Salt mines and castles: The discovery and restitution of looted European art

We woke up to faultless weather the following morning, and on the way down to the Königsplatz with Craig I was in an offensively optimistic frame of mind. All ten of my trucks were there. This was more like it—no tiresome mechanical delays. We were all set to go. Leclancher had even had the foresight to bring along an extra driver, just in case anything happened to one of the ten. That was a smart idea and I congratulated him for having thought of it.

It wasn’t till I started distributing the rations that I discovered our two packers were missing. But that shouldn’t take long to straighten out. Craig’s office was just across the way. I found them cooling their heels in the anteroom. They looked as though they had come right out of an Arthur Rackham illustration—stocky little fellows with gnarled hands and wizened faces as leathery as the Lederhosen they were wearing. Each wore a coal-scuttle hat with a jaunty feather, and each had a bulging bandanna attached to the end of a stick. There was much bowing and scraping. The hats were doffed and there was the familiar “Grüss Gott, Herr Kapitän,” when I walked in.

Craig appeared and explained the difficulty. Until the last minute, no one had thought to ask whether the men had obtained a Military Government permit to leave the area—and of course they hadn’t. With all due respect to the workings of Military Government, I knew that it would take hours, even days, to obtain the permits. So, what to do? I asked Craig what would happen if they went without them. He didn’t know. But if anyone found out about it, there would be trouble. I didn’t see any reason why anyone should find out about it. The men would be in my charge and I said I’d assume all responsibility.

Meanwhile the two Rackham characters were shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, looking first at Craig and then at me, without the faintest idea what the fuss was all about. Craig reluctantly left it up to me. Not wanting to waste any more time, I told the little fellows that everything was “in Ordnung” and bundled them off to the waiting trucks.

Again our way led out to the east, the same road we had taken two days before; and again I was perched up in the lead truck with Double Roger. The country was more beautiful than ever in the morning sunlight. We skirted the edge of Chiemsee and sped on through Traunstein. The mountains loomed closer, their crests gleaming with snow. Roger commented that it was “la neige éternelle,” and I was struck by the unconscious poetry of the phrase.

To save time we ate our midday rations en route, pulling off to one side of the Autobahn in the neighborhood of Bad Reichenhall. Farther on we came to a fork in the highway. A sign to the right pointed temptingly to Berchtesgaden, only thirty kilometers away. But our road was the one to the left—to Salzburg. In another few minutes we saw its picturesque fortress, outlined against the sky, high above the town.

I had to make some inquiries in Salzburg. Not knowing the exact location of the headquarters where I could obtain the information I needed, I thought it prudent to park the convoy on the outskirts and go on ahead with a single truck. It probably wasn’t going to be any too easy, even with exact directions, to get all ten of them through the narrow streets, across the river and out the other side. This was where a jeep would have come in handy. I had been a fool not to insist on having one for this trip.

Leclancher asked if he might go along with Roger and me. The three of us drove off, leaving the other nine drivers and the two little packers to take their ease in the warm meadow beside which we had halted. It was about three miles into the center of town and the road was full of confusing turns. But on the whole it was well marked with Army signs. Before the end of the summer I became reasonably proficient in translating the cabalistic symbols on these markers, but at that time I was hopelessly untutored and neither of my companions was any help. After driving through endless gray archways and being soundly rebuked by the MPs for going the wrong direction on several one-way streets, we found ourselves in a broad square paved with cobblestones. It was the Mozartplatz.

The lieutenant colonel I was supposed to see had his office in one of the dove-colored buildings facing the square. It was a big, high-ceilinged room with graceful rococo decorations along the walls and a delicate prism chandelier in the center. I asked the colonel for clearance to proceed to Linz with my convoy. After I had explained the purpose of my trip to Hohenfurth, he offered to expedite the additional clearance I would need beyond Linz.

He rang up the headquarters of the 65th Infantry Division which was stationed there. In a few minutes everything had been arranged. The colonel at the other end of the line said that he would send one of his officers to the outskirts of the city to conduct us to his headquarters on our arrival. There would be no difficulty about billets. He would also take care of our clearance across the Czechoslovakian border the following day. I thanked the colonel and hurried down to rejoin Leclancher and Roger.

