The first order of business the next morning was a conference with Captain Posey. I gave him a complete account of the Hohenfurth trip and presented my recommendations for a second and final visit to complete the evacuation. It was my suggestion that I return to the monastery with the same trucks—as soon as they could be unloaded and serviced—and that he send up another officer with at least eight additional trucks, the second convoy to arrive by the time I had completed the loading of my own. I proposed taking four packers this time instead of two, the idea being that two of the packers could help me with the loading while the others were building cases for the fragile objects which would have to be crated. I mentioned also the impending withdrawal of our troops from Hohenfurth, which would make later operations of such nature impossible.
This was of course no news to Captain Posey as, presumably, it had been the determining factor in the removal of the Hohenfurth things in the first place. He approved my plan and advised me to get my trucks lined up, and said he would see what he could do about sending an additional officer. I didn’t like the sound of that. Too often I had used those same words myself when confronted with a difficult request. Furthermore, it had been my experience with the Army in general thus far—and with Third Army in particular—that “out of sight, out of mind” was a favorite motto. I had no intention of going back to Hohenfurth until I had a definite promise that reinforcements would be forthcoming. I think that my insistence piqued the captain a bit. But at that point I was feeling exceedingly brisk and businesslike—a mood which I found new and stimulating. It would be better to have a clear understanding now as to who would join me in Hohenfurth; as I explained to Captain Posey, I would like to give the officer some detailed instructions, preferably oral ones, before I started off.
I spent the rest of that day and most of the following one at the Verwaltungsbau supervising the unloading of the ten trucks from Hohenfurth and making trips out to the trucking company headquarters to conclude arrangements for continued use of the vehicles. Also, I had to put in a request for eight others. It was gratifying to find that every piece we had packed at Hohenfurth came through without a scratch. My two packers, to whom all credit for this belonged, were equally elated. My request for the services of four packers was met with black looks, but when I promised that we’d not be gone more than four or five days, Craig acquiesced.
Late in the afternoon of the second day, I went again to Posey’s office. He was not there but I found Lincoln, as usual hunched morosely over his typewriter. He said he had good news for me. Captain Posey had pulled a fast one and snatched a wonderful guy away from Jim Rorimer, Monuments Officer at Seventh Army—a fellow named Lamont Moore. Moore was already, he thought, on his way down to Munich to make the trip to Hohenfurth. When I said I didn’t know Moore, Lincoln proceeded to tell me about him.
“Lamont was director of the educational program at the National Gallery in Washington before he went into the Army. Before that he had a brilliant record at the Newark Museum. The two of you ought to get along famously. Lamont’s got a wonderful sense of humor. He’s exceedingly intelligent and he’s had a lot of experience in evacuation work.”
“Where did you know him?” I asked.
“We were in France last winter. That was before he was commissioned. He’s a lieutenant now,” Lincoln said.
“That sounds perfect. But I want to ask you a question about something else and I want a truthful answer. I have a sneaking notion that you knew all the time what was in that monastery at Hohenfurth. How about it?”
“Furniture and sculpture, you mean, instead of paintings?” he asked. “Of course I didn’t.”
“Well, maybe you didn’t, but perhaps you can imagine how I felt when I found that the Mannheimer collection alone contained more than two thousand items, and that the Rothschild pieces totaled up to a similar figure.”
Lincoln’s chuckle belied his protestations. “I’ve got another piece of news for you,” he said. “John Nicholas Brown and Mason Hammond are arriving tomorrow. I thought you might like to see them before you return to Hohenfurth.”
“You told me once that Captain Posey, like many another officer, doesn’t relish visitors from higher headquarters,” I said. “Am I to infer a connection between his absence from the office and the impending arrival of these two distinguished emissaries from the Group Control Council?”
He assured me that I was not, but I left the office wondering about it all the same.
That evening George Stout paid one of his rare and fleeting visits to Munich. On these occasions he stayed either with Craig or Ham Coulter. This time the four of us—all “strays” from the Navy—gathered in Ham’s quarters.
“The work at the mine,” George said, “is going along as rapidly as can be expected in the circumstances. But it’s got to be stepped up. I came down to find out how soon you could join me.”
“I’m going back to Hohenfurth again,” I said. “Lamont Moore is to meet me there.”
George was glad to hear this and said that he and Lamont had worked together at the Siegen mine in Westphalia. He confirmed all of the good things Lincoln had told me about Lamont and said that he’d like to have both of us at Alt Aussee. He promised to have a talk with Posey about it, because he was of the opinion that these big evacuation jobs should be handled by a team rather than by a single officer. According to George, a team of at least three—and preferably four—officers would be the perfect setup. Then the work could be divided up. Each officer would have specific duties, assigned to him on the basis of his particular talents. But all members of the team would have responsibilities of equal importance. It would be teamwork in the real sense of the term.
