FJ Veteran answers questions

[Jean-Loup]

Instead of asking general FJ questions that forum members can probably answere, I think we should ask him specific questions about his carrer. I have a question:


What exactly was this unit he was with in Lyon? What interestiing things can he tell us about this? Did he participate in the large scale fighting against the French resistance in the Vercors, in the mountains, when they attempted to create a large zone free from the Germans, around july 1944. I think several gliders of FJ landed near a village called Vassieu, while there.
This thing of calling other soldiers by numbers is very interesting. What exactly were the reasons.
JL

[Jean-Loup]

Sorry, I see that parts of my questions were answered in the meantime, or maybe I didnt pay attention properly when reading the tread.

[Maus]

Hi I would be interested to know if he saw FG42s in action ,or if at the time ,he had heard about that rifle .Have there been some in his unit.If so what model?Have they been happy with it? Thanks a lot for reply.Raoul

[berliner]

Hi, his comments:

'Thank your to all for your questions and comments. It really makes me happy.

About the nature of war, I think I can say I was too young to understand war. In retrospect, I see that I went through stages, 5 or 6 stages, and this stage of my life is my last one.
I didn't see war as dangerous for me personally. Even the jump against the partisans...I didn't feel scared.
Even when I woke up from the serious injuries while captured, I never had a feeling I could die. This is my personal feeling and I can't talk about the other persons' feelings.

About the close combat training: we were trained for this in Anguleme and Lyon. Also man to man training with no arms. About the Kapmesser, we were advised it was only for cutting the Fangleine (parachute lines).

I had a small 635 pistol which I had bought when I stayed near Danzig from a friend even before I was in the RAD. I always wore it secretly until during the Spezialkommando, they found out I had it. An officer allowed me to keep it after I explained to him that it had saved my life in two situations in towns where I had not worn the Koppel (combat belt).

About using numbers, of course i wondered. But we were told to do that. No one wanted to take the number 13...and I took it and it's made me superstitious since! Officers were called by rank. We didn't even know the commander's name: just Herr Hauptmann.

Sorry, I see that parts of my questions were answered in the meantime, or maybe I didnt pay attention properly when reading the tread.

[CRAIGGOODWIN]

Hello Herr Groenke

A bit off topic but more of a personel question.

How did you end up in Australia & for how long have you been here.

If a long time I assume that you like it but you must still miss your homeland.

For me it is always a but exciting to hear of a German vet living here as we are so far away. Do you have contacts with other vets in Australia _ I assume there are not that many.

Apologies to other forum members for a non specific FJ question.

Regards
Craig

[berliner]

"Hallo, I have seen it, but I never used it. I used the MG 42 for the first time in Anzio Netune.
Also, one of the young Americans had been shot and I remember he was lying on one and crying and crying out when we advanced. I don't know or can't remember how he got there.

I always had the 08 and in France the Maschinenpistole. In Normandy the MG 42 was not useful for me because I had to be mobile to move between the companies as the Personal Melder for Major Karl Heinz Becker.

For me, these two weapons were the most practical.

(I can't remember now whether we talked about specific weapons then, whether they were good or not.)"

Hi I would be interested to know if he saw FG42s in action ,or if at the time ,he had heard about that rifle .Have there been some in his unit.If so what model?Have they been happy with it? Thanks a lot for reply.Raoul

[berliner]

"Hallo, that's a very long story! Before I joined the FJ I knew about Australia. When I came back as a POW from America to France, I signed a contact with the French government as a free worker in agriculture.

(As a side note, I'll never forget a French officer who was also a paratrooper in the French army in Kaiserslautern and who kindly gave me a Passierschein permit to use the French military train to Berlin...a train Russians were not allowed to inspect. He did this out of friendship to a fellow Paratroooper! He got up and shook my hand!)

Anway, Then I tried from France in 1950 to immigrate to Australia but couldn't.
(I also enlisted for the French Foreign Legion to get better food and treatment. But one of the guards told me that the following day we would be going for traning to serve in Indochina. I knew from others how the Legionaires were dying there. So I tried to escape. I was imprisoned three nights. Luckly a farmer came to the prison who needed a man to handle horses and milk cows. He saved my life. My own homeland West Prussia was occupied by the Russians and now by the Polish.

