Interview with Carl Eygnor [3/25/2005]

Elin Gottschalle:

Interview with Carl G. Eygnor May 25, 2002. Carl, where shall we begin?

Carl Eygnor:

In Rome.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

And we didn't have much (flak), just a brief skirmish.

Elin Gottschalle:

Where was that?

Carl Eygnor:

South of Rome.

Elin Gottschalle:

South of Rome.

Carl Eygnor:

Yep. And we went in on the Appian Way past the Coliseum in trucks, in trucks, and they took us in trucks up to the Tiber River.

Elin Gottschalle:

How many of you were there, roughly?

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, goodness, it was a whole outfit.

Elin Gottschalle:

Whole outfit. About a hundred men?

Carl Eygnor:

On trucks.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

On trucks, yeah. And the people were in the street meeting us.

Elin Gottschalle:

Were they all waving and happy to see you?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah, oh, yeah. They were hungry.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

The Germans had taken their food away from them, as they would do. They took food, and -

Elin Gottschalle:

So you'd give them the food, and -

Carl Eygnor:

So - I don't know. I suppose the Army did, but (?we fighting sections?) didn't get to see how that was done or ____ anthing about it. That was for later units to do. Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

So you went up the Appian Way and then carried on to - through Rome?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah, and then we crossed the Tiber River.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

But we had to get off the trucks, de-truck and go across the river.

Elin Gottschalle:

How did you get across?

Carl Eygnor:

There was bridges.

Elin Gottschalle:

Bridges. Okay. Their bridges hadn't been blown or anything?

Carl Eygnor:

Uh-uh. We were into a park area on the far side of the river and stayed there all the afternoon.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

_____. But when it got dark, then we had to take off and we marched - you wouldn't call it marched. I guess you'd just say we did it -

Elin Gottschalle:

Yeah.

Carl Eygnor:

- up through (vineyards), various places all that night, practically. We didn't move except in the dark.

Elin Gottschalle:

And where were you headed?

Carl Eygnor:

North.

Elin Gottschalle:

North.

Carl Eygnor:

Just north, yeah. And we...finally settled down by a little stream.

Elin Gottschalle:

Was it wooded area, or villages?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, we weren't in a village, but we were right next to one, and there was a little stream there we could get water -

Elin Gottschalle:

Do you remember the name of the village at all? No?

Carl Eygnor:

I don't know, but maybe I could find out. You know, I've got a whole book of that stuff.

Elin Gottschalle:

Right. We have some resource material to look into, that's right.

Carl Eygnor:

While we laid there, they did, they brought us some hot food.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

You know, they brought (?plenty of?) food, and these cans there managed to keep the food hot.

Elin Gottschalle:

Had it been cooked locally, or was it cooked by the Army?

Carl Eygnor:

Cooked by the Army. And they brought us _____, what it amounted to, and had pancakes.

Elin Gottschalle:

Pancakes. Okay. American pancakes.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

And were you - were you tired from having just arrived, or did you get any sleep -

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, yes, we were tired. But we had to sleep and do the best we can.

Elin Gottschalle:

How did you sleep? On the ground?

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, sure, yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

And your packs weren't very heavy, were they?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, not too, although we - everybody carried a blanket.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

And a mess kit equipment.

Elin Gottschalle:

Mess equipment and a rifle, I guess.

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, yeah. A rifle.

Elin Gottschalle:

Tell me about your rifle. Was it an old-fashioned one, or -

Carl Eygnor:

No, it was an M-1.

Elin Gottschalle:

M-1.

Carl Eygnor:

What do they call them? Had a name for them, I think.

Elin Gottschalle:

______

Carl Eygnor:

Was one of the newer M-1 rifles.

Elin Gottschalle:

And so you stayed there the night. What did you do next morning?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, we stayed there overnight, yeah. Next morning they came and got us in trucks.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

Took us back to Rome (laughing).

Elin Gottschalle:

Back to Rome, huh?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

You didn't get very far.

Carl Eygnor:

No.

Elin Gottschalle:

So why do you think was that?

Carl Eygnor:

Because they were going to have a parade.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, yeah.

Carl Eygnor:

They took us back on the south side of Rome, near Lake Albano. I don't know if that means anything.

Elin Gottschalle:

What was the via? Via Albano?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. There's a lake south of Rome where the Popes used to go ____ summer.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh.

Carl Eygnor:

Kind of a recreation place.

Elin Gottschalle:

Well, did you - was there a parade to celebrate the victory by the Allies?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah, then in Rome.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

And we were trained, had good training, to do a turn in battalion formation.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, yeah. Battalion formation. There were other battalions, too, then, I take it.

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, yeah. Lots of troops. But if you ever tried to do a formation turn like that on the side of a hill -

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, wow.

Carl Eygnor:

- it's almost impossible. Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

So it was one of those famous hills of Rome, huh?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. But the odd thing about, and this you'll want to remember, the parade was dismissed. We never did it.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh.

Carl Eygnor:

Because Eisenhower had decided to invade southern France.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, is that so? That is very, very interesting.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah, it was a confliction of views. They didn't want to have a confliction.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

So we never got to do a parade. [Interview interrupted for unknown reason.]

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. So the parade was canceled because Eisenhower had decided that they were going to go to France. Did you go with them?

Carl Eygnor:

No.

Elin Gottschalle:

No.

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, no.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. Now you tell me where you went. What happened after that?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, let's see. We moved north out of Rome up to Tarquinia.

Elin Gottschalle:

Tiquena (ph)?

Carl Eygnor:

Ti - yeah, I guess that was it.

Elin Gottschalle:

I'll write that one down, too, later.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah, we'd better get that right, because that's an important town up there.