Like all of George’s proposals, this one sounded very sensible. At the same time, when I recalled the haphazard way I had been obliged to conduct operations thus far myself, I wondered if it weren’t Utopian. That didn’t discourage George. When he had a good idea he never let go of it. And, if we had only been a larger group, I am convinced that his brain child about teams would have had wonderful results. As it was, the events of the next few weeks were to demonstrate how effective the scheme was on a small scale.
When I got out to Third Army Headquarters the next morning, George had already come and gone. I would have liked to ask Posey about their conversation but he didn’t seem to be in a chatty mood—at least not on that subject. However, he did have a few caustic things to say about “people from high headquarters who have nothing better to do than travel around and interrupt the work of others.”
Knowing that he was referring to Messrs. Brown and Hammond—Lincoln’s assurance of the night before to the contrary notwithstanding—I piously observed that high-level visitors to the field might do quite a lot of good. For one thing, the fact that they had taken the trouble to visit it emphasized the importance of the work they had come to inspect; and, for another, it pleased the officer in the field to have his job noticed by the boys at the top. I thought I sounded pretty convincing, but sensing that I was not, I turned to other topics.
About that time John and Mason arrived. Our last meeting had taken place in the vaults of the Reichsbank at Frankfurt several weeks before. Mason referred to that and jokingly accused me of having run out on him. When I told him that I was about to return to Hohenfurth he announced loudly that that was perfect—he and John would drop in to see me there. I said that would be fine but, when I noted the expression on Captain Posey’s face, I added to myself, “fine, if they get the clearance.” Before coming up to see me, they expected to visit one or two places south of Munich, so they wouldn’t reach Hohenfurth before the end of the week.
Captain Posey was a great believer in the old theory that the Devil finds work for idle hands, at least as far as I was concerned. That same afternoon he casually suggested that I take a “little run down into the Tyrol” for him and inspect a castle about which he had been asked to make a report. He proposed the trip with such prewar insouciance that it sounded like a pleasant holiday excursion. As a matter of fact it was an appealing suggestion, despite my plans for an early morning start to Hohenfurth.
It was a beautiful summer day and my jeep driver asked if a friend of his, a sergeant who was keen about photography, might come along. I agreed and the three of us headed out east of Munich on the Autobahn. It was fun to be riding in an open jeep instead of an enclosed truck.
We reached Rosenheim in record time and there struck south into the mountains. Our objective was the little village of Brixlegg, between Kufstein and Innsbruck. We were on the main road to the Brenner Pass. Italy was temptingly close. We stopped from time to time so that the sergeant could get a snapshot of some particularly dramatic vista. But there was an embarrassment of riches—every part of the road was spectacularly beautiful.
Brixlegg was a tiny cluster of picturesque chalets, but it had not been tiny enough to elude the attentions of the air force. On the outskirts we saw the shattered remains of what had been an important factory for the manufacture of airplane parts. Happily, the bombers had concentrated their efforts on the factory. The little village had suffered practically no damage at all.
We located our castle without difficulty. It was Schloss Matzen, one of the finest castles of the Tyrol—the property of a British officer, Vice-Admiral Baillie-Grohman. This gentleman had requested a report on the castle from the American authorities. We found everything in perfect order. The admiral’s cousin—a Hungarian baron named Von Schmedes who spoke excellent English—was in residence. He showed us over the place. The castle was an example of intelligent restoration. According to the inscription on a plaque over the entrance, the aunt of the present owner had devoted her life to this task.
Although an “Off Limits” sign was prominently displayed on the premises, the baron was fearful of intruders. As the castle stood some distance from the main highway, I thought he was being unduly apprehensive. He said that an official letter of warning to unwelcome visitors would be an added protection. To please him I wrote out a statement to the effect that the castle was an historic monument, the property of a British subject, etc., and signed it in the name of the Commanding General of the Third U. S. Army.
On our way out we were shown two rooms on the ground floor which were filled with polychromed wood sculpture from the museum at Innsbruck. The baron said that additional objects from the Innsbruck museum were stored in a near-by castle, Schloss Lichtwert.
It was but a few minutes’ drive from Schloss Matzen, so I decided to have a look at it. Schloss Lichtwert, though not nearly so picturesque either in character or as to site, was the more interesting of the two. It stood baldly in the middle of a field and was actually a big country house rather than a castle.
