Interview of 2nd Lt.
Ray HolmquistAssistant to S-1 120th Infantry Regiment 2nd Battalion
Battle of Mortain
(Pictures are thumbnails)
We were like the walking dead. We pull into
Mortain, France which is they tell me now that I have been away from there
that it’s kind of a resort city. It’s a nice, almost semi mountainous
terrain, not really mountains but big hills and nice rolling terrain. We
pull into this little city and our battalion commander tells the leaders of
our battalion that were going to be moving into a defensive position at
Mortain, France. We will have a chance to get rested and get some good
sleep and some good food. We pull into Mortain. I think it was about 4
o’clock in the afternoon and I was in charge at that particular time. I was
in charge of the battalion command post. A Command post is basically at
this point kind of a communications center. I had about 30 men with me. We
had the battalion radios and communication gear to keep in communication
with our battalion. The battalion commander and the rest of his staff were
at the OP, which is the battalion observation post. This is really the
command center for the whole battalion, the OP command center. I was, I’m
guessing now but I’m pretty close, that I had about 30 men with me and I was
the only officer. I had a Sergeant with me who was kind of second in
command you might say. The Sergeant and I talked about where our post is
going to be. We find a great big residential home right downtown Mortain.
I don’t know what the population of this city is but I would say it was
about 10,000. There was this big, big cathedral, one of these old
traditional type cathedrals, beautiful structure. It was sitting a top of a
hill on a high piece of terrain and next to the cathedral is this big house
that we picked for the place to have our command post.
Picture
of the side of the house. You can see the entrance to the bomb shelter
below the chimney. The main street is to the photographers back and the
church is to the photographs left and rear.
An old French home and we go in and by god there is food on the table. The
house, it was like the French people had just walked away from the dinner
table. Really, there was food on the table. That tells us that they had
left in a hurry. The community had abandoned the city in a great hurry.
The battle was converging on Mortain, France. The word gets around quick.
They would come around a say get out of here. So, yes the city was
abandoned. We had the whole city to pick from and we picked this big house
because it had a lot of beds and we anticipated that maybe we could go to
sleep in a bed for the first since I had been in combat. Just think, a bed
of all things. My golly, fresh eggs in the kitchen and good beds to sleep
in so we thought this is going to be nice, get a good rest, a good nights
sleep and get some fresh food. We move into this big house and the
battalion commander and the rest of the battalion picked a hotel for the
observation post, which again was abandoned and had just been vacated. It
was just kind of like a ghost town and they picked this big hotel.
Basically I think because it was central and the troops would be in a
defensive position around the perimeter of Mortain. It would be a good
place to have the command post. We were fairly close to the hotel where the
battalion commander was. We had really thought that we would be settled
down there for several days in a defensive position and get some good rest.
We came as I said about four o’clock in the afternoon. I don’t think we had
been there for over an hour before low and behold here the Luftwaffe comes
out and starts bombing Mortain with incinerator bombs. That’s a bomb that
has a whole cluster of burning devices that when they land they kind of
explode and create fires. It’s a very effective way to destroy property.
They really bombed Mortain intensively with these incinerator bombs. Well,
we of course wanted to take cover because with the in cinerary bombs there
were also some very heavy concussion bombs, maybe 500lb concussion that
carry a real impact and are very destructive too. The Sergeant starts
looking over this house that we were in and low and behold it happens by
chance and luck that there was a bomb shelter, civilian bomb shelter in the
basement of that home. It was just like a huge culvert, a half culvert and
it was heavy concrete, rounded. It was maybe 30 feet wide and maybe 10-12
feet high.
Ray inside of
bomb shelter.