Since the proposed Autobahn to Linz had never been finished, we had to take a secondary highway east of Salzburg. Our road led through gently rolling country with mountains in the distance. I was grateful for the succession of villages along the way. They were a relief after the monotony of the Autobahn and also served to control the speed of the convoy. We wound through streets so narrow that one could have reached out and touched the potted geraniums which lined the balconies of the cottages on either side. Laughing, towheaded children waved from the doorways as we passed by. Roger, intent on his driving, didn’t respond to the exuberance of the youngsters, and I wondered if he might be thinking of the villages of his own country, where the invaders had left a bitter legacy of wan faces.

It was after seven when we reached the battered outskirts of Linz, the city of Hitler’s special adoration. He had lavished his attention on the provincial old town, his mother’s birthplace, hoping to make it a serious rival of Vienna as an art center. To this end, plans for a magnificent museum had been drawn up, and already an impressive collection of pictures had been assembled against the day when a suitable building would be ready to receive them.

We approached the city from the west—its most damaged sector. It was rough going, as the streets were full of chuckholes and narrowed by piles of rubble heaped high on both sides. There was no sign of an escort, so we drew up beside an information post at a main intersection. Our cavalcade was too large to miss, as long as we stayed in one place. We waited nearly an hour before a jeep came along. A jaunty young lieutenant came over, introduced himself as the colonel’s “emissary” and said that he had been combing the town for us. The confusion of the debris-filled streets had caused us to take a wrong turn and, consequently, we had missed the main thoroughfare into town. The lieutenant, whose name was George Anderson, led us by a devious route to a large, barrackslike building with a forecourt which afforded ample parking space for the trucks. Billets had already been arranged, as promised, but to get food at such a late hour was another matter. However, by dint of coaxing in the right quarter, Anderson even contrived to do that.

As we drove off in his jeep to the hotel where the officers were billeted, he remarked with a laugh that he wouldn’t be able to do as well by me but thought he could dig up something. The hotel was called the “Weinzinger,” and Anderson said that Hitler had often stayed there. Leaving me to get settled, he went off on a foraging expedition. He returned shortly with an armful of rations, a bottle of cognac and a small contraption that looked like a tin case for playing cards. This ingenious little device, with a turn of the wrist, opened out into a miniature stove. Fuel for it came in the form of white lozenges that resembled moth balls. Two of these, lighted simultaneously, produced a flame of such intensity that one could boil water in less than a quarter of an hour. I got out my mess kit while Anderson opened the rations, and in ten minutes we whipped up a hot supper of lamb stew. With a generous slug of cognac for appetizer, the lack of variety in the menu was completely forgotten.

While we topped off with chocolate bars, I asked him about conditions up the line in the direction of Hohenfurth.

“You won’t have any trouble once you reach Hohenfurth, because it’s occupied by our troops,” he said, “but before swinging north into Czechoslovakia you’ll have to pass through Russian-held Austrian territory.”

This was bad news, for I had no clearance from the Russians. I hadn’t foreseen the need of it. Captain Posey couldn’t have known about it either because he was punctilious and would never have let me start off without the necessary papers.

I had heard stories of the attitude of the Russians toward anyone entering their territory without proper authorization. An officer in Munich told me that his convoy had been stopped. He had been subjected to a series of interrogations and not allowed to proceed for a week.

“Could your colonel obtain clearance for me from the Russians?” I asked.

“He could try, but it would probably take weeks,” Anderson said. “If you’re in a hurry, your best bet is to take a chance and go on through without clearance. You never can tell about the Russians. They might stop you and again they might not.”

Then I mentioned my problem children—my German packers. Anderson didn’t think the Russians would look on them with much favor, if my trucks were stopped and inspected. I asked about another road to Hohenfurth. Perhaps there was one to the west of the Russian lines. He didn’t know about any other route but said that we could take a look at the big map in the O.D.’s office on the next floor.

To my great relief, it appeared that there was another road—one which ran parallel with the main road, four or five miles to the west of it. But Anderson tempered enthusiasm with the remark that it might not be wide enough for my two-and-a-half-ton trucks. There was nothing on the map to indicate whether it was much more than a cow path and the duty officer didn’t know. One of the other officers might be able to tell me. I could ask in the morning.

