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 small 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 soil
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 would 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. We 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.
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