Free If You Survive by George Wilson

without a loss.
    We quickly pushed straight ahead inland to the high ground a half mile ahead. As soon as that position was denied to enemy observation our engineers began to build a pontoon bridge, a frustrating, if not impossible, job. As soon as they set up a section it was swept away by the powerful current. Soon they were running out of pontoons, and something had to be done.
    It seems an older Frenchman, a retired World War I naval captain, had been watching interestedly, and he now came forward and told me he probably could help if I could lend him about twenty men. His idea involved three ships that happened to be moored on the east bank directly across from the pontoon bridge. The plan was to release the huge ropes on the downstream ship’s stern, letting it swing out across the river as a kind of gate to slow down the river enough to get the pontoons assembled across it. Carefully following the old captain’s able directions in English, my men wound the big ropes around the dock snubbers and a few trees. The swift current eased the ship’s stern out until it was straight across the river, slowing the current just enough.
    The engineers’ sectional spans began to settle in place, and soon the bridge was complete the first tank rumbled across. I was sure those engineers would not soon forget that French naval captain and his ingeniously simple strategy.
    Now that the bridge was in place and the east bank secured, we were no longer needed there. So we walked back on the bridge to the west bank. We did not know it at the moment, but our next stop would be Paris.

VII
PARIS
    P aris, the City of Light, the flower of Europe, was about to fall again. This time some of the troops headed for the city were, indeed, Frenchmen, being part of the French Second Armored Division. Our Fourth Infantry Division was held back, for political reasons, to let the native division go in ahead.
    We were, nonetheless, the first American troops to enter Paris on August 25, 1944, an incredible, indelible day! It was exactly one month after my first day in combat.
    Within the city itself, all was confusion and wild celebration. The population had gone insane with jubilation.
    We stayed in our vehicles and slowly moved through the crowded streets on our way toward the Eiffel Tower. Small cars with FFI—French Forces of the Interior—painted in bold white letters on their sides sped around corners. Young, wild-looking French men and women hung from every window of the cars. They waved hysterically and brandished weapons as they passed. We were afraid wemight become their targets. I guess they were all right, but somehow we did not trust them very much.
    It was little chilling to watch some of our Sherman tanks, now in the hands of this French Second Armored Division, wander all over the road. The drivers were either too drunk or too excited to keep in line. What a nightmare for a traffic cop, a drunken driver in a Sherman tank! We really didn’t blame them, after their four years in exile or underground.
    Then we were on the Champs Élysées, and it was packed with insanely joyous Parisians. Men, women, and children hung precariously from every window and jammed every doorway. The streets were almost a solid wall of humanity, and our trucks could barely crawl through them.
    These people shouted and cheered at the top of their voices in sheer ecstasy. In a desperate attempt to thank us for freeing their lovely city, they tossed us flowers, candy, cookies, bottles of wine, and other things they really could not spare.
    They just could not find enough good things to shower upon us. The young French girls threw kisses, and many were able to climb aboard our trucks and give the GIs the real thing. Our boys hated to let them go. I shook so many outstretched hands that my arm ached.
    One French blonde clambered into the cab of one of our trucks and settled onto the lap of a sergeant and kissed him. The sergeant must have figured that was unmilitary