The Biography of a Rabbit Part 6

At about this time we made another move to a field near Maidstone, a small town southeast of London. We were closer to the Channel here and the field was entirely different. Some one else flew my plane down here and I went by train with the rest of the group. It is interesting to note that we went through the village of Sittingbourne where my mother was born. The train didn't stop so I had no chance to visit there. Our living conditions at Maidstone were different: in a tent with a dirt floor in the middle of an apple orchard. There were four of us in each tent sleeping on army cots with a stove in the middle for heat. On warm days we could role up the sides of the tent for ventilation. Another tent was the mess hall and we ate sitting on the ground under the apple trees. We ate with our army mess kits and rinsed them out in a barrel of hot water.

This was much different from the beautiful place where Len Pierce was stationed. The runway at Maidstone was a gra.s.s field surrounded by trees. They put heavy wire mesh in the ground to keep us from sinking in when the field was muddy. It was a b.u.mpy field to begin with! The field was not very long and you had to get down before running into the trees at the and of the runway. One time I came back from a mission and the wind was blowing across the runway. (Planes always landed into the wind and took off the same way) I was not lined up correctly with the runway and was drifting to the right. It was too late to pull up and go around again as I was down to landing speed.

This decision had to be made quickly and I decided to land. When my wheels touched the ground I began to bounce to the right and by using brakes and all the other controls I kept from cras.h.i.+ng, managing to stop Just before hitting the trees at the end of the runway. It was the worst landing I over made, but I was relieved not to have damaged my plane. I was very embarra.s.sed when I got out in front of my crew.

By now some of us had flown enough missions that our papers were sent in for review for promotion to First Lieutenant. We only had one First Lieutenant in our squadron and it was about time we had some promotions. I didn't get notification that they had been approved until I was back home after the war. The year I was in prison camp they paid me the lower wage so after the war I wrote to Was.h.i.+ngton and received all the difference in pay that was due me. We were also looking forward to the end of our tour of duty at this time. After flying a total of twenty five missions you were supposed to be sent back to the States. We were getting closer all the time and then they changed the total to 40 missions. You can imagine what this did to our morale. We gave up thoughts of going home and Just concentrated on surviving as many missions as we could.

We were about to get some new planes with the bubble canopy and were looking forward to that as they made it easier to see all around you without all the metal braces in the canopy. One day I was told my plane was coming that day and was looking forward to checking it out.

We would take it up high over England to check the performance at high alt.i.tude, the guns and controls... just to get the feel of it.

In the afternoon we had to escort some A-20 bombers to France on a bombing run and when I got back my new plane was gone. One of our new replacement pilots had been sent up to check it out and at 30,000 feet he said something felt wrong and he bailed out. My new plane crashed somewhere in England and I never even got to see it! He was just a young kid and I never did believe that anything was really wrong with the plane. I was angry with him for a long time as I never did get one of the new planes and flew all the remaining missions with the old one.

Another time when our flight was returning on instruments as the overcast was so thick, we came down to 1000 feet and broke out to find ourselves over London with the barrage balloons all around us.

They were balloons that had a steel cable hanging down from them to prevent enemy planes from flying low over the city. We pulled up fast and were lucky to get out of there in a hurry without being hit by one of them.

One other mission when I was coming back alone I got over an area where the flak was heavy--bursting all around me so that the sky was blackened with sh.e.l.ls. I realized than that I was directly over the Ruhr Valley which was the industrial center of Germany. It was heavily defended and normally all missions were routed around this area. I flew all the way across the area and had to use a lot of evasive action, including changing of alt.i.tude When flak bursts in the air it makes a black puff or cloud-and there were thousands of them shot up at me. It did make me feel good to think of all the sh.e.l.ls they wasted and what it cost just to shoot at me!

When you are starting the plane there is a k.n.o.b that you push out and pull in called the primer pump and it gives extra gas to the engine for starting. On one mission Paul Maxwell was in our flight and his engine quit on the way back. He found that the only way he could keep it running well enough to stay in the air was to work the primer pump. We all slowed down enough to stay with him and prayed that he could make It across the Channel. On the east coast of England at the point closest to Europe there was a landing strip on top of the white cliffs. It was called the Masden emergency field and all the planes that were damaged or having problems would head for there. A lot of the bombers would land there if they couldn't make it back to base.

The runway was wide and straight in from the Channel so they didn't have to make any turns. Paul Maxwell landed there and his fingers were covered with blood from his having to work, the primer pump constantly.

During the last couple of weeks that I was in England we began to hear the V-2 rockets that the Germans began to use. Most of them were directed at London but we could hear the sound they made as they went over us. The gun emplacements that fired them were all along the coast of Europe and it wasn't long before they were sending them over at night. It was interesting to fly over England at this time as everything was being readied for the eventual invasion. Every field in southern England was covered with big pile of boxes and equipment.

