The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
want to find out. I found out too much onetime and it just... So I look a little bit and then I leave
it. I don't know if that makes any sense. Anyway, Lissner didn't get scratched. Then we moved
from there. We captured Sospel. And it was there that we had our first really close tip contact
with the Germans. At least I did in taking that town. And they were pretty heavily stacked tip in
there. But when we finally took it, I remember. I climbed up on top of a hotel. I don't remember
how I got there, on top of this hotel with two or three guys and I'm looking down on a square of
this little town, village, Sospel. And these German soldiers were running across the square with a
woman on each arm thinking that we wouldn't shoot at them. Because we might hit the women.
Why hells bells, I was a good enough shot to shoot the soldier and miss the girl. But a lot of our
guys, they didn't shoot at any women, but they shot at the guys. That didn't slow anything down.
And that was our last bit of hard combat there in that town. Then they pulled us back to a little
town out of Nice. They said we're going to put you in a rest area. Then you're going to go to the
north of France and jump across into Germany'. O.K., let's get the hell out of here. Anything's
better than this. In the meantime we'd run into some guys in the mountains. To showv you how
strange the army is and the war, we thought we were the only guys where we were. One day I ran
into some guys that were in the SS wars or something, Strategic Officers Service or something.
And they were sitting up there on these little white parkas for the ski troops, you know. I
remember I swapped him my jacket for his, this other guy, for his ski parka. Met him up on the
hill, never saw him again. Met some Japanese guys up there that were in the 442", which was a
famous Japanese-American group. Got more medals than anybody. Fought like crazy, from
Hawaii. Ran into some of those guys and they' were carrying these purple Indian knives. And they
talk about how they sleep in the day and hunt at night. It was like a dream. I don't know where
those guys came from or where they went. I never saw any more of them. But we did move.
They were going to move us from Sospel, 52 miles. I remember that. To this little town between
Nice and Marseilles, to rest. And so. you think, they're going to get us out of here. There's a
bunch of trucks up there and they're going down. They'll be here in an hour. We had to walk. 52
miles across the damn Alps. I couldn't believe that we went down to get there. And they were
doing us this favor. We got down there and we pitched those tents again. We just played football
and basketball and did practically what we wanted to and we spent Thanksgiving down there. We
had a celebration. Some how or other, I got involved with the bread making end of the deal and
had to go find a baker that could make enough bread for a regiment. And I spent three days
working at his house in his bakery helping him make bread. Unbelievable. And then we had this
party, and everybody got stoned; drunk at hell. And it was down in this big, big room. And I'm
sitting there where I can see Lissner. He's sitting over there with all the officers. And he's
looking at me and I'm looking at him and we're kind of nodding like that, you know, and laughing.
All of a sudden a guy says Yippee and he's raising hell and he throws a plate. Everybody starts
throwing their plates. First thing you know, it was dangerous in there, dishes going everywhere.
And I look at Lissner and he looks at me and he grabs his plate and he does that. And I go like this
to him. That really got him when I showed my disapproval of that. I didn't know it at the time,
but when we got back to camp that night, we were all half loaded, and got in our little tents down
on the soccer field, that's where w'e had them. Of course, he was camped up in the house
somewhere up the hill. I was lying in there with my buddy, asleep. Somebody tapped me on the
foot. "That you?" And I said, "Yeah."" Who's in there with you?" I said, "Bob Reed." He said,
"Bob, get the hell out of there." Kind of mad. So Robert Reed woke up and said, "What's the
matter." I said, "Get-going man." So he left. And in comes Lissner. He said. "What was that
stuff down there at the thing?" I said, "I don't know." I was just loaded enough to answer what he
asked me. I said, "I don't know about you, but I wasn't raised like that." I said that didn't prove a
damn thing to me. And he said, "Well, I came down here to apologize." And he made a big deal
out of it. And it embarrassed me as a matter of fact because actually I did some pretty funny things
in the service that I haven't told you about here that I may get to yet. But anyway, the next day he
came down - he left- and the next day he came down. He said, "Is Reed around?" I said, "No,"
and he said, "Well, I don't want anybody around." I said, "O.K." So he said, "How do y ou feel
about how this things going?" I said, "O.K. I'm sure glad we're down here." And he say s. "What
23