We arrived at Stalag Luft III (which means camp air) toward the end of
May, 1944. It was located about 100 miles Southeast of Berlin near the
town of Saigon. it consisted of several compounds of several acres
each and had been cut out of a heavily forested region. The trees were
all pine, planted In rows and it seemed so dark underneath them that
it must have been the 'Black Forest' of Germany. Each compound held
about 2,500 prisoners and when it was filled, they would clear another
separate area and build another using Russian prisoners for labor. The
compound I was in was opened April 27, 1944 so there were already some
prisoners there when I arrived. I was assigned to barracks number 167,
Room 12 and Bruce and I, who were still sticking, together like two
peas in a pod, were in the same room. There was no one else in the
camp from our squadron in England, so we were glad to be together.
The camp was rectangular in shape with the buildings occupying about
two thirds of the space and the remainder was Just the rows of stumps
left when they cut down the trees. A high barbed wire fence surrounded
the area with guard towers at each corner and two on each side. There
was always a guard with a gun in each tower. About thirty feet inside
the fence was a low wooden rail. Between it and the fence was white
sand. If anyone was caught in this area, they were shot. We had a
large white sweatshirt with a large red cross on it and when we had to
enter this area to retrieve a ball or something else, some one would
put on the shirt, get the attention of a guard who would then give you
permission to go get the object. You still had to trust the guard in
the farthest tower not to shoot, so you would proceed cautiously with
your hands in the air.
Each barracks had a center hall with a door at each end and rooms
along each side. There was also a washroom, a small kitchen and an
outdoor john. There was also a large outside John about a twenty
holer, in a separate building for daytime use. We slept triple bunks
and I was in the middle one. The mattress was made of wood shavings in
a burlap cover and was really just a pile of lumps. There were 12 men
to a room and at the and of the building there was a small room for
one or two where the ranking officers of that barracks lived. We had a
major in our barracks and the highest ranking officer in the camp was
a colonel. I had the same bunk for the eight months we were in this
camp and had the map that I made fastened to the wall in my bunk.
The compound next to ours was where 'The Great Escape' took place, the
one about which they later made a movie. Their tunnel came under our
compound and the ground had a dip in it where we used to walk around
the edge by the warning fence. We were told that they filled the
tunnel in with human manure so that it would never be used again and
the ground had settled over it. We were lucky in that these camps
contained only American and British airmen and the camp was run by the
German Luftwaffe. They had respect for any air force personnel and we
were treated much better than the army prisoners. I understand that
their camps were terrible and they were forced to work outside the
camps. After being at this camp awhile we gave up any hope of escape
as the security was very good.
Our camp was not full yet and every week another group of prisoners
was brought in. We would all run down to the main gate when they came
to see if there was anyone we knew. We had only been there a couple of
days when some new prisoners arrived, among them Neil Ullo. We found a
place for him in the room next to ours as our room was full. He had
quite a story to tell about his experiences. His plane was hit by
large shells, and either when he was hit or when he bailed out and his
chute opened, he broke his back. The pain was terrible and hence he
didn't really know how it happened. In that condition he was worried
about what it would do to his back when he hit the ground. He landed
in the woods and his parachute caught in the trees leaving him
swinging from the harness. He was only a few feet from the ground and
the branches bent to set him down on the ground light as a feather. I
don't remember how he was captured, but they took him to a Catholic
hospital in Berlin where he was kept for five months. He said he
received excellent care and treatment under adverse conditions. At
this time the Americans were bombing Berlin days and the British
bombing at night. Every time there was an air raid they strapped him
on a plank and carried him down to the air raid shelter. He was doing
okay when he arrived in camp, but his back was stiff and he bent
forward a little.
We were locked in our barracks each evening at 10:00 and the lights
went out at midnight. One guard patrolled the area at night with two
huge German Police dogs. We had one large window in our room and
opened it for ventilation in warm weather. It was about six foot off
the ground and sometimes at night one of the dogs would put his front
paws on the sill and look in, which gives you an idea of how big they
were. Needless to say, no one thought of going out at night! Every
morning we had to line up outside our barracks for 'appel' (roll call)
when we were counted by the German camp commander and guards. About
once a week during roll call they would put guards around a barracks
and not let anyone return until they made a thorough search. They
would crawl around underneath the floor looking for tunnel digging and
count all the silverware and dishes to see if any were missing.
