My Uncle, who was a forward scout for Patton, told me how they could have easily been in Berlin two weeks before the Russians. His unit was meeting no resistance as they went forward and finally had to stop because they were out of fuel. They bedded down in a German village and lived among them. There were no men or teen boys as they all had been sent forward to try to hold off the Russians until the allies arrived. My uncle's unit help the villagers harvest wheat and they traded with them, their rations for eggs and such. His unit was written off as MIA as they were cut of from communication and it took the U.S. army two weeks to catch up with them. He told me Patton was told to stop but his troops had orders to move forward. They stopped Patton by shutting off his fuel.
My uncle hated Russians and commies until the day he died, much more than he hated the Germans. He actually had respect for the Germans and the Wehrmacht. He hated the Nazis.
Another thing, it was the first time my uncle had used a sickle. He said it took a bit but he got used to it.
When Daddy was 89 he was in a nursing home and beginning to show signs of Alzheimers, actually pretty bad at times.
I brought a bunch of his photos from WWII hoping to jog his memory. Among the photos were some of the first Russian tank to enter Berlin.
It was a JSII and was on a roughly 10 foot high platform. He had photos of it being constructed. Some also of it completed.
When Daddy saw it, he chuckled and said it was believed his battalion blew it up in the middle of the night. I have confirmed that it was blown up but never knew for sure who did it.
History always ties the Germany army to it being a Nazi army when in fact the majority of them weren’t but it always was called the Nazi army when it’s mentioned. It’s always the Nazi army did this and that.