1 September 1945

Certificate agreeing to submit control of military pay entitlement

I, and my fellow prisoners of war, are being processed.  We were hoping to have been allowed back home before now.  Hitler is dead but our war time ordeal is not over.

18 August 1945

Lunden is a municipality in the district of Dithmarschen, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is situated on the Eider river, about 16 km north of Heide.  Rehm-Flehde-Bargen is in the district of Dithmarschen.

Latvian 142nd Regiment, Church Service - Lundena, Flehde, Denmark

 His Song

The Lord is our strong fortress, etc....

My God, I praise home

God, guardian of our home land that she remains a flowering state and strong, etc ......

His Tune

God is our hope, Stone Mountain etc .........

August – September 1945, Latvian Variety Troupe - 

"Birds of Passage" Program

Soup to eat, regular religious guidance, this camp is better than I had expected.  In addition, we are treated to entertainment.

23 June 1945

We moved from Heides, Germany, to Kűmpel on the other side of Lunden.

Two days completely without food.  I was in a particularly bad mood on Ligo evening with nothing to eat - June 23 mid-summer festival, Ligo svētki.

A local person came to help us, supplying us with a little food. 

Once we had eaten, we were able to walk-on quite well.  That local old woman has boiled us soup every day since.  The allied army must have recruited her because someone must be paying for our food.

20 & 21 May 1945

Adolf Hitler committed suicide 8 May 1945, bringing world war two to an end

Concerned about food.  Tied down at the forest bridge, with increasingly less to eat.

In addition, I lived on only barn plants (salad) at Flensburg for the previous two weeks.  We are very much in shock.

17 May 1945

Sailing from Denmark to Germany (Post allied liberation of Denmark)

The first Allied forces arrived in Denmark mid afternoon of May 5^th.  They were greeted by throngs of people celebrating in Copenhagen.  British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery had already accepted the surrender of German forces at Lüneburg Heath, east of Hamburg but Denmark’s official liberation took effect at 8 am on May 5th 1945.  Unfortunately, those on the island of Bornholm continued to be bombarded by Soviet forces until 9^th May.  After two days of bombardment, landing Soviet troops accepted German surrender. 

We knew the Allied were coming but they took longer to reach us than we had anticipated.  Fighting against Russian occupation is something that has burdened generations of Latvian men.  Equally, Latvia has suffered the shackles of Germany during her historical past.  Any invading army must be repelled, but the Allied forces pose no threat to Latvia.  Their fight is with the Germans, not with Latvians.  We are not defending Latvia but standing upon foreign soil, governed by a foreign power. 

Allied forces were moving quickly but their advance has slowed.  We had expected them to be upon us within twenty four hours but it has been three days.  If our German commanders discover us, we will all be executed as deserters and so we are in hiding.  Having no food for twenty four hours would not have been such a big problem but, after three days, our stomachs have turned themselves inside out. Once again God answered my prayers.  We have been discovered by a family who took pity on us.  They treated us to a small amount of salted herrings.  They are not my favourite but at least my hunger has subsided.

It has take five days for the Allied forces to reach us.  We are all relieved to surrender to them and not to have been discovered by the Red Army.

27 April 1945

It is reported that 824 men, under the command of Waffen-Standartenführer Vilis Janums, surrendered to American forces at Güterglück near to the river Elbe.

The Elbe originates in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing through much of Bohemia, then into Germany before continuing out into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg.  As I was never sure where I was fighting, this could have been the river where the wooden bridge with its three great guns stood?

30 March 1945

The big day on Saturday (31 March 1945), we have been transferred to Sølskot.

The Soviets are closing in on Berlin.  The Allied have crossed the Rhine.  Whilst we have been sent back to the fighting front.  We travelled to Schleswig, Denmark where we stayed until the last few days of April.

 We journey back to Sølskot on 1st May.   I have been billeted in Sølskot Park, there are around 400 of us in one tavern.

28 March 1945

Denmark, Horsens

We have arrived.  We have been swept up in the chaos of the collapse of the Eastern Front.

The Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen was bombed a few days ago by the British.  It was a large u-shaped building.  The whole of Denmark's Gestapo, along with a large number of criminal police were killed.