They also counted all our bed sheets to make certain that we were not
using them for some form of escape. This usually took about an hour
and we would hang around outside and harass the guards. The guards
were usually older men or those unable to be in the army. They always
checked our knives and forks to see if we were making weapons from
them.
Alfred Jocque was in the bunk next to me and he was the bombadier on a
B-17 that was shot down. One day he took his shirt off and his
longjohns were pink and red. He told us that the pilot and co-pilot
who were directly above him in the bomber had been shot and their
blood ran down over him and stained all his clothing before he bailed
out. All the enlisted men from the bombers went to different camps so
there were only officers with us. We all got along well with the men
in our room and there were no difficulties. Most of the guys were a
happy bunch, no doubt due to simply having survived. It was June and
the weather was warm so we spent a lot of time outside mainly walking
the perimeter, which was about 3/4 of a mile.
The Red Cross provided us with almost everything we got while in
prison camp aside from the food from the Germans. (when it was
available). Red Cross deliveries were made by truck from Switzerland
and were not dependable due to air raids, strafing attacks and poor
road conditions. The Swiss volunteers who drove the trucks certainly
deserved a medal for bravery. The food parcels were about one foot
square and six inches high. We received one each and it was to last a
week. Mostly the parcels were American and some Canadian. The American
ones contained KLIM (powdered milk), a D-bar (chocolate), prunes or
raisins, Spam liver pate, one cake of soap, peanut butter, margarine,
army crackers, sugar, cheese, coffee or tea and two packs of
cigarettes. Most items were in cans and sometimes hard to open. There
was always someone yelling for a "church key" (the metal key on the
bottom of a can) to borrow. The Canadian parcels had different
contents and were not as well liked. Their tins of margarine were
always rancid and later on I will tell you what they were used for.
Each room did its own cooking and we put a clothes locker on its side
beneath the window to store food in and as a work surface. We also had
a table with a couple of chairs and picnic benches. It wasn't long
before we decided to divide our room in half to make it simpler for
the one doing the cooking. Eventually I took over the food preparation
for our side and did it for about three months with the help of Bruce.
You were responsible for the food, how to ration it as well as
preparation and cleanup. Due to the shortage of German food, the
cookhouse was only used to dispense hot water for beverages and
another pot for washing dishes. Before each meal I would run to the
cookhouse before they ran out of hot water, and run back before it got
cold. They also gave out potatoes, kohlrabi, bread and blood sausage
at times.
The one kitchen for the whole barracks was a room with a stove and a
daily ration of coal to be used at mealtime. A time for that use was
assigned to each room. We also had a small stove in the corner of our
room to use for heat when we could got something to burn in it. We
would cook on this when we could, but actually most of the food was
eaten cold. When we got potatoes we would draw straws to see who would
peel them as the Germans used human fertilizer and the smell was
terrible. This was the only time I smoked cigarettes. You put one in
your mouth and turned your head as far as possible while peeling.
After we had been there several months and became more desperate for
food, we just washed them well and ate the skins also.
They must have had a lot of beehives in this area of Germany because
when we got honey, we got three gallons at a time. We carried it back
to the barracks in a wash basin. This amount was for just the twelve
of us! Once a week we got a ration of German black bread which I
believe was one loaf per man a week. It was very dark with a sour
taste and was baked on a layer of sawdust about 1/4 inch deep an the
bottom of the loaf. We tried at first to scrape it off but it was so
hard we gave up, left it on and ate it. As it was so heavy, each loaf
weighing about five pounds, when we went to the cook house to got it
we took along a door off one of the lockers. It took two men to carry
the twelve loaves back on the door. We had one sharp butcher knife for
slicing and I got so I could get 60 slices out of each loaf. The bread
was so hard, you could slice it paper thin and could almost see
through it. We sliced it this way so we could have enough for
breakfast, dinner and supper, as well as a snack before bedtime. When
we had honey there usually was so much of it that we would have a
paper thin slice of bread with at least 1/2 inch of honey on it.