We were hospitably received by a courtly old gentleman, Baron von Iname, to whom I explained the reason for our visit. One of his daughters offered to do the honors, saying that her father was extremely deaf. We followed her to a handsome drawing room on the second floor, where several other members of the family were gathered in conversation around a large table set with coffee things. In one of the wall panels was a concealed door, which the daughter of the house opened by pressing a hidden spring. Leading the way, she took us into a room about twenty feet square filled with violins, violas and ’cellos. They hung in rows from the ceiling, like hams in a smokehouse. Fräulein von Iname said that the collection of musical instruments at Innsbruck was a very fine one. We were standing in a Stradivarius forest.
When we passed back into the drawing room, the father whispered a few words to his daughter. She turned to us smiling and said, “Father asked if I had pointed out to you the thickness of the walls in this part of the castle. He is very proud of the fact that they date from the fourteenth century and that our family has always lived here. He also asks me to invite you to take coffee with us.”
Knowing that coffee was valued as molten gold, I declined the invitation on the grounds that we had a long trip ahead of us. Thanking her for her courtesy, we left. It was after eleven when we got back to Munich. We had driven a little more than three hundred miles.
Bad weather and bad luck attended us all the way to Hohenfurth the next day. Less than an hour out on the Autobahn, we came upon a gruesome accident—an overturned jeep and the limp figures of two GIs at one side of the road, the mangled body of a German soldier in the center of the pavement. An ambulance had already arrived and a doctor was ministering to the injured American soldiers. The German was obviously beyond medical help. As soon as the road was cleared, we continued—but at a very sober pace.
On the other side of Salzburg we had carburetor trouble which held us up for nearly two hours. It was after five thirty when we reached Linz. We stopped there for supper and I had a few words with the colonel who had looked after us so well a few days before. He seemed surprised to see me again, and rather agitated.
“You can get through this time,” he said, “but don’t try to come back this way.”
“What do you mean, sir?” I asked, puzzled by his curt admonition.
Apparently annoyed by my query, he said brusquely, “Don’t ask any questions. Just do as I say—don’t come back this way.”
At supper I saw Lieutenant Anderson again and I broached the subject to him. “Does the colonel mean that the Russians are expected to move up to the other side of the Danube?” I asked.
“Take a good look at the bridge when you cross over tonight,” he said.
It was my turn to be nettled now. “Look here, I don’t mean to be intruding on any precious military secret, but I am expecting a second convoy to join me at Hohenfurth in two days; if the other trucks aren’t going to be able to get through I ought to let the people at Third Army Headquarters know.”
“Well, frankly I don’t know just what the score is, but the colonel probably has definite information,” he said. “What I meant about the bridge is that it’s jammed with people and carts, all coming over to the west side of the Danube. It’s been like that for the past two days and it can mean only one thing—that the Russians aren’t far behind.”
This wasn’t too reassuring, but I decided to take a fatalistic attitude toward it. If I had to find some other route back from Hohenfurth, I’d worry about it when the time came. I did, however, try to get through to Third Army Headquarters on the phone. Posey’s office didn’t answer, so I asked Anderson to put in a call for me in the morning.
It was slow going over the bridge, but we finally forced our way through the welter of carts and wagons. Once we were in open country, the traffic thinned out and we moved along at a faster pace. The Czech and American officers at the frontier recognized us and waved us through without formality. We arrived in Hohenfurth a little before nine. I knew the ropes this time, so it was a simple matter to get the men billeted in the monastery. After that I went on to my own former billet. When I reached the house, I found a group of officers in the recreation room. They were holding an informal meeting. Colonel Sheehan was presiding and motioned to me to join the group. He had just returned from the headquarters at Budweis with important news. His own orders had come through, so he would be pulling out for home in a few days. But of greater concern to me was the news that the Czechs would definitely take over at the end of the week. We would still have some troops in the area, but their duties would be greatly curtailed. I would have to finish the job at the monastery as fast as possible and head back to Munich.
We resumed our work at the monastery with surprisingly few delays. It was almost as if there had been no interruption of our earlier operations. This time I had double the number of PWs, so I did not have to call on the drivers to help with the loading. During my absence, Dr. Mutter had put a stonemason to work on the pieces which had been set into the wall, and these now lay like parts of a puzzle in a neat pattern on the floor of the reception hall, ready to be packed. He had also procured lumber and nails, so my two extra packers were able to get to work on the cases which had to be built. By evening, seven of the trucks were loaded, leaving only one more to do the next day.
