TheTroubleshooters.com Home                   Catalog                   World War 2                   World War 1                  Links

Patton's Troubleshooters Book                        Patton's Troubleshooters DVD

Captain Nordstrom writes:

 May 15:  "Yesterday I was in a pub that was very much like a modern cocktail bar, which was unusual in England.  On the other hand, it was filled with people, something that wouldn't happen in America on a Sunday. . . . Most are very quiet and polite, with their milds, stouts and hauf & haufs."     

May 16:  ". . . all the maps are hung upside down in the headquarters - to orient them.  Of course, the fact that nothing can be read doesn't seem to mean a thing.  And since they are hanging instead of flat, the orientation is in name only.  (Col. Talbot was reorganizing.  He must have been very nervous around this time and I suspect quite lonely too.  Battle was close and his career was on the line.  The rest of us were rank amateurs doing our best to maintain the illusion we knew what we were doing.  I can be more sympathetic now than I was then.)  Last week we visited the governing chambers of a nearby city of 150,000.  We had been invited by the Mayor.  We had a swell time.  Most of the officials were older than what I would expect in the U.S., were interested in stability and spoke more effectively than would a comparative American group. Later some of us also went to court to observe operations there.  Very competent, literate and civilized.  While we were stationed in Birkenhead, I seem to have been an active tourist looking into the local life styles."

May 25:  "The battalion has been moved to Cannock, above Wolverhampton and north of Birmingham.  My billet was a bank building - it used to be the home of the president of the bank.  While there, I roomed with Captain John Rees, the Assistant S-3 of the battalion.  I also continued to be the tourist, visiting a number of local historical sites, a cathedral and back to court again. Obviously there still wasn't much to do.  Early in June I spent a couple of days in London on a pass.  Most of what we seem to have been doing was devising means to stay out of Col. Talbot's way. Again, I realize now the tension in waiting for something to happen must have been very wearing for him."