Ray Goad
Company D, 143rd Infantry

On August 29, 1944, units of the 1st Bn 143rd Inf. were a part of Task Force Butler in and around Loriol, France. This was on Hwy 7 some five miles north of Montilemar on the Rhone River.

These units of 1st Bn were ordered south along Hwy 7 towards La Concourde and Montilemar on a mopping up mission.

In the "Fighting 36th Division Pictorial History", pictures along the Montilemar sector are included.

One picture shows a jeep with GI’s and a woman in it and several men riding on the trailer. The men on the trailer are German prisoners. Notice the 81 mm mortar base plate in the trailer. I cannot identify the man in the rear seat of the jeep beside the woman. I think he was from N.E. Texas.

The driver is Pvt. Jim Boyd Eaves of Fort Worth and his front seat passenger is Cpl. William S. Fleming from Killeen. Both were from the 81mm mortar platoon of Co. D 145th from Temple, Texas. Both of these men are now deceased.

But this story is about the woman in the jeep.

Earlier that day, I, as Commanding Officer of Co. D along with some of my men of Co. Hq, were helping other Bn. men that were receiving German POW’s and searching them. A group of some 7 to 8 Germans and this woman had been taken and their weapons taken and were awaiting transfer to the rear.

My Co. messenger, Pvt. Otto Koehler of Brooklyn, New York, who was of German ancestry—father and mother of Brooklyn and a grandmother still in the Black Forest region of Southwest Germany—had been close by observing and listening to all that went on.

Koehler came close to me and said, "Captain, the woman is a German nurse and she told the other POWs (in German) that she had a weapon on her body and was going to use it at the first opportunity to shoot her way free." Koehler could understand and speak German fluently.

He and I separated the woman and with another GI proceeded to "field strip" her. First her jacket and shirt came off. Then Koehler told her to drop her pants. Sure enough, she had a small holstered gun taped to the inside of her left upper thigh.

It was a distinct pleasure to rip the adhesive tape off her leg to get the gun. It was a 7mm five shot revolver with a fold up trigger and a clip of 5 rounds in the butt of the weapon, all in the imitation leather holster.

I brought the revolver home when I came home on rotation in Feb. 1945. The holster disintegrated some ten years ago. And I have fired it quite a bit as the 25 cal. ammo is easy to get.

So everytime I handle the gun it brings back one especially fond memory of WWII which was my only close body search of a German POW.