Elin Gottschalle:

All right. We'll get that one later. So you went up to this town, Tarquinia or something, and then?

Carl Eygnor:

We put up our tents, stayed there for several days, working out on the ____, water there.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

Adriatic.

Elin Gottschalle:

Adriatic Coast. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

And we trained.

Elin Gottschalle:

What did you train for?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, they had us training. They thought we were going to have to cross the Arno River, so they has us train crossing little lakes and stuff, hanging onto a rope. They even bought some cheap boats that could be thrown away really.

Elin Gottschalle:

Were they made by the Americans, or were they just slapped together?

Carl Eygnor:

No, made by the Army.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

I don't know really. They didn't amount to much. But they were supposed to be good enough to go across a small stream ______ of course.

Elin Gottschalle:

And then, when you were ready and trained, where did you go?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, before that we moved up to a hill -- I was on guard duty then - just above Florence, up on a hill.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

And I told ____ I would see the dome of - in Florence every morning. The flag would lift in front of it, and the dome would come up. And we were waiting, expecting to have to do something to cross the Arno River. That was our big deal.

Elin Gottschalle:

Was the bridge still intact?

Carl Eygnor:

No, the bridges were all -

Elin Gottschalle:

They had blown up the bridge already.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah, the Germans had done all that.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

So then after a week, maybe two weeks, I don't know, some time, they said, come on, you've got to get on trucks.

Elin Gottschalle:

Uh-hum. The bridge, by the way - was that the Ponte Vecchio that they had blown up, or was the Ponte Vecchio still there, and you were in another section of the Arno River?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, we were on a section west of Florence.

Elin Gottschalle:

West of Florence. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

And the Army was able to operate and build these Bailey bridges because the English had come around behind Florence and chased them out.

Elin Gottschalle:

So the English had already chased the Germans out. Yeah.

Carl Eygnor:

They had. We didn't do it. So we got on trucks and drove across the Arno River without getting our feet wet. (laughing)

Elin Gottschalle:

After that, what happened?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, then we - I want to think of that - we moved up into the...olive orchards.

Elin Gottschalle:

Olive groves.

Carl Eygnor:

Many of them.

Elin Gottschalle:

To the olive groves. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

Sour ____ groves.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, sour oranges.

Carl Eygnor:

No, we didn't have any oranges.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, sorry. What -

Carl Eygnor:

Too far north for oranges.

Elin Gottschalle:

Well, what was it you said? Sour something. I didn't catch it. Sour -

Carl Eygnor:

What did I say?

Elin Gottschalle:

Yeah, you said you moved into the - and it sounded like sour something, but I -

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. No, we had to make our tents, and we made our tents under olive trees.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, olive - it was still olive groves, olive trees, yeah.

Carl Eygnor:

Very sour.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

The thing that I noticed that was kind of interesting, we stayed there a long time, but on Sunday morning the natives, their children, would get all dressed up in their good clothes for church, and they would bring usually a little olive - a little piece of olive tree to have, because it was spring. Yeah. So we laid there for quite a while.

Elin Gottschalle:

Actually, Carl, I didn't ask you what time of the year was it when you arrived. It must have been - what month was it? Do you remember? It must have been - if it was spring, it must have been -

Carl Eygnor:

It was spring.

Elin Gottschalle:

March, April, February, or -

Carl Eygnor:

No, it was later than that.

Elin Gottschalle:

Later than March, about this time?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah, I think it was about this time that we took Rome.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. So it was in March around 1940, or was it - or '41?

Carl Eygnor:

'41, I think.

Elin Gottschalle:

'41. 1941. March 1941.

Carl Eygnor:

I'll look that up a little bit later.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. And so you were sleeping under the olive tree.

Carl Eygnor:

(Laughing) We did.

Elin Gottschalle:

So how long were you there?

Carl Eygnor:

I don't know how long. Quite a long time.

Elin Gottschalle:

Days, weeks?

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, I think a week or more. Two or three weeks, maybe.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum. Did you speak to the local people? Did they come and speak to you or -

Carl Eygnor:

Well, barely.

Elin Gottschalle:

Barely.

Carl Eygnor:

I think it was there, but I'm not too sure, they had like one (shower), you know, but it wasn't a place for wine. They were making olive oil.

Elin Gottschalle:

Olive oil, yeah.

Carl Eygnor:

A lot of it. They still do. (Laughing)

Elin Gottschalle:

Yes, I'm sure they do.

Carl Eygnor:

But they apparently start it in vault, under the ground ___--

Elin Gottschalle:

Were they still pressing olive oil despite the war, or had they been doing it throughout the war?

Carl Eygnor:

Apparently. Apparently. But the ____ olive is a nuisance, because they aren't very big, you know, little black berries, and they had to squeeze it and get oil out of it, and so on.

Elin Gottschalle:

At least you couldn't starve to death there. You would always have olives to eat.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, I think I told you the people going to church had good clothes.

Elin Gottschalle:

Yes.

Carl Eygnor:

They looked real good.

Elin Gottschalle:

Did you hear the bells ringing in the morning at mass time?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, yes. But I don't know where they all went to church, weren't any big churches right around where we were camped, but they had to go somewhere, and they did.

Elin Gottschalle:

And you don't remember the name of the village. No.

Carl Eygnor:

No, I don't. It wasn't any village much around there.

Elin Gottschalle:

So after that -

Carl Eygnor:

Then we had to move on, go north more, up through the olive trees. (Laughing)

Elin Gottschalle:

So you were going north of Florence now.

Carl Eygnor:

Yes. And there are some big hills in there, too. We finally had to go onto K rations -

Elin Gottschalle:

Generally, what would K rations consist of?

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, you don't know that, do you?

