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An Anti-Tank Infantryman Speaks Out

By Ken Aladeen 

April 1945-It was becoming more apparent each day that Germany couldn't last much longer.  We were advancing as much as 25 miles a day.  After finishing the clean-up at Kassel, we moved on toward Erfurt.  It fell almost without resistance.  There was something peculiar about the airplanes lined up on the apron of the airport, which we could see from the highway.  It seemed that none of them had engines and props.  The reason became frightfully clear later in the day.  As we cleared from Erfurt, moving toward Jena we were overwhelmed by a large number of troops, officers and vehicles we had never seen anywhere near the front before.  The troops were clean (obviously not infantry), the officers were wearing forest green jackets with "pinks" trousers.  They were riding in staff cars such as Chevrolets and Packard's.  Definitely not combat vehicles!  Branches such as C.I.C., C.A.D., J.A.G., and lots of M.P.'s.  While my battalion was not directly involved, that was the day the infamous death camp called Buchenwald was liberated.  In Washington D.C. there is a grim museum dedicated to the Jews who died in those concentration camps.  The Guidon flag of the 80th Div. is among those on display in the lobby, as a tribute to the men who died liberating those camps.  Again, we were completely in the dark about the events there as they were happening.  It was okay though.  We had lots of excitement waiting for us as we approached Jena.  We had just gotten our A.T. gun set up when we could hear the sirens the Germans put on their tanks.  We felt it must have been a psychological weapon.  I must admit, it was some time after the war ended before I could hear a siren without getting a fast heart and sweaty palms.  This time the good old U.S. Army Air Corps was already on the scene and saved us a lot danger and worry.  Most of the Mark V's were destroyed.  But the P-47 Thunderbolts that had done such a great job on the tanks weren't done.  They were hardly out of sight when two really strange aircraft strafed us.  None of us had ever heard a sound like those planes made, certainly had never seen a plane like them.  Of course, they were jets.  No one had ever heard of a jet airplane, and suddenly we were being attacked by two of them.  The four P-47's were back almost immediately.  The jets were primitive by today's standards but should have had an unfair advantage.  The fact that it was four of ours against two of them was enough.  Those P-47's may have been the first ever to have air-to-air combat with jets, and win!  It was a full day.