You get the picture of a half culvert, concrete, perfect bomb
shelter. We were absolutely safe down there. So we all head immediately
for that bomb shelter, all of us. In the bomb shelter there was all kinds
of mattresses where the civilians would lay down and sleep for rest. After
the Luftwaffe had stop their bombing, the artillery opens up. By that time
it’s dark and nightfall is coming. This is in August now, the first part of
August. In fact it would be August 6th. The days are long now
so by nightfall the Luftwaffe really did a thorough job of bombing that
city. We knew that if the Luftwaffe came out that there was big trouble
ahead. Otherwise the Germans wouldn’t risk their air force because we had
control of the skies, the American forces. When the Luftwaffe was done by
nightfall, the city was just a mass of flames. The Luftwaffe came out about
5 o’clock in the afternoon and by nightfall it was destroyed. Then after
the Luftwaffe quit around nightfall, then the artillery really opened up,
massive, massive artillery fire. We knew it was conclusive that there would
be something big coming up, big offensive because the Luftwaffe came out.
We had never really seen them come out in force. Artillery fire was just
very intensive and we keep somewhat in communication with our company
commander with our radio. It was in the basement with us. We had some
communication and they were really getting blasted. It wasn’t too long
really before we almost lost all of our communication because of the
artillery fire. But we got intermittent communication for quite a period of
time. After the curtain of artillery fire ceased, the German offensive
started and it was massive. I don’t know the hour it really started but I
would say, this is a wild guess but I would it’s about 3 o’clock in the
morning. We were trying to maintain communication with the troops that were
in the perimeter defense around Mortain but again it was very difficult to
keep communication.
We tried to communicate and ask the others
what was going on. You must remember there was massive artillery fire and
when asked how’s it going out there they would reply that we under heavy,
heavy artillery fire. We got just the minimum of that kind of communication
but we knew just from what we could hear that the bombing was intense. The
offensive, the German offensive started about 3 o’clock in the morning, it
could have been earlier or it could have been a little later. That’s after
the artillery fire and then the troops move in with the tanks. The fighting
goes on all night and we are in this bomb shelter. There is only one exit,
one door from the outside just like a cellar entrance in a cellar where you
got a door you pick up and you walk down into the cellar.
Ray standing in the
courtyard area where he and the men he was with were taken just after
capture. The church is in the background and the house he was captured in
is to his left.
There are all kinds of dead Germans laying all over, I don’t remember
seeing one dead American but there were dead Germans, a lot of dead
Germans. When we stepped out, there were a lot of other soldiers who
converged on us because to take prisoners was a big thing. At this time the
Germans hadn’t taken many prisoners, kind of a rare thing. It was kind of a
trophy to get American prisoners I believe but this is only in hindsight.
They line us up and they are very menacing and they take their machine guns
and they would go like this and wave their guns at us. They were cursing us
in German and waving their machine guns at us. Well, we were prime and they
could have mowed us down and no one would have known the difference. Two of
the guys fainted, just dropped right to the ground. First of all, we are
really an exhausted group of men and that’s not very comfortable to be in
that kind of situation. It’s a very scary thing because it looked like they
were just going to just shoot us, absolutely going to shoot. They were,
believe me, they are all hyped up and nervous as can be and they got their
Tommie guns and you start to think that maybe this is the end. That’s what
you’re thinking inside. Two of the guys faint and the Sergeant and I go
over to them and low and behold they let us. It wasn’t too long after
before the guys came to. They stood up for awhile and they fainted again.
We went over to and they revived and stood up. A period of time has expired
it appear that they were not going to shot us. These are just raw recruits,
enlisted men and I was the only officer. And I don’t know how, this is kind
of bizarre but I really, maybe I was just pleading dumb, I somehow got the
Germans to let me down into the bomb shelter because I knew we had a whole
case of D-Bars. Do you know what a D-Bar is? It’s a chocolate bar that’s
about that thick, that long and about that wide and they are loaded with
vitamins with energy, energy not vitamins. I was thinking of pretty hungry
days ahead and I’m not sure why they let me. I can’t remember the details
of how it all happened but they let me go back down in there with a guard on
my back and by god I retrieve that carton. A big, box that long and that
wide full of D-Bars. I got the whole box. I don’t know why or how you
explain something like that or account for my behavior at that time. It’s
just like I was kind of unconscious but that’s what happened, quite
unbelievable. So here I come up and join the line of guy again with a case
of D-Bars. I don’t know if I passed them out or if what I did but somehow
we had all those D-Bars. Not to long after that they received orders that
they would move our column and we were marched off. I was the only officer
and I was separated from the rest of them. They took me to a shed. All I
can describe it as was a kind of shed and there I was, confronted for the
first time by German officers. The German officers I saw at that time were
not officers that were what you would think. They were almost in kind of a
dress uniform with these Calvary boots, long trench coat, leather trench
coats with a beat and their officer insignia. They had their officer caps,
not their steel helmets, but their officer caps. They were almost like they
were going to go to a party. Their boots were shinned and they looked
really sharp. This is a battle and this is what their battle commanders
look like. It was quite astounding for me to see those German Officers all
dressed up, neat and clean. They discovered real quickly that there was no
way that they would be able to communicate with me. I couldn’t speak German
and they couldn’t speak English. There was some conversation and talk and
then they escorted me back to where the other troops and men I was with were
so I was reunited with them. I think they could see that there was no
information that they were going to get out of this guy. They were not
hostile or anything they were just doing a job and they just gave orders.