After the forming of the Latvian Police Battalions, during January 1943 in Reichskommissariat Ostland, Heinrich Himmler formed Latvian legion Lettische SS Freiwilligen Legion in February 1943.  That Legion later became a Division, receiving the numerical designation 15 before being renamed Lettische SS Freiwilligen Brigade.

The unlawful conscription of Latvian men for military service by Germany was based on Alfred Rosenberg's compulsory labour decree of 19 December 1941. It was carried out by the Department of Labour for the Latvian Self Administration, and commenced early 1943.  All Latvian males born between 1919 and 1924 received a compulsory recruitment notice.  The 15th Waffen SS, together with the 19th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (2nd Latvian) were formed into the Latvian Legion.  And so here I am. 

 - 29 March 1945 The Americans are in Frankfurt.

26 March 1945

To Denmark

The fighting is very unpredictable over the Rhine as German forces continue to put up resistance in the battle for western Germany. 

 “With cohesion rapidly disintegrating, the Germans were organised into battle groups of anything from platoon to battalion strength: adhoc formations ranging from pathetic Volksturm (Home Guard) to experienced SS and parachute detachments and even an officer cadet training school. Some put up token resistance before running away. The bravest, including the officer cadets, fought with skill and ferocity.”  http://ww2today.com/26-march-1945-the-forward-platoon-makes-contact-as-they-enter-germany

Command is resolute; the Allied must not reach the Fatherland’s heart.  We are to stop the advance from Denmark.

23 March 1945

Neubrandenburg, Germany

Compared to other towns I have seen recently, NeuBrandenburg got off very lightly in terms of war damage.

The end of 1944. 1945 has arrived.

When I reported in at the command post near to the bridge, there were the bodies of three deceased soldiers to be transported.  On the road, pushed over to one side on the grass verge, I had passed a burned out truck.  It was black, and split open where it had taken a Russian direct hit, the bodies belonged to its occupants.

I was ordered to remove the dead from a field just behind the main camp.  All three bodies were covered over, eerily still and ghostly on the ground.  Although I could have done with a hand to load up, no one came to help me.  No one came to say any last farewells either.  I was left alone to haul each man onto my shoulders, one at a time, before placing him on to the cart.  It was very awkward manhandling each lifeless, dead weight.  I had not previously appreciated the difficulties involved, I will have more respect for mortuary assistants in the future.

 

The German military are very good at administration, keeping all kinds of records.  The army likes to account for its dead better than it does its living, recovering as many bodies as possible from the front for respectful burial.  German officers meticulously record their dead and their dying, along with their missing, detailing every battle casualty before dispatching bodies to collection points.  Returning the dead to military mortuaries is carried out on a regular basis. 

Whilst I was still at the bridge, the Russians began a bombardment.  They rained bombs down on to the entire site – on to the bridge, into the camp as well on to the empty fields.  There was nowhere to run, nowhere to shelter.  I had been caught out on the open road with no trench or bunker in sight.  My only protection came from the small cart containing those three dead soldiers.

Although the German’s fired their guns as quickly as they could load them, it was no use.  The Russians succeeded in blowing up the entire wooden bridge.  That noisy old plane must have spotted them the previous night and once a days target has been identified, the Russians do not stop pounding until it has been wiped from the battlefield.

With just a few hits, all three of the big guns were obliterated.  They must have been positioning incorrectly.  Someone must have made a mistake, miscalculated the distances between each one.  They had to have been too close together for all three to go up like that.  For that battalion of men it was a costly blunder.  A hit to one big gun should not have taken out all three.  There had been at least twenty men on that one bridge; at least twenty men were taken with one strike.  Three guns and twenty men all lost because one bloke could not do maths.

I was so very pleased to get out of there alive, to get away with my horse and cart.  It was a struggle keeping the horse moving forward because the Russian’s continued their bombing long after the bridge was gone.  It felt like they were chasing after the horse and me as if we were important military targets. 

