Flutist Tommy

Antiwar organisation that reveals facts governments prefer to avoid!

FLUTIST TOMMY - JOCHEN NUBEL

Would be grateful for your help regarding a WWII episode that I witnessed in 1944 as a German soldier after the Normandy landings. My friend and I were both aged 19, I was born in 1925. In August or September of 1944 a comrade of mine, Herbert Schmidt, and myself found a wounded British soldier in a wood leaning against a tree. His legs were both fractured, he was wailing and he could no longer walk. He shouted to us: “Don’t kill me!” And we replied: “We won’t kill you!” We were all very scared of being killed. Then he sang the German national anthem composed by Hayden based on a poem by Ferdinand von Freiligrath. We sang the British hymn “God save the King” in order to calm him. Then he said: “I am a flutist of the London Symphony Orchestra.” We answered: “We are also musicians!” He seemed to be glad about this. Then we put him onto our bicycle. When we put "Tommy" on the saddle of our military tandem bicycle and his feet onto its pedals he cried out loud because his fractured legs hurt him very strongly and he clutched the handle bar firmly. He pointed to his military knapsack that he had forgotten on the ground in the wood and we fetched it for him. All German soldiers had received the order to transport wounded enemy soldiers to the German mobile army surgical hospitals to be operated on or to be aided in any other way. Yet we did not know where a MASH could be found and were afraid that our company commander might think we wanted to desert.

We pushed the bike for about one and a half hours across the flat Belgian landscape. Fortunately there was no shooting or bombing. As our English was extremely bad and "Tommy" couldn't speak any German we didn't talk much. Still, we said we were musicians, which we both could understand. In German it is Musiker. He had pantomimed some flute playing and we some piano playing. Perhaps this created some sympathy among us.

Finally we found a hospital, left "Tommy" there and trusted that he received help. We got into some trouble with our platoon leader but explained to him what we did and he Okayed it. It would be really interesting to find out if "Tommy" was in fact operated on and could use his legs and feet again afterwards. Some time later I lost my company and my commander sent my parents a telegram with his condolences informing them that I had died and they published my obituary in my hometown newspaper but this is another story. In hindsight, “Tommy’s” leg injuries may have been caused by landing badly by parachute, so he may have been a paratrooper? Unfortunately we never heard of him again. Now I would very much like to find this British comrade and to invite him to my home near Avignon where I live as a pianist.

Thank you very much in advance.

Yours faithfully,

Jochen Nubel
14 rue van Dongen
F 84310 Morieres-les-Avignon
France”

Jochen Nubel
in 1943

Herbert Schmidt (left)
Jochen Nubel (right)