We tried all combinations of whatever food we had and most were better
at it than I was. The prunes could be cooked and whipped with powdered
milk to make a topping for our attempts at desserts. We tried Peanut
butter pie which was made with a cracker crust with the prune whip
mixed with the peanut butter for the filling It tasted good then but I
tried it once after I got home and couldn't eat it. The Canadian
crackers were large round ones and we would soak them in water until
they swelled to three or four times their dry size, then fry them on a
hot stove. This way they were more filling. The kohlrabi were grown
extensively in Germany and tasted alright but were very woody in
texture.
The blood sausage was another story and it was a long while before I
could eat it. You might say I needed to be starving first. It came
like salami, in a tube, and was nothing but congealed blood from
animals. If you could stand the smell of it cooking, you fried it in
a pan until it was black and as hard as grape nuts. You could eat it
by washing it down with a hot drink. The powdered milk was in a can
with the word KLIM written on the side. After we had been there about
six months one of the guys was laying on the top bunk with his head
upside down. He looked across the room at the KLIM can and suddenly
jumped up yelling "KLIM" is milk spelled backwards". It was amazing
that we had gone this long without anyone noticing this.
It may sound like we were getting a lot of food, but it was just
enough to keep us going and most of the time we were hungry but not
starving. It was interesting that talk did not include girls wives or
girl friends. The main topic of conversation was food. We talked
food, thought food, and dreamed food all of the time. We were
surprised to learn that food preferences were so different in the
areas of the U. S. represented by the prisoners. One guy in our room
was from Kentucky and he had never heard of goulash (but couldn't
wait to try it when he got home.) We were always discussing recipes
and ingredients of different dishes. The girls were not talked
about, although they were on our minds all the time. Several times
there were work groups of Russian prisoners that passed by outside
the fence and among them were women. They didn't appeal to us as they
were all short and heavy and wore old brown overcoats that reached
the ground. It was wintertime and they were just plodding along in a
line.
The indoor toilet in our barracks was very interesting. It was used
from 10PM till 6AM. There was a trough down one side and seats at the
far end. When sitting there you would have a line of guys standing
right in front of you. One had to get used to them all standing there
yelling at you to hurry. Between ten and midnight the lights were on
and some characters had the nerve to sit there reading a book while
ignoring all the others standing in line swearing. After midnight it
was totally dark and you had to feel your way around to keep from
bumping into someone. Neil Ullo had gotten himself a pair of wooden
slippers and one time in the middle of the night we heard him
clomping down the hall on his way to the bathroom. The next thing we
heard was a lot of yelling and swearing and the clomp, clomp, clomp
of the slippers going at a high rate of speed down the hall. The next
day Neil secretly told us that he had gone down there in the dark in
such a hurry and thinking it was the trough, got on the back of a
fellow standing there! At night in Germany it was total blackness and
you could see absolutely nothing. Most people have no
idea of the many good things that the Red Cross does. Without them we
would really have had a terrible time. Besides the food which we
couldn't have done without, we were supplied with sports equipment
musical instruments and books. You could even order things through
them and it was not long before they would be delivered. Some of the
boys were in the middle of their education when they were drafted and
they ordered books to help them continue their college education. I
remember one who was studying to become a mortician and he got several
very expensive books on the subject. We also received playing cards.
Although I didn't play, several in my room played bridge day after
day. One I'll never forget was Robert Ripstein from New York City who
whistled "Holiday for Strings" through his teeth a11 the time he was
playing cards. He nearly drove us all nuts! Even today I can't bear to
hear that music! He was the only one in camp that irritated the
fellows in our room and to me all of them were just great guys to be
around.
I was always telling jokes, playing practical jokes and seemed to have
a happy outlook on life ... maybe just because I still had it. I knew
a lot of jokes from the days with the old gang back at home and every
night just after the lights went out and we were all in our bunks, I
would tell a joke. I told a different one every night of the eight
months we were in this camp. It got to be like a bedtime story and
they expected it.
Murphy was another boy in our room and sometimes he would get a
package from home with cigars in it. He would be so happy he'd put two
cigars in his mouth with a cigarette between them and smoke all three
at once. When he got letters from his girl back home, who was
receiving all his allotment checks, he would hear of all the things
she was buying with his money to furnish their home when they got
married. I remember there was a piano bought along with all the other
furniture. When we were back in Atlantic City waiting for discharge, I
met him standing on a street corner looking very dejected. His girl
had married someone else and used his money to furnish their home.
I can't remember receiving much mail but I must have gotten some.
