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By LOU HATTER
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Forty-one years ago today, May 8, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered, marking the end of World War II in Europe. Frank Huff, of Flint Hill, was part of one of the most important events leading up to the surrender—the linking up of the American and Russian armies at the Elbe River. Mr. Huff was one of four Americans on a reconnaissance patrol who made the first contact with a Russian unit on April 25.
“We knewT the Russians were close. . .we’d even kidded about it, wouldn’t it be something if we made the first contact.” The patrol had been out for two days, w’ithout sleep, and had been pinned down by sniper fire in the town of Torgau, Germany, not far from the Elbe. Since they were operating in front of the American lines in an area still not firmly in control of the Allied forces, that morning the men had taken the precaution of getting a white bedsheet, “just in case we got into a bad spot,” Mr. Huff recalled, gesturing with his hands above his head. “In Torgau we found a store with some watercolor paints, and w e blotted the sheet with the red and blue paints until we made an American flag.”
The men had been inquiring all morning as they advanced along the roads about the position of the Russians, and the replies of the frightened refugees streaming in the opposite direction were always the same: “They’re farther on up the road.”
After fashioning the makeshift
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