Elin Gottschalle:

It would come in a big box, you've said?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, yeah, but the individuals was a box about this wide, and about that long.

Elin Gottschalle:

About six inches by ten.

Carl Eygnor:

Uh-huh.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. Wooden box.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, no, they were pasteboard.

Elin Gottschalle:

Pasteboard. All right. So what was in -

Carl Eygnor:

But more than that, you see the container around here -

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

- when they gave you one, inside the box was little packets of - well, what do you call them - I don't know - they were supposed to keep you alive anyway.

Elin Gottschalle:

Well, you probably had some maybe cocoa powder, did you, or peanut butter?

Carl Eygnor:

We had something that would make coffee for us.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. Coffee. Yeah, like chicory or some kind of a fake coffee, like chicory coffee or acorn coffee, or was it real coffee?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, I don't know. It wasn't too bad. What we would do is take our - we carried, of course, an aluminum cup.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum, a big cup, yeah, aluminum cup.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah, and you just put this envelope that had -

Elin Gottschalle:

Yeah, you tore off the envelope, put it in the cup, and then hot water, right? I mean water, and then you had to heat the water. How did you heat the water?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, that's what I was going to get to.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

The K rations was that type of container of plastic - wrapped in plastic, and cardboard ____. You had matches, of course. You set that afire, and you made your coffee.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, okay. How about that? Yeah. So the whole thing was in one, like you had the stove along with the food. Wow.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. And we had the ____. Well, now, let's see, where did we go from there?

Elin Gottschalle:

Right. Well, you were in this olive grove north of Florence for a little while, about a week?

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, yeah, more than that.

Elin Gottschalle:

More than that. And then?

Carl Eygnor:

I think so. Let me see.

Elin Gottschalle:

Did you get into the mountains?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah, we began to get into hills.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

Big hills. And there wasn't any roads.

Elin Gottschalle:

Did you see any Germans at all during that time?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, some, but not much of anything. As I recall, we didn't have much conflict right at that time.

Elin Gottschalle:

When did you have that - well, when you go into the hills, I'm excited to hear about your first battle, but first we have to get there; right?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, of course, they could get up in these hills and see us coming.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, of course.

Carl Eygnor:

So we had to come at night.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

We lost I don't know how many second lieutenants.

Elin Gottschalle:

Second lieutenants, because they had to go ahead. Right?

Carl Eygnor:

They were told to take 10 or 15 men or something and go find out where the Germans are. Of course as soon as the Germans knew they were coming, even in the dark, they would use these zip guns that they used ________.

Elin Gottschalle:

They were better than your American M-1.

Carl Eygnor:

Better, yes. They'd cut a man right in two.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, my.

Carl Eygnor:

And we lost a lot of second lieutenants. But the idea was when he found out where the fire was coming from and where the Germans were, he had a map of that whole area, and he was supposed - he had a radio, too. He had _____ radio. He was supposed to tell the artillery way back down the road where we were and where they would direct their fire, and they had a map of the same area, of course, and he would tell them what different coordinates and stuff, and then they would throw some artillery in there.

Elin Gottschalle:

Well, whenever the second lieutenant took the men, where did you - did you stay back in the camp, or did you go - were you also taken along one time?

Carl Eygnor:

I was lucky.

Elin Gottschalle:

You were lucky. The Good Lord was watching over you and left you in the camp.

Carl Eygnor:

He was.

Elin Gottschalle:

Yes, that's for sure. So when did you first see action?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, I was assigned - or they made us the old man's unit.

Elin Gottschalle:

You were known as the old man's unit. You were, what, 30? How old were you?

Carl Eygnor:

35.

Elin Gottschalle:

35. Oh, that was an old man for sure.

Carl Eygnor:

They didn't think we were any good to go out and take hills and stuff, but we did an awful lot of guard duty. [Break in tape for unknown reason]

Elin Gottschalle:

Ready to move on.

Carl Eygnor:

We were getting up into the hills where there wasn't any roads much.

Elin Gottschalle:

What happened then?

Carl Eygnor:

I don't know. We lost some time in there somewhere, because I think it was the next year, it rained -

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, boy, that must have been -

Carl Eygnor:

-and it rained, and we were in the mud. Terrible.

Elin Gottschalle:

Was the artillery bogged down, too?

Carl Eygnor:

Huh?

Elin Gottschalle:

Was the artillery bogged in the -

Carl Eygnor:

That was it. That was one of the big troubles. The artillery didn't have any roads, and to try to get up through that mud was almost impossible for them.

Elin Gottschalle:

So what did you eventually do? Kept pushing through?

Carl Eygnor:

So we were up in the mountains a certain amount, not too bad, but it was miserable to get anywhere. We couldn't advance. They couldn't depend on the artillery to do anything for them.

Elin Gottschalle:

Because the artillery had such a hard time getting through, did you advance before the - in front of them, or without them?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, to some extent, but we couldn't advance very far without them. All we had was these smaller units like I was in, and you had to walk into a _______, shoot them all, and _______, they had to do it with mules.

Elin Gottschalle:

Where did you get the mules, from the villages?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. Local people.

Elin Gottschalle:

Did they give them voluntarily, or did you have to confiscate them?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, I don't know. I think they - maybe the Army did some, because we had a lot of mules.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

I think the Army -

Elin Gottschalle:

Confiscated -

Carl Eygnor:

-arranged for them. They knew we had to have mules. They brought rations and batteries and everything that the _______ company needed.

Elin Gottschalle:

The radios wouldn't work without -

Carl Eygnor:

They'd bring them up by mules.