That night I consulted one of the officers, who had a wide knowledge of the roads in that area, about an alternate route to Munich. He showed me, on the map, a winding back road which would take me through Passau—instead of Linz and Salzburg—to Munich. It was, he said, a very “scenic route” but longer than the way I had come. He felt sure, though, that I could get my trucks through, that there were no bad detours, etc. It was comforting to know that this route existed as a possibility—just in case. But I still had hopes of being able to go back by way of Linz, in spite of the colonel’s warning.
The next day was the Fourth of July—not that I expected either my French or German associates to take special notice of the fact. Still I was glad that I had only one truck to load on the holiday. I took advantage of the later breakfast hour, knowing that my faithful German packers would be on the job at seven o’clock as usual. When I arrived at the monastery at nine-thirty, I found that the last truck was already half loaded. There was enough room to add the two cases containing the Della Robbia plaque and the Renaissance fireplace taken out of the wall; and, if we were careful, we might find a place for the fifteenth century Florentine relief which the stonemason had also painstakingly removed. Once that was done, there was nothing to do but wait for the arrival of Lieutenant Moore and the additional trucks.
I called the workmen together. In halting German, I explained the significance of the Fourth of July and announced that there would be no more work that day. It was providentially near the lunch hour. I could send the PWs back to their camp as soon as they had eaten. The German packers, intent on returning to Munich as soon as possible, chose to get on with the cases they were building. Dr. Mutter and I retired to his study to take stock of the receipts we had thus far made out. As for the French drivers, they had disappeared to their quarters.
After lunching at the officers’ mess, I decided to celebrate the Glorious Fourth in my own quiet way. Major Whittemore had lent me a car, so I set out on an expedition of my own devising. Ever since the night of our trip to Krummau, I had wanted to explore the castle of Rosenberg, and this seemed the logical time to do it. Rosenberg was only eight kilometers away.
It was a sleepy summer afternoon. Not a leaf was stirring as I followed the winding Moldau into the pretty village with its storybook castle. The road to the castle was rough and tortuous, reminding me of a back road in the Tennessee mountain country. Just as I was beginning to wonder if the little sedan were equal to the climb, the road turned sharply into a level areaway before the castle courtyard.
I parked the car and went in search of the caretaker. When I found no one, I ascended a flight of stone steps which led from the courtyard to the second floor. The room at the head of the stairs was empty, but I heard voices in the one adjoining. Two cleaning women were scrubbing the floor, chattering to each other as they worked. They were startled to see me, but one of them had the presence of mind to scurry off and return a few minutes later with the archetype of all castle caretakers. He had been custodian for the past fifty-six years. Lately there hadn’t been many visitors.
He took me first to the picture gallery—a long high-ceilinged room with tall windows looking out over the river. There were a dozen full-length canvases around the rough plaster walls, past Dukes of Rosenberg and their sour-faced Duchesses. The clou of the collection was a tubercular lady in seventeenth century costume. The caretaker solemnly informed me that she was the ill-fated duchess who paced the ramparts of the castle every night just before twelve. She had lived, he told me, in the fourteenth century. When I mentioned as tactfully as possible that her gown indicated she had been a mere three hundred years ahead of the styles, he gave me a dirty look as much as to say, “a disbeliever.” I did my best to erase this unfortunate impression and proceeded to the next series of apartments. They included a weapon room, a sumptuous state bedchamber reserved for royal visitors, several richly furnished reception rooms, and a long gallery called the Crusaders’ Hall—a copy, the caretaker said, of a room in the Palace at Versailles. Here hung full-length portraits of such historic personages as Godefroy de Bouillon, Robert Guiscard and Frederick Barbarossa—all done by an indifferent German painter of the last century. Notwithstanding its ostentatious atmosphere, the gallery had a dignity quite in keeping with the musty elegance of the castle.
I thanked the old man, gave him a couple of cigarettes and returned to the car. It was time for me to be getting back to the monastery.
I gauged my arrival nicely. As I pulled up to the entrance, the guard at the archway came over to the car to tell me that eight trucks had just driven through. When I reached the courtyard the last of them was backing up against the chapel wall.
A tall, rangy lieutenant, wearing the familiar helmet liner prescribed by Third Army regulations, walked up to the car as I was getting out and said, “Good afternoon, sir. Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”
So this was Lamont Moore. Just as Lincoln had predicted, I liked him at once. There was a quiet self-possession about him, coupled with a quizzical, humorous expression, which was pleasantly reassuring. I have never forgotten the impression of Olympian calm I received at that first meeting. In succeeding months, there were many times when Lamont got thoroughly riled, but his composure never deserted him. His even temper and his sense of humor could always be depended upon to leaven the more impetuous actions of his companions.