Nearing the house, I could hear the German artillery at it, aiming their little anti-tank gun into the sky and firing their mortars.  Our commander had repeatedly assured me that our bunker was the strongest one ever made but the kitchen unit’s defences were not as good.  By the time I got back, the commander, along with everyone else, were gone.  Our base had taken at least three direct hits during the raid.  The Russian’s had stationed themselves on a hill far off in the distance but they were still close enough to cause my unit serious damage.  Just like the bridge, my unit had gone.  My fellow soldiers had been seen, targeted and destroyed.  I had seen the commander’s room several times when taking him papers, it had been nice and comfortable but now all of the communication equipment had been destroyed.  Communication posts always have half a dozen cables running through camp.  If ever I need to find command in a new camp, all I do is follow the cables.  That’s how I found it in amongst the rubble.  I followed what remained of the cables to where command should have been.  All that was left were bits and pieces of wreckage.  There was nothing recognisable any more, nothing of any use or consequence remained.

Our field kitchens never have any chimneys.  The men never make a fire using a chimney because an enemy spotter could see the smoke, plus it makes it easy for any passing enemy soldier to drop a grenade down.  However, it had not mattered in the end, even without sending up smoke signals, our kitchen had been demolished.  I had liked working for the kitchen, I had liked being with those men.  They treated me well because I was useful, because I could take the food out on the horse and cart so that they did not have to carry it out and about by hand.  I also liked having hot food every day, having enough in my stomach to stop it from aching and churning.

 

The few men still left alive told me to just walk away.  I did not know where to go or where I should be heading but neither did they.  I do not think that anyone did.  There was a lot of military traffic everywhere.  Slow traffic loaded with miserable, worn out soldiers and so I followed them.  I never found out what had happened to all those blokes, to all of my mates.  I never found out how many survived but I am glad to have gotten away from there myself.  It had been a massive raid, possibly an important raid for the Russians but as I do not know where I was on a map, I can never enquire. 

The horse had always been kept away from the main kitchen.  It was kept in the small barn close to gully and that at least had survived the attack.  I put him back in the shed where he had first been found, only this time I made sure he had water as well as food I do not know what happened to that horse.  I hope he survived.  I hope no one bombed him later and I especially hope no Russian soldier ate him.

 

I have looked for the river with its bridge on maps but I have not been able to find where it was.  I thought the river might be the one that flows past Lielvārde but it is not.  The Russians had smashed up the entire bridge.  Three big important guns, even the little guns near to the house were all gone.  

Those little ones were rapid but they could not do any damage and they did not always work.  They were complicated, often jammed, and no one liked them but still the Russians destroyed them all.  In addition, all of those men, all of those poorly trained, ill-equipped blokes killed during one raid.  Everyone I knew gone and I can never go back with flowers.  I cannot return to morn my mates because no one ever told me where I was on a map. 

20 March 1945

We departed from Bad Nenndorf

We are on the move once again.  I have been reassigned.  Maybe this will be my last move.  I hope so; I hope this is to be the end of it all.  There have been a few mumblings from some of the other men, they say the war is no longer going well for Germany but the captain has not said anything.  I would dearly like to think I will not have to spend another winter out of doors.   

I do not fancy getting too close to the Red Army again either.  So many men have tales of German and Latvian soldiers returning to units minus a tongue, the stories have to be true.  They say the Russians do it so their captives cannot give away Red Army positions.  In addition, Russian commanders are said to make their soldiers hold both ends of a damaged cable in their mouth to complete a broken circuit, making Red Army soldiers stupid but brutal.

October 1944 to March 1945 (5)

Being the only member of the unit capable of harnessing a horse, my job involved delivering more than just soup with black bread.  For a time I was also a mail carrier.  Parcels and letters periodically arrived at our command post, this needed passing on to the men.

Some distance down the road, two or three batteries had set up camp.  The little two-wheeled trap was loaded with as much as it would carry and I set off to find a large bridge.  Men were stationed at the bridge. My first task was to find it.

Constructed of wood, the bridge spanned a river but I never got the name of it.  Travelling around so much, I was never completely certain of where I was.  If we halted close to a village or town, I would ask the locals but when out in the countryside I had no clue. 

It was the tallest bridge I had ever seen; it went up, up, up into the horizon.  When I found it, I answered the guard's challenge with some trepidation.  They didn’t know me, I could have been a saboteur, there were a lot of those around.  Luckily for me, I was believed although I was made to wait for an escort.  Even with a cart full of parcels, those men did not want to take any chances.

“Wait there.”  The guard commanded.  “Wait until someone comes to guide you through the mines.”