Elin Gottschalle:

Right. So the radios wouldn't work without the batteries, so you had to keep supplying - the batteries had to follow you all the time. Right?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. They'd call for them: Give us some batteries, get them out to us. That was part of our job. And Ted Belmont (ph) -

Elin Gottschalle:

Now, Ted Belmont is -

Carl Eygnor:

He's a captain.

Elin Gottschalle:

He was Captain Ted L. Belmont. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

And that was part of his job, was to see that the line companies got those batteries they needed.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

So that was part of his job. And they were also - they used the big bales of wire, I don't know -

Elin Gottschalle:

Big bales of wire for - to connect the radios?

Carl Eygnor:

The wiring was very difficult, but they had to string it. It would come in a bale, and you took it and carried it along -

Elin Gottschalle:

Was that like fuses, or what was it for?

Carl Eygnor:

Telephones.

Elin Gottschalle:

Telephone wires. Of course we were talking about telephones with wires in those days.

Carl Eygnor:

Telephones.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. So every time the men went on ahead with the radio, he had to have a big string of wire behind him.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

And so you were -

Carl Eygnor:

A lot of times if his radio didn't work, he could get on the telephone.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

And of course the artillery had telephones ______.

Elin Gottschalle:

So anyway, you went up the hill, and you finally got to where?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, we got where we would stall because of the mud and so on. I don't know whether I'm getting off balance here maybe, it seems, but anyway my pal and I -

Elin Gottschalle:

Who was he?

Carl Eygnor:

Bill Backhonen (ph).

Elin Gottschalle:

Backhogan?

Carl Eygnor:

Backhonen.

Elin Gottschalle:

Backhonen. We'll have to spell that name, too.

Carl Eygnor:

Wait a minute. I'll get it for you.

Elin Gottschalle:

Yeah. Well, we'll get that one, too. Bill - okay. We'll carry on. You and he -

Carl Eygnor:

We would - dug a cave under a big rock to keep the rain off of us really. Our headquarters were just a few yards up the hill from us. I'll have to ___ to tell you.

Elin Gottschalle:

Go on.

Carl Eygnor:

But somehow or other the jeep brought the mail up to us. Somehow they go through the mud. And this particular time they brought a letter from Castel (ph) -

Elin Gottschalle:

From where?

Carl Eygnor:

Castel, my wife.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, from your wife. Okay. Was that the first letter you got?

Carl Eygnor:

No, I'd had some before.

Elin Gottschalle:

You'd had some before. But that was probably very welcome, then.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, it was a rainy day, water dripping down on your face, and -

Elin Gottschalle:

So you got a letter from your wife. That was wonderful.

Carl Eygnor:

And she said, in the letter, mind you, she was working for the ____ _____ then at that time -

Elin Gottschalle:

Working for the who?

Carl Eygnor:

and the ___ ____ were taking this Kiplinger Letter -

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, okay. Yeah, we'll write down that one, too. Go on. What else did she say?

Carl Eygnor:

She said Kiplinger says the war is going to be over this summer.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

(Laughing)

Elin Gottschalle:

That made you feel good.

Carl Eygnor:

That was kind of good news on a dark day.

Elin Gottschalle:

Yeah, I'll bet. You had a little daughter at home at that time, did you? Did you have a daughter yet? You didn't have any children yet. No?

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, no.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. So anyway, you got the good news from home that the war was going to be over soon.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. It was kind of amusing, but it wasn't really funny either. This Backhonen-

Elin Gottschalle:

That was your friend; right? Yeah.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. But he was always doing something, crawling around, trying to make your cave better and so on. And I guess one of the bombs must have landed somewhere around there. I remember he come _____+ in front of me. He said, "I've been hit." __ crawled out. He had been - apparently had his head ____, and he got hit right on the bottom.

Elin Gottschalle:

In the buttocks. Oh, boy.

Carl Eygnor:

And -

Elin Gottschalle:

He couldn't sit down that day; right?

Carl Eygnor:

No.

Elin Gottschalle:

So what happened to him? Was he sent back?

Carl Eygnor:

No. Actually what he go hit with was a little piece of shrapnel, and you know when that shrapnel was - first ____ off, it's hot..

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

What he had was a little hot piece.

Elin Gottschalle:

Hot piece in his behind; right?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. (Laughing)

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. Well, was the shrapnel there still inside, in his flesh, or did he - was he able to pull it out?

Carl Eygnor:

I did, I guess. But it wasn't really anything much.

Elin Gottschalle:

Nothing really major; he couldn't leave.

Carl Eygnor:

Had a hole in his pants, but - I had shrapnel tear up my field jacket and stuff and hit my steel helmet, made it ring, and all that kind of stuff. But I didn't lose a drop of blood anywhere.

Elin Gottschalle:

No? Wow. You didn't get any personal wounds.

Carl Eygnor:

No.

Elin Gottschalle:

You didn't get any wounds.

Carl Eygnor:

Didn't get any Purple Heart. (Laughing)

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, well. So anyway, the caves - it eventually stopped raining.

Carl Eygnor:

Eventually it did, and we pulled out of that location somehow or other. I don't know what - apparently the artillery got it to where they could move up, too -

Elin Gottschalle:

So you kept on moving north, were you, or going west, or what?

Carl Eygnor:

We were moving north.

Elin Gottschalle:

Where -

Carl Eygnor:

And we sat there for a while, quite a while, but we knew what they were doing. They were having a build-up of supplies, artillery, everything, behind us.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. What were they building up for? Do you know?

Carl Eygnor:

For the spring.

Elin Gottschalle:

For the spring. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

It was what my wife was writing about.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, okay, for the final assault. Yes, right. Absolutely.

Carl Eygnor:

She knew, or ____.

Elin Gottschalle:

Yeah.

Carl Eygnor:

And we finally come to a time when they were all ready to push off, and they had a small ___, and they let go with every gun they had, every piece of ammunition they had, I guess. If you ever saw a sky full of - you wouldn't believe it.

