Every member of the 474th was ordered to visit the camp so that he could see with his own eyes the inhumanity and appalling living conditions people had to suffer. The dead far outnumbered the living. Thousands of bodies were discovered in the partially destroyed barracks, lying in the fields or stacked at the crematory, waiting to be burned. Bodies were found lying where their owners had died or were crammed into rooms set aside for the dead and so full that the bony remains tumbled out when the doors were opened. It was not a pretty sight. Most of the dead had died of starvation. The living were practically dead, too weak to move. Even the ones with strong stomachs could not finish the tour of the camp without getting sick. As each GI passed through these rooms and surveyed the scene of so much suffering and tragedy, the stench of rotting bodies and the smell of burning flesh seemed to rise to his nostrils, and as he came out into the clean fresh air, he raised his eyes toward the heavens to clear away this haunting vision of evil. Troops seeing this hell-hole needed no urging to get back into the fight against a race that could care so little for human life. In retribution for their parts in this awful crime, whether their parts consisted of active support of those who directed such horrors or merely of passive acceptance of the regime, all the women citizens of Nordhausen were made to dig graves on a hillside overlooking the city. All the male citizens were made to carry the dead by hand and bury all the bodies in this cemetery, which will always bear evidence to the brutal sadism of the Nazis.44
“Our gun crew was stationed at the airport, which was at the edge of town,” Jack says. “Even there, you had the terrible smell from the dead bodies in this concentration camp. When we found out what caused the smell, we were horrified! We were told to keep with our position, and that we were not allowed in the camp. Rumor was that some soldiers, upon witnessing the camp, started shooting some of the German townspeople, and that’s why they didn’t allow any more to go in. Now I find out after all of these years that we were supposed to observe the horrible results. I would have gone to see it had I been allowed.”
A Battery was still stationed at the Nordhausen airport when word reached the troops that President Franklin Roosevelt had died. But the war wasn’t over yet, and the 474th would suffer still more losses in the war’s final days. April 15 brought with it some casualties, and April 16 saw three fatalies—Capt. Gordon Potter, Sgt. Albert G. Algeier and PFC William J. Ouseley. Ouseley, along with A Battery’s Mort Daroff, painted the pictures and names on the half-tracks. These three men were on a scouting mission when ambushed by a German machine-gun crew.
“The Germans weren’t too resistant from here to the end of the war,” Jack comments. “They didn’t have many planes left. And if they did, they didn’t have fuel for the planes and probably not too many pilots to fly the planes All the units became involved then in keeping the natives and displaced persons in line.” By April 23, all resistance in the VII Corps sector had ended. A Battery went to Hoym, then to Bruanrode. Many prisoners were picked up in this period right before the cease fire called on May 8.
“When the Germans surrendered, we were occupied with getting the workers from a lot of farming camps back to their native lands,” Jack explains. “One woman refugee asked me to hold her baby while she loaded her belongings onto a boxcar. Her husband was standing nearby but wouldn’t lend a hand to help. My officer wondered why I was holding a baby, so I explained the circumstances. He made the husband take the baby, and we made certain the family got on the train, all three of them.”
This video details the liberation of the Nordhausen concentration camp:
This video details the liberation of the Nordhausen concentration camp:
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