I waited.  I did not want to be shot and  I certainly had no desire to wander into another minefield with my horse.

Eventually I was allowed to deliver the post.  Next to a food delivery, receiving post is the men’s favourite thing.  Many of the parcels and letters on my cart had been hanging around various base camps for weeks waiting for someone to make a delivery.  I guess it was hard knowing where to send post during a war.

I received a very pleasing reception, all of the men were glad to finally get letters.  Sometimes, if parcels turned up but no one knew the addressee, or believed that man to be deceased, the delivery would be given out to those with nothing.  No one had very much of anything most of the time, and so, when something was going spare, it soon disappeared.  No one felt bad about taking things addressed to someone else.  As troops were scattered everywhere, with units moving constantly moving on, it was an accepted part of military life.  Men died every day or, if they were lucky, were hospitalised or even discharged back home.  Families knew it was virtually impossible for letters and gifts to find their loved ones but I guess they took comfort in knowing those small items brought pleasure to someone.  I assume that all of the field offices did the same thing; it meant that everything got used, nothing was ever wasted.

October 1944 to March 1945 (4)

Whilst working with the field kitchen, on one of my soup run days, I was heading towards a remote house.  It stood alone in its own field with very little ground cover.  As I approached, I was convinced I had seen movement at the front.  Although I was not one hundred percent sure, I thought it wise not to take the risk and decided to go down the side so I could enter from the rear.  If there were Russian troops at the front, the rear of the house was a lot more attractive.

As I got neared to the house, all of the soldiers inside began waving wildly from the windows and doors.  At first, I thought they were just pleased to see me but then I understood their shouts.  They were trying to warn me, they were telling me off for coming from the rear. 

“Why are you coming that way?”  They reprimanded.  “You are crazy.  You are in a mine field!” 

I had to take the horse and cart back the same way through the field.  I was the most nervous I had ever been.  It was nerve racking retracing my steps, as well as difficult.  Knowing that putting my feet down just a few inches further to the left or to the right could mean a horrible death really focused my attention.  Have you ever tried to back up a horse?   It is not the easiest of things to do but it was import for me to deliver the soup.  I knew how hungry those men were.  In the past, I was the one waiting days for something warm and filling.

October 1944 to March 1945 (3)

Close to the house where I sheltered, there were a few trees on a piece of scrub land.  That was where some of the other men, an anti-tank unit, set up camp.  It was where they set up their single 3.7 PAK anti-tank gun. 

Concerned for their own safety, those men set up trip wires along with anti-personnel traps, between the trees which would go off if disturbed.  I had to be careful when coming or going, I made sure to identify myself as I approached.  Among their armoury were two 5 cm tube mortars, three 8.8 cm Flak guns plus a big old tractor.  Flak is a contraction of the German Flugzeugabwehrkanone, aircraft-defence cannon.  As a fighting unit they were not very well equipped at all but everyone had to do their best with what they had.  To be honest, due to a lack of training, those men couldn’t really shoot anything anyway.  With only one day’s training on the guns, men were sent off to strategic position and left to their own devices.  When a gun jammed or broke in some way, no one knew how to fix it.  Having more equipment, better equipment, bigger equipment would not have enabled those men to hit more targets.

One of our men, a new man who had only been with us for three days, was killed as he stood next to me.  The anti-tank unit decided to do some fire practise, it was a nice day and so they sent a shot up into the sky.  Having nothing better to do, several of us stood around to watch but no one had thought about the round coming back down again.  A shell fragment sliced down into the new man’s head, lodging in his brain.  The shrapnel chopped through his skull, killing him where he stood.  I made sure to keep my distance the next time those men practised.

I thought it was okay working with the kitchen.  There were regular meals plus a stove to warm myself near.  Combine that with sleeping indoors, it was probably the best any soldier could ask during war time on the front line

  

October 1944 to March 1945 (2)

A horse had been left close to the house we seconded.  The poor thing had been left alone in a barn, too tired to work.  Whomever it had belonged, had left it with plenty of food but forgotten to leave it any water.  Although there was enough animal food to last all winter, without water that horse would have died.  The beast had been worked to exhaustion; it looked delirious.  It stumbled around the small barn with wild eyes when I entered.