I didn't realize until after the war the tremendous amount of supplies, food, gas, ammunition and hundreds of other things that were needed to supply an invasion of that magnitude. No wonder there were shortages back in the U.S.! So much of this was to be lost in the Channel when s.h.i.+ps were sunk on invasion day.

One night Bruce and I were hungry so we decided to break into the supply tent and find something to eat. We got up the side of the tent and reached under the roof where we found a gallon can, of fruit c.o.c.ktail. Wt ran back to the tent where we began to eat it. We were soon full, but had no where to hide the remainder so were forced to eat the rest. It is no easy task to eat that much fruit c.o.c.ktail and we decided not to try that again. At the other bases there was no form of entertainment and we had to go to the nearest city for alcohol and movies. Finally at this base they put up two metal nissan huts: one a bar, the other a theatre. I didn't use either one for very long due to the following events.

On May 10, 1944 they opened the bar at 6 pm and Bruce and I ordered a gla.s.s of Scotch and a beer each. After a couple of them we were feeling good and decided to go to the movies in the other hut. Bruce and I got to laughing so hard at the comedy that they threw us out of the hut. We realized then that the movie hadn't started yet! We staggered back to the tent and in the darkness Bruce tripped over something and fell against the hot stove receiving a burn to the side of his hand. I will mention here the value of the "Purple Heart"

medal because Bruce received one later for getting drunk and falling on a hot stove and I received nothing for being burned when I bailed out.

The next day, May 11, 1944, we were not scheduled for a mission...a good thing because Bruce and I were in poor shape. Some of the other pilots had been s.h.i.+pping their foot lockers home with all their extra belongings. They would go to Fort Levenworth, Kansas and be kept there until our return. I filled mine up with a complete sheepskin leather flying suit including the boots, a pair of English flying goggles which were very different from ours, a pair of warm English silk flying gloves that came up nearly to the elbow my Jungle kit with the machete knife, all my extra clothing and the undeveloped rolls of film I had taken in England were also included. I had so many good items in there and was looking forward to having them after the war. About 4 pm we carted them off to the base Post Office to fill out the papers and pay for the s.h.i.+pping.

Chapter 7 Shot Down

At seven O'clock on the evening of May 11 we were called for a short mission to France. This was my twenty third mission my army records show that I flew thirty seven missions. I don't know what caused the difference in the records. As far as I knew, it was my twenty third mission and I was glad it was to be a short one. Bruce and I had recuperated from the night before and he was flying as my wingman. We got over France and were attacked by a large group of enemy fighters.

We were soon scattered all over the sky engaged in combat and Bruce, who was to be off my left wing guarding my rear, wasn't there. All I saw was an ME-109 directly behind me. He must have come from above so quickly that I missed him. I immediately started a right turn, but it was too late. The next thing I saw was two rows of bullet holes chewing up each side of my instrument panel. The armor plate behind the seat was only a foot wide and the bullets were hitting the instruments about twenty inches apart. I'll never know how my arms kept from being hit.

The c.o.c.kpit filled with flames and I knew the gas, tank behind the seat had been hit and was burning. I just had time to pull the canopy release and struggled to kick myself out as fast as I could. My oxygen mask and earphones were still fastened to the plane and these together with the force of the wind made it difficult to get out. I was lucky not to be hit by the tail section of the plane. Both of my ears were burned and the silk scarf around my neck was nearly half burned, but the wind extinguished that. I was 23,000 feet up which about four mi1es and did what I was not supposed to do I pulled the ripcord to open my chute. Due to the panic from the fire I suppose I wasn't thinking too clearly. The farther you fall before you open the parachute, the less chance the enemy has of seeing you and the better your chance for escape. Also some of our pilots had been shot by enemy planes while coming down in their chutes. I was headed down when my chute opened and Jerked me around into a sitting position which later caused all my back problems. My heart went to my throat when I looked up and saw three panels of the parachute were missing. I realized now that they are made that way to release some of the air underneath to make them more stable. It was really quite an experience to look down and see nothing beneath you except your shoes. The first impression I had was of the absolute quiet around me. I checked my watch and noted that it took exactly twelve minutes for me to come down. I threw away all the info I had that might help the enemy and ate the candy bar I had in my packet rather than let it be taken away. It was a good thing I did so as it was quite awhile before I was to eat again.

I saw my plane go down, crash and burn several miles away. I found out later that I was in Luxemburg near the city of Metz. As I neared the ground I could see that I was going to land in a plowed field near a small village. I was not facing in the right direction and tried to turn and steer myself by pulling on the chute lines. I almost died of fright when the chute folded half under and so I let go in a hurry.

The chute opened again correctly and I landed in the soft dirt of the field without even falling down.

The landing was very easy and I immediately got out of the chute harness and began to run for the woods that were on either side of the field. I had gone only about ten feet when I heard a rifle shot and the bullets whizzing past me so I stopped and held up my hands. The German was coming across the field toward me from one direction and a group of twenty people from the village were coming from the other.