Elin Gottschalle:

And what was the target?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, they were throwing bombs at the Germans, of course.

Elin Gottschalle:

But where were - yeah, right. But was there any specific battle that they were - where the Germans were massed, like Montecassini or one of those places?

Carl Eygnor:

Not that I know of. But the weather turned better, and we went into Po Valley.

Elin Gottschalle:

The Po Valley. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

And the thing that was so good, we'd been in the mountains, so seemed like every step we took you either had to go up or you had to go down. Terrible. Well, we went into Po Valley, and that was welcome. And it was warm, hot. If we had a warm sweater, as I did, it was heavy to carry. Threw away sweaters ____.

Elin Gottschalle:

So you threw your sweater away.

Carl Eygnor:

The stuff that they throw away - yep. And the road was dusty.

Elin Gottschalle:

Now instead of mud you had dust.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. And we went right up to the Po River ___. They brought up machine to get us across the river because the Germans of course had _____ all the bridges.

Elin Gottschalle:

What kind of a machine was that? [End of first side of tape]

Carl Eygnor:

It wasn't a tank, but it had these tracks _____.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, okay. I have not seen one, but I can imagine.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, these outfits would take about, oh, maybe 15, I don't know, ___, and ferry us across.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. So you all got ferried across.

Carl Eygnor:

So after a while we got across.

Elin Gottschalle:

All right. Did you leave a bridge behind for anybody, or -

Carl Eygnor:

Well, yes, eventually we got across the bridges. The Bailey people were engineers -

Elin Gottschalle:

Yeah, the Bailey bridges. Yeah, I've heard of that.

Carl Eygnor:

____ bridges, had lots of them.

Elin Gottschalle:

So anyway, you crossed the Po, and then you went on to where?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, we went on across fast. We had to move ____ as fast as we could go on foot.

Elin Gottschalle:

On foot, of course.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

You stopped at night, though, to sleep, or did you stop during the day to sleep?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah, we did. Well ...

Elin Gottschalle:

You were still traveling at night and sleeping during the day, or was it the other way around?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, we were traveling ____ during the day.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

They were in a _____, because we had the Germans pretty well whipped.

Elin Gottschalle:

So were they retreating at this point?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

And you were just chasing them? Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, there was something else I'd better tell you...well, never mind. Let me see. We went across the Po to the foothills of the Alps mountains, and we went up into the road there. There was a road that went up on a stream of water that was flowing down out of the Alps, and that water was cold. And I didn't see any bridges, but apparently there were - I was ahead of myself. I tried to, and did, wade that stream, and I was wet.

Elin Gottschalle:

Wet all the way to your waist. Oh, my. Cold water. Why did you wade in there? Why did you - were you sent in there to see how deep it is, or what?

Carl Eygnor:

Not this time. One other time I was.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, okay. So you all went across in - through the water, with all your kit and caboodle and your clothes on?

Carl Eygnor:

And I got across the river, and there was a lumberyard over there.

Elin Gottschalle:

Uh-huh.

Carl Eygnor:

I got across, I got into the lumberyard. I peeled off my clothes and rung them out, spread them out to dry in the sun. _______. Then I found if I had waited a little bit, I could have gone farther up the river and found a bridge, which was ____, but never mind. That was the night - night ....my leader there -

Elin Gottschalle:

Colonel, captain, major?

Carl Eygnor:

I don't know. He was just a -

Elin Gottschalle:

Lieutenant?

Carl Eygnor:

No, he wasn't even a lieutenant.

Elin Gottschalle:

Or "LEF-tenant?" We say "lef-tenant" in England.

Carl Eygnor:

He was a sergeant.

Elin Gottschalle:

He was a sergeant. All right.

Carl Eygnor:

But he was pretty good friend...Captain Ted Belmont.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, yeah. That was the Ted L. Belmont, yes.

Carl Eygnor:

And he apparently was pretty well _____ over, too. He had a - well, you probably don't know, but ordinarily officers do not eat with enlisted me.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay, then. So officers don't eat with the enlisted men. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

Somehow or other he had talked to my sergeant, that this boy from New York City - he was a good one for us - he got in touch with the madam that run the house -

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, he spoke Italian, then.

Carl Eygnor:

Could. He could speak German, too.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. German. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

He thought his mother was still in Germany, had been sent to the -

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, he was that Jewish boy that you told me about? His parents had been sent - his mother was in a concentration camp?

Carl Eygnor:

I think so.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

I guess. I never did clear that up with - I don't know if he knew -

Elin Gottschalle:

Anyway, he spoke good German or Italian or whatever, so he got - he talked to the lady in the village, and -

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

And what happened then?

Carl Eygnor:

He got her to make fried eggs for him.

Elin Gottschalle:

Fried eggs. Wow. Yeah.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, apparently he'd take - Belmont talked to my sergeant and got him to come and join us for fried eggs.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. So the higher-up came and joined the lower men for the fried eggs.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

Smart. And so what happened?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, we had her cooking our eggs, and we sat down at a table, four men on each side -

Elin Gottschalle:

One of those farmhouse tables in Italy?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

Yeah.

Carl Eygnor:

Captain Belmont came, sat at the head of the table, and he said, "Boys, the war is over."

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, wow.

Carl Eygnor:

What was surprising, nobody got up and said a word. (Laughing)

Elin Gottschalle:

They probably didn't believe it for a minute.

Carl Eygnor:

No.

Elin Gottschalle:

So he said the war was over. Oh, wow.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, he ate his eggs, and when he got through, his head went right over into his plate -

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, my.

Carl Eygnor:

-he was so tired.