Without wasting breath on inconsequential conversation, he suggested that we “case the joint.” After introducing him to Dr. Mutter, who was still hovering around like a distracted schoolmaster, we made a tour of the premises. By the time we had finished I had the comforting, if somewhat unflattering, feeling that he had a clearer understanding of the work there than I, notwithstanding the time I had spent at the monastery.
On our way down to the village afterward, I asked Lamont if he had had any difficulty coming up through Linz. He said no, but that he also had been warned not to return that way.
As soon as he had found a billet, we settled down to talk over the loading of his trucks. “The colonel says that we’ll have to finish the job in a hurry. The Czechs are taking over at the end of the week,” I said. “And if the Russians move up to the Danube, we won’t be able to go back by way of Linz. We’ll have to return by way of Passau.”
“I understand that there isn’t any bridge over the Danube at Passau,” Lamont said quietly. At that I got excited, but in the same quiet voice Lamont said, “Don’t worry. We’ve got more important things to think about—something to drink, for example.”
We went over to the officers’ club, arriving just in time to be offered a sample of the Fourth of July punch which two of the officers had been mixing that afternoon. From the look of things, they had perfect confidence in their recipe, which called for red wine, armagnac and champagne. After the first sip I didn’t have to be told there would be fireworks in Hohenfurth that evening.
Lamont and I began to discuss mutual friends and acquaintances in the museum world, a habit deeply ingrained in members of our profession. We agreed that a mutual “hate” often brought people together more quickly than a mutual admiration. Then inconsistently—it was probably the punch—we started talking about Lincoln, whom we both liked very much.
“It was Lincoln who told me what a fine fellow you are, Lamont,” I said.
“That’s interesting,” he said with a noiseless laugh. “He said the same thing about you.”
Comparing notes, we found that Lincoln had given us identical vignettes of each other.
“Tell me something about the work you’ve been doing in MFA&A. This is my first real job, so I’m still a neophyte,” I said.
Lamont rolled his eyes wearily and said, “Oh, I’ve been evacuating works of art for the past four months, and I wonder sometimes if it’s ever going to end. Siegen was my big show. It was the foul and dripping copper mine in Westphalia where the priceless treasures from the Rhineland museums were stored. The shaft was two thousand feet deep and some of the mine chambers were more than half a mile from the shaft. Walker Hancock of First Army and George Stout had inspected it originally and advised immediate evacuation. But no place was available. First Army was pushing eastward, so all Walker could do was to reassure himself from time to time that the contents were adequately guarded.
“Shortly before VE-Day, I received a cryptic telegram at Ninth Army Headquarters stating that, as of midnight that particular night, Siegen was my headache. Then followed weeks of activity in which Walker, Steve and I were involved.”
“Who is Steve?” I asked.
“Steve Kovalyak of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania,” said Lamont. “I think he’s with George at Alt Aussee now. I hope you’ll meet him. He’s a great character.
“A bunker at Bonn was approved as a new repository for the Siegen treasures. I surveyed the roads to Bonn and found them impossible for truck transport. George was called to Alt Aussee. Walker went off to see about setting up a collecting point at Marburg.
“Then I was called back to Ninth Army Headquarters. The evacuation of Siegen was momentarily at a standstill.
“Later I returned and, with Walker’s and Steve’s assistance, completed the evacuation. We moved everything to Marburg, except the famous Romanesque doors from the church of Santa Maria im Kapitol. Walker took them to the cathedral at Cologne, along with the Aachen crown jewels.
“Siegen was the second major evacuation—perhaps you could say it was the first carried out by a team of MFA&A officers.”
“What was the first?” I asked.
“The Merkers mine, where the Nazi gold and the Berlin Museum things were stored. That was the most spectacular of the early evacuations—that and Bernterode.”
“What about Bernterode?” I asked. I had read Hancock’s official report of the operation and had seen some snapshots taken in the mine, so I was curious to have a firsthand account.
“Walter Hancock was the officer in charge of the evacuation,” said Lamont. “Like Siegen, it was a deep-shaft mine, so the contents had to be brought up by an elevator. It was a hell of a job to get the elevator back in working order. The dramatic thing about Bernterode was the discovery of a small chapel, or shrine, constructed in one of the mine chambers and then completely walled up.
“In this concealed shrine, the Nazis had placed the bronze sarcophagi of Frederick the Great, Frederick William—the Soldier King—and those of Von Hindenburg and his wife. On the coffins had been laid wreaths, ribbons and various insignia of the Party. Around and about them were some two hundred regimental banners, many of them dating from the early Prussian wars.