About once a month we were allowed to send a letter home through the
Red Cross, but I didn't know whether they went through or not. My
father sent me two cartons of cigarettes every week but I never
received a single one of them. I imagine that they were taken by the
Germans as they opened our parcels before they came into camp. There
was so much dehydrated food that seasoning was one of the things we
missed the most. One time the two higher ranking officers in our
barracks had received a parcel with some dried onion flakes in it.
When they cooked with them about a 100 guys would go stand in the hall
outside the room to enjoy the smell. It was almost as good as eating
them!
It was too bad that there was no way to tell the people back home
about the things that we would really like instead of cigarettes, soap
and other non-essentials. The parcels had to travel so far with so
much handling that very few ever reached the camp. By this time the
German people were so short of everything, including food, that they
must have made off with a lot of it.
The washroom in our barracks contained a row of sinks where we washed
and shaved. The water was from underground springs and was a hundred
times colder than ice water. it made your hands and face numb so we
got as little as possible on us and did it quickly! When we got so bad
that we just had to bathe (not very often) we did it when there was
still some heat in the stove in the communal kitchen. We would heat up
a tin can of water on the stove, go into the washroom and splash on
Just enough ice water to make suds then have a friend pour the can of
warm water over you and hope it was enough to get the soap off. Even
in the summer time the water was just as cold so one or two baths a
month was enough. There was a building in camp for doing laundry, but
there was no hot water so nobody ever used it much.
We washed our clothes in an old pail with a plunger we made from a
three foot piece of tree root that was fairly straight and nailed to a
powdered milk can at the end. The can made good suction and by pulling
it up and down we could get our clothes fairly clean. Our pants would
get so stiff with grease and dirt that we could stand them up in a
corner. The last four or five months it was winter and we didn't wash
any clothes, at least not after we left this camp.
A monetary system was set up with each item in the food parcels having
a value of a given number of points. Food could be exchanged for
D-bars or cigarettes used to pay debts. The army hard chocolate D-bar
was the most prized and valuable item besides being our only candy and
was nutritious. It was considered to be worth five dollars and some
fellows sold all they could get for IOU notes and planned on
collecting the money when they got home. I knew these guys were honest
and no doubt some made several hundred dollars this way. This system
worked very well and points were given to every article in camp. even
clothing was sometimes traded for D-bars.
The enterprising guys were keeping busy with different projects like
the one from Pennsylvania who wrote the book about the prison camp. Ht
had a rough draft and went all through the camp taking advanced orders
for it. He had it printed after the war and contacted everyone. He
made three dollars a book. Someone else drew a poster of a pilots head
in uniform with the left side all gears, wheels and levers depicting
the makeup of a pilots head. It was an exceptional picture poster.
At one of the camps we were in one of the guys bribed a guard to get a
camera and film. He took several rolls of pictures and also took
orders for $5 and I signed up for them. I received these without any
problem after the war. Another fellow had a real business going. He
melted the solder off the bottom of the cans which held the "church
key'. He made a smal1 ball of this solder and took a three inch piece
off your dog tags chain and soldered it to your pilots wings, then
soldering it to the ball. This signified your inability to fly with
the old ball and chain symbol. He would do this for a certain number
of D-bars in payment. This way he had more to eat or to sell for IOU's
to collect later.
The making of the athletic field was a major accomplishment which we
undertook in the early summer. This large area at one end of the
compound was Just the way they had left it after clearing away the
forest. Hundreds of stumps of pine trees in neat rows covered the
entire area. The Germans gave us one ax, a telephone pole and one
guard with a rifle. About two thousand of us each took an empty
powdered milk can and we looked like a colony of ants digging the dirt
away from the stumps and roots. It was sandy soi1 and dug quite
easily. Wt took turns using the ax and cut all the roots from each
stump as fast as we could. Then, with the guard watching us, we put
the telephone pole under each stump and all the guys that could get
onto the pole would Jump on and pry the stump out of the ground. I
don't remember what happened to the stumps, but we had no tools to cut
them up for firewood so the Germans must have hauled them out of camp.
Each man then took a bed slat from his bunk, a board about four inches
wide and three feet long and we used this to level the soft dirt as
there were no rocks. It is amazing that it only took us two days and
there was room enough for a football field and two softball diamonds.
The football field was seldom used but there was always someone
playing softball. The Red Cross furnished the balls, gloves and bats.
