A dry chuckle. “Strange isn’t it?” Mildy said. “We lose nearly a half million of our guys fighting them, and now we’re their ‘only means of survival.”
83
Chapter Eight
Theaters
Berlin, Germany
From May 10, 1945 to…”
After the war ended on May 8th 1945, much of Berlin is nothing but rubble. 600,000 apartments had been destroyed, and only about half of the city’s original population of 4.3 million still lived in the city.
In accordance with an agreement signed by the Allies, the city was divided into four sections and wholly administered by the occupying powers of those four sections: the United States of America, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union.
Loveland, Ohio August 21, 1945 8:42 AM
“Good morning: Pink’s.”
“ ‘Morning, Sarah it’s...”
“Oh, my God! Barry!”
“Sarah, good morning! How’s everyone on the home-front?”
“My, god, Barry; it’s so good to hear your voice again1. We’re all fine here.” Holding her had over the phone. “Sherry, tell Mildy to pick up the phone!”
“Yes, she’s here. Just sent Sharon to have her get the phone. How are you?” Hearing the click from the hat boutique. “Here’s your wife. Bye!”
8:46 AM Watching Mildy’s animated conversation with her husband from the front- door counter, across the stores wide expanse, over the half wall partition separating ‘Ellen’s Hat Boutique’ from the hardware store.
“Oh, my God, baby….”
8:47
“...I love you!, It’s ‘so’ good to hear your voice again!”
“Oh, I love you, too, Barry!”
“Can’’t wait to see you again… To love you again!”
Knowing what he meant. “Me, too, honey…” sensing the urge “… Me, too!”
“How’s my little girl? My sweet Jymmi?”
“Ha!” Laughing. “Let me tell you; every time I look at that little face I want to squeeze it and kiss it because she looks ‘so’ like you. But ‘oh, boy-oh-boy’, your little Jymmi ain’t so sweet. ‘Bossy’ little thing drags Clyde and Sharon around by their noses, getting what ever she wants.”
“She’s the boss, eh?” Laughing. “Just like her mother, huh?”
“ ‘Me’, ‘bossy’? Nah.”
“Don’t care! Love you like you are, ‘Auntie Mildy’.”
“Where are you, baby?”
Hesitating a moment. “Berlin.”
Berlin, Germany
When Germany surrendered on May ten, 1945; when Hitler was defeated in world war two, he left behind no post-war plans, as it was considered treasonable to even mention the possibility of defeat by the Third Reich so practically every resource available had been poured into the war effort.
What remained after Germany's surrender was a grieving country mourning the loss of millions of their people and a countryside that had been shelled, razed, and trampled by tanks and troops of all nations for years.
Loveland, Ohio
“ ‘Berlin’?” Barry’s in Berlin!
Quiet a moment, imagining the tremendous need for the Quartermaster Corps; if for nothing more than to supply their own occupying army.
“How long do you think you’ll be there?”
Hesitating... “Mildy, baby, we’re really needed here, and not just for our guys, and they’ve; the Army’s offered me a promotion to…”
Incredulously: “For how long, honey?”
“We’re needed here baby, and they’ve offered me ‘Captains bars’ to re-up and run one of the cities U.S. Stocking Centers’.”
Emotionally confused. “The army is going to promote you to a ‘Captain’ if you re-enlist and stay in Berlin?”
“Yeah, baby. They need guys like me here that know how to order, stock and distribute, and I’ll head up my own unit.”
Thinking: War’s over. He’s safe now. What’s the Army pay for a Captain?
See-sawing emotions: “And, Barry, you don’t think your daughter and wife need you here, at home, Barry!?”
Morning in Loveland, Ohio. Evening In Berlin, Germany.
Night falling; looking through a distorted, streaky plastic window; in any direction— for as far as lieutenant Barry Harris is able to see through this day’s diminishing day-light— he sees the total destruction of the city of Berlin that completely surrounds the quickly constructed, U.S.,Fifth Army’s, Division ‘D’s’ Quartermaster Corps hugely extended Quonset hut.
“... Mildy, you can’t even begin to imagine what’s going on here!”
Berlin, Germany
Defeated, starving and displaced— people were roaming about the country, often looting as they went. Transportation and communication services had ceased to exist. Agriculture and industry were largely non-extant. Food was far beyond scarce and there was a serious risk of famine and disease during the coming winter months. And to crown it all off, the central government and the machinery whereby a central government could function had ‘literally’ been blown away.
Loveland, Ohio
“For how long, Barry?”
“My re-up will be for two years…”
“ ‘Two years’!”
“...or until these people are able to survive on their own.”
“ ‘’People’’? You call Germans ‘people’? My God, Barry, they’re Germans! If they won we all might be in front of fingering squads by now! They’re…” lowering her voice “...fucking animals! Why! Why would you want to help them?”
“Mildy, couldn’t tell you before because we were still at war with the Japs, but I’ve been here since May…”
“ ‘May’? You’ve been there since May. You’ve been out of the war and safe for three months and never let us know!”
Sighing. “I told you, I couldn’t say till now…” his voice rising “...but I’ve learned they’re not ‘all’ Nazi’s, Midy. Most I’ve met are…”
“And you believe them! The bastards change from uniform to civvies and you believe that they’re not all good little Nazis?”