That night I worried a good deal about the hazards that seemed to lie ahead, and woke up feeling depressed. Things, I reflected, had been going too well. I should have guessed that there would be rough spots here and there. After early breakfast I called to thank the colonel, Anderson’s chief, for his kindness, and while in his office had a chance to inquire about the alternate route.

“The back road is all right,” he said without hesitation. “Take it by all means. You will cross the Czech frontier just north of Leonfelden. A telephone call to our officer at the border control will fix that up. You should be able to make Hohenfurth in about two hours. The C.O. at Hohenfurth is Lieutenant Colonel Sheehan of the 263rd Field Artillery Battalion.”

On my way through the outer office I stopped for a word with Lieutenant Anderson, and while there the colonel gave instructions about the call to the border control post. That done, Anderson said, “If you’ve got a minute, there’s something I want to show you.” I followed him down the stairs and through the back entrance of the hotel to the broad esplanade beside the Danube. The river was beautiful that morning. Its swiftly flowing waters were really blue.

We walked over to the river where a white yacht tugged at her moorings. She was the Ungaria, presented by Hitler to Admiral Horthy, the Hungarian Regent. Anderson took me aboard and we made a tour of her luxurious cabins. She was about a hundred twenty feet over all and her fittings were lavish to the last detail. The vessel was now in the custody of the American authorities, but her original crew was still aboard.

After this unexpected nautical adventure, Anderson took me to my trucks and saw us off on the last lap of the journey. Beyond Urfahr, the town across the Danube from Linz, we turned north. It was slow going for the convoy because the road was steep and winding. Our progress was further impeded by an endless line of horse-drawn carts and wagons, all moving in the direction of Linz. Most of them were filled with household furnishings. Presently the road straightened out and we entered a region of rolling, upland meadows and deep pine forests. After an hour and a half’s drive we reached Leonfelden, a pretty village with a seventeenth century church nestling in a shallow valley. Just beyond it was the frontier. We identified ourselves to the two officers—one American, the other Czech—and continued on our way. Our entry into Czechoslovakia had been singularly undramatic. In another twenty minutes we pulled into Hohenfurth.

It was not a particularly prepossessing village on first sight. Drab, one-story houses lined the one main street. The headquarters of the 263rd Field Artillery Battalion occupied an unpretentious corner building. Lieutenant Colonel John R. Sheehan, the C.O., was a big, amiable fellow, with a Boston-Irish accent.

“If you’ve come for that stuff in the monastery,” he said, “just tell me what you need and I’ll see that you get it. I’m anxious to get the place cleared out because we’re not going to be here much longer. When we leave, the Czechs are going to take over.” The colonel called for Major Coleman W. Thacher, his “Exec,” a pleasant young Bostonian, and told him to see that I was properly taken care of. The major, in turn, instructed his sergeant to show me the way to the monastery and to provide billets for my men.

It was after eleven, but the sergeant said we’d have time to take a look at the monastery before chow. He suggested that we take the trucks to the monastery, which was not more than three-quarters of a mile from headquarters. We drove down a narrow side street to the outskirts of town. The small villas on either side were being used for officers’ billets. The street ended abruptly, and up ahead to the left, on a slight eminence, I saw the cream-colored walls of the monastery.

A curving dirt road wound around to the entrance on the west side. The monastery consisted of a series of rambling buildings forming two courtyards. In the center of the larger of these stood a chapel of impressive proportions. An arched passageway, leading through one of the buildings on the rim of the enclosure, provided the only means of access to the main courtyard. It had plenty of “Old World charm” but looked awfully small in comparison with our trucks.

Leclancher pooh-poohed my fears and said he’d take his truck through. He did—that is, part way through. With a hideous scraping sound the truck came to a sudden stop. The bows supporting the tarpaulin had not cleared the sloping sides of the pointed arch. This was a fine mess, for it was a good two hundred yards from the entrance to the building, behind the chapel, in which the things were stored. It would prolong the operation beyond all reason if we had to carry them all that way to the trucks. And what if it rained? As if in answer to my apprehension, it suddenly did rain, a hard drenching downpour. I should have had more faith in the resourcefulness of my Frenchmen; at that critical juncture Leclancher announced that he had found the solution. The bows of the trucks could be forced down just enough to clear the archway.