When I had a chance to immigrate I did. I arrived in Melbourne on 17 February, 1954. I was almost 29.
I always dreamed of fruit farming. I arrived in Renmark as a fruit picker. I had lost my own homeland and had nothing to lose.
With guts and determination I built up a fruit farm.

Contact with veterans: my friend (who is typing this ) put me in contact with Otto Renger in Sydney just recently. We talked on the phone twice. I hope to meet him there when I'm back. (I also bought his book which I like).

Frankly, I could not have achieved anywhere else what I achieved in Australia.
Thanks."

A bit off topic but more of a personel question.

How did you end up in Australia & for how long have you been here.

If a long time I assume that you like it but you must still miss your homeland.

For me it is always a but exciting to hear of a German vet living here as we are so far away. Do you have contacts with other vets in Australia _ I assume there are not that many.

Apologies to other forum members for a non specific FJ question.

Regards
Craig

[CRAIGGOODWIN]

Thank you

for your reply - much appreciated
Craig

[GHP]

Horrido, Herr Groenke,

1. I'm curious to know the heaviest external load you jumped - not including your parachute & harness; and, did FJ ever jump with a rucksack as is done today -- rigged upside down frontally at the waist?

2. Today's paratrooper can "slip" and manoeuver his descent when using a parabolic chute (the new wing variety are more like gliders and easier to "drive" I guess). The FJ, though, was unable to manually guide his movement since he couldn't grasp the riser. Did you learn certain methods to manoeuver during training descents? I realize combat jumps were very low-level and you only had enough time to deploy the parachute then hit the drop-zone.

3. I am also interested in your tower training. I have read that the FJ did not use towers as did the Russians -- but perhaps that was earlier in the program; so your experience is very interesting. Did you learn to exit the aircraft using 15m towers with downward-angled cables (hooked to the cable via pulleys); and did you use a 70m tower to parachute from?

Compare to Ft. Benning:

34ft (10m) tower:
http://www.508pir.org/images/personn..._school_04.jpg

250ft (70m) tower: http://mevink.tripod.com/images/Army...wers_at_Ft.jpg

Gluck Ab and "Airborne All the Way!"
--Guy Power

[amydron]

Hallo again Herr Groenke.
I would be interested to know your memories of the bombing of the Abbey at Monte Cassino.
Were you close by, or actually inside the Abbey when it was bombed?
Also, more generally, who in your opinion proved to be your toughest opponents during the War?
Also, I understand you had two brothers who were in the German armed forces. Did they survive the war? I understand if you would prefer not to answer this question.
With kind regards,
RAY.
PS The information you have supplied is very interesting, and it is a privelage to have contact with a veteran from this period of History.

[berliner]

Hallo from MK. Heinz is finishing his meal and should post his comments shortly. I just wanted to mention in the meantime that we already called the Kameradschaften (the FJ veterans groups) here today to find out about events going on for the FJ veterans.

This is all new territory for him and certainly me. I know that in the UK and the US, the veterans are widely honoured and their groups have their moments in the limelight. Here, it is much more subdued and discrete.

It was interesting to hear that some of the Kameradschaften are led by veterans from the Second World War, and the Berlin group should be going to Vienna in a week to lay a wreath at the grave of the officer who had secured the removal of the art treasures of the Abbey of Monte Casino. Maybe Heinz will go too.

Best
MK

[berliner]

"Hallo Ray, I was only in Monte Casino for three days before I was wounded from a bomb splinter on my knee and evacuated by Sanis who put me in a Sankerwagon (Sanitaetswagon) to Firenze (Florence and from there to Morlaix in the Bretagne. (My major and close-combat fighting was at Anzio Netuno..my worst time in combat....and where I was wounded by phosphor)

The Abbey was already damaged but not totally destroyed when I was there. I was about 50-100 metres from the Abbey in a foxhole with an SMG 42 and a mortar. We had 5 cm mortars and 7.5 if I remember correctly.