Elin Gottschalle:

So tired, yes. So he did eat his eggs before he fell into the plate; right?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

Good.

Carl Eygnor:

He did eat, yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

That was a momentous occasion to hear the war was over.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

So you did go out and rejoice in a few minutes when it sank in; right?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, nobody got up, nobody shot off his weapon, or did a darned thing. We tried to crawl into bed and get -

Elin Gottschalle:

Get some sleep like he did, right.

Carl Eygnor:

Just like he did, yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

Rest up for peacetime; right?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

So that was - that must have been a historic occasion. And so you have kept up with Captain Belmont all through these years.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, I didn't at that time. But I had - I'll have to go back a ways -

Elin Gottschalle:

Well, since the tape is - so we might as well go into how you remember Captain Belmont and you are in touch with him now and you remember old times.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, when the war was over, they transferred our unit, all of it, up across the mountains, way up to the little town up there. I'll have to get it for you. I can't remember. But anyway, it was right on the line with -

Elin Gottschalle:

Switzerland?

Carl Eygnor:

Switzerland.

Elin Gottschalle:

Switzerland. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

That's where _____.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. That must have been up near Milan, then, all the way up as far as Milan, or north of Milan.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah - no -

Elin Gottschalle:

No? Milano is almost northernmost - anyway, up on the border with Switzerland. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

I always remembered it.

Elin Gottschalle:

So what happened there?

Carl Eygnor:

One thing I remember about it, I durned near froze to death. I'd thrown my sweater away.

Elin Gottschalle:

That's right, you threw your sweater away when it was hot, and now it was cold.

Carl Eygnor:

Now it was cold. And we had to drive up this road there in the foothills. Cold.

Elin Gottschalle:

Where were you headed?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, just up to the town. It seems that what had happened, there were a lot of hotels in this town.

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

And the Germans were using them as hospitals for their wounded.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

And we were sent there to get them out of there as fast as they could travel, and get them back to Germany.

Elin Gottschalle:

So these were not prisoners of war, these were just German wounded that, now that the war was over, they had to be sent home. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

That I was going to tell you about earlier. That was one of my big jobs, was to take care of German prisoners.

Elin Gottschalle:

Prisoners, yeah.

Carl Eygnor:

I don't know, I handled thousands and thousands of Germans.

Elin Gottschalle:

And were they glad to be in American hands?

Carl Eygnor:

Yes.

Elin Gottschalle:

I'll bet they were, yes. And were -

Carl Eygnor:

They didn't want the war anymore.

Elin Gottschalle:

And were you sending them to America, or keeping them in a prison somewhere else?

Carl Eygnor:

No, just - all I did was get them back to a railroad station -

Elin Gottschalle:

Um-hum.

Carl Eygnor:

- so they could go back to Germany. So that was a big problem at that location.

Elin Gottschalle:

With Switzerland across the border there, were they also trying to go to Switzerland, or did they actually go on the train back to Germany, or did they sort of disband and disappear?

Carl Eygnor:

They only did what we told them to do. We didn't monkey with them.

Elin Gottschalle:

But actually when they were out of your sight, you don't know where they went.

Carl Eygnor:

No. We weren't too good to them, to tell you the truth.

Elin Gottschalle:

Yeah, well, you know, you have to be fair. So after the - you were up there how long taking care of the prisoners' repatriation to Germany?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, now that's another long story.

Elin Gottschalle:

And I believe we're going to have to continue that story on Tape 2. [Narrator changes to Tape 2; narration picks up midsentence, as follows]

Elin Gottschalle:

- 26, 2002, and we are continuing on Tape 2 Carl Eygnor's story when he was in Italy as a member of the 88th Division Infantry, Combat Unit called the Blue Devils. Well, you might as well start with the story of why you went to Rome to begin with.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. Well, we stayed in a park all afternoon, till it got dark, and then we took off on foot, of course, up through vineyards and anyplace we could find a track, and we walked all night, until daylight, and by daylight, we was probably eight or nine miles north of Rome. You want -

Elin Gottschalle:

Where did General Lucas come in? Apparently he failed to go on the high ground, so he lost a lot of men, and that's why you were there.

Carl Eygnor:

One thing we did have to think about was the fact that we relieved the boys that were down in the swamps south of Rome that General Lucas got them into. He tried to make an invasion of Italy sometime ahead of us, but he got in so far, and then he quit and stopped the invasion, which was a mistake, because the Germans, when he invaded, pulled back north of Rome into some high ground there, and they watched what Lucas had his people do, and they saw that he didn't - he stopped before he got to any high ground, so they had to sit around in a marsh, and they were stuck there for a long time, and the Germans saw what he did, and they ____ back, took possession of the high ground, and then they give the boys in the marshes there a bad time, because -

Elin Gottschalle:

So a lot of Americans were killed there.

Carl Eygnor:

Huh?

Elin Gottschalle:

A lot of Americans got killed there; right? The Germans killed a lot of Americans there; right?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. We lost a lot of men in the swamps there because we were stopped there, and the Germans could just throw artillery on us. So when we got across ____+, we relieved these people of their situation.

Elin Gottschalle:

So you were there as a relief for them; yeah, you were there to replace and to help General Lucas' troops.

Carl Eygnor:

We were fortunate to break them out of the situation, because we had the high ground that the Germans had to have, and the boys came up out of the swamps, tickled to death to get out of the - away from all the artillery and stuff the Germans had been throwing at them.

Elin Gottschalle:

Tell me about the worst night you had when you were wet and cold.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, that should be another chapter.

Elin Gottschalle:

Well, this is the time for it. Don't wipe on that too much. It might be that your voice will reverberate. Think about how you felt when you were all wet and cold all over, lost your K rations and everything else.

