Christoph,
I could not believe it when I read your entry and then saw the photo! Do you really go on a boat in the Rhine? Do you row? Are you afraid of the big boats and if not them, their swells causing you all to capsize?
When you do rescue is it like Life Savers' kind of techniques to get people to the surface and to get water out of them? What a great hobby/occupation/passion. And to get to be between Bonn and Remagen in the Rhine seems like a fairy tale. I would not want to ever get out.
I guess I should be careful how I think about it/say that since I never thought of it from a WW2 guy's perspective. That is an interesting question. If you were an Engineer and building bridges during WW2 or any War what would your attitude after the War be. Would you ever want to go swimming or boating again? (Like my Dad's attitude on camping.) And what did those men think when they or their family went over any kind of a bridge?
Christoph, I am so impressed with all of your many talents!
I wrote several WW2 related emails today and just finishing up. Off to Mom's to plan her 90th birthday celebration with her. She was not good yesterday but not bad/ill. She perked up a little by late afternoon.
Finally had to put up all the WW2 stuff I had out. Got some of it better organized. And there was a note where Dad wrote the Sieg River down. But I must find the note again - to interpret what he might have meant. Did he mean that he knew he had to get across it. I wonder if there was any land mass he could go over without getting in the actual River. Would you, Christoph, have had any doubts about your ability to get from one side of the River to the other, if you had to without a boat? And it was March 15 to 19th weather of 1945?
I did not go see the Sieg River this last trip.
Wonder where you are boating today?
Jean J