Collins responds
I am hoping to be able to put the mess at the Danube to rest. I just got around to reading Vernon Swanson's book about it and I wonder why he didn't look in "Dauntless" on page 357? If he had, the answers to a lot of his questions would be answered.
I was the GI who was yelling at those idiots that they were lucky to be alive. I was quite angry at the whole bunch — enough that I could have shot all of them — and not had a guilty conscience about it.
After all, they were SS and that is what they had practiced all through the war. Remember Malmedy? Peiper did not give a damn, so why should I?
While I was getting those kids out of those holes, all I could think of was the men they had killed or murdered. Their officers should have been shot on the spot but instead went to the a PW cage because murder is not what I did. I can go to bed with a clear conscience every night. Can they?
James Collins
26801 NE 96th Ct.
Battle Ground WA 98604