They didn’t take anything or they really didn’t try to interrogate me. I
joined the men and they put us in trucks, open field truck with an open box
in back and were going to try to haul us out. Remember this is in the
morning now, broad daylight. We had gone just a little ways and we ran into
American fire from American forces, small arms fire. The Germans had two
guards in the truck, one driving and the other in the cab of the truck. Of
course, the Germans would immediately take cover and we weren’t privy to do
that. They would take cover and fortunately, we were not hit. After the
fire ceased we moved on our way and we had not gone very far and we would
meet more small arms fire from American forces. Well the German after that
fire ceased or terminate they realize that there was no way they were going
to get us out by truck in the daytime so they put us under cover. When I
say under cover, I mean so that we are not visible and they would keep us
under guard. They would keep us under cover until nightfall and at
nightfall they would proceed to take us quite a ways to the back. They
deposited us with a German Artillery Unit. It was I think a reserve
artillery unit and they would leave us under the command or authority of
this artillery unit. They put us in quite a big shed, looked like kind of a
wooden machine storage shed. By this time, it isn’t just the 30 that were
with me but there are maybe 12 or 20 other guys that they had picked up and
put with us. There was another guy they had picked up that was a lieutenant
and I even remember his name. His name was LT. Miller. He was a 1st
Lt. and Lt. Miller was very, I don’t know if he was fluent but he could get
along very well in German. So this is pretty much a novelty for the Germans
to take American prisoners of war. We were quite a curiosity so they would
come and look us over and see what we look like. Then the officers started
coming and they wanted to see what we looked like. Lt. Miller could
communicate with them. They were really busy talking like they were old
friends. Pretty soon the officer disappears and apparently given the orders
to feed these guys pretty good. It wasn’t too long after the officer had
disappeared and apparently had given the order to feed us good, they came in
with a big, not a cream can but a kind of an old milk can. It was about
that wide, a foot wide, and a high aluminum type can that is maybe a yard
high and maybe a foot wide. It was full of soup that was apparently the
chow for that artillery unit for that night. It was a cream and potato
soup. Gosh, I will never forget that soup for the rest of my life. Can you
imagine how hungry we were? We hadn’t had anything to eat except for our
D-Bars. We had passed them around the truck and that helped out a lot. But
this was the first food we had had and I mean it was truly delicious soup.