As soon as this had been done, nine of the trucks filed through and lined up alongside the buttresses of the chapel. The tenth remained outside to take the drivers and the two packers to chow. After seeing to it that they were properly cared for, the sergeant deposited me at the officers’ mess.

At lunch, Colonel Sheehan introduced me to the military Government Officer of his outfit, Major Lewis W. Whittemore, a bluff Irishman, who gave me considerable useful information about the setup at the monastery.

“Mutter, an elderly Austrian, is in charge of the collections stored there—a custodian appointed by the Nazis. He is a dependable fellow so we’ve allowed him to stay on the job. You’ll find him thoroughly co-operative,” said the major. “One of the buildings of the monastery is being used as a hospital for German wounded.”

“Are there any monks about the place?” I asked.

“Hitler ran them all out, but a few have returned. When Hohenfurth is turned over to the Czechs, it will make quite a change in this Sudetenland community. Even the name is going to be changed—to its Czech equivalent, Vysi Brod. All the signs in town will be printed in Czech, too. It will be the official language. Except for a few families, the entire population is German.”

“How will that work?” I asked.

The major apparently interpreted my question as an expression of disapproval of the impending change-over, for he said rather belligerently, “The Czechs in this region have had a mighty raw deal from the Germans during the past few years.” I rallied weakly with the pious observation that two wrongs had never made a right and that I hoped some satisfactory solution to the knotty problem could be reached.

By the time we had finished lunch the rain had dwindled to a light drizzle. I started out on foot to the monastery, leaving word at the colonel’s quarters for the sergeant to meet me in the courtyard of the Kloster. He got there about the same time I did, and together we started looking for Dr. Mutter, the Austrian custodian. We went first to the library of the monastery—a beautiful baroque room lined with sumptuous bookcases of burled walnut surmounted with elaborate carved and gilded scroll-shaped decorations. The room was beautifully proportioned, some seventy feet long and about forty feet wide. Tall French windows looked out on the peaceful monastery garden, which, for lack of care, was now overgrown with tangled vines and brambles. Along the opposite side of the handsome room stood a row of massive sixteenth century Italian refectory tables piled high with miscellaneous bric-a-brac: Empire candelabra, Moorish plates, Venetian glass, Della Robbia plaques and Persian ceramics. Across one end, an assortment of Louis Quinze sofas and chairs seemed equally out of place. What, I wondered, were these incongruous objects doing in this religious establishment?

The explanation was soon forthcoming. The sergeant found Dr. Mutter in a small room adjoining the library. He was a lanky, studious individual with a shock of snow-white hair, prominent teeth and a gentle manner which just missed being fawning. Hohenfurth’s Uriah Heep, I thought unkindly. The moment he began to speak in halting English, I revised my estimate of him. He was neither crafty nor vicious. On the contrary, he was just a timid, and, at the moment, frightened victim of circumstance. What German I know has an Austrian flavor, and when I trotted this out he was so embarrassingly happy that I wished I had kept my tongue in my head. But it served to establish an entente cordiale which proved valuable during the next few days. They were to be more hectic than I had even faintly imagined.

After a little introductory palaver, I explained that I had come to remove the collections which had been brought to the monastery by the Germans, and that I would like to make a preliminary tour of inspection. I suggested that we look first at the paintings.

“Paintings?” he asked doubtfully. “You mean the modern pictures? They are not very good—just the work of some of the Nazi artists. They were brought here—and quite a lot of sculpture too—when it was announced that Hitler was coming to Hohenfurth to see the really important things.”

Then I learned what he meant by the “really important things”—room after room, corridor after corridor, all crammed with furniture and sculpture, methodically looted from two fabulous collections, the Rothschild of Vienna and the Mannheimer of Amsterdam. By comparison, the Hearst collection at Gimbel’s was trifling. The things I had seen in the library were only a small part of this mélange. In an adjoining chamber—a vaulted gallery, fifty feet long—there were a dozen pieces of French and Dutch marquetry. And stacked against the walls were entire paneled rooms, coffered ceilings and innumerable marble busts. Next to that was a room crowded with more of the same sort of thing, except that the pieces were small and more delicate. In one corner I saw an extraordinary table made entirely of tortoise shell and mounted with exquisite ormolu.

