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admin sinfulldude · Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 12:12 am Post subject: The Ghost Patrol, France

Ghost Patrol
Douglas Prindle knew that things weren't always what they seemed. He remembered an evening when he and his kid sister, Loris were riding in his red Radio Flyer wagon near his Grandma's house. Grandma lived near the huge, fenced-in Union Cemetery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and as children a cemetery was a fascinating place. That evening Doug and Loris saw something "rise" from one of the graves in the cemetery. Doug wanted to turn around but he could not let Loris know he was frightened, so he forced himself to continue toward the vast rows of tombstones. As he neared them relief washed over him. The terrible spirits rising from the graves was only steam rising from a temporary pipe while the road near the cemetery was being repaired.

That night in Milwaukee taught Doug a lesson about jumping to conclusions and another lesson in ghosts--there weren't any. He became the most skeptical person around. Every ghost story had a simple explanation, but that was before Doug went to war and that was before Doug Prindle learned first hand that dead men can still walk.

When Doug was 22 years-old he was sent to Europe during W.W.II. He arrived as part of the Seventh Army and then was transferred to the third Army. He heard a few incredible stories along the way but Doug's logical mind stubbornly refused to accept any of that nonsense. Logic and reason were necessary features in his life and he literally depended upon them to keep himself alive, but it was getting harder and harder for Doug to find reasonable explanations for unusual events.

Once Doug was assigned to guard an outpost along the Rhine River alone. It was a dark night and even with his .50-caliber machine gun mounted on his jeep, his "liberated" side arm and his Army issued carbine he felt a bit insecure. Doug kept wondering why he had been assigned the outpost alone; it was standard procedure to assign two men to each outpost. Two men could keep watch better than one, except that night.

As the darkness pressed against Doug fear twisted his belly. He imagined he heard German voices in the whispering of the river and he thought German soldiers were nearby. When he was relieved, Doug felt both relief and shame. He had been falling apart out there. Never again, he vowed, would he allow imagination to rule his mind. Throughout the many weeks that followed Doug would see good men go a little crazy with the crawling fear of darkness and death. A fellow solider, Hank imagined that Germans were digging in the distance and tried to open fire. Had Doug not stopped him Hank would have shot a tree--and allowed the Germans to know their exact position.

A few months later Doug was transferred again to Troop A, 94th Reconnaissance Squadron (Mechanized) of the Fourteenth Armored Division. He was a private first class under the command of Seventh Army General Alexander Patch. (A unit that would later be commanded by General George S. Patton Jr. of the Third Army.)

Doug would later write:" We had been trained in the States to find the enemy whenever contact was broken. One of the many rules of warfare is always know the location of your adversary. Our job, however, was not to engage the enemy unless it was necessary to escape with any information that was required by the top brass. Our informal rule was to "sneak and peek." "As all military personnel know, though, the rules often fly out the window when the shooting starts. Thus Troop A on more than one occasion was committed ("volunteered by the colonel," we used to say) as infantry. And that's when we suffered the most casualties.

"It was a dark, cold, wintry night in France that two of our jeeps (we called them "peeps," because that was the term used only in armored divisions for those vehicles -- but I never learned why) and their crews were ordered by our captain to tour a certain area to "neutralize" German paratroopers. Word had come down from division that enemy soldiers had been dropped near our positions. We took "neutralize" to mean kill, person -- although that had not been spelled out.

"Our route took us through small farming communities. Without a doubt, the two of us in the first peep, and the trio in the vehicle behind, were glad that nothing was stirring. As on every other night in France, wooden shutters on the houses were closed, to discourage prying eyes and every other unwanted attenion, including artillery barrages. The only noise came from our engines and the crunching of snow under the wheels. Talk was kept at a minimum.

"As we approached the center of one village, I saw what appeared to be a figure with a flowing came running -- almost floating -- silently to our right. Not a sound came from footsteps or cape, or whatever it was -- perhaps a parachute? I watched as the figure darted into a tiny church cemetery.

"Was it the memories of the fellow "digging" and the enemy "talking" in the woods on the Rhine that prevented me from shouting out what I had seen? Indeed, had I really seen someone or something "floating" silently into a graveyard? I decided to say nothing to the driver, Sgt. Paul R. Shotola, who was continuing on, as was the peep behind us.

"But after no more than 50 feet of travel, I blurted to Shotola, "Did you see that guy running down the street just now?" Screech went the brakes, with Shotola demanding, "Did you see him too?" The guys in the peep behind us wanted to know what was up. They had seen nothing unusual.

"Both peeps were backed up beside the cemetery, which was the front yard of a small, ancient church. Shotola and I entered the church yard, which was surrounded by a wrought iron fence. The three other men remained with their peep on the road, expecting action."

"Check behind every gravestone," I whispered to Shotola, "but be damn careful." Our carbines were at the ready, It took only seconds to cover the graveyard, as it was so small. We figured that no one had entered the church, because the door was locked securely. The fence was too high and covered with winter-dormant growth for an intruder to mount it quietly and not be seen by our guys in the other peep. Also only Shotola's and my footprints disturbed the snow in the churchyard.

"So where had our quarry gone? No one said it, but I'm sure all five of us troopers had no doubt as to what the object was -- a real, live ghost, and not a German soldier dragging his parachute.