Thick heavy cream potato ham soup with big heavy slabs of ham in the bottom
of the can. We had pretty much all the soup we could eat. They treated us
well and they were very friendly. The officers acted like they were almost
like meeting a friend. And they treated us that way. They wanted us to
have some good food. Well, the next morning they put us in trucks and by
this time we are quite a ways behind the line, the front lines and we are
well out of harms way. We would move along during the day in the open
trucks. They were camouflage with branches and trees. They were very
carefully camouflaged with the branches and leaves and all the soldiers had
leaves on their heads and they were very hard to spot from the air. But
periodically we would be confronted with strafing from American fighter
planes. The Germans of course would all head for cover. We almost always
had two German guards in the back of the open truck and there was always two
in the front, one driver and another guard. When the planes would come they
would of course plop themselves in the ditch and we were left there but
fortunately we never came under fire. I’m not sure if they ever saw us or
what but we never came under fire. We go on this way in these open trucks
with intermittent stopping and starting because of the air raids they would
be confronted with. We moved on for quite a ways that day and at dark we
get settled into a great big home somewhere in France. We were kept under
guard and put into this home for the night, no food. We were all right
because we had had a good meal and I think we even had some D-Bars left. We
spent the night in that home and the next day we were on the move and under
cover again. The next day we reached Paris, France. By this time it isn’t
just our truck but there is a whole convoy of trucks, German trucks with
prisoners of war. I mean it’s like maybe 30 trucks and I’m guessing at the
number but quite a large convoy of about 30 trucks with American prisoners
of war. We were in these open trucks and there was not much room. We are
jammed into these open trucks, American Prisoners of war and a convoy of 30
trucks and it’s taking us into Paris, France. This was quite early in the
day, maybe 9 or 10 o’clock in the morning when we reached the outskirts of
Paris. This is about the 3rd day and could be the 4th
day but not much time had expired. I will tell you, by this time it was
apparent to the people of Paris that it would not be long before they would
be liberated because word was that after we broke out of the hedgerow
country there was a vast push right towards Paris. They were moving really
fast, Patton and his army. It was a massive, massive array of force
together with the Canadians and the British. They were marching on to Paris
and the Parisians knew that maybe in a matter of days they suspected that
Paris would be liberated. They knew that the war was soon going to be over
for them and they would be liberated. And here we were the first American
troops to enter Paris and it was like we were the liberating army. I mean
it was unbelievable, it was like we were the liberating army. I mean I
think it backfired on the Germans because I think what the Germans had in
mind was that they wanted to parade us through the heart of Paris in prime
time hours to display all the Americans they had taken prisoner and it
absolutely backfired on them. Because the Parisians treated us like we were
the liberating army. I mean they just lined the streets by thousands and
they cheered and they hollowed and they threw bottles of wine and loaves of
bread, it was just like a victory celebration truly, truly amazing. Well
this is way out in the suburbs of Paris and we moved on a long trip right to
the heart of downtown Paris. They stopped us in a big open park. I think
they were going to display us to the Parisians people and I mean the
Parisians just kept on cheering and shouting and hollering and they were
just crowding in on us. Again there were maybe 30 trucks in a kind of a
circle, semicircle. They were going to display their products and I mean
thousands and thousands of people converged on this group until it was
almost a tight circle. And it looked like they were going to liberate us
and it got so threatening to the Germans that they had to set up machine
guns around us. When I say machine guns, they had these machine guns that
they set on the ground, maybe 30 caliber sometimes 50 caliber, they would
set up machine guns. So they had to start shooting into the air, shooting
their machine guns into the air and then the crowds retreated. Then they
hastily remobilize our caravan and realized that they better get us out of
there in a real hurry. They had almost encompassed us and liberated us.
This is a beautiful summer day and this is in the heart of Paris and there
were throngs of people all along the streets as this convoy slowly moved
along. And they were still cheering, hollering and throwing bottles of wine
and bread at us.
We were catching the wine and bread. Well you see this was just unbelievable and it was a sight to behold. I really, I mean it’s like New York welcoming the New York Giants after they had won a World Series, it was comparable to that. The Germans didn’t dare do anything because they were losing control and they were on retreat. They Parisians had totally taken control.
