A magazine is going to publish a collection of war time memories. Imagine you have lived through a war. Describe your most vivid memory for inclusion in this magazine.

I was 22 years old at that time and totally unprepared to be a soldier, when I was called up for the fight in Europe in late 1943.

After a training campaign in Georgia in early spring 1944, I was sent to England just after the D-day invasion of Normandy. In June of the same year, I set foot on the shores of France. I recall seeing destroyed vehicles and emplacements and many other signs of the ferocious landing that had taken place there.

Soon after, I took part in the vicious Battles of the Verdun Forest. The Germans patrolled heavily during the very early morning hours trying to figure out what we had where. We had many fights through the trees, in the shrubs, not really seeing a damned thing. It seemed that it would never end in that cold forest. It was so cold in the trees. And when it was all over, out of my whole company, an old sergeant and me were left. That was it. We were the only ones.

After Verdun, my company was refitted and, after some rest and training, was sent to defend a tactical position in the Ardennes, over-looking a small village. This is where I was when the Germans mounted their last ditch offensive in the Ardennes on the 18th of December 1944. My company was immediately put on the alert due to the force of the German offensive. We were up on the hill, firing mortar shells into the village that had recently fallen in German hands, when all of the sudden there was a lot of ruckus behind us. I turned around, a bunch of the fellas did too, and right there, about 50 metres away, just off the road and outside the tree-line, were two Tiger tanks, surrounded by about 50 or 60 German soldiers. They were SS soldiers, and we had heard all about them. I don't think I've ever been that scared before or since. The whole thing was just awful... They were really just kids, 16, 17 years old. They had their guns pointed at us, but they looked relaxed, cigarettes hanging from their mouths, like they had just played a joke on us.

They shot a couple of our guys right then, and the spared, including me, were led down into the village. We were met by a lot more of the same type of men; tough soldiers, mean and hard-looking. Most of the equipment we saw was American, and we saw they were smoking American cigarettes. We were lined up against a wall and a squad of SS soldier's filed out in front of us, about 15 or so metres away. An SS officer walked back and forth right in front of us, calling out something and looking at our dog-tags. He had just walked back to join his troops when a 1934 Ford convertible came tearing around the corner and screeched to a stop right there by the SS. An officer got out, his uniform had bright red stripes on the sides of his pants and he was carrying some sort of small stick in his hand. He was screaming at the SS officer, pointing at us . I don't know what he was saying, but he yelled for a couple of minutes and then got back in the car. The SS then marched us off, out of the village and into captivity. That was December 19th, 1944.

I became a prisoner at Dachau, in Southern Germany until early April, 1945 when units of Patton's Army liberated the camp. I was never talked much to during the time I spent there. Sometimes, though, they would take people away and they wouldn't be seen again. Some lucky ones were brought back to the barracks, bruised and battered up. However, the worst was the cold. My toes were frozen so badly during the march that they still bother me even now, over 50 years later. I don’t think I’ve spent worse years of my life than those in the German concentration camp.

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