“When Walker was ready to take the coffins out of the mine, he found they were so large and heavy that they’d have to come up one at a time. He was standing at the top of the shaft as the coffin of Frederick the Great rose slowly from the depths. As it neared the level, a radio in the distance blared forth the ‘Star-Spangled Banner.’ And just as the coffin came into view, the radio band struck up ‘God Save the King.’ The date,” Lamont added significantly, “was May the eighth.”
If I thought I was going to get much sleep that night, I reckoned without the patriotic officers of the Yankee Division, who were hell-bent on making it a really Glorious Fourth. It had been my mistake in the first place to move into quarters directly over the recreation room. It wasn’t much of a bedroom anyway—just an alcove with an eighteenth century settee for a bed. I was resting precariously on this spindly collector’s item when the door was flung open and Major Thacher shouted that I was wanted below. I told him to go away. To my surprise he did—but only to return a few minutes later with reinforcements. I must come down at once—colonel’s orders, and if I wouldn’t come quietly, they’d carry me down. Before I could get off my settee, it was pitched forward and I sprawled on the floor. What fun it was for everybody—except me! I put on a dressing gown and was marched down the stairs. I had been called in, as a naval officer, to settle an argument: Who had won the Battle of Jutland? The Battle of Jutland, of all things! At that moment I wasn’t at all sure in what war it had been fought, let alone who had won it. But assuming an assurance I was far from feeling I declared that it had been a draw. My luck was with me that night after all, for that had been the colonel’s contention. So I was allowed to return to my makeshift bed.
Lamont took some of the wind out of my sails by assuring me the next morning that the British had defeated the German fleet at Jutland in 1916.
But we were having our own battle of Hohenfurth that morning, so I was too preoccupied to give Jutland more than a passing thought. Just before noon, as we finished our fourth truck, John Nicholas Brown and Mason Hammond arrived. Mason, as was his custom when traveling about Germany, was bundled up in a great sheepskin coat—the kind used by the Wehrmacht on the Russian front—and looked like something out of Nanook of the North. John, less arctically attired, hailed us gaily from the back seat of the command car.
Lamont and I suspended operations to show them around. We were pleased by their comments on our work—how admirably it was being handled and so on—but we struck a snag when we showed them Canova’s marble Muse. Lamont and I had just about decided to leave her where she was. Our two visitors thought that would be a pity, a downright shame. We pointed out that to transport the statue would be a hazardous business, even if we succeeded in getting it onto a truck in the first place. We had no equipment with which to hoist anything so heavy. On our inspection tour they kept coming back to the subject of the Canova, and Lamont gave me an irritated look for having called their attention to it at all.
At lunch, which we had with the colonel, they fixed us. When the subject of the statue was brought up, the colonel instantly agreed to provide us with a winch and also two extra trucks. We needed the trucks all right, but we weren’t particularly happy about the winch.
As soon as we got back to the monastery, we broke the news to Dr. Mutter. The Muse was about to take a trip. He held up his hands in dismay and said it would take us half a day to get the statue loaded. When we told the German packers what we had in mind, they made a few clucking noises, and then began the necessary preparations. The first thing they did was to get hold of two logs, each about six feet in length and five inches in diameter. With the help of a dozen PWs, they got them placed beneath the base of the statue. From that point on, it was a matter of slowly rolling the statue as the logs rolled. It was arduous work. A distance of well over four hundred yards was involved, and the last half of it was along a sloping ramp where it was particularly difficult to keep the heavy marble under control.
Once the truck was reached, it was necessary to set up a stout runway from the ground to the bed of the truck. This done, the next move was to place heavy pads around the base of the statue, so that the cable of the winch would not scratch the surface of the marble. It was a tense moment. Would the winch be strong enough to drag its heavy burden up the runway? It began to grind, and slowly the Muse slid up the boards, paused for a quivering instant and then glided majestically along the bed of the truck. There were cheers from the PWs who had gathered around the truck to watch. We all sighed with relief, and then congratulated the little packers who had engineered the whole operation. Dr. Mutter kept shaking his head in disbelief. He told us that when the statue had been brought to the monastery in the first place, it had taken three hours to unload it. The present operation had taken forty-five minutes.
After this triumph, the loading of the remaining trucks seemed an anticlimax, but we kept hard at it for the next six hours. By seven o’clock, all ten of them were finished. All told, we would be a convoy of eighteen trucks.
We were on the point of starting down to the village for supper, when Dr. Mutter, even more agitated than he had been before, rushed up and implored us to grant him a great favor. Would we, out of the kindness of our hearts—oh, he knew he had no right to ask such a favor—would we take him and his wife and little girl along with us to Linz the next day? Linz was his home, he had a house there. He had brought his family to Hohenfurth only because the Nazis wouldn’t allow him to give up his duties as custodian of the collections at the monastery. Now the Czechs were going to be in complete control. He and his family were Austrians and there was no telling what would happen to them.
