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"At noon a German officer came into the room
all excited and told me to get ready. Apparently the
Germans had pulled out without fighting. My leg hurt
like hell, so I went down and loaded myself with brandy.
They told me that Americans were at the airport two
miles down the road.
"We drove very slowly
I kept waving the white sheet from a window. Then we
came around a curve and I saw an American tank just
ahead. We stopped. I yelled, 'Hey, Mac, are you from
Brooklyn?' Some G.I. stuck his head out of the turret
and waves us up. He asked if I had any souvenirs and
I remembered all the Lugers and tommy guns and grenades
the admiral collected from the patients. He locked them
in an empty room and gave me the key.
"An American colonel told me to go back
to the hospital and take command until medical personnel
arrived. The hospital had plenty of food, water, and
medical supplies, and the colonel said the Germans could
continue to run the place as they saw fit."
When this correspondent reached the hospital this
afternoon, a small crowd of American troops and Partisans
was outside. A small group of convalescent Dutch marines
had shed German uniforms and sat in underwear on the
pavilion steps apart from German soldiers sunning themselves
on a verandah.
Lieutenant Colonel William McCarthy,
a surgeon from Philadelphia, inspected the hospital
and found only one American -- the sergeant -- within.
He introduced himself to Admiral Eyerich, who gave the
hospital census as 246 wounded, forty-six medical patients
and thirty-six venereal disease cases. The majority
were Germans, with some Dutch, Poles, and Czechs.(Continued)
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