Friendship

"If I wasn't sure I was in the Philadelphia Navy Yard, I would bet this was Bremen or a Munich beer hall."

The U.S. bluejacket who spoke could make allowances for human curiosity. But this was something more. All week long, eager, smiling German-Americans (500 to 2,000 a day) had bustled aboard the Nazi prize cruiser Prinz Eugen to fete her Nazi crew. They carried dozens of white shirts, bags of sugar, cartons of cigarets, beer--trophies few victorious U.S. crews have received in any port.

On the Eugen, everybody spoke excited German. Voices were raised in beer-hall airs as the schnapps went down (in violation of Navy regulations). By remoter bulkheads, the Nazis held hands with American girls. Empty rye bottles rolled clanking under bunks. The loneliest man on board was the single U.S. Marine guarding the gangplank.

So far as the bluejacket knew, the 574 Nazi crewmen were supposed to be prisoners, due to be returned to Germany under guard while the Eugen was readied for extinction in the Navy's Pacific atomic-bomb experiment. But the eyes of the visitors from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania saw only heroes.

It was very puzzling.

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