Creative Writing: All Quiet On The Western Front

My division was stationed in Normandy, France, at the time of the Allied invasion on June 6, 1944. Toward the end of August or early September, Canadian troops captured me near Dieppe.10 I was with a small group of men who were cut off from our main company and overrun by motorized Allied units. For several days we wandered around searching for our unit, until one night we strayed into a field camp of Canadian soldiers. You can well imagine the astonishment all around when we suddenly appeared in their midst. The Canadians didn’t have a guard posted. This was probably better for all because otherwise we might have exchanged gunfire. Instead, we peacefully turned over our weapons and in return received cigarettes.
The next day we were moved
to a holding area. Several days later we were placed in a small landing craft and evacuated to England. After brief stopovers in Southampton and London, we boarded a train to a transit camp near Glasgow [Scotland]. Two or three weeks later we embarked on a ship sailing to the United States.