How news does get around, I thought to myself. We hadn’t said a word about the Czechs taking over, but when I expressed the proper surprise and asked him where he had heard that rumor, he wagged his head as much as to say, “Oh, I know what I am talking about, all right!”
My heart wasn’t exactly bleeding for Dr. Mutter, but at the thought of his little girl, who was about the age of my own, I couldn’t say no. I told him to be ready to leave at seven the next morning. I didn’t tell him how uncertain it was that we would ever get to Linz at all.
It was pouring when I crawled out of my bed at six A.M. I seemed to specialize in bad weather, particularly when starting out with a convoy! At the monastery everything was in order. At the last minute I decided to tell Dr. Mutter there was a possibility—even a probability—that we would not be able to cross over at Linz, and I told him why. He was terrified when I mentioned the prospect of being stopped by the Russians. I assured him that we would drop him and his family off at one of the villages on the other side of the Austrian border, if we found there was going to be trouble. It was cold comfort but the best I had to offer.
I climbed into the lead truck, Lamont into the tenth, and Leclancher, as usual, took over the last truck. Leclancher, with his customary ability to pull a rabbit out of a hat at a critical juncture, had found among his drivers one who spoke some Russian, so we had put him at the controls of the first truck. It might make a good impression.
Once again we had a jeep escort to the border, and there we picked up three others to conduct us as far as Linz. The cocky little sergeant in the jeep that was to lead came over to my truck, squinted up at me and said, “You look nervous this morning, Lieutenant.”
Well, I thought, if it’s that apparent, what’s the use of denying it? “I am,” I said. “This is a big convoy and it’s filled with millions of dollars’ worth of stuff. I’d hate to have anything happen to it.”
He whistled at that. Then, rubbing his hands briskly, he retorted, “And nothing is going to happen to it.”
He took off and we swung in behind him. The first hour was a long one. There was more traffic than ever before—a steady stream of carts all moving toward Linz. At last we shifted into low gear, and I knew that we were on the steep grade leading down to Urfahr. If there were going to be trouble, we’d know it in a minute. At that moment, the sergeant in the lead jeep turned around and waved. I thought, There’s trouble ahead. But he was only signaling that the road was clear.
We rolled over the rough cobblestones onto the bridge. I saw the gleaming helmet liners of the new escort awaiting us as we drew up to the center of the span. I motioned to one of our new guardians that we would stop at the first convenient place on the other side.
We were such a long convoy that I thought we’d be halfway through Linz before our escort directed us to pull over to the curb. There we unloaded the Mutter family and their luggage. The doctor and his wife were tearfully grateful and the little girl smiled her thanks.
I was feeling relaxed and happy and wanted to share my relief with someone, so I suggested to Lamont that we pay our respects to the colonel who had warned us not to come through Linz. It was a letdown to find only a warrant officer in the colonel’s anteroom. But he remembered us and was surprised to see us again. He said we had been lucky; the latest news was that the Russians would move up to the opposite side of the Danube by noon. We left appropriate messages for the colonel and his adjutant, returned to our trucks and headed west toward Lambach.
As on the previous trip, the escort turned back at that point. A new one—this time an impressive array of six armed jeeps—shepherded us from there. We stopped for lunch with a Corps of Engineers outfit of the 11th Armored Division on the outskirts of Schwannenstadt. The C.O., Major Allen, and his executive officer, Captain Myers, welcomed us as warmly as if we had been commanding generals instead of a motley crew of eighteen French drivers, plus twelve “noncoms” from the escorting jeeps—a total of thirty-two, including Lamont and me. We doled out K rations to our four packers, for we couldn’t take civilians into an Army mess.
After lunch I telephoned ahead to Salzburg to ask for an escort from there to Munich, requesting that it meet us on the edge of town, east of the river. The weather had cleared, and drying patches of water on the road reflected a blue sky. By the time we had sighted Salzburg it was actually hot. As we rolled into the outskirts we were enveloped in clouds of dust from the steady procession of military vehicles. We waited in vain for our new escort. After an hour we decided to proceed without one. I didn’t like the idea very much, but it was getting on toward five o’clock, and we wanted to reach Munich in time for supper. We fell far short of our goal, being forced to stop once because of a flat tire, and a second time because of carburetor trouble. These two delays cost us close to two hours. At seven o’clock we halted by the placid waters of Chiemsee and ate cold C rations in an idyllic setting. It was after nine when we lumbered into the parking area behind the Gargantuan depot at the Königsplatz. Lamont and I had twin objectives—hot baths and bed. It didn’t take us long to achieve both!