Carl Eygnor:

That all happened quite a bit later.

Elin Gottschalle:

That's all right. It's a good story.

Carl Eygnor:

Do you want me to tell them that?

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, yes, that's a good one.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, we went on north from Rome. They sent trucks to pick us up, and they gave us hot food, and we went back on trucks back to Rome to an area very close to Lake Albano -

Elin Gottschalle:

Albano, yeah. We'll look that one up on the map.

Carl Eygnor:

And they had us training how to do a turn with a full - oh, what do I want -

Elin Gottschalle:

Your full kit?

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, what's the unit?

Elin Gottschalle:

All your full kit with everything on that you - all your full kit, your backpack and your rifle and everything -

Carl Eygnor:

_____

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. What happened when you had to go in the water?

Carl Eygnor:

Then we were trying to get ready for a parade into Rome.

Elin Gottschalle:

We got that one on the first tape.

Carl Eygnor:

We got that?

Elin Gottschalle:

Yeah. But I'm interested to hear when you had to cross the Po or somewhere there where the officer told you to go and find out how deep the water was.

Carl Eygnor:

Oh, yeah. Well, that's another session way ___ later.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. That sounds good. I'd like to hear that one again.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, we were up in the mountains, and the Army had a system up there after we had been on line fighting for a week or two, they pulled us back to a rest area and put a new, fresh division up to do the fighting. Well, this particular day it so happened that Sol Lockman (ph) from New York City -

Elin Gottschalle:

Saul? Saul is his first name, S-A-U-L; right?

Carl Eygnor:

S-O-L.

Elin Gottschalle:

And what was his second name?

Carl Eygnor:

Lockman.

Elin Gottschalle:

Lockman?

Carl Eygnor:

Lockman. L-O-C-K, I guess, M-A-N. Yeah. He dragged himself into our unit, covered with mud from head to foot. His rifle was full of mud. His fee and boots and so on were covered, and you would believe it. So I got him into our outfit, and I cleaned him up a little bit, but they had put us in this shed which was full of potatoes. So I took my helmet, and I cut up some of the potatoes, and I must have scoured around and got some onions or something, I don't know, some more stuff, to make a soup out of it.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. You cooked it in your helmet, huh?

Carl Eygnor:

In my helmet, yeah. And of course heat was from the K ration box.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, I got it heated up in pretty good shape and gave Lockman some of it. He claimed I saved his life. I didn't

Elin Gottschalle:

Well, he felt -

Carl Eygnor:

Made him feel better, that's all.

Elin Gottschalle:

Great. And so you were left without K rations, though, later when you had to go in the water.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. Well, I just got the soup heated up good, gave him some___, a little of it. Word came down from headquarters, "Eygnor, go with the major." Well, I had to grab a helmet from somewhere - maybe it was the one he had, I don't know --_____. But I grabbed my rifle and went with the major, and the story was he had to guide his troops into our location at night after it got dark, and our outfit was to be retired for rest, and we did. But I went with the major back to his unit back down the hill _____. Well, his unit had been given their K rations. Well, there wasn't any K ration for me because I wasn't a member of his unit. So I went hungry. And we had to wait till it got dark, and then we started out to lead his people into our old position. In order to do that, they had to cross a little stream, and of course he _______+ he didn't want his people to any more than get their feet wet, if he could help it. So I kept testing the stream along to find out where it was deep and where maybe they could walk across without getting in too much water. ____ I got into several holes in the stream where the water was quite deep, up to my waist. And the water was cold, yeah. Well, we go along, I don't know, middle of the night, I guess, sometime, and the major said to me, you ____ over there, and he points off in the dark (laughing). I won't need you anymore.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, he just dismissed you, wet and hungry, huh?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. (Laughing) So I went over there towards where he pointed. There had been a farm stable thing. There must have been something killed ____ little while, because __ smelled. Well, I looked all around for a _____, but I could find any _____. There was nothing there but a barnyard.

Elin Gottschalle:

What were you looking for? Soft - what were you looking for, a place to sleep?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. All I could find was two or three soldiers all wrapped up in blankets, sleeping ______. Well, so I suffered, cold, hungry -

Elin Gottschalle:

Wet.

Carl Eygnor:

Miserable.

Elin Gottschalle:

All night long, huh?

Carl Eygnor:

All the rest of that night.

Elin Gottschalle:

So what happened then?

Carl Eygnor:

But, like everything else, times change. The sun did come out the next day, kind of dried my clothes out some. But the come and gave me a K ration. I got some water and made a cup of coffee. I started to realize I had left my bag with blankets and everything in it when I went to go with the major. So he picked those up. He carried mine and his own, too. He was a pretty strong guy, and he did it. But he came and gave me my possessions.

Elin Gottschalle:

Great. So that ended well. That night ended well, that whole episode.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, that one, yes.

Elin Gottschalle:

Now, tell me about when you got hepatitis. You got away there for Christmas a couple of months there laid up.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah, that would have been before that. Let me see. Where had I been? I don't think it was _____. Well, maybe it was. Anyway, we were pulled back for rest, and I took an axe and tried to find some wood, which I guess I did, but I couldn't swing the axe even, I was so weak. My urine was like molasses. So the sergeant, ________+. I just walked through the door of his tent, and he was ______. He looked up and saw me coming, and they said, "Give him a ticket." Give me a ticket - that wasn't what I wanted. Turns out they put me on one of the trucks, ____ trucks, and sent me back to Florence.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

Then in Florence they put me on an airplane and sent me back to Naples, and that was a disaster.

Elin Gottschalle:

Why?

Carl Eygnor:

Leave it to the Army to mess things up.

Elin Gottschalle:

What happened?

