War Diaries (June 13) (nonfiction)
War Diary quotations for June 13
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Diaries
Isaac Lyman Taylor: June 13, 1863
The 100 P'dr is dismounted by the recoil at the first fire.
—Isaac Lyman Taylor, Company E, First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry.
Elisabeth Kaufmann: June 13, 1940
I am sitting on the steps of the Rambouillet Mairie [town hall] some forty kilometers from Paris. The weather is wonderful, the sky is clear, and the sun is shining. Next to me sits a family with many children. They look like Belgians. Just now a few troops marched by, pulling a small cannon. I am waiting for Mother.
Yesterday, after we had already become quite tired from walking, we found another means of getting away. The traffic on the road had finally come to a full stop because the never ending line of cars and trucks had come to a crossing over which an equally heavy stream of traffic was coming from another direction. A soldier was posted at this crossing to direct traffic, which he did by stopping traffic from one direction for fifteen minutes and allowing traffic from the other direction to cross. Then he stopped the traffic from the other direction for fifteen minutes. However, we did not see that from the place where we decided to go our separate ways. We only saw an endless line of vehicles moving forward periodically at walking pace.
I went from car to car and asked whether they had a small space for a lady with some baggage. It took a while until I found a car that was not totally filled up and whose driver was also willing to take Mother. I ran back quickly and showed Mother the car, pushed her a little to make her go faster, and then climbed on my bike and road away. At the last moment I remembered that I had no idea where the car was going. I turned around, but at that moment the line moved ahead and when I yelled and asked where the car was going the driver had only time to yell back “St. Remy.” I did not know the place but then learned that it was not far, some twenty kilometers from Paris.
Because the cars actually were standing still more than moving, I was well ahead of the one in which Mother was riding. Meanwhile the weather turned bad and it looked like rain. I also had to pay attention while riding my bike because the only place was on the sidewalk; the road was packed with cars with no space between them. [...]
As I approached St. Remy, I remembered that I had made no arrangements for a meeting place with Mother and I had no idea how in this chaos of cars and people I could find her again. At last I thought of standing under the town sign, St. Remy, and waiting until the car carrying Mother arrived. As paradoxical as it may seem, I had come much farther with my bicycle than Mother had in the car. I guessed that I was about a half hour to an hour ahead of her and could rightly assume that she would have to pass by the town sign.
The place that I chose was not very quiet. I sat on the edge of a wall to avoid the danger of a car running over my feet, or being stepped on by a passerby. I stared at the road crossing and did not dare take a step away from it, or look away. Soon soldiers arrived and started to talk to me. They wanted to go to a bar and wanted to take me with them. When I explained to them that I could not leave, they went away. Then others came. After one hour Mother still had not come and I started to worry, but I remained seated motionless on the wall. Then it began to rain. I did not know what to do with my loaded-down bike, which was being ruined while the packages were soaked. I decided to push the bike into a restaurant, but did not [want to] leave my post. I therefore ran to the soldier who was directing traffic and asked him for the next three to five minutes to look for a woman in a small dark car who seems to be searching for someone. That would be my mother. He was to tell her that I would be back in a few minutes.
I pushed my bike along in a heavy rain and then put it in some corner under a big tree without locking it, or having it watched, just counting on people being honest. Then I ran back to my post. Nothing had come to the soldier’s attention. I was soaked through and through and was thinking that I had never been in such rain before. The constantly changing traffic, the cars, trucks, people, bicycles, noise, rain, soldiers, all made my head swim, and soon two hours passed. [...]
A third hour passed during which [...] I became increasingly afraid and anxious. The rain continued to come down heavily.[...] It was already seven, then eight, then nine o’clock. [...] It got later and later, and wetter and wetter. Suddenly I saw Mother getting out of a car...I ran to her.
After I picked up the bicycle we went to look for a place to sleep. It was dinner time and we were very tired and hungry. However, there seemed to be no possibility for stopping or to find a place to sleep. It was still raining, although not as heavily. We asked for a room at a hotel but were turned away by the owner as if we had asked for the head of his first-born. They obviously had no need to be polite. Their business flourished and they could rent every space in their place for a high price. It seemed quite hopeless. The streets were all packed with people from everywhere and it was as crowded as at the exit of a movie theater. But then we got lucky. While other refugees were looking for a place to lie down for the night on the wet pavement in narrow side streets, a young Polish worker led us to her apartment, which consisted of a kitchen and one room. She gave us the room with a double sleeping couch.
The next day we learned from our experience. We decided to go separately for half a day. Mother had to stop cars that might get her to the next place faster, but she also might have to wait for two hours before she could get a ride. I rode ahead on the bike and we agreed to meet every thirty to forty kilometers so that we could spend the night together. Whoever arrived first at the agreed-upon town would have to wait for the other. However, we would no longer wait under the town sign but at the local Mairie, either outside, if the weather was good, or inside. This is how we hoped to cover the distance best, not become too tired, and still stay together.
This morning, after one and a half hours trying, I was able to get Mother a place on the back of a motorcycle. I was very proud of myself since it really was a master stroke, if one considers the number of people and the few empty seats in any vehicle. I had some advantage in that I did not care where the vehicle went as long as it was more or less in the right direction. The motorcyclist only told me hurriedly that he would be going to Rambouillet and then disappeared down a side road. Rambouillet is about twenty kilometers from St. Remy, in the direction of Chartres along a side road where traffic was not heavy.
[...] I am now sitting in front of the town hall and am waiting for Mother. I can’t understand where she might have gotten stuck for such a long time, but she cannot be far behind. [...]
—Elisabeth Kaufmann, diary (Paris)
Tatsusei Yogi: June 13, 1945
Terrible bombing this morning and many bombs came very close. One bomb shook the house so hard that it loosened the soot in the rafters, which fell and covered us so that we were all black except for our white eyes. We looked so funny that we all laughed for a while.
In the evening we went to the Fukuji Mountains.
—Tatsusei Yogi was a Japanese civilian in Okinawa.
- A Wartime Diary by Tatsusei Yogi, edited by Takashi Yogi