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American Troops
Stage V-E Parade
FRANKFURT --- (AP) --- Four thousand American
troops paraded today with two machine guns and a few hundred rifles in this
bomb-scarred city in observance of V-E day, as shabbily-clothed German
civilians watched in stony silence.
The parade in the headquarters city of the U.S. occupation zone
featured only two armored vehicles. Both light patrol cars.
German onlookers exchanged amazed whispers. A few doffed their hats
when the American flag passed.
White-scarved, steel helmeted volunteers of the 508th parachute
infantry regiment were the only tactical unit in the procession.
Several hundred soldiers of the headquarters detachment strode
weaponless at the heels of a military police battalion and in front of a
company of WACs and jeeps loaded with Red Cross girls.
Except for scattered officers and non-coms, virtually no soldier in
the parade had seen combat action against the wehrmacht.
Two bands sporadically provided martial music, but most of the
march took place in silence, broken only by the squish of rubberized army
soles on cobblestones. Even the German children were silent.
The biggest item on the V-E day program to most American soldiers
was the scheduled opening of the army baseball season at a diamond built on
a converted nazi [sic] parade field here.
After the parade had passed six American fighter planes flew over
the I. G. Farben compound in formation, but there was no other aerial
display.
[Pampa Daily News. Pampa, TX, Wednesday, May 8, 1946, Page
1] |
