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Letter to Andy Waskie, Jr. son of Lt. Andy Waskie.
Andy, As you know, I was with your Dad in Pilsen. He was the person who made arrangements for me to drive my 2 1/2-ton GMC truck loaded with empty 5-gallon water cans up to the Pilsener brewery to get them filled with Pilsener beer for our unit. My notes are not easily available at the moment but I recall we had arrived in Pilsen early in June (June 1 through June 4) of 1945, directly from the Harz Mountain area of Northern Germany. This was a 300-mile move that took two leisurely days.
I was a T-5 (Technician 5th Grade) with Headquarters of the 130th Ordnance Maintenance Battalion. I was the Battalion Supply Clerk and your Dad was the Medic for our Battalion. At the time he was a First Lieutenant. Our Headquarters and our Headquarters Company were billeted in a school house. I recall this was in a suburb of Pilsen but that it was only a 15-minute or so walk from City Center. The name of the suburb may have been Doubrovka. Some of the street cars were running at the time and American soldiers could ride free of charge.
Company C of the 130th Ordnance Maintenance Battalion also may have been billeted in this same school house. Most of us had few duties, so we spent a lot of time playing volleyball, table tennis, getting to know the neighborhood children, and trying to become acquainted with the Czech girls.
We still had our weapons with us on guard duty. My guard post was at an open field where we stored damaged vehicles. Mostly we were trying to keep pesky young boys from getting hurt as they explored the "junk yard" despite our orders for them to leave. Knowing we wouldn't fire our weapons at them, they taunted us as we tried to do our job.
Another group of young boys and girls hung out with us watching the volley ball games. I spent some time with one of these kids trying to learn the Czech language. His name was Mira. We used an English-Czech dictionary that I bought at a book store in Pilsen. I still have it. One of the first phrases I learned was "What time is it?" My memory surely is faulty, but I recall it as "Kolik _y_ hodini."
Our official Division history records that close order drill and other training was the order of the day, but that wasn't true for the group I served with. As I recall, we had no required roll calls or required physical activity. I remember one required assembly where we were loaded into 2 1/2-ton trucks and driven to a natural hillside amphitheater where a USO troupe presented a musical program by a lady opera singer, whose name I did not recognize and do not remember. I recall there were three or four people in the troupe. They performed on a portable stage. I may be confused on this, but I believe this was the same site where we assembled for Mass celebrated by our Catholic chaplain one Sunday. We sat on the ground or on our helmets.
We must have had an official bulletin board someplace, but I don't recall ever seeing it. It was only through a rumor that I heard one day that there was to be a parade in Pilsen. No one else seemed to be interested in attending, so I started walking alone toward City Center. On the way I noted that Lt. Waskie was also headed to town. (Andy, that was when I took the pictures of him that that I sent to you.) It turns out that he had been assigned to help direct parade traffic so I found a good place to be when the parade came by. This was the Victory Parade of August 18, 1945 that featured the 8th Armored Division, some Czech military units, and a lot of happy civilian organizations -- all dressed in their national costumes.
Many years after the war, I learned that our unit had taken part in a review by General George S Patton, Jr on August 14. I also learned that there had been shows by Bob Hope, Jack Benny, and Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe Review in Pilsen while I was there -- but I didn't know about them. There also were dances arranged for by the Special Services Office that I didn't know about, as well as tours of Germany and official tournaments for baseball, softball, archery, and golf. I didn't know about them, either.
We did know about the beer garden called Club Tobasco that served Pilsener draught beer, but the rumor was that it was a private enlisted man's club operated by and for the 18th Tank Battalion so we did not go there.
My friend, Bob Wright, had drawn the assignment as driver for one of our Battalion officers, so he often had to wait in the car until late at night while his passenger partied. I had similar assignments now and then but not on a regular basis. We usually drove Jeeps, but Bob's officer finally acquired a civilian luxury car. Bob and I borrowed it one night when we knew it wasn't going to be used. We headed to Prague for the weekend, but never got there because two of the lug bolts on a front wheel broke off. We returned to Pilsen slowly and were lucky enough to get the car repaired immediately so the Colonel never found out about it.
My time in Pilsen was quite worry-free, though we worried about the possibility of being sent to the war in Japan. Our Battalion Commanding Officer, Colonel Drewery, had left us shortly after May 8 when we were in Osterode, Germany. Many years later I visited him in Madison, Alabama where he lived in retirement following his final post as head of the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. It was only then that I learned he had left us to help plan our deployment to Japan.
We all were relieved that the war ended before that happened. My time in Pilsen came to an end in September when the 8th Armored Division became a collecting point for soldiers being sent home. I wasn't eligible so was transferred to the Ordnance Battalion of the 26th Infantry Division in nearby Zwarzbach ( later to the 83rd Infantry Division in Austria) and finally to Salzburg, Austria with the United States Armed Forces in Austria where I helped process the papers for soldiers being sent back home.
Vern Miller
Pilsner Beer
It was late June of 1945 when our 8th Armored Division moved from the Harz Mountain Area of northern Germany to Czechoslovakia. As a member of Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 130th Ordnance Maintenance Battalion, I was billeted in a school house located in Doubravka, a suburb of Pilsen. (Pilzen in the Czech language, as I recall.) The Russian Army had not totally vacated the area and we often joked that they shot at us more often than the Germans had.
The brewery famous for Pilsner Beer was just a mile or so away, but not in operation. Lt. Andy Waskie, our medic, discovered that the brewery lacked either sugar, or hops, and quickly rustled up the needed ingredients so they could get back in operation. In return, the brew master notified Lt. Waskie when the first batch of beer was ready. I had not yet turned in my 2 1/2-ton truck with its load of empty 5-gallon water cans, so Andy sent me up to the brewery to get a load of beer for the battalion. I don't remember who went with me but it probably was my former co-driver, Bob Wright, who by then had been re-assigned as the Colonel's Jeep driver.
One of our Battalions, I think it was the 80th Recon outfit, set up a formal beer garden and supplied it with the famous Pilsner beer. There is a picture of this in our official 8th Armored Division history by Col. Leach.
Many years later I recounted this story at Schell's Brewery in New Ulm, Minnesota, near my home county, and learned that the brew master from the Pilsner brewery had visited the Schell brewery. He verified the story, sampled Schell's Pilsner beer, and declared that it was at least as good as his original Pilsner.
Back to that picture: It was taken by a Signal Corps photographer from Leeds, Alabama -- just 20 miles or so from Birmingham. I forget his name, but he was a Jeep driver who had been assigned to escort the photographer. Turns out the photographer couldn't tolerate being shot at, so the Jeep driver ended up taking the pictures. The Army eventually found out what was going on and promoted the Jeep driver to photographer. We had him as our speaker at the George S Patton, Jr. Chapter of the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge. By that time, he had published a cheaply-produced book of pictures he had taken. That's when I found out he had taken the photo used in our official history book.
To answer an obvious question: Yes, I still buy Pilsner beer, even though my taste buds prefer New Castle Brown Ale, which now is brewed in Netherlands, not England.
From:
Vernon Miller, 1409 John Wesley Dr, Birmingham, AL 35210
Phone 205-951-0265
Vernsdarkroom@aol.com
HQ 130th Ordnance Battalion
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