harry haines

On May 5 we knew the war would be over in a few days. My platoon moved to a position North of Volary on a road leading to Prachatice. We waited and got the word on May 7 that it was all over.

I spoke to our medics sergeant, A.T. Green, and said "Green, let’s get your jeep and find some Schnaps for the platoon". We drove through the Germans in a wooded area for several miles, stopped at a few farm houses, but found nothing to drink. I said "oh Hell, Green, drive back to the platoon".

On the way back we saw a Lieutenant standing on top of an Armored Car, waving a tree branch with a white cloth on it. I told Green to pull over to the vehicle. He did and I asked the Platoon Leader "what the Hell is going on here?" The officer replied "the Krauts don’t know the war is over. They just killed one of my boys." I looked at Green and muttered "holy shit, the Krauts would have blown our fucking asses off, if we hadn’t been driving your medics jeep!"

That’s the way the war was sometimes. The guy in the wrong place at a bad time didn’t make it. But I never saw Havlat himself. I just heard about it from his leader, which was close enough for me.

You bet. We got the Hell out of there in a hurry and left the problem with that poor Lieutenant. It’s a good thing we failed to locate any Schnaps. Too much of that stuff gives you a terrible hangover.

A Half Century Later

Bernard Robinson gave me Don Warren’s telephone number in 1996 after our first telephone conversation. I talked to Don but he didn’t recall a medics jeep driving over to the armored car. He had a bigger problem at that time. I’m sure he will never forget the tragedy.

Gerald Heffernan and I think the worst, that the war was so near to being over there was no need for anyone to order a reconnaissance mission. The incident occurred 10 minutes before the cease fire order went into effect. But many German soldiers got the word later, due to poor communications on their side. An enemy half track almost killed one of our officers at Winterberg.