Carl Eygnor:

It seems Mussolini had planned on having a world's fair, and he had these buildings built to house it, but the Army saw a better use for it. They made it a hospital.

Elin Gottschalle:

Okay. Well, that was more useful anyway.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. But the building had - oh, what do you call -

Elin Gottschalle:

Like dormitory?

Carl Eygnor:

They had a balcony.

Elin Gottschalle:

Balconies. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

Up above the main floor. Well, of course the Army, whoever they were - I don't know now - put me in a bed up on the balcony just before Christmas.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, wow.

Carl Eygnor:

And I could look out over the rest of the place and hear the boys with their legs tied up and arms, and all kinds of shapes --

Elin Gottschalle:

Yes, the wounded and the - well, that's a very famous things having the soldiers in the - I thin Hemingway wrote about that. So you had a great two months, did you, or were you suffering?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, no. I had trouble, the latrine was down on the ground floor, and to get there, I had to go down this great, long stairway to get down there. I did once or twice, but I could barely crawl up --

Elin Gottschalle:

So you were quite poorly then, huh?

Carl Eygnor:

- to get back in my bed.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, dear. So you were poorly.

Carl Eygnor:

One of the things I remembered - oh, who's the guy that sang White Christmas?

Elin Gottschalle:

White Christmas? Bing Crosby, yes, Bing Crosby. Did he come there?

Carl Eygnor:

I think it was Bing, I guess.

Elin Gottschalle:

He sang -

Carl Eygnor:

Wasn't there a colored boy that did, too?

Elin Gottschalle:

Sammy Davis Jr.?

Carl Eygnor:

Huh?

Elin Gottschalle:

Sammy Davis, Jr.?

Carl Eygnor:

Maybe. I don't know. Well, anyway, it was a public address system in the building, and he sang over it.

Elin Gottschalle:

So it must have been Christmastime then.

Carl Eygnor:

Quiet there.

Elin Gottschalle:

Well, it certainly beat being in the trenches at that time of the year. So how long were you there?

Carl Eygnor:

And the boys down there -

Elin Gottschalle:

Go on. The boys --

Carl Eygnor:

You could hear them bellow, they were so sad, you know.

Elin Gottschalle:

They were crying? I guess they were crying, huh?

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah.

Elin Gottschalle:

Well, they would be, because they were far from home and -

Carl Eygnor:

You wouldn't believe it, but they could.

Elin Gottschalle:

Well, they were far away from home, and most of them were very young. A, Well, after two or three days a nurse came along to check me, and she said, "What are you doing here?" I said, "I don't know. How would I know?" She said, "You don't belong here." And right away she had me transferred to another building where they had a ward full of the same thing.

Elin Gottschalle:

Oh, hepatitis? Yeah.

Carl Eygnor:

And they fed me. They wouldn't let me have the regular rations, which I had been getting. They gave me hard candy, hard candy, and white bread. That was what I had to live on. And I was supposed to get in my bed and not move out of it, which I did. And for two months I finally got to feeling better. They were taking blood out of my arm every morning.

Elin Gottschalle:

That must have been fun.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. But they were trying to see what progress I was making.

Elin Gottschalle:

What were you doing during the day? Did you play cards with the other men, or did you all talk, or were you all separate?

Carl Eygnor:

We - you I, one of the things that I did, they gave us Bibles, and I read one of them through.

Elin Gottschalle:

Wonderful. That's a heck of a lot better than playing cards, I would say. I would - definitely I recommend that. Wonderful.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, I got better, and I did get to leave and tour Naples, the City of Naples, a little bit one afternoon. I got some oil paintings _____ +. _________ has got a couple of them.

Elin Gottschalle:

Were you sent back to the front, or were you able to - did you have a lengthy recuperation there, or were you sent back to the front?

Carl Eygnor:

Well, I was sent back to the front. I went back to my unit. I was cured of my hepatitis. But to get back to my unit, I had to climb on a freightcar and very slowly made progress. That was pretty bad.

Elin Gottschalle:

And when you got back, were you glad to see your mates again?

Carl Eygnor:

Yes. When I got back to my unit, and they gave me a sleeping bag, mind you, and I had - the ground was cold, miserable. But I had to get out of the bag in order to urinate. That wasn't very good either, because it was cold. But in a few days they pulled my unit back for rest, and they pulled us way back, _____ town I'm talking about, that leads on into to Paris - in to Pisa.

Elin Gottschalle:

Pisa. Okay.

Carl Eygnor:

Well, I don't know, we spent a week or two there. We had pretty good ________. Some people did some singing for us and so on.

Elin Gottschalle:

And did you actually have any - any real front confrontation with the Germans? Do you remember any really fierce battle that you had with the Germans at any time where you were almost hand-to-hand combat, or you didn't have any of that?

Carl Eygnor:

I don't know. One of the reasons - I'll tell you this. One of the reasons I got that Bronze Star -

Elin Gottschalle:

Your Bronze Star, yeah.

Carl Eygnor:

-was for handling German prisoners.

Elin Gottschalle:

Handling German prisoners. That's what I want to hear about. You were in charge of the prisoners.

Carl Eygnor:

Yeah. Well, what would happen is of course the Germans would give up, but the ____ companies - they didn't want anything to do with them. They had other things to do. So they give them to me, and I had to see that they got - the Germans got back down to the railroad station. But, no, not at that time -

Elin Gottschalle:

No, that was later when they were being repatriated and the war was over. This is when they were still just prisoners. So what did you do with the prisoners?

Carl Eygnor:

I had to get them back to regiment, which they had a prison camp lined up for them.

Elin Gottschalle:

Where was that?

Carl Eygnor:

I can't tell you that. That probably changed, because...

Elin Gottschalle:

Well, they might have had several.