War Diaries (May 6) (nonfiction)

War Diary quotations for May 6.

Previous: May 5 - Next: May 7

Diaries

Creed T. Davis: May 6, 1864

We are in camp on Mine Run. Musketry and cannonading can be heard all along the lines. The men of our company are as cheerful as if there was no prospect of a battle. A soldier, who has just come into the battery, reports that the army has been engaged at Locust Grove and vicinity. Seven hundred prisoners passed us yesterday going to the rear. They were good-looking men. Several officers were among them. An ambulance passed us this morning, containing General Pegram, who is said to be mortally wounded. We have marched only three miles to-day. This morning muskets were put into our hands, and we were hurried, at a rapid rate, ahead of the battery. During the day we camped temporarily. But little firing can now be heard on the lines.

Diary of Creed T. Davis, Private Second Company Richmond Howitzers.

• Diary of Creed T. Davis (PDF)

Anton Frans Koenraads: May 6, 1945

I couldn’t sleep last night because I was so hungry! I got out of bed and took one of my three slices of bread for the next day. There was also a pan with boiled brown peas for the next day. I took some of those, too. I felt like a thief in my own home … ! Feel sick today.

It’s real now, though, and while I’m writing this, I try to realize what it means. But it’s so hard to put down in words. Five years of having lived under the yoke of a ruthless enemy aren’t erased in just a few minutes. But what I can grasp, is that:

Soon, there will be food

There will be gas, electricity, and water

There will be fuel

Trains and trams will run again

Our men will return from G, where they have been living as forced laborers for years

Our prisoners of war and students will also return

I can walk down the street at any time, day or night

The blackout paper can be removed everywhere

I don’t need to be frightened when a car is driving down the street

Or when someone rings the doorbell late at night

There will be newspapers again

Depending on one’s taste, the cinemas, dance halls, cafes, concert halls, theaters, and music halls will open again

If torture hasn’t resulted in death, families will be reunited

No Westerbork, Amersfoort, Vught 8 should ever be built again for anyone other than the G

After destroying Japan, humanity will find the means to ban war once and for all

I will be free to listen without fear to any radio channel I want to listen to 9

There will be regular school and work hours again

All these things are running through my mind. Not all at the same time, not one by one. Sometimes I become aware of a few of them, which remain for a moment, then recede until another one comes flashing through my brain.

I thought I could end this diary with a sentence like: The first Canadians, still smudged with the smoke of battle, are turning the corner of our street. But things have turned out differently. We’re still cheerfully awaiting their arrival.

I expected the end would bring relief, like taking off a lead suit. Things turned out differently yet again. I find it difficult to get used to the idea that we really are free now. Every time I think of how many things that used to frighten me have now disappeared, my heart is touched with happiness.

Thus, this diary is coming to an end. In it, I’ve tried to convey what has been on my mind during these recent months of the war. It’s by no means objective. Objectivity is a matter of time, of history, and of [one’s] point of view.

Later history books could — mind you, could — be objective. But this diary can’t possibly be. It has been written as events were unfolding, sometimes without knowing the causes, even, of the facts that I have described, nor of their place in the bigger picture. Some of the facts may have been incorrectly motivated, but they really did happen. Sometimes I fear that I won’t be believed, because later generations simply won’t wish to accept what’s described in these pages, yet I swear on everything that’s dear to me that none of the events are untrue. Everything that’s been written down was ‘hot off the press,’ I would say.

I’ve had the painful privilege of having experienced an ‘all-out war.’ That is behind us now. With all the strength that’s in us, let’s go for ‘all-out peace.’

Anton Frans Koenraads, a 39-year-old teacher in Delft, the hometown of Johannes Vermeer, wrote about how the war in the Netherlands ended on May 5, 1945. Canadian and German commanders reached an agreement that day on the capitulation of German forces. But Koenraads is among those who are slow to trust that the war is really over.

• Dutch War Diaries @ NY Times

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Creed T. Davis (nonfiction)
• Anton Koenraads (nonfiction)
• War (nonfiction)
• War Diaries (nonfiction)

External links

• Diary of Creed T. Davis (PDF)
• Dutch War Diaries @ NY Times