Naturally I played baseball and as a shortstop most of the time. We
had some good games as the talent in camp was exceptional. One of the
pitchers had been the national softball champion of the U.S. and he
threw the ball so fast that you could hardly see it. I just took a
chance and started swinging the bat when he started his windings. I
didn't get many hits as they were too good for me! There was one
pitcher by the name of Brown who acted nervous all the time and wou1d
fidget on the mound, shake his arms and keep leaning down to pick up
pebbles while getting ready to pitch. There were usually several
hundred of us standing watching the game and just as he would get
ready to pitch someone in the crowd would yell "What's the color of a
horse?" and everyone would yell 'Brown!' We did this several times
each game and it really got him rattled!
That summer was hot and the summer clothes were a sight to see. Paul
Duncan from my room pitched on a softball team and all he were was a
small piece of cloth in front tied around the waist with a
shoestring. We used to play catch a lot for exercise And to keep
busy. Sometimes we played a different game of softball which was
probably thought up by someone in camp as I had never heard of it
before. When you got a hit you could run either way, to first or
third base, but you had to continue in that direction all the way
around. Sometimes there would be six men on base and it made for a
lot of activity when there was a hit!
One day I leaned across the table to lift a pitcher of water and that
was the first time my back went out. The pain was so severe and I
didn't know what had happened. I didn't go outside to the hospital
but saw the two pilots who had had two years of chiropractor
schooling before being drafted. They were our medical team. There
were no supplies, other than aspirin and band aids. They did help me
with massage and they decided it was caused by the jolt when my
parachute had opened. When this happened, several times while in
prison camp, I would lay on my stomach on a bench with my arms around
under the bench and sweat. After a couple of hours this way I could
get up and move around some. A couple of times I could not get out
for morning roll call count and a guard was sent in to check on me.
This is the only medical problem I had in camp, except for hunger
and, later, dysentery.
We fixed a place between the barracks to play volleyball and played
occasionally. We also made a boxing ring and got the padded gloves
from the Red Cross. We didn't allow any fighting in camp so when
there was an argument, those involved were scheduled for three one
minute rounds in the ring. We would gather around for these events
and usually no one got hurt, but this was the way to settle
arguments. Neil Ullo was a very serious type and did a lot of
studying. Being in another room he made friends with a different
group and spent less time with Bruce and I. We did everything
together and I did learn a little from Ullo about the stars. We would
go outside after dark and he would point out the primary stars. I
remember learning about Orion a formation of Seven stars and I still
look for it in the night sky today. I always think of Ullo and that
time in our lives when I see it.
We had one Black pilot in camp and one day we were at the main gate
watching another group of now prisoners being brought into camp and
he saw another Black pilot he had flown with. They were only about
100 feet away so we could talk to them as they went by. The fellow
was so excited to see his friend he yelled "What did you do with my
clothes?" and the new man replied "I sold them!" To this day I can
still hear them saying that in their deep southern drawl.
The best Joke of all was the one that I played on Bruce. Every time
that my back hurt or I didn't feel well I would ask Bruce to do my
work for me like getting meals, washing dishes, peeling potatoes or
carrying the hot water. I was very generous in paying him back with
packs of cigarettes, which I had because I didn't smoke. I even got
so I would try to convince him I was sick when there was a dirty job
to do and he would do it. The important thing (to me at least) was
that I was paying him with packs of cigarettes I was taking out of
his locker. This went on for about five months and all the guys in
the room knew it and were really enjoying it. One day he noticed
everyone laughing and you could see the wheels turning in his head as
he finally figured it out. He started for me and I went out the
window with him right behind. He chased me around the camp for hours
before he finally gave up and forgave me.
Bruce's bunk was just inside the door and he was in the middle bunk
with his head next to the door. I used to get up first in the
morning, go across the hall and hold my hand under that cold ice
water till it was numb. I would throw open the door and stick my cold
hand down his back and wake him up. My hand was so cold he would lay
stiff as a board and couldn't even move, which was better than
jumping up and hitting his head on the bunk above. It was a wonder
that we remained such good buddies.