I tell you, right away when I got into the heart of the city, these are narrow streets and not these wide boulevards like you have in the suburbs. I was really tempted to jump and I thought of it many times. I’m sure we all were thinking the same thing. Maybe I should jump and give it a try but you figure you would get picked off too quickly. The Germans had the guards on the trucks and I was afraid they would pick me off. Believe me I was tempted. I mean the Parisians we right next to the truck and they would just follow the trucks and I mean I was tempted to jump right into the crowd, really many times. Boy you know it’s tempting. Again I was afraid the guards would pick us off so I didn’t do it. None of us did and I’m sure we all were thinking the same thing. We aren’t talking you know we are just sitting there, every man for himself. Yes, it was very tempting to jump off into that crowd but I didn’t. Well they successfully got us out of Paris and put us into what was an actual prison in the outskirts of Paris, an actual prison. When I say that there were bars and it was an old structure. And one of the surpassing things was when they put us into this prison, the next morning, the Germans actually passed out French Red Cross Parcels. We each got a French Red Cross Parcel. That was the first food we had got in quite some time, other than what the French had thrown us. It was a wonderful lift. One of those Red Cross parcels will provide decent nourishment for at least a week. So you are really well fed or adequately fed. I shouldn’t say well fed but adequately fed for at least a week but of course we would string them along much longer than that. We were in that prison there but it was real dirty. The latrine facilities were deplorable. I didn’t see any rats but it was the kind of the place where you could say it was rat infested with lice. It was lousy and we were in a bad, bad facility. And we were kept there for I
would say maybe at least a week. We had water, portable water and we had the French red cross parcels and we got along. When I say a week again I have to be kind of liberal in that in retrospect I’m guessing a week or so, little less or more.We were with other POW’s but there wasn’t a lot of conversation. Most of it was that here we were in a place where we could rest and recuperate. It was mostly resting and recuperation. It was nice, as we would lay out in the sun and rest. We really just rested and recuperated not much conversation.
The Germans who were handling us didn’t change much from the previous Germans who handled us. I don’t think they changed. I would have to say up to this point our captors were very civil. And there wasn’t any display of hostility either. We were all human beings and they treated us that way. We all looked alike, I’m blond and kind of looked German and they treated us fairly. There were no grounds for hostility. These are just regular army soldiers and almost everyday we had different guards. You would have to say that the soldiers that pulled this kind of duty were the kind of the drakes, a bit older and maybe not as smart. You know the ones that were strong, agile, young, intelligent; they were up in the front lines. The guys pulling guard duty were the drakes you might say, not the brightest. I’m talking about the guards in our trucks but the artillery units now that’s a different group of men. They were not the drakes but sharp guys, good health and they were young and capable people. They were the first real Germans that we came in contact with, closer with. The rest of these guys, once we got behind enemy lines, the type of German guard became different. The further back you got; a lower grade of soldier was encountered. They were just ordinary people. They had a job to do and they were not hostile. I really suspect that if we could speak the same language you could have probably developed a friendship real quick with almost all of them, any of them. There wasn’t any hostility and they were more a friend than enemy. I suspect, even though I didn’t have that experience, but when I would see Lt. Miller speak German, they were more like friends than enemy.
At this time I was not with the men I was
captured with in Mortain. We had been separated for some time. By this
time you know there were a lot and a lot of prisoners. There just weren’t
the 30 of us but many hundreds and we were separated. When we get to the
prison they separated the officers from the enlisted men. When we get to
that prison for the first time we were desegregated, officers separated and
enlisted separated. I think they even separated the non-com from
commissioned officers. The idea there is to take away the leadership. I
also think it had something to do with the Geneva Convention, separating
officers from the enlisted men. I really don’t know the basis for that but
they did that. Yes, so now I’m in this prison and we are all officers.
There are a lot of us at this prison and my god, I don’t know how many but I
would say there were at least 50 and we were all beat and tired. We are
physically all worn out. We were able to shave, as there was some water so
we could clean our selves up. We also had these French Red Cross parcels so
it was a time to recuperate. From that time on now, all the movement is by
train and these are the kinds of trains you would see in the war films where
they would load you in box cars and there is straw in the bottom of the
car. You have two doors on each side of the boxcar, sliding doors. One on
each side. The area on each side of the doors is fenced off with some heavy
chicken wire from the ceiling to the floor and the guards would sit in that
open spot and we were in the areas on both sides of the doors. You have the
box car and you have a sliding door here and here and you have a space
forward and back and they would fence off each area on each side of the
sliding door from top to bottom with a kind of heavy chicken wire. We were
back here and back here and the guards were here.
Ray's letter HOME after Capture:
