[Wallern]
Czech Republic
a place we remember
Five Sherman tanks rolled into Volary, Czechoslovakia, a small Sudetenland village, on May 5, 1945. During the next 72 hours two events occurred that electrified the 25 tankers and their foot-soldier comrades:
one hundred eighteen starving Jewish girls were
discovered in a barracks
the last official (and unnecessary) casualty in the ETO took place nearby
Short reports of these facts exist in unit military history books but they have totally escaped the attention of civilian historians who have been busy abstracting each other’s papers about the "big events". A group of individuals who were involved in the two incidents have pieced together their recollections which are recorded here for posterity:
Participants
| 2nd Lieutenant Harry W Haines Jr | Company "C", 737th Tank Battalion |
| Pfc Gerald J Heffernan | Company "K", 3rd Bn, 2nd Regiment |
| Other Soldiers | Company "X", 2nd Bn, 2nd Regiment |
| Other Soldiers | 5th Medical Battalion |
| Mary Robinson | Jewish Survivor of the Death March |
| Bernard Robinson | Mary's Husband & Death March Historian |
Background
Infantry divisions during World War II were supported by separate (independent) tank battalions. A medium tank company had three platoons, and each infantry regiment had three battalions. Five tanks were assigned to a battalion during normal combat operations. The battalions were often miles apart and sometimes in different villages. Our story is about the 3rd Battalion of the 2nd Regiment, Fifth Infantry (Red Diamond) Division, and the 803rd Tank Destroyer Battalion -- who also supported the Fifth. From here on verbiage is strictly GI. We hope you do not have tender ears.
Credits
A significant portion of the material contained in
this web site was collected by Bernard Robinson, Mary’s devoted husband, a remarkable
Volary historian. Without his assistance our story would be less than comprehensive.