World Battlefronts: Hello, Tovansh!

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Torgau is a small German town (peacetime population 14,000) but it-had its place in history long before last week. It was the scene of Frederick the Great's victory over Austria in 1760, and a junction point for Austrian and Russian armies massing against Frederick the following year. Last week history repeated itself at Torgau.

In the early days of last week Torgau was almost deserted. Marshal Konev's artillery had battered it from across the Elbe. Only a few Germans, too numb to care what happened, searched rubbish piles for scraps of food and hunted cigaret butts among the cobblestones. The rest had joined a panicky throng swarming westward toward the U.S. lines.

Two infantry and one armored divisions of the U.S. First Army had pulled up along the narrow Mulde River, a western tributary of the Elbe. One morning a patrol from the 69th Division's 273rd Regiment, sent out to direct surrendering German soldiers and liberated Allied prisoners to the rear, rolled beyond its officially prescribed radius of action and found itself in Torgau. This patrol consisted of four Yanks in a jeep—Second Lieutenant William D. Robertson, a small, wiry officer from Los Angeles, and three enlisted men.

Mercurochrome & Ink. The Russians on the other side of the Elbe— members of Marshal Konev's 58th Guards Division—sent up colored flares, the prearranged signal to designate friendly forces. Robertson had no flares. He took a bedsheet from a house, broke into a pharmacy, found mercurochrome and blue ink, made a crude representation of a U.S. flag and waved it from the tower of an ancient castle. The Russians, who had been tricked by Germans waving U.S. flags, sent over a few anti-tank shells.

Then Robertson decided on bold action. He and his men strode confidently out in the open, toward a German-blown bridge whose twisted girders offered a precarious footway across the river. The Russians decided that only Americans would do such a thing. While Robertson's party picked its way over the girders, two Russian officers scrambled out from the eastern end. In the center, only a few feet over the swift-running water, the men of Eisenhower and the men of Stalin met. Robertson slapped a Russian leg and cried: "Hello, Tovarish! Put it there!"

Feasting & Toasting. The Russians took the four Yanks into their camp on the east bank, where they were beamed at, saluted, backslapped, plied with wine and German schnapps, sumptuously fed. Robertson arranged with the commander to send a delegation across the river to meet U.S. higher-ups. Colonel Charles M. Adams, commanding the 273rd, greeted the delegation at his regimental headquarters, then started out for the Russian camp at two o'clock in the morning, with a platoon in ten jeeps. When they arrived at six, there was more grinning, saluting, backslapping, feasting and toasting.