It was an antique-hunter’s paradise, but for me quite the reverse. How was I going to move all of this stuff? Dr. Mutter could see that I was perplexed, and apologetically added that I had seen only a part of the collections. Remembering that I had asked to see the pictures, he took me to a corner room containing approximately a hundred canvases. As he had said, they were a thoroughly dull lot—portraits of Hitler, Hess and some of the other Nazi leaders, tiresome allegorical scenes, a few battle subjects and a group of landscapes. The labels pasted on the backs indicated that they had all been shown at one time or another in exhibitions at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst in Munich. While I was looking at them, Dr. Mutter shyly confessed that he was a painter but that he didn’t admire this kind of work.

On the floor below, there was a forest of contemporary German sculpture—plaster casts, for the most part, all patinated to resemble bronze. In addition there were a few portrait busts in bronze and one or two pieces in glazed terra cotta. The terra-cotta pieces had some merit. The sculpture occupied one entire side of a broad corridor which ran around the four sides of a charming inner garden. The corridor had originally been open but the archways were now glassed in. Turning a corner, we came upon a jumble of architectural fragments—carved Gothic pinnacles, sections of delicately chiseled moldings, colonnettes, Florentine well-heads and wall fountains. At one end was a pair of elaborate gilded wrought-iron doors and at either side were handsome wall lanterns, also of wrought iron. These too were Mannheimer, Dr. Mutter replied, when I hopefully asked if they were not a part of the monastery fittings.

As final proof of the looters’ thorough methods, I was shown a vaulted reception hall, into the walls of which had been set a large and magnificent relief by Luca della Robbia, a smaller but also very beautiful relief of the Madonna and Child by some Florentine sculptor of the fifteenth century, and an enormous carved stone fireplace of Renaissance workmanship. The hall was stacked with huge cases as yet unpacked, and from the ceiling were suspended two marvelous Venetian glass chandeliers—exotic accents against a background of chaste plaster walls.

This partial tour of inspection ended with a smaller room across from the reception hall where Dr. Mutter proudly exhibited what he considered the finest thing of all—a life-sized, seated marble portrait by Canova. It was indeed a distinguished piece of work. Hitler had bought the statue in Vienna, so Dr. Mutter said, from the Princess Windischgrätz. It had been destined for the Führer Museum at Linz.

I learned afterward that the statue had belonged at one time to the Austrian emperor, Franz Josef. Canova began the statue in 1812 as a portrait of Maria-Elisa, Princess of Lucca—a sister of Napoleon. The sculptor’s more celebrated portrait of Napoleon’s sister Pauline had been carved a few years earlier. When Maria-Elisa lost her throne and fortune, she was unable to pay for the portrait. But Canova was resourceful: he changed the portrait into a statue of Polyhymnia, the Muse of poetry and song. He accomplished this metamorphosis by idealizing the head and adding the appropriate attributes of the Muse. Later the statue was given to Franz Josef. Eventually it passed into the collection of his granddaughter—the daughter of Rudolf, who died at Mayerling—the Princess Windischgrätz.

The statue was one of the most delicate and graceful examples of the great neoclassic master’s style, and I marveled both at its cold perfection and the fact that it had come through its travels completely unscathed. For all her airy elegance, the Muse must weigh at least a ton and a half, I calculated—suddenly coming down to earth with the realization that I would be expected to take her back to Munich!

Over Dr. Mutter’s protest that I had not yet seen everything, I said that I should get my men started. There was no time to be lost. Colonel Sheehan provided eight men and, after cautioning them about the value and fragility of the objects, I detailed Dr. Mutter to supervise their work. The first job was to bring some of the furniture down to the ground floor. As yet we had no packing materials, so we could do no actual loading. The next step was to show the packers what we were up against. At first they went from room to room shaking their heads and muttering, but after I had explained that we would only select certain things, they cheered up and set to work. Luckily, some of the furniture had a fair amount of protective padding—paper stuffed with excelsior—and that could be used until we were able to get more. We had enough, they agreed, to figure on perhaps two truckloads. Leaving them to mull over that, I went off to round up a couple of the trucks. Here was another problem. Not only did the furniture have to be brought down a long flight of stone stairs, but to reach the stairs in the first place it had to be carried a distance of two hundred yards. Once down the stairs it had to be carried another two hundred yards down a long sloping ramp to the only doorway opening onto the courtyard. I told Leclancher to bring one of the trucks around to that doorway and then took off in search of paper, excelsior, rope and blankets. In one of the near-by sheds I found only a small supply of paper and some twine. We would need much more.

Major Whittemore came to the rescue and drove me to a lumber and paper mill several kilometers away. As we drove along he told me that he had been having trouble with the German managers of the mill, but they knew now that he meant business, so I was not to ask for what I wanted, I was to tell them. At the mill I got a generous supply of paper, excelsior and rope and, on my return to the monastery, sent one of the trucks back to pick it up. But there wasn’t a spare blanket to be had in all of Hohenfurth.

When I got back, it looked like moving day. The ramp was already lined with tables, chairs and chests. Dr. Mutter was running back and forth, cautioning one GI not to drop a delicate cabinet, helping another with an overambitious armful of equal rarity and all the while trying in vain to check the numbers marked on the pieces as they flowed down the stairs in a steady stream. Meanwhile, my two packers trudged up and down the ramp, lugging heavy chests and monstrous panels which looked more than a match for men twice their size.

In spite of their concerted efforts, we didn’t have anything like enough help, so I appealed to Leclancher. With discouraging independence, he indicated that his men were drivers, not furniture movers, and that he couldn’t order them to help. But he would put it up to them. After a serious conference with them, Leclancher reported that they had agreed to join the work party. Now, with a crew of twenty, things moved along at a faster pace. With a couple of the GIs, the two packers and I set to work loading the first truck. Here was where the little Rackhamites shone. In half an hour the first truck was packed and ready to be driven back to its place beside the chapel wall. The second truck was brought up and before long joined its groaning companion, snugly parked against a buttress.

Presently, the eight GIs trooped out into the courtyard. It was half past five and time for chow. The Frenchmen knocked off too, leaving Dr. Mutter, the two packers and me to take stock of the afternoon’s accomplishment. While we were thus engaged, Leclancher came to tell me that my driver, the one I called “Double Roger,” was feeling sick and wanted to see a doctor. In the confusion of the afternoon’s work I hadn’t noticed that he was not about. We found him curled up in the back of the truck and feeling thoroughly miserable. I drove him down to the Medical Office in the village and there Dr. Sverdlik, the Battalion Surgeon, examined him. Roger’s complaint was a severe pain in the midriff and the doctor suggested heat treatments. He said that the German surgeon up at the monastery hospital had the necessary equipment.

That seemed simple enough, since the drivers were billeted in rooms adjoining the hospital wing. But I reckoned without Roger. What? Be treated by a German doctor? He was terrified at the prospect, and it required all my powers of persuasion to talk him into it. Finally he agreed, but only after Dr. Sverdlik had telephoned to the hospital doctor and given explicit instructions. I also had to promise to stand by while the doctor ministered to him.

The German, Major Brecker, was methodical and thorough. He found that Roger had a kidney infection and recommended that he be taken to a hospital as soon as possible. I explained that we would not be returning to Munich for at least two days and asked if the delay would be dangerous. He said that he thought not. In the meantime he would keep Roger under a “heat basket.” Roger eyed this device with suspicion but truculently allowed it to be applied. When I went off to my supper, twenty minutes later, he was sleeping peacefully—but not alone. Three of his fellow drivers were sprawled on cots near by, just in case that Boche had any intentions of playing tricks on their comrade. Maybe not, but they were taking no chances! What a lot of children they were, I thought, as I walked wearily down to supper.

That evening I asked the colonel if I could get hold of some PWs to help out with the work the following day. He said that there was a large camp between Hohenfurth and Krummau and that I could have as many as I wanted. So I put in a bid for sixteen. After arranging for them to be at the monastery at eight the next morning, I went to my own quarters which were in a house just across the way.

I had one little errand of mercy to take care of before I turned in. There was a recreation room on the first floor and adjoining it a makeshift bar. Most of the officers had gone to the movies, so I managed to slip in unobserved and pilfer two bottles of beer. Tucking them inside my blouse, I made off for the monastery. There, after some difficulty in finding my way around the dark passageways, I located the rooms occupied by my two little packers. They were making ready for bed, but when they saw what I had for them, their leathery old faces lighted up with ecstatic smiles. If I had been a messenger from heaven, they couldn’t have been happier. Leaving them clucking over their unexpected refreshments, I went back to my own billet and fell into bed. I hadn’t had exactly what one would call a restful day myself.