“Mildy, believe me, If I found a Nazi, and knew he was a Nazi, I’d gladly hand him over to …” for some strange reason the name coming to him from ? “…’Vlad Tepes’.”
This weird name coming from her husband, from… ?“Who the hell is, uh, the name you said?”
Barry himself having no idea why the name had come to mind, or even if he was pronouncing the name right.
“Vlad ?” One of those strange things that become stuck in one of the creases of one’s brain: “He was a fifteenth century Romanian prince they called ‘Vlad the Impaler’.”
Still confused. “ ‘ Vlad the Impaler’?”
“ ‘Dracula’! The impaler is ‘Count Dracula’!” Barry said. “If someone on my staff was a real Nazi, I would give him to ‘Vlad the Impaler’ to be impaled.”
Since becoming ‘Auntie Mildy’ to Sharon and Clyde, only when Barry becomes annoyed or angry does he refer to his wife as…
“ ‘Mildred’, I’ve an interpreter here; a Christian man with a Jewish daughter-in-law, and two, now seven year old grand children that had to be sent to a Nazi school in order to hide the fact that their mother was Jewish, and now ‘Fredrick’: my interpeter’, his wife and daughter-in-law— their son killed somewhere, they think in Russia — are having a hell of a time reconverting the two kids to the human race, and there’s millions of people here that hated Hitler and all he represented, but had to go along with it or be shot or sent to whatever in hell those Nazi bastards sent people that didn’t ‘Sieg Heil’ or ‘Heil Hitler’ enthusiastically enough.” His tone softening,. “Mildy, they’re dieing in the streets starving to death, and America’s their only means of survival.”
Berlin, Germany
Rationing had started during the war and rapidly increased as the war went on estimating the average German citizen's caloric intake as low as 700 calories per day— and by the end of the war, often less than that.
The constant shelling and air strikes had taken their toll on the countryside, devastating their crops and livestock reserves. The infrastructure in and around Berlin in ruins making it near impossible to bring food in from the outside.
Loveland, Ohio
A dry chuckle. “Strange isn’t it?” Mildy said. “We lose nearly a half million of our guys fighting them, and now we’re their ‘only means of survival.”
“Yeah, Mildy. Guess that’s the American way, and now they’re starting to ship food and medical supplies into Berlin in the fastest, any way they can: plane, train, doesn’t matter, unless they want a million or more dead bodies to get rid of.”
“And that’s where you come in, then?”
“Yeah. Well, me and the four other Quartermaster Distribution Centers.”
“How’ll you handle it when the food gets there? You’ll be able to control a starving mob?”
“One thing about Krauts, they know how to take orders, and it doesn’t matter if the rifle is a M1 or a Mauser.”
Quiet… Mildy thinking. “Barry, did you give them, the army your answer yet?”
“About re-upping?”
“Yes.”
“No. Told them I wanted to talk to my wife first.”
“You want to do this?”
“Honey…” without hesitation “...it’s my job, so yes.”
“Okay, baby. Do what you think is right.”
Loveland, Ohio Saturday September 7, 1945 11:50A M
“Here;s...” opening the cash register, Sarah handed Clyde a one dollar bill “...for the moves and pop corn and candy for both of you.”
Crying, “I wanna go too!”
“Jymmi…” Mildy said “...you can’t even sit still for a minute. Maybe next year you’ll be old enough.”
“Don’t care!” Crying, “I wanna go to the movie, too.”
“Clyde, Sharon…” Sarah, nodding her head towards the door”...just go.”
Walking out of the ‘Pink’s Hardware, Inc.’ door, raising her arm, Sharon gave her mother a twisting hand, wiggly fingered ‘goodbye’.
12:40 PM
Next week’s coming attraxtions over with. One hundred-nine restless, noisy, pop corn and ‘Jury-Fruit’ eating children already having hysterically laughed at ‘The Three Stooges’ and ‘Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’, now anxious to get to— whichever movie comes first— ‘Roy Rogers’ or ‘Red Ryder and Little Beaver’’.
Instead: ‘RKO PathéNews’
In grainy black and white...
On Sunday, September 2, more than 250 Allied warships lay at anchor in Tokyo Bay.
The flags of the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China fluttered above the deck of the ‘Missouri’. Just after 9 a.m. Tokyo time, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed on behalf of the Japanese government. General Yoshijiro Umezu then signed for the Japanese armed forces.
Supreme Commander MacArthur next signed, declaring, “It is my earnest hope and indeed the hope of all mankind that from this solemn occasion a better world shall emerge out of the blood and carnage of the past.”
Nine more signatures were made, by the United States, China, Britain, the USSR, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands and New Zealand, respectively.
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz signed for the United States. As the 20-minute ceremony ended, the sun burst through low-hanging clouds.
The most devastating war in human history was over.
As, “Yeah!!!” The children shouted, as...
Roy Rogers atop Trigger galloped across the screen.
You brought about a hardship that some faced when the war seemed to be over, but both Germany and Japan were occupied for some time by troops who had no choice but to stay on. Well done.
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