The Americans had dropped leaflets on us calling for us to surrender. The leaflets said we should surrender during the next attack, and that we could come to America...and have a family and sex life.


About opponents, hard to say. The Americans fought hard, but what I don't understand is why they landed there, because they couldn't employ any tanks. They did bombard us the whole night from ships and with phosophor! I was buried twice...horrible.

Among ourselves, but I didn't give it much thought, was that the New Zealanders and Australians were the toughest we would face. I had heard about the Gurkhas and that they were also very hard. I can't say though. What I can say is that I liked the Canadians the best though because they treated me humanely when I was wounded (MK's comment: we wrote about this earlier). But I met the British at Normandy near Caen where the landing had already taken place when I reached there (after the Partisan debacle--MK's note).

My brother Kurt was killed at the island of Bratsch in Yugoslavia and was buried at the cemetary in Split. He was in the infantry.
My older brother lost his right arm at almost the end of the war, Russian front, and died in 1971.
Thank you for your questions."

Hallo again Herr Groenke.
I would be interested to know your memories of the bombing of the Abbey at Monte Cassino.
Were you close by, or actually inside the Abbey when it was bombed?
Also, more generally, who in your opinion proved to be your toughest opponents during the War?
Also, I understand you had two brothers who were in the German armed forces. Did they survive the war? I understand if you would prefer not to answer this question.
With kind regards,
RAY.
PS The information you have supplied is very interesting, and it is a privelage to have contact with a veteran from this period of History.

[berliner]

Hallo,

Mk's preface: First question 3. That is my mistake: Heinz mentioned using Atrappen which I assumed meant he was referring to a tower. I showed him the photo of the first link, the second we couldn't see, and he said they didn't use that. So I had him explain what he meant by Atrappen:

"We were harnessed, pulled up different heights- about 25 metres was the highest--and then the operator released us. It looked like a pulley. The important thing we practiced was making rolls.

Personally, mastering the roll was very important for the 80 metre jump.

Q1. I jumped once with the SMG 42. I also jumped with munition boxes, but then I didn't carry a rifle and was part of the SMG 42 team.
I also jumped with the 5 cm mortar.
I didn't know or can't remember the weight now.
I never saw any comrades jump with rucksacks like you described. We put hand grenades and other things in our pockets.

We were told by an Unteroffizier what we had to carry.

3. We learned manoeuvers for over 500 metres. In my experience, the one that sprang last landed before several earlier jumpers because of the air pockets.

Thank you."

Horrido, Herr Groenke,

1. I'm curious to know the heaviest external load you jumped - not including your parachute & harnes; and, did FJ ever jump with a rucksack as is done today -- rigged upside down frontally at the waist?

2. Today's paratrooper can "slip" and manoeuver his descent when using a parabolic chute (the new wing variety are more like gliders and easier to "drive" I guess). The FJ, though, was unable to manually guide his movement since he couldn't grasp the riser. Did you learn certain methods to manoeuver during training descents? I realize combat jumps were very low-level and you only had enough time to deploy the parachute then hit the drop-zone.

3. I am also interested in your tower training. I have read that the FJ did not use towers as did the Russians -- but perhaps that was earlier in the program; so your experience is very interesting. Did you learn to exit the aircraft using 15m towers with downward-angled cables (hooked to the cable via pulleys); and did you use a 70m tower to parachute from?

Compare to Ft. Benning:

34ft (10m) tower:
http://www.508pir.org/images/personn..._school_04.jpg

250ft (70m) tower: http://mevink.tripod.com/images/Army...wers_at_Ft.jpg

Gluck Ab and "Airborne All the Way!"
--Guy Power

[Jean-Loup]

Thanks a lot for answering all these questions for us, it is realy great, and I hope you get your biography put too gether rapidly.

JL

[berliner]

You're all very welcome. We're going to sleep soon. Do continue with questions please and we'll write some more comments tomorrow.

Thanks a lot for answering all these questions for us, it is realy great, and I hope you get your biography put too gether rapidly.

JL