Editor’s Note: The Chestertown Spy has teamed up with the C.V. Starr Center for the American Experience at Washington College to share the stories of local residents who experienced World War II on the Home Front as an adult or as a child. Students and staff have already interviewed over a hundred folks who experienced World War II abroad or on the Home Front. Fourteen students are continuing to interview local and regional residents this summer about their memories of what life was like for them during World War II. Please contact Program Director Michael Buckley if you have a story or an artifact to share at [email protected] or 410 810 7156.
Mervin Cohey
“There were snipers. You could sit in the house, out in the lookout after dark. You could see them moving around the wire fence—the whole area was wired in, or was supposed to be, but the snipers would cut the fence, patch it up so the guards couldn’t see when they drove around in their Jeep. Then at night after dark, you didn’t dare go outside, you just stood inside and kept your eyes open for movement. If you saw movement, you better investigate it. One fellow, one of the guards got killed. He heard this noise, down at the fence. When he got down there he couldn’t find anybody, he started looking around, first thing you know he was gone. They never did find out who did it. But it could have been a lot worse. And then we had to guard this building. Because Hitler had moved most of his stuff out, out in a big hotel with a big open field in front of it where people would gather to hear his speeches. But in a week, two weeks, something like that, we received orders to clear the house out, empty it out, everything in there loaded on trucks to take back to headquarters. And I was in charge of that shipping, to help to put it on an elevator to run it down the steps to the truck. And first thing you know, the last trunk that was taken down fell apart, and all these pictures of Hitler just strung out all the way down the steps. They were packing up, tying the stuff down on the truck, getting ready to leave, and I hollered to them, I said ‘Here’s a bunch of pictures on the step of Hitler, you wanna come back and pick them up?’ He said, ‘Throw them in the trash, we got enough of them.’ And instead of throwing them all in the trash, I saved five or six of them and sent them home.”
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