[The following takes place in 1941, and is told from the perspective of Otto Giese, a U-boat seaman who is at this time ashore and drafted to help in firefighting duties during the Allied bombing of Wilhelmshaven, Germany.]
During this time the British began intensive air raids over Germany, especially over Wilhelmshaven. Attached to the fire-fighter command ashore, I had to drive through the town at night to help extinguish catastrophic fires. Thus I experienced the inferno of destruction firsthand.
One night I had crawled up to the loft of a high apartment house engulfed in flames, nourished by a strong wind. I didn’t feel the pain of my bruised and slashed body – all I wanted was to help people who might still be in the house. However, with a gas mask on I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. I was alone. Suddenly I heard above me a noise louder than the crackling and breaking of burning wood. It was a bomb dropping. I thought that my final hour had come. I had the momentary feeling that a huge, ice-cold hand was closing around my neck and I was struck with a gripping fear.
Within seconds there came a tremendous explosion that threw me to the charred floor. The filter of the gas mask jammed and ground into my teeth. The floor was shaking and giving way while a sea of sparks showered down on me. Beams, bricks, and cement began to fall on me and then I was falling through the floor to the level below. Choking and spitting into my mask, I crawled on all fours through dark rooms and passages filled with dense smoke and flaming curtains. I finally made it to a staircase and dropped down the collapsing structure out onto the street, numbed by the explosion and spreading fires.
Three houses down from us a heavy-caliber bomb had scored a direct hit, leaving a huge crater where the homes had been. The street was ripped open and uprooted trees lay scattered about. We did what we could to help, carrying the dead out from the rubble and comforting the hysterical Hausfrauen (housewives) of the neighborhood. Then we moved through other streets, where fires reignited and wind carried the swirling flames to other houses. The whole town seemed to be ablaze. High above we could hear the droning of bomber motors, the continuous popping of light antiaircraft guns, and the deep barking of heavier artillery.
The train station had received two direct hits by heavy bombs. A long train filled with soldiers ready to go on leave had fallen victim. There were many dead and dying men in the wreckage, the first casualties I had seen in the war. The stench of blood and burnt flesh was overwhelming. I will never forget the screams and whimpering of the wounded and dying, the nerve-wracking sirens of ambulance cars, the piercing noise of ships’ sirens coming from the direction of basins in the port area.
This was war with a difference. I had heard many a bemedaled soldier mention that war was easier to bear at the front than at home. Standing there in all that chaos and devastation, that truth reached into my soul.
Source:
Giese, Otto, and James E. Wise. “An Unexpected Beginning.” Shooting the War: The Memoir and Photographs of a U-Boat Officer in World War II. Naval Institute, 2003. 116-17. Print.
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