That beer worked wonders I hadn’t anticipated. When I arrived at the monastery a little before eight the next morning I found that my two packers, together with Dr. Mutter, had been at work since seven. As yet there was no sign of the Frenchmen, but I thought that they would probably show up before long. At eight my gang of PWs appeared and the sergeant who brought them explained that I wouldn’t be having the crew of GIs who had helped out the day before. When I protested that I needed them more urgently than ever, he informed me that the combination of GI and PW labor simply wouldn’t work out; that I certainly couldn’t expect to have them both doing the same kind of work together. I said that I most certainly could and did expect it. Well, my protest was completely unavailing, and if I had to make a choice I was probably better off with the sixteen PWs. Perhaps my two packers could get enough work out of them to compensate for the loss of the GIs.

I had just finished assigning various jobs to the PWs when Leclancher turned up. “May I have a word with you?” he asked. “It is about Roger.”

“What about Roger? Is he any worse?” I asked.

“No, but he is not any better either,” he said. “Is it possible that we shall be returning to Munich tomorrow morning?”

“Not the ghost of a chance,” I said. “We shan’t be through loading before tomorrow night. We’re too shorthanded.”

“But if we all pitched in and worked, even after supper?” he asked.

“It would make a big difference,” I said. “But it’s entirely up to you. It’s certainly worth a try if the drivers are willing.”

I’ll never forget that day. I never saw Frenchmen move with such rapidity or with such singleness of purpose. When five o’clock came, we had finished loading the fifth truck. Taking into account the two from the preceding day, that left only three more trucks to fill. Leclancher came to me again. The drivers wanted to work until it got dark. That meant until nine o’clock. Knowing that the two packers were equally eager to get back to Munich, I agreed. I hurried off to call the sergeant about the PWs. Special arrangements would have to be made to feed them if we were keeping on the job after supper. Also, I had to make sure that someone at Battalion Headquarters would be able to provide a vehicle to take them back to their camp.

While the drivers went off to chow and the PWs were being fed in the hospital kitchen, I joined Dr. Mutter and the packers to discuss these new developments. I felt sure that I would be returning to Hohenfurth in another few days with additional trucks to complete the evacuation. That being the case, some preliminary planning was necessary. I instructed Dr. Mutter to call in a stonemason to remove the Della Robbia relief and the other pieces which had been set into the walls, so that they would be ready for packing when we came back. I gave him a written order which would enable him to lay in a supply of lumber for packing cases which would have to be built for some of the more fragile pieces. Lastly, the four of us surveyed the storage rooms and made an estimate of the number of trucks we would need for the things still on hand.

To save time I had a couple of chocolate bars for my supper and was ready to resume work when our combined forces reappeared. The next two hours and a half went by like a whirlwind and by eight o’clock we knotted down the tarpaulin on the last truck. Everybody was content. Even the PWs seemed less glum than usual, but that was probably because they had been so well fed in the hospital kitchen.

If we were to make it through to Munich in the one day, we would have to start off early the next morning. Accordingly I left word that the trucks were to be lined up outside the monastery entrance at seven-thirty sharp. Then I went down to the colonel’s quarters to see about an armed escort for the convoy. I found Colonel Sheehan and Major Thacher making preparations to “go out on the town.” They looked very spruce in their pinks and were in high spirits.

“We missed you at supper,” said the colonel. “How’s the work coming along?”

“My trucks are loaded and ready to roll first thing in the morning if I can have an escort,” I said.

“That calls for a celebration,” he said. “Pour yourself a drink. I’ll make a bargain with you. You can have the escort on one condition—that you join our party tonight.”

I didn’t protest. I thought it was a swell idea. A few minutes later, the captain with whom I was billeted arrived and the four of us set out for an evening of fun.

In the short space of two days I had grown very fond of these three officers, although we had met only at mealtime. They were, in fact, characteristic of all the officers I had encountered at Hohenfurth—friendly, good-natured and ready to do anything they could to help. That they were all going home soon may have had something to do with their contented outlook on life, and they deserved their contentment. As members of the 26th Division, the famous “Yankee Division,” they had seen plenty of action, and as we drove along that night in the colonel’s car, my three companions did a lot of reminiscing.

