Children of the Reich

(Source)

"I hate this shit L.T." Sgt. Enrique Cruz muttered to his platoon leader, 1st Lt. Stephen Hernandez, as he prepared to lead his squad into the little village of Kalefeld. The place looked deserted, no white bed sheets hanging from windows indicating the Krauts were quitting, in fact most of the windows were closed. Which could mean anything.

They had captured villages with the white bedding draped everywhere with no resistance.  Though C Company hadn't experienced it yet, there were stories making the rounds of villages and towns giving every indication of surrender, only to harbor some nest of fanatics determined to die for Hitler and the Nazis.

This place looked like a ghost town, no sign of life anywhere. Hernandez looked over towards Cpl. John Andrews' light machine gun (LMG) squad, raising his hand as he did so. Andrews waved back, indicating that they were ready to cover Cruz' squad as they advanced.

Cruz got up on one knee, looked to his left at his assistant squad leader, Cpl. John Chapman, and pointed towards the town, which prompted the rest of 2nd Squad to begin advancing slowly, hunched over, leaning forward as if into a stiff wind. None of the men knew what to expect.

Hermann Bosch was thirteen years old, Wolf Bergmann was twelve, little Hans Dortmund was barely eleven. The three Hitler Youth had been left behind with a single MG 26(t) machine gun and five 30-round magazines with which to defend the village. Bosch did have a pistol, a Sauer 38H with a single magazine, but as the SS-Hauptsturmführer¹ who had given it to him said, "If you need this, you've already lost the battle." Bosch wondered if the SS man expected Bosch to kill himself rather than surrender.

"Hermann, I have to pee." Dortmund had just turned eleven and he still behaved like a little boy.

Bosch sighed then said, "Quickly, and try not to drink so much water next time. What if the Americans come while you're peeing?"

Dortmund scurried out of the second floor room and ran downstairs to relieve himself in the backyard off of the kitchen. As he did so, Bosch leaned forward to peer out of the broken window slat which gave him a view of the entrance to the small village from the west.

What he saw raised the hair on the back of his neck, Americans!

Cruz signaled Chapman to check out the building to the left, as Chapman took his section in that direction a window shutter on the building directly to Cruz' front swung open. At first Cruz thought that perhaps the wind had blown it open, then he realized, the air was calm today.

Dortmund came back upstairs, stomping his feet on the stairs as he did so. It amused him to hear his footsteps echo through the empty house. Bosch turned to warn the boy to be quiet, but Bergmann ruined everything by pushing the window shutter open. Before Bosch could react, Bergmann was firing the gun.

Sgt. Cruz felt like he'd been hit in the chest with a baseball bat. He fell backwards and found himself staring at the sky. He tried to move but his body wasn't responding. What was happening to him?

Pvt. Darrell Little, the gunner in Andrews' LMG squad, shifted his aim as soon as the shutter banged open. He was late pulling the trigger and watched aghast as Sgt. Cruz went down. He fired and saw that his rounds were impacting under the window, so he adjusted his aim up and into the open window where he had a glimpse of what appeared to be a young boy.

Dortmund screamed as he watched Bosch crumple to the floor, most of his face gone and his chest torn open from taking a full burst of machine gun fire.

Bergmann tried to swing the gun towards where the American fire had come from, but the weapon was heavy enough that he struggled with it for a second. His head snapped to the left and he joined Bosch on the floor in another spreading pool of blood.

Pvt. Leon Higgins was with Cpl Chapman and had seen the Germans in the upstairs window too late to prevent them from firing. He snapped off three quick rounds from his rifle as he saw a head pop up in the opening. He heard a scream, the second scream he'd heard now that he thought about it, then the gun stopped firing.

He, Chapman, and Pvt. Ronnie Williamson dashed to the door into the building from where the fire had originated. Chapman covered the entrance as Williamson kicked the door open. Higgins primed a grenade and threw it into the room, after the explosion, the three men entered cautiously. There was no one downstairs.

Chapman paused, his eyes locked onto a nearby staircase, "Do you guys hear that?"

"Yeah," Williamson answered first, "sounds like a kid crying."

Chapman looked at Higgins, then at the stairs, Higgins nodded and covered the stairs as Chapman advanced cautiously up the steps.

There was a landing halfway up the stairs, Chapman paused there and waved Higgins up. Once the two men were on the landing, Chapman moved up again.

At the top of the stairs and to the left, Chapman saw a small figure sitting on the floor. It was a Hitler Youth kid, uniform and everything, sitting on the floor and sobbing. Chapman kept him covered with his rifle as he examined the rest of the room past the kid, two dead bodies, also Hitler Youth. What a mess.

Doc Milbury was working frantically on Sgt. Cruz. As he did so, Pvt. Marc Grant was holding Cruz' hand telling him, over and over, "Hang in there, Sarge, it ain't that bad." But Milbury knew better, he was surprised that Cruz was still alive. Two bullets had hit him in the chest, both, as near as he could tell, were still in there.

1st Lt. Hernandez sent Katz' 1st Squad up past the building where the German machine gun had been. Gammell's 3rd Squad was checking an alleyway to the right. He was waiting next to Milbury. He and Cruz locked eyes for a moment as Milbury worked on the badly wounded sergeant. Cruz tried to say something, then his eyes went blank.

"Shit!" Milbury slammed down the bloody dressing he had in his hand.

Hernandez heard someone crying as he knelt next to Cruz' body. He'd had his radioman report that they had "One KIA, one POW." Cpt. Palminteri was sending up a jeep to collect the prisoner and the casualty. Now he looked up to see a young boy in a Hitler Youth uniform, his face streaked with tears, hands on his head, being led out of the building at gunpoint.

The kid stumbled when he saw the other Americans and he was then roughly prodded in the back. "Keep moving you little Nazi f**k!" Higgins said as he poked the kid with the muzzle of his rifle again.

"Take it easy Higgins, he's just a kid." Chapman said, which caused Higgins to stop and turn.

"Yea, a Nazi f**king kid who killed our sergeant."

"At ease, Private." Hernandez walked over and looked at the kid. Looking around, he saw Sgt. Melvin Katz was nearby, "Cat, come over here."

Sgt. Katz came up, looked at Hernandez who nodded at the kid.

After a long exchange in German, Katz told the lieutenant how the SS had left these three boys to defend Kalefeld. As that conversation was going on, Cpt. Palminteri arrived in his jeep.

Cpt. Palminteri dismounted from the jeep and joined Hernandez. He saw who the dead man was and it shook him, he couldn't afford to lose experienced sergeants. "Damn. Cruz was a good man. Is this the prisoner? He's just a kid." Palminteri said as he gestured at the boy.

"Yes Sir, but he and two of his buddies killed Sgt. Cruz." Hernandez responded.

"There are more? I thought your radioman said one POW."

"The other two are upstairs, dead." Hernandez pointed towards where the machine gun had been.

"Damn it, yesterday old men, today young boys. What are the Krauts going to defend the next village with? Old ladies and girls?" Palminteri spat in the dirt then turned to his driver and said, "Load 'em up." Then to Hernandez, "Push on through this burg, I'll take the prisoner and Sgt. Cruz to the rear. Tough break, Stephen."

Hernandez simply nodded as he turned to get the platoon on the move again. Just another shitty day in a horrible war.

¹ SS Captain.

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