The Lobo Tank Busters
By: Stan Jordan
Col. Bainbridge came over this evening for supper and stayed and talked, and he brought us quite a story and mission.
A Frenchman, named Jean, had been a political prisoner of the Germans for a couple of years. They had him working in an underground coal mine where they brought in good oil from the Palesto oil field, mixed it with oil they extracted from coal and made a grade of synthetic diesel fuel.
This plant had been in operation for quite a while and was a major operation for the German war effort. It was located in the Mainz area by the river, it was well camouflaged and covered a wide area. From the air, it looked like an orchard. It had never been bombed because no one knew about it.
The plant doctor is a prisoner because he is a Jew, his name was Biergowitz. He was a highly touted medical man from Berlin and when the Gestapo picked him up, they made him work or be killed. The plant was full of other prisoners from all over, and had hardly any food or good clothes for working underground.
The doctor hated the police, the Nazis, Hitler and all. He wanted to get the news to the allies of the existence of this plant. It was his every day goal, to get even with Hitler, oh how he hated that man and Himler. The doctor wanted to get rid of that operation and hinder the German war effort.
Over the months, he became friendly with our Frenchman named Jean, and he could tell he also hated the Germans and could be trusted. He examined Jean and found he had a small sore and he made note of it in his records. Well, he told Jean that he could make that sore larger in a few days, and maybe get him sent home because he had a very communicable disease, although it wasn’t bad at all. So, the doc and Jean became good and trusted friends.
On the day the doctor examined Jean and saw the sore was bigger, he called in the German assistant and showed him the weekly records of his sore and that it had gotten bigger. The German doctor knew the reputation of the doctor was good and excepted the story that the sore was like Leprosy in biblical times. The doctor recommended that this man, Jean, be sent out of the plant, maybe out of the country, and the German doctor agreed.
Jean hopped on a freight train and made it up to the front and then hid during the day and traveled at night. He walked over on into France and stopped the first American soldier he saw and asked to be sent to his commanding officer. The officer referred him to S2 at once.
More next week.
See Ya!
There Are Two Sides To It
By: Stan Jordan
In the last few months on the newscasts, we are shown over and over the action of various city policemen. While I abhor police brutality, there is usually another side to this action.
When you are growing up, your parents and school teachers impress on you to respect policemen, as they are your friend, someone you can trust in time of need. You are told to mind a policeman and do what he says. As long as you are good and do what is right you won’t have any trouble with the law. Yes, there are a few rogue policemen, the same as there are in every other walk of life, but they are less than a tenth of one percent. Unfortunately they are the ones we hear about because bad news sells papers.
Almost always, when we see the action on television, a policeman has told the subject to do something and they don’t do it. A lot of times, they start to run away from the policeman because they are guilty of something, and a lot of times, the policeman commands them to stop more than once.
Sometimes, things get out of hand and policemen get blamed for their actions. Yes, sometimes the policemen go too far, but why doesn’t the subject stop or obey the policeman’s commands? To me, he is admitting his guilt. All of this might not have happened if he would have done what he was told, or even better, if he hadn’t broke the law in the first place. To me, there are two sides to these confrontations, but that doesn’t seem to matter to some people. They forget that the subject is in the wrong or it just doesn’t matter. The biggest share of the time the subject has a rap sheet as long as your arm and is wanted for more than one crime, and him running away just made matters worse. If they would do what the policemen tell them to do, no shots would get fired. There is way too much blame being charged to the policemen, who are probably doing their job the way they are supposed to do. The answer is simple, obey the policemen.
We seldom see the policemen’s side of this conflict, as it is saved for the court scene, but by that time the public has made up its mind that the policeman was to blame for the whole affair.
See ya!
A Day That Will Live In Infamy
By: Stan Jordan
December 7th, 1941 dawned like any other winter day here in Antwerp, just average temperature and weather, but it wasn’t to stay that way very long.
I was a senior in Antwerp High School, just as any other student, played sports, liked it when Mr. Bell would take us all to the gym and show a movie… anything to get out of class. Just an average student.
On this day of December 7th, I went to church and Sunday school at the Methodist Church, as usual. I wound up at my girlfriend’s house that afternoon, which was the Thurman Powell home. I remember we played pinochle after dinner. Thurman loved to “shoot the moon”, a pinochle term.
About 5:00 p.m. we were sitting on the sofa listening to Gene Autry on the radio. He had a western program and some singing also, it was good entertainment. They stopped the program with a news break that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, a city in the Hawaiian Islands that was worlds away. A city that was worlds away, but was a Protectorate of the United States.
There was not much information, just that they had pulled a sneak attack and had killed a lot of people with their bombs, it was the Japanese navy. We couldn’t believe it, the Japs attacked us and we hadn’t done anything, “the slant eyed little twerps would be sorry they done that.” Everyone thought the same thing, it was hard to believe, we didn’t do anything to cause that, pandemonium covered the U.S. I went to school the next day as usual, Mr. Samaha, our government teacher, brought a radio to school as President Roosevelt was to address the world at 10:00 a.m. That is when he gave his “Day of Infamy” speech.
He was correct, that line has lived for over 75 years and has impressed all Americans.
We Americans, got up off the deck and furnished the world with food and supplies. It took four years, but the world was made safe again. It was big team effort.
Yes, that line “A Day In Infamy” did live forever. To you young folks, that might be an overworked phrase, to us it was big part of history.
See Ya!
