GI Time

Close to noon, we left the park and found the pub. We found a table by a window and sat down. There were all types of people in the pub. Local store clerks, travelers with bags, and lots of German soldiers. We ordered some beer, soup and bread.

As we were eating, Brett continued looking out of the window and then suddenly stood up and walked over to the bar. He began talking to a couple of soldiers. A minute later Brett returned with the solders.

"Two more beers!" Brett shouted in German to a nearby waitress. "I thought this Solider was my nephew, but I was mistaken!" Brett looked at me and made a hand gesture to one of the soldiers. The soldiers looked at me and smiled as they sat down.

"They're traveling like us. I invited them over for a some conversation and a beer."

Moments later the beers arrived and the two soldiers sucked the beers down.

As Brett talked to the soldiers, a pair of Gestapo agents came in and started checking identification papers.

So that's what Brett is up to I thought! He must have seen the Gestapo agents approaching through the window. The Gestapo made their way over to us and we held out our papers while maintaining our conversation with the solders. The two agents made hand gestures to put our papers away without even looking at them.

We finished our lunch and bid our newfound friend's goodbye. We walked across town to the theater, bought some tickets and went in. We took turns napping during the movies. An hour before our train was to depart we left the theater and walked over to the station.

We arrived at the station as people began boarding the train. There were local police and Gestapo checking tickets and reviewing papers as the passengers boarded each car of the train. Brett surveyed the situation and slapped me on the back. "This way!" He pointed.

I followed him to the end of a line that was boarding. The same local police that Brett had talked to in the park was checking papers in this line. They remembered us and didn't give our papers a second look. We boarded and sat in the back of a car. The train pulled out on time and we pretended to sleep so no one would try to make conversation.

We arrived at our destination around 0300 and exited the train. There were very few people getting off and no one was getting on. We got our bearing and started our hike towards our search area.

We eventually made our way out of town and started to walk cross-country. As the sun began to rise we topped a small hill and decided to stop there for the day. The hill was covered with enough brush to hide us so we crawled in and took cover.

From the hill we could see farmland to our south and forest to our north. The area we wanted to search was just beyond the horizon behind the forested area. We knew from our research, that the area had three classified airfields that the Germans were using for aircraft testing. We hoped that our target would be at one of those fields.

Brett pulled our mini binoculars from his pack and scanned a small farm just below the hill.

"We'll watch the farm today and see if it's worth visiting tonight for some food. We've got enough food now to last a week or two. A little more wouldn't hurt. It may take us a while before we find the fighter."