European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

He tried to get control straight away.

We were in some barracks in Tunis.

There we had to guard the gates.

The ones who had been moved for disciplinary reasons were graded for that, and so we were there, as well.

In Kairouan the front came to a deadlock.

We thought: ‘Well, if the Americans come further, we will hand over the barracks.

We will be able to prevent an opposition somehow.’

But it came to nothing.

Afterwards we were appointed in the mountains.

Grenade launchers lie in ambush.

And we were positioned on a plateau, where the Americans could see and directly shoot us.

We were on a downright kamikaze mission.

If we had shot, we would have been bombarded – we wouldn’t have survived.

So we placed the grenade launcher there, moved along for another 20m and then one said:

“We will build something, so we can protect ourselves from the direct bombardment a little bit.”

We fired one shot and, in return, our grenade launcher was totally destroyed.

It was a kamikaze mission. They wanted to exterminate us.

Later on we went back and then I spoke to some of the others:

“We have to run away now.”

It was the end of April, and on the 10th May, or so, they surrendered. There were some doubts: