From the S&S archives:
Plzen honors U.S. vets as liberators

PLZEN, Czechoslovakia — Sgt. Frank Buergler and the 16th Armd Div entered Plzen in 1945 to drive the Germans out of the city.

Buergler recalls being met by the locals with cheers, and offers of food and beer.

Forty-seven years later, Buergler has returned to the city's main square in an Army jeep. This time, more than 10,000 Czechoslovaks — many of them wearing American Army uniforms or waving the Stars and Stripes — crowded into the square to cheer him and five other World War II veterans who helped liberate this city.

"It's great," said Buergler of Parma, Ohio. "The people are very hospitable."

Buergler's friend Joe Schneider was also enjoying the friendly atmosphere. "The people are very nice, and the girls are very pretty. It's too bad that we're too old."

Schneider remembered a rainy Sunday afternoon on May 6, 1945, when elements of the 16th Armd Div entered Plzen and ended the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia's second largest city.

He recalled how signs were up welcoming the Americans and how several days later those signs were replaced with new ones welcoming Russian troops.

"I kind of resented the fact that they changed allegiance so quickly," he said.

Before the downfall of communism in Eastern Europe, Czechoslovaks were forbidden to celebrate the American liberation of Plzen because it was said that Soviet troops liberated the entire country.

But this week the Czechoslovaks gave a grand display of their new friendship with America during their "Friends Of the USA Day" festival.

Czechoslovak and American flags hung from the buildings surrounding the square. And many of the people came to the square wearing red, white and blue shirts. Several had American flags draped over their shoulders like a cape.

In the crowd that gathered at the main square Friday were Cindi and Jim Holman, Audrey Speracek and Barbara Miller, all Americans who live in Plzen.

"We sang the (American) national anthem," Speracek said. "And it was great."

Cindi Holman, whose husband is a teacher at the American Lutheran School, said: "It was exciting to see the American flags next to the Czechoslovakian flags and so much patriotism. I think the Czechoslovakians are enamored with the Americans. It's great to be an American here."

Shirley Temple Black, U.S. ambassador to Czechoslovakia, said it was no problem that the crowd had dwindled from 100,000 during its first celebration in 1990 to 15,000 this week. "Even if just one person showed up, it would be important," she told The Stars and Stripes.

Some of the events of the three-day celebration, which ended Friday, included performances by the band from the U.S. Air Forces in Europe; the Madrigal Singers, a choral group from Heidelberg High School in Germany; and a Czechoslovak country-western band.