While they exchanged stories, I had a chance to enjoy the romantic countryside through which we were passing. We were, the colonel had said, headed for Krummau, an old town about fifteen miles away.

The road followed along the winding Moldau River, which had an almost supernatural beauty in the glow of the late evening light. The bright green banks were mirrored, crystal clear, on its unrippled surface, as were the rose-gold colors of the evening clouds.

We crossed the river at Rosenberg, and as we went over the bridge I noticed that it bore—as do all bridges in that region—the figure of St. John Nepomuk, patron saint of Bohemia. The castle, perched high above the river, was the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Rosenberg who ruled this part of Bohemia for hundreds of years. One of them murdered his wife and, according to the legend, she still haunted the castle. Robed in white, she was said to walk the battlements each night between eleven-thirty and twelve. Major Thacher thought that we should test the legend by paying a visit to the castle on our return from Krummau later that evening.

When we arrived in Krummau it was too dark to see much of the old town except the outline of the gray buildings which lined the narrow streets. Our objective was a night club operated by members of an underground movement which was said to have flourished there throughout the years of Nazi oppression. There was nothing in any way remarkable about the establishment, but it provided a little variety for the officers stationed thereabouts. My companions were popular patrons of the place. They were royally welcomed by the proprietor, who found a good table for us, not too near the small noisy orchestra. Two pretty Czech girls joined us and we all took turns dancing. There were so many more men than girls that we had to be content with one dance each. Then the girls moved on to another table.

We whiled away a couple of hours at the club before the colonel said that we should be starting back. I hoped that we would be in time to pay our respects to the phantom duchess, but the clock in the square was striking twelve when we rumbled through the empty streets of Rosenberg. It had begun to rain again.

At six the next morning, I looked sleepily out the window. It was still raining. We would have a slow trip unless the weather cleared, and I thought apprehensively of the steep road leading into Linz. Fresh eggs—instead of the usual French toast—and two cups of black coffee brightened my outlook on the soggy morning and I was further cheered to find the convoy smartly lined up like a row of circus elephants when I reached the monastery at seven-thirty. Leclancher had taken the lead truck and the ailing Roger was bundled up in the cab of one of the others.

Dr. Mutter waved agitated farewells from beneath the ribs of a tattered umbrella as we slid slowly down the monastery drive. At the corner of the main street of the village we picked up our escort, two armed jeeps. They conducted us to the border where we gathered in two similar vehicles which would set the pace for us into Linz. The bad weather was in one respect an advantage: there was practically no traffic on the road.

At Linz I stopped long enough to thank Anderson and his colonel for the escort vehicles they had produced on a moment’s notice that morning in response to a call from Colonel Sheehan. This third pair of jeeps were very conscientious about their escort duties. The one in the vanguard kept well in the lead and would signal us whenever he came to a depression in the road. This got on Leclancher’s nerves, for I heard him muttering under his breath every time it happened. But I was so glad to have an escort of any kind that I pretended not to notice his irritation.

When we reached Lambach, midway between Linz and Salzburg, we lost this pair of guardians but acquired two sent on from the latter city. While waiting for them to appear, I scrounged lunch for myself and the drivers at a local battery. As soon as the new escorts arrived we started on again and pulled into Salzburg at two-thirty. This time there were no delays and we threaded our way through the dripping streets and out on to the Autobahn without mishap.

I now had only one remaining worry—the bad detour near Rosenheim. Again, perhaps thanks to the weather, we were in luck and found this treacherous by-pass free of traffic. As we rolled into Munich, the rain let up and by the time we turned into the Königsplatz, the sun had broken through the clearing skies.

My first major evacuation job was finished. As soon as I got my drivers fixed up with transportation back to their camp and the members of our escort party fed and billeted I could relax with a clear conscience. It was a little after five-thirty, and Third Army’s inflexible habits about the hour at which all enlisted men should eat didn’t make this problem such an easy one. Third Army Headquarters was a good twenty minutes away, so I took the men to the Military Government Detachment where the meal schedule was more elastic. Afterward I shepherded them to their billets and went off to my own. I would have to write up a report of the expedition for Captain Posey, but that could wait.