It was just another bunker on the road to Berlin 
 Nothing told us what we would find within. 
 The Germans were putting up a real good fight 
  And we were in this alley since mornings first light. 
 Mortar shells falling left and right 
  A machine gun firing up ahead just out of sight. 

  Trier was the name of this once proud city 
Reduced to rubble and no longer pretty. 
 The fighting was house to house,and floor to floor 
 Both sides had casualties by the score. 
     But the citizens suffered even more 
     As they tried to hide from the battle's roar. 

  In England they were called air raid shelters 
     Here in Germany they were called bunkers. 
      When the bombers came they were a good place to hide 
     But what can you do when the enemy is just outside? 
Most people prayed and stayed inside 
The one's who ventured out quickly died. 

      This bunker was three stories high with steel doors 
     With machine guns firing from the upper floor. 
These guns had clear lanes of fire 
     While we lay in the alley in the muck and mire. 
    So we waited for the defenders to surrender or retire 
 To blow up the place we had no desire.

 We finally got help from a bazooka team 
  When they came crawling up to the scene. 
 A couple rounds through a steel cellar door 
  A couple more through a window on an upper floor 
 The building erupted with a flash and roar 
 And the squad rushed into the blood and gore. 

 I remember running through that door 
 And seeing the sight's I now deplore. 
A baby blown from a young woman's womb 
 Her entrails scattered about the room. 
 Thirty people here met their doom 
Their haven had became their tomb. 

 The squad rushed the foe on the upper floor 
 There they shot several more. 
 These were SS men who wouldn't quit 
They wouldn't surrender or retreat a bit. 
They fought on though mortally hit 
 You had to admire their stubborn grit. 

The guys finally gave each one the Coup De Grace 
   In war that is the unwritting law. 
      For some times an enemy you thought dead 
Would roll over and shoot you instead. 
   They would happily die if your blood were shed 
 Best to give each a bullet in the head. 

  In war a chance is one thing you don't give 
To an enemy if you want to live. 
 These men should not have made a stand here 
Not with these civilians so near. 
    They should have been evacuated to the rear 
But death came too fast in the City of Trier. 

 Back to the cellar too that horrible place 
   Were thing's that a man shouldn't have to face 
  Bodies were scattered all over the floor 
   Every where you looked were bodies soaked in gore. 
Now bullets kill soldiers by the score 
  But high explosives do a whole lot more. 

     This was a safe place for women children and the aged 
  It should have been left undefended. 
 After all these years I still relive this nightmare 
  Torn bodies and blood soaked hair. 
 Young eye's watching us through a deathly stare 
An old mans headless body sitting on a chair. 

  None remember the names or faces 
  Of the thousands who died in these awful places. 
   The victors and the vanquished should share the blame 
 And the world should point fingers of shame 
 At governments that think war a game. 
 And remember the victims with no name. 

    When we left the bunker and went outside 
  We felt some thing in our souls had died. 
  We will never forget what we saw here 
   This memory isn't dimmed by passing years. 
And once in a while your eye's fill with tears 
 When you remember the bunker in the City of Trier. 

Elmer Ake