These pictures were taken by Donald Conkling (photograph below) as were the pictures on pages 16, 17, 18 and 19.
This was used as an evacuation hospital on the edge of Alsace, France. It was originally a French army barracks. The Germans used it and made a mess of it, with no latrines. The first time we stayed there was on the way to the front and it was filthy, though we'd been sleeping on the ground until then. Later, when I was wounded, I was sent back by chance to this same building when it was used as a hospital, where they removed shrapnel from my knee. There was a German prisoner next to me and I tried to reassure him that he was going to be treated like a regular G.I. At first I thought he was an American, as his English was so good, but I soon learned he was from Breslow, Germany, which the Russians were just taking. His family was in Breslow, but he wouldn't answer many questions. There were other German soldiers in the room, badly wounded, some with frost bitten feet. I thought I had a "million dollar wound", which would send me home, but I was sent back to the front in two months. My wound was pretty minor compared to other soldiers in there.
These are two half track drivers in our platoon. I don't recall much about them, but Donald Conkling took a number of pictures of other drivers. It looks like the hospital from the previous photograph is in the background. It looks like some sort of scout vehicle behind them.
Frank Simmonds was a private in the second platoon, and was a wild character. He's posing with a "grease gun", which he's probably borrowed from Conkling to pose. He said he was a numbers runner in Philadelphia and passed away a few years ago. He's in a number of pictures. One night he and I went out drinking together, as I had some money and he didn't. I wasn't much of a drinker, it was really my one night of trying for the whole war, and I got very sick and woke up sick on a Sunday morning on a rail road platform and straggled back to camp. He stayed in town and kept at it. I remember we drank warm red wine out of heavy glass tumblers, and we bought a final bottle with our last two bucks and he dropped it on the way out of the bar. Afterwards, in the following year, he always talked over and over about what a wonderful time we had, and how "we'd do it again when we got back to the states". Fat chance I thought, all I remember was how sick I got.
This is Donald Conkling, drying clothes, who was a half track driver and took many of the war time pictures in this album. During the war, he kept a camera and took pictures, and stored the film under the seat of his half track. He wasn't supposed to have a camera, as it wasn't part of official G.I. equipment. He had a back injury and had to be evacuated before he could get his film, and asked a friend named Beck to take care of the film. But after the war, Beck couldn't be contacted, though Conkling wrote him many times. While cleaning out his half track in the spring of 1945, I found a single roll of film and developed it, and there are twelve excellent photographs in this album from that roll. I sent them to Donald and he was glad to see them, but its too bad that all the rest were lost.
This photograph shows Sergeant Dewitt and Pfc. Desmond, who were in Donald Conkling's rifle squad, which was the First Rifle squad in our platoon. The half track is behind with a camouflage net. There's no snow in this picture, but page 16 shows the same scene with snow.
This is Donald Conkling with his "grease gun". He's probably handed the camera to Frank Simmonds, who appears in the same pose in another picture on this page. The back doors of the half track are open.