The Christmas Truce

Posted by richrobinson 11 years, 4 months ago to The Gulch: General
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I have always found the story of the WWI Christmas truce to be fascinating. There is more information out there but this is a brief description.

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  • Posted by khalling 11 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    little bastards. have I posted where the praying mantis can win in a scorpion showdown? sometimes they just don't seem to care-but there was that one time ...
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 11 years, 4 months ago
    yea! A chance to anecdote. This time, not my own.

    I don't buy the happy face they put on the Americans meeting the effing Soviets.

    My father's reminiscence of Soviet encounters included two points: the fascination they had with electric lighting, once he showed it to them, and their inability to comprehend what a shower was for. After he mimed how to use the shower... they used it to wash their clothes... while wearing them.

    His other reminiscence of the Soviets was the 3 days he spent helping to load ammunition for the coming war with the sons of bitches because they wouldn't turn over 3 American POWs. The cowards finally backed down, like all bullies when confronted by men of character.

    Oh yeah, and the 3 weeks we had to pull up and wait to let the Soviet (strike)bastards(/strike) troops take Berlin. He also mentioned something about a female Soviet colonel who was allowed to shoot Germans at will. Allegedly German soldiers had raped her and her sisters. I guess there weren't any cattle available.

    But, the reaction of our troops to the German civilians I can fully believe. It saddened and jaded my father how... "friendly" the female population turned out to be.

    When he arrived in Europe just before the occupation, the USO served our soldiers coffee and doughnuts. My dad saw an old German guy, going around picking up the discarded bits of doughnut and putting them in a paper bag.
    He went up to the old guy, took the bag, dumped the doughnuts out on the ground, while the old man looked impotently on.
    He then went to the fresh tray of doughnuts and filled the bag, and handed it back to the old man.
    One of the USO battleaxes squawked that the doughnuts were for the GIs. My dad said that if they were for the GIs, that included him and he'd do what he damn well pleased with his doughnuts. (words to that effect).

    Later, when given guard duty over a mountainous coal dump (I've always suspected as punishment for his rebellious ways...) he saw a German woman come out with her two children to steal coal from that mountain and put it in a burlap sack.
    Being the good American he was... he held the bag open for them.

    (Yeah, I've told these stories before, and I'll tell them again... and again... because they make me proud I could call him "Dad".)
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