We had had every intention of making an early start the next morning, not so much because of any blind faith in Benjamin Franklin’s precepts, but simply because they stopped serving breakfast in the Third Army mess shortly before eight o’clock. In fact, the first thing one saw on entering the mess hall was a large placard which stated peremptorily, “The mess will be cleared by 0800. By order of the Commanding General.” And such was Third Army discipline—we had a different name for it—that the mess hall was completely devoid of life on the stroke of eight.
It was a little after seven when I woke up. Lamont was still dead to the world, so I shaved and dressed before waking him. There was a malevolent gleam in his eyes when he finally opened them. He asked frigidly, “Are you always so infernally cheerful at this hour of the morning?” I told him not to confuse cheerfulness with common courtesy, and mentioned the peculiar breakfast habits of the Third Army.
We arrived at the mess hall with a few minutes to spare. The sergeant at the entrance asked to see our mess cards. We had none but I explained that we were attached to the headquarters.
“Temporary duty?” he asked.
“Yes, just temporary duty,” I said with a hint of thankfulness.
“Then you can’t eat here. Take the bus to the Transient Officers’ Mess downtown.”
I asked about the bus schedule. “Last bus left at 0745,” he said. It was then 0750.
“Well, how do you like ‘chicken’ for breakfast?” I asked Lamont as we walked out to the empty street.
There was nothing to do but walk along until we could hail a passing vehicle. We had gone a good half mile before we got a lift. Knowing that the downtown mess closed at eight, I thought we’d better try the mess hall at the Military Government Detachment where the officers usually lingered till about eight-thirty. Among the laggards we found Ham Coulter and Craig. After airing our views on the subject of Third Army hospitality, we settled down to a good breakfast and a full account of our trip back from Hohenfurth. We told Craig that a couple of our French drivers were to meet us at the Collecting Point at nine. They were to bring some of the trucks around for unloading before noon. It was a Saturday and in Bavaria everything stopped at noon. Once in a great while Craig could persuade members of his civilian crew to work on Saturday afternoons, but it was a custom they didn’t hold with, so he avoided it whenever possible. There were those who frowned on this kind of “coddling,” as they called it, but they just didn’t know their Bavarians. Craig did, and I think he got more work out of his people than if he had tried to change their habits.
We spent part of the morning with Herr Döbler, the chief packer, at the Collecting Point, helping him decipher our trucking lists, hastily prepared at Hohenfurth in longhand. Meanwhile the trucks, one after another, drew up to the unloading platform and disgorged their precious contents. The descent of the marble Muse caused a flurry of excitement. Our description of loading the statue had lost nothing in the telling and we were anxious to see how she had stood the trip. The roads had been excruciatingly rough in places, especially at Linz and on the dread detour near Rosenheim. At each chuckhole I had offered up a little prayer. But my worries had been groundless—she emerged from the truck in all her gleaming, snow-white perfection.
Just before noon, Captain Posey summoned Lamont and me to his office. He cut short our account of the Hohenfurth operation with the news that we were to leave that afternoon for the great mine at Alt Aussee. At last we were to join George—both of us. George was going to have his team after all.
A command car had already been ordered. The driver was to pick us up at one-thirty. Posey got out a map and showed us the road we were to take beyond Salzburg. As his finger ran along the red line of the route marked with the names St. Gilgen, St. Wolfgang, Bad Ischl and Bad Aussee, our excitement grew. Untold treasures were waiting to be unearthed at the end of it.
He said that the trip would take about six hours. We could perhaps stop off at Bad Aussee for supper. Two naval officers—Lieutenants Plaut and Rousseau, both of them OSS—had set up a special interrogation center there, an establishment known simply as “House 71,” and were making an intensive investigation of German art-looting activities. They lived very well, Posey said with a grin. We could do a lot worse than to sample their hospitality. I knew Jim Plaut and Ted Rousseau—in fact had seen them at Versailles not so many weeks ago—so I thought we could prevail on them to take us in.
The mention of food reminded Lamont that we ought to pick up a generous supply of rations—the kind called “ten-in-ones”—somewhere along the road. The captain gave us a written order for that, and also provided each of us with a letter stating that we were authorized to “enter art repositories in the area occupied by the Third U. S. Army.” Our earlier permits had referred to specific localities. These were blanket permits—marks of signal favor, we gathered from the ceremonious manner in which they were presented to us.
There were various odds and ends to be attended to before we could get off, among them the business of our PX rations. That was Lamont’s idea. He said that we might not be able to get them later. He was right; they were the last ones we were able to lay our hands on for three weeks.