There was a Catholic priest in camp and I believe he came by way of
the Red Cross from Switzerland. We had church services every Sunday
outside the cookhouse. We had one tenor with a beautiful voice and he
would sing "Danny Boy" after church. That is the song I remember him
best for. Some of the guys tried to have a small garden, but the soil
was just sand and pine needles and wouldn't grow anything. It was
possible to get seeds and some other items by bribing the guards
with cigarettes. The guards were usually older men, to old to fight,
and they were glad to get food or cigarettes.
The guards lived in a building just outside the main gate and they
raised chickens. Sometimes the birds would wander into the area we
could see but not go into. One of the guys got a few kernels of corn
and tied them at the end of a long string. He would throw it out near
the chickens and slowly pull it back trying to got a chicken to
follow. He did this for hours and finally caught one. We heard all
the commotion and ran down to see what was going on. He had the
chicken tucked under his arm, it was squawking like crazy and he was
running in one end of each barracks and out the other with a German
guard chasing him. After going through five or six barracks, the
chicken was silent and the guard lost them. The guard searched awhile
then gave up. Somewhere along the way the chicken had been hidden and
some POWs had a chicken dinner that night.
Many of us tried to catch birds, mostly sparrows, which we intended
to eat if we could catch them. We put out a cardboard box with one
end propped up with a stick and attached was a string that led in
the window. We put bread crumbs under the box and took, turns
watching from the window. The birds were so fast that they always got
away before the box fell. We never got any but we never gave up
trying. Another way we passed the time was by laying on our bunks and
watching flies light on the ceiling. How do they get their feet on
the ceiling? Do they do a loop the loop, half roll or flip? We spent
hours arguing about this but we never solved the puzzle.
Another interesting story was about Paul Duncan, a guy in our room
who was from Kentucky, where he had been studying to become a
physical education teacher. He had been shot down over the
Mediterranean Sea and had floated for several days in his life raft
near the coast of Italy. When he got to camp with us he was very
skinny and shriveled up from being so long in the salt water. He and
another boy from the next room got some cement from the guards and a
metal pole and built weight lifting equipment. The weights on the
ends were tin cans filled with cement. They would exercise for hours
each day and it was amazing how he built up his body. He could squat
down with his hands an his hips and hop like a frog. The two of them
were a sight, hopping around the perimeter of the camp this way. By
late summer they could go 3/4 of a mile around the compound in that
position. He would do 100 pushups at a time and would lay on a bench
with his ankles tied to the end of the
bench raised up then touch his elbows to his knees. At one time he
did several hundred of those before we made him stop. He was the one
who wore just the loin cloth all summer and he would shave all the
hair off his legs and body so he could tan all over. He was not in
the cooking group that I was, but when I was sick and couldn't eat my
share I would give it to him as he was exercising and needed the
extra food.
Supplies were brought into camp by a big old wood burning truck. It
didn't go very fast and after unloading the two Germans would try to
get it going again. Several hundred of us would watch them and give
advice. The boiler was on one side of the truck and they had to keep
throwing wood in it to get a good fire going. When they finally got
it started we would all cheer add clap our hands as the truck slowly
chugged its way out of camp.
We had many styles of haircuts and some shaved their heads or wore a
Mohawk. A lot of the men grew mustaches and we even had a contest for
the longest one measured tip to tip, with a prize for the winner.
When the mustache got long enough they would melt the wax off waxed
paper from the Red Cross parcel and make the hair pointed or curled.
A man named Irons won the contest with a mustache nearly a foot wide.
There was an in ground cement swimming pool in the center of camp but
we couldn't swim in it as it was to save water in case of a fire.
Several guys built boats out of the metal cans using only a knife and
fork for tools. We were told that someone in the English camp had
built a grandfather's clock that way and it really worked. These
boats were as much as a foot long and waterproofed. A boiler was made
out of a tin can with a metal tube to throw the steam against a
paddlewheel. The can was filled with water and the rancid butter that
came in the Canadian parcels burned in a tray under the can of water
to make steam. Everything we received was used for something. If the
butter burned well the boat would go about 30 feet across the pool.
Some of these boats were masterpieces with a rudder for steering and
a cabin on the deck. I remember having a big race an the Fourth of
July with betting on the boat of your choice. If you were wealthy,
you could bet a D-bar. It took a lot of patience to build anything
this good with the material and tools we had, but it kept us
occupied.
