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Tom Wright's story - Peace in Italy - Service in Austria 1945-46

This is the account of my friendship with an Austrian family, the Schwarzenberger's, after the war came to its close in Italy.

We were stationed in Trieste for a few months before some of the 220 Field Company R.E's were sent to Vols in Austria. I was lucky enough to go with them as their cook, along with my old mate Walter Edward Ellis Jones.

The reason we were being sent to Vols, which is a few miles from the capital of the Tyrol (Innsbruck), was for our engineers to build transit camps for our troops. Men would be going home on leave for the first time, in most cases, since the end of the war. They would be going home by land through parts of Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France and finally across the Channel to Britain. I was hoping it wouldn't be long before my turn came to go home on two weeks leave. In the meantime we prepared for our journey to Austria.

Piling all our cooking gear into one of our trucks and the convoy moved off at some speed. After some hours on the road, we came to the "Brenner Pass", which was the place where Hitler and Mussolini had their historical meeting in the War Years. As we approached Austria a few miles further on, we pulled up at what looked like some old castle. We all decided to have a recce inside, to find it was empty.

The German Army must have used it at sometime. As we pulled out the drawers of a cupboard a lot of photographs of "Soldiers and German Officers" fell out. I have kept them in my possession but they are not of any use, but it reminds me of the day we went on a recce around this castle. We were hoping to stay here, but those in charge said that we would have to move further on to a few wooden sheds where we would stay for a couple of days only. Our final destination was just outside the village of Vols, in the vicinity of a "displaced persons" camp. This was the polite title for refugees. Unfortunately, due to the war in Europe, we saw a lot more when moving across Europe.

OUR HUNT FOR DRINKING WASSER (WATER)

We ended up in a big wooden building where the troops would eat, sleep and work from and we would have a place to cook the meals. The building was only a couple of yards from the roadside which led into Vols; the railway track ran parallel to the road. On making enquiries we found there was no water laid on near to us. We were told that there wouldn't be any for some time, if ever! Walter and I would have to sort out the water situation ourselves.

We had twenty empty water cans in one of the trucks so we went to ask the driver if he would run us into the village of Vols for some water, otherwise there would be no tea or meals. He obviously agreed to take us. Entering the village, we pulled up at the first house we came to. Walter and I went round the back and knocked on the door wondering what the reception would be. A tall, pleasant, Austrian opened the door.

I spoke to him in the little bit of the language I knew and demonstrated to him by putting my hand to my mouth, I said "Drinking wasser (water)." He replied "Ja, Ja (yes)," to my request. He left us to it. After filling the cans up with water we knocked at the door and said to him "Danke" (thank you). It was handy to get water from a tap in his back garden and he was happy to help us out. The next urgent job was getting a meal ready while the troops kept asking us when we were going to mash. On the whole they were a very patient lot, realising things take some time organising when arriving in different areas.

We realised that this water wasn't going to last us for long, having to use it for cooking, washing up and washing ourselves. No doubt we would be going back for more, if the Austrian agreed to our request for more water.

Two or three days went by, all the water had gone, Walter and I took our water cans and went to the village again to the same house in Vola, with the smiling Austrian, he knew what we had come for this time. After filling up our cans again, we thanked him. Then after going back for a third time we began to build up a friendly relationship with the Austrian we got to know his name, it was Johann (pronounced Yohann) Schwarzenberger, he also introduced us to his wife, Anna.

"GOOD BYE WALTER"

The family had two sons, the eldest was Eric, who would have been about ten, the youngest was Hans, about three or four years. Johann was a farmer, in a small way, he had a few cows, a few fields. He had bee hives in his back garden and some more were up in the mountains a good few miles away.

He gave us a photograph of his family to keep as a memento. We continued to fetch our water supplies from Johann thinking it would be safer from a health point of view and knowing he liked us to call and see him.

About this time depressing news came through for me, but not for Walter, he was going back to Blighty for demob, he was to report to H.Q. Trieste (Italy) in a couple of days time. Explaining to Johann and Anna, that Walter was leaving the army and going home they gave him a new wrist-watch, something to remember them by, this was a very kind gesture on their part, Walter would be missed by me as we had been good mates, going through the whole of the Italian campaign together.

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