I was given the job of looking after the workhorse.  I fetched water into the barn, groomed its tired limbs whilst talking soothingly into its ear.  I sang songs recalled from my childhood, soothing cradle songs I’d listened to from my bed.  They were my mother’s songs, the tunes she used to entertain my younger siblings on long evenings.  I did not sing loudly, I was careful not to let the other fellows hear my voice.  I sang for the horse, to gain its trust as well as to ease its anguish. 

Looking after that horse became my job by default.  The other men were all town people.  I can harness a horse, I know how to care for one, the others do not which is why it became my new job. 

Along with the horse, there was a two-wheeled cart.  It was a two-wheeled trap and its tyres still had plenty of wear in them.  One day a Field kitchen turned up at the house unexpectedly, it had arrived to feed the front line troops.  As I was the only one to have befriended the horse, plus the only one who knew how to harness it to a trap, I was assigned to the kitchen unit and tasked with taking soup out to the fighters. 

Along with German soldiers, many Latvian service men were wept up in the chaos as the Eastern Front collapsed.  In September 1944 the surviving elements of the 15th Waffen SS division and the 19th Waffen Grenadier Division, were sent by boat to Danzig, Poland.  They fought on the Pomeranian Wall defences before retreating through Pomerania and Germany to Berlin.

October 1944 to March 1945

For part of the war, I did get to live in a house for a short time.  We still had to set up a guard every night but at least it was warm.  I had to watch my gun as well as my ammunition night and day.  Our sergeant had us dig a hole to bury the ammunition just in case the house took a hit. 

It was very dangerous staying indoors; anyone could be snooping around with hand grenades, especially at night.  In addition, the house made an easy target for bombers.  It isn’t, only an explosion that is dangerous when indoors but the resulting change in air pressure can kill you too. 

I was always tired, there was never anywhere safe for me to sleep or to get comfortable.  No one slept properly.  No one ever had any real rest.  It would have been heaven to have a dry, warm bed but with a guard stationed outside keeping watch, I made the most of the relative safety provided.  Knowing there were walls surrounding me as well as a guard helped me to rest a little easier.  At night, if on guard duty, I had to stand upright all night.  The gunfire went on all night too.  I could hear and see it but no one took wild shots.  Men attacked specific targets if ordered to but that was it.  I guess the Russians were just as tired as my mates and me.  There were no tanks near to us, thank goodness.  Russian tanks are terrifying to watch coming towards you

There was a plane spotter in the area; it was an old Russian plane that sounded like a tractor as it flew around.  All night it flew around very slowly.  Its pilot was looking for sites to attack the next day.  It was a very slow and noisy plane.  The sound went on and on without a break.  Because it was at night, no man rushed to get his gun to fire unless he had to.  The men knew they would most likely miss anyway.  No one fired up at the plane, their shot would have given away our location

17 – 25 September 1944

August and September I spent in the Netherlands.  The Allied were on the move and I was to take part in the defence of Arnham.

Operation Market Garden was an unsuccessful Allied military operation, fought in the Netherlands and Germany.  It was split into two sub-operations:

• Market – the airborne forces, the First Allied Airborne Army, intent on seizing bridges
• Garden – the ground forces, consisting of the British XXX Corp

Although several bridges between Eindhoven and Nijmegen were captured successfully, XXX Corps advance was delayed by the airborne unit’s failure to secure bridges at Son and Nijmegen.   German forces demolished the bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal at Son before it could be secured by the 101st Airborne Division. The 82nd Airborne Division's failure to capture the main road bridge over the river Waal at Nijmegen before 20 September also delayed the advance of XXX Corps.

Delays capturing key bridges at Son and Nijmegen due to strong resistance, gave German forces time to organise a well-coordinated defence.  Although a small force of paratroopers initially managed to capture the north end of the Arnhem Road Bridge, ground forces were unable to relieve them as planned, resulting in the paratroopers being overrun on 21 September. The remainder of the 1st Airborne Division became trapped in a small pocket west of the bridge, and were finally evacuated on 25 September.


The Allied failure to cross the Rhine River during their planned advance into Germany delayed plans to end the war by Christmas 1944.  It was not until offensives began at Remagen, Oppenheim, Rees, and Wesel in March 1945, that the Allied ambitions were realised.