One of the barracks down by the main gate had two young cats that had
wandered into the compound and been kept as pets. They talked about
eating them if they got hungry enough. Later in the summer one of the
cats died and they decided to have a military funeral for it. It took
several days to make preparations for this big event. The grave was
dug and a small wooden casket was built. In the English compound next
to us was a British, naval officer who happened to be in Europe when
the Germans first started war activities it 1939. He was the first
one captured and had been in prison camps for six years. During all
that time he had received many packages from home and had a complete
English Naval uniform with al1 the ribbons and insignia on a white
uniform. He wore it every Sunday while walking around his compound.
The German guards allowed him to bring a delegation to the funeral
and he led the procession in full uniform. It was a half day event
with the Catholic priest giving the eulogy. There were even pall
bearers. Several days later some of the men killed the remaining cat
and ate it. Probably it was not from hunger, but just to say they had
eaten a cat in prison camp.
We had a room in the theatre building for a news room where we had
maps of Germany and two German newspapers were posted which gave
some information (even if you didn't understand German). I remember
seeing a copy of the paper on the day the Allied invasion began. It
said 'Die invasion is begun'. If I could have gotten a copy I would
have liked to bring it home. The maps in the news room had to have
the front marked according to the German news we got the correct
version from the BBC.
The British in the next compound had a radio which they took apart
And different men carried the parts. They put it back together Just
for the broadcasts. The news was written down and passed to the other
compounds by way of the hospital building. Usually someone had to
make a trip there each day and It was read to us in the newsroom
after making certain that there were no guards in or around the
barracks. The one who read the news was Abe (I forget his last name)
who was Jewish and always afraid of what the Germans might do to him.
Ht would break out in a sweat while reading, but refused to give up
the job to anyone else. He never lost the fear that the guards would
find out what he was reading and how he got it. This news was the way
I kept the map by my bunk up to date. We had a camp newsletter each
week that was posted in the newsroom and contained news from home
which came from prisoner's letters from home. We also had a wonderful
cartoonist in camp and he had a comic strip posted every week. The
heroine's name was "Needa Leigh" so you can guess what the cartoon
was about. The newsroom posted this cartoon each Sunday and It was
the highlight of the day. Guys would come by the hundreds to see the
new episode. The age group represented was of college men and there
was no end of talent.
The theatre had been built with a stage and a large auditorium. There
were no seats so we built two hundred seats out of the wooden boxes
the Red Cross parcels came in. They were like orange crates and by
cutting part of it out it made a seat with a back. As the theatre
only held two hundred, each program had to play several times. Some
guys had theatrical experience and several plays were done. The
German camp officers and some guards came to the shows and sat in the
front row. Some of the entertainers made jokes about them, but they
laughed right along with the rest of us. We soon received musical
instruments through Switzerland and an orchestra was formed. Again,
the exceptional talent of so many gave us good musicals. The Germans
always came to the musical performances. I remember one fellow had a
baseball uniform and a bat and he would recite "Casey at the Bat"
with all the appropriate motions. It was great entertainment.
Fall weather arrived and we were not looking forward to the cold
weather as we only got enough coal to use while cooking. All the
sports ended and we had to find things to do indoors. Some of the
musicians formed small groups of four or five with banjos or guitars
and provided entertainment to the rooms. You would ask them to come
to the room in the evening and they would play sing and tell Jokes.
After an hour and a half we would pay them by feeding them our late
evening snack. We would try to have some special dessert for them. It
gave us entertainment and them food.
Two or three guys had been out to the hospital and were suspected of
having TB. They were taken out of camp and we had no idea what became
of them. We were told that there was no TB in Germany and they were
anxious to get rid of them. We also had a few guy's who couldn't
stand the captivity and began to act very strange. As we said in the
service: they went "round the bend". I know of a couple like this and
they disappeared. They were perhaps sent home through the Red Cross
in Switzerland.
One day the Germans told us they were going to give us a horse to eat
and we were all looking forward to having some meat. We saw the wagon
coming and all rushed down to the cookhouse to climb up and look in
the wagon. It was a horse alright, the head, four feet and the tail.
Wt all went back to our barracks and forgot about meat and German
promises.
