Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
5:54 | Their morale was good when the men of C Company went to clear out a wooded area believed to be defended by old men and boys. No one knew that an entire Panzar Division had crossed the Rhine and was right there. Charles Fitts was pinned down for hours and then the Germans came out to loot the bodies.
Keywords : Charles Fitts Gambsheim France Herrlisheim German pontoon bridge Rhine Panzar sniper snow interrogation Prisoner Of War (POW) Princeton University
Charles Fitts always wanted a military life. He was afraid he would miss the war but in 1943 he graduated high school and was drafted. When his basic training was almost finished, he was informed he would be going to college in the Army Specialized Training Program. After five months at Texas A&M, the Army decided all those college boys were needed in the infantry.
It was cactus and rattlesnakes in Texas where Charles Fitts was training with the 12th Armored Division. He scored a pass to New York City as the unit was awaiting the Atlantic crossing and he was late getting back. As a consequence, he had KP for the whole voyage. "Finest job I ever had in my life!"
Charles Fitts saw Stonehenge and heard Buzz Bombs over London while waiting his turn to join the war across the Channel. Once his Armored Infantry unit went ashore at Le Havre and moved toward the front, it was bitterly cold. In a holding position on Christmas day, they were close enough to the Germans to watch them walking around. Then two excellent things happened.
After his interrogation, the first indignity as a POW for Charles Fitts was to walk sixty miles to Stuttgart. Then he was locked in a cattle car with no food for three days and taken to Fallingbosol where thirty thousand prisoners were being held. Desperate for a break from the miserable conditions, he volunteered for a work detail.
The POW's were told there was no work detail because the factory was bombed by Allied planes. The next day, the prisoners were told they were free and Charles Fitts and the others set off towards the West. They were quickly found by a British unit and evacuated. In London, he recovered and celebrated VE Day with throngs of war weary English in Piccadilly Square.
After recovering in London from his POW experience, Charles Fitts celebrated VE Day with throngs of war weary British in Piccadilly Square. He shipped back to the United States and was on his way to his assigned Army base when his parents tracked him down and met him on the way at a train station. Only a short assignment as an MP stood between him and home.
Charles Fitts reads from his Episcopalian prayer book, which he was allowed to keep as a prisoner of war in Germany. He also preserved the Stars and Stripes edition from VE Day, a very happy day for him.
