the main street —wide enough only for passing vehicles, as in "all these towns—has not a window intact, and the buildings around are broken and battered. At any hour they may be blown up by the Fuehrer's shells. A few attendants remain. These regard you as you pass, or look through at you rather, because, for them you do not exist. A strange place, indeed, this front line. I have given you a little picture of what I have seen. I can also tell you of young men who march off in the mud in the evening. They go out to relieve the front line spaced in the villages across this countryside. They stand to in the rain and cold and attack to the death when the need arises. During the static periods they patrol like Redskins, probing the enemy line in the hope of getting prisoners, or watching from an ambush for • the enemy, also on patrol. Sometimes they win. Sometimes Jerry wins. He is clever at patrol. They are • weary-eyed, these Britishers, but downhearted—No!