The German pilots knew our location and would fly over our camp often
and very low. One day we saw a large bomber go over with a smaller
plane sitting on top of it. They were probably testing something new
as none of us had ever seen anything like that. Another day a plane
flew very low over us at very high speed and it mystified us. After
the war we learned that the Germans were testing Jet planes and these
were the early ones undergoing testing. One day one flew very low
over us and just after it disappeared over the treetops there was a
loud explosion, a ball of fire and smoke going up. We knew it had
crashed and we yelled and clapped... just trying to let the German
guards know how we still felt about it.
It was getting to be colder weather and the Red Cross sent us
warmer clothing. I got a GI overcoat which was very heavy and came
down to my ankles. I also got two blankets, one a beautiful British
Royal Air Force blanket. It was dark blue and very thick, With the
air force insignia in the center. There was snow and that part of
Germany had weather about the same as upstate New York. We were cold
most of the time. I put my flannel pajamas on under my clothes and
didn't take them off for several months. It was too cold to bathe
very often and our clothes were getting quite dirty. I was still
wearing the logging boots I had bought in California and my feet were
always cold. I was again wearing the orange sweater that came down to
my knees so I must have been a sight. I took some cloth, perhaps from
one of my shirts, and made a pair of booties the size of my feet and
another larger pair. I cut a German newspaper in narrow strips and
packed it about three inches thick between the cloth booties and
sowed them up. They were big and bulky, but I wore them in the
barracks and they kept my feet warm. The Red Cross sent us some hockey
sticks and skates so we decided to build a hockey rink. In an open
space where the ground was level we smoothed a large area with the
bed slats and piled up dirt about four inches high around the sides.
We carried cold water in our water pitchers and poured it on the
rink. Each night it would freeze and we'd put more on the next day.
After a few days and thousands of trips with the water, we had a real
nice rink. We made a puck out of a piece of tree root and teams were
formed. The Canadians in the next compound had a very good team and
we challenged them to a game. The big day arrived and our team was
ready. The goalie was a tall red headed guy from our room and he
slept in the bunk above me. The day before the game we all gave him
some of our food so that he could build up his strength enough to
play the entire game. I think the Canadians won but we had a lot of
fun watching the game. The guards in the towers also watched the game
of course. After a couple of months of hockey playing the sticks were
broken off at the end and we had to play with them that way.
Soon it was Christmas and my third away from home. Under such bad
conditions it was very hard to be cheerful. We did the best we could
with decorations. Even though we were in a forest of pine trees, we
couldn't get any inside the compound. We mixed the gritty powder that
the Germans gave us for toothpaste with water and pasted it in the
corner of the windows like snow. We also saved up a little extra food
so we could have one good meal. The Germans had promised us each a
bottle of beer for Christmas and we were eagerly looking forward to
that. We each got a bottle, to our surprise, but when we got back to
the barracks and opened it we found it was only a bottle of charged
water, not beer. The only thing we could do was dump it out and save
the bottle. Our spirits were low and this didn't help any. We spent
the rest of the day thanking of our loved ones at home and wishing we
were with them.
In January 1945 we began to hear the big guns from the east and we
knew the Russians were advancing from that direction. On January 23
we were notified by the camp commander that the Germans had told him
to prepare to leave this camp before the Russians came. They didn't
want any of the highly trained airman to be liberated and have the
chance to fight against them again. We were instructed to walk 10
laps around the perimeter each day for a total of 7 and 1/2 miles.
This was not easy due to the weather and our weakened conditions, but
we knew it was necessary to build up our bodies for long marches. We
discussed different ways in which to carry our belongings and food.
We had large safety pins and a shirt could be pinned up at the bottom
with the arms tied around the neck, thus forming a sack. Another
carrying device was to pin up the bottom of our heavy army coat and
put everything inside. This was the method which I chose.
Our biggest problem was to eat more food and try to build up our
strength for what lay ahead, while saving some food to take with us.
On the evening of January 28 we were told to get ready to leave. We
put on all the clothes we had and I put on the flannel pajamas over
my underwear, not knowing that it would be two Months before I took
them off again. We divided our remaining food as equally as possible
and sat around waiting for the order to march At the last minute they
gave each of us a full Red Cross parcel and we were sorry we had not
eaten more during the last few days. Just after midnight, at
approximately 12:30 am on January 29 we were ordered to leave. I put
on my overcoat carried the heavy Royal Air Force blanket and suddenly
realized what a heavy load I was carrying, the miserable conditions,
and that it had only begun.