The group from the village reached me first and one of them took out a package of Lucky Strike cigarettes, gave me one and lit it for me.

They were French and all smiles. they could have hidden me if the Germans were not right there. the German was a young boy, but I gave up any thoughts of escape as he was the one with the gun. He took me back to the road where he had a bicycle. It seems the Germans patrolled the roads on bicycles during air raids and captured the Americans when they saw the parachutes coming down. If I had not opened my parachute so soon he might not have seen me and I could have reached the woods safely or the townspeople could have hidden me. It was almost dark now as it was 8:00 pm. I walked along the dark road with him behind me on the bicycle carrying the gun. After about an hours walk we came to a city where I was taken into a building where there were several German soldiers. They made me empty my pockets and took my watch. They were interested in my 'May West' life vest so I showed them how it worked and they all jumped when I pulled the pin and it inflated. I was then put in a dark room, face down on a cot with my ankles drawn up behind me and tied to my wrists. They left me this way through the night and returned for me in the morning. Than I was taken into the city of Metz where I was joined by some other prisoners. Bruce was with them and I was very glad to see him and know he was safe. We had been shot down at the same time. There were several fellows from a bomber crew and we were a group of about ten.

They took us down one of the busy streets and we were a little nervous as to the reaction of the civilians who we had been bombing, but they just looked at us. None of us spoke French and they were probably afraid of the German soldiers with us.

As one of the boys in the bomber crew had been hit in the knee by flak, he had it all wrapped up in b.l.o.o.d.y cloths. He had received no medical attention and could not walk on it so we all took turns, one on each side of him. He was in a lot of pain but never complained. I recall traveling part of the way in a streetcar, but can't remember how we got from Metz to the interrogation center in southern Germany, which was our destination. When you are in a foreign country in this situation it certainly seemed good to have your fellows to talk to! By this time we were beginning to get hungry, but were all, so nervous about what was going to happen to us that we didn't concentrate much on food.

When we arrived at the interrogation center we were separated and I was put into a small room about ten feet square with a high ceiling.

There was a little window about fifteen feet off the floor which gave a little light in the daytime. The only furnis.h.i.+ngs in the room was a wooden bed with a burlap mattress filled with straw. I could just faintly hear the prisoner in the next room and later learned that some of the prisoners tried to communicate with one another by tapping on the wall in Morse code (which we had learned in training). We were fed three times a day by the guard stationed in the hall outside. In the morning there was one slice of bread and a cup of tea, at noon a cup of barley soup, and at night the bread and tea again. It was just enough to keep you from starving. I got so hungry that when eating the bread I would put my jacket over my lap, eat over it then lick the bread crumbs off the back of the jacket. I tried to keep track of the days by taking a stick of straw out of the mattress and putting a one inch piece on the board at the head of the bed each morning. With nothing to do all day you would soon begin to wonder if you had counted the day or not. I would sometimes spend several hours worrying: did I or didn't I do it? The bathroom was down the hall so when you needed to go you banged on the door until the guard came.

There was no paper and no water so we couldn't keep clean.

I spent eleven days living like this with no one to talk to. All you could do was think and look at the pieces of straw on the board. I would walk back and forth for exercise then sit and think. About the third day a guard took me into a room where a German officer sat behind a desk. He asked me questions about the mission I was on, the others in our outfit, all about the planes and our base in England. We had been told to give nothing but our name, rank and serial number and that is all I did. After about an hour I was taken back to my room. A few days later I was returned to the officer and he began telling me all the information he already had about me. He knew my hometown (even about the lake), when I graduated from flying school and all my training bases, and who I was flying with the day I was shot down.

They even knew about my home base back it England.

1 was amazed at how widespread their spy system must have been and a.s.sumed they must have had informants at every base in England and the U.S. All he asked was that I sign the papers to the effect that all the information was true which I refused to do. He even had the number of my plane and knew the position of it in the flights.

Just recently I read the book The Interrogator by Haus Scharff and realized that he was the one who interrogated me. He moved to the United States after the war and lived in California. The third and last time I was taken in for interrogation Bruce was in the room when I was brought in. We just looked at each other and tried to show no sign of recognition. He didn't say anything and shortly another door opened and in came "Here I sit, fat, dumb and happy" Barlow who had been shot down a month previously. We still tried to show no sign of recognition and finally the interrogator said: go ahead and say h.e.l.lo to each other for we know already you were flying together. We shook hands and smiled at each other. After eleven days of solitary confinement we would have liked to talk, but didn't. After those eleven days we were desperate to talk to someone besides the interrogator! He asked no more questions and we were taken back to our rooms. Barlow was not in the same prison camp that I was and I believe that was the last time I saw him. I learned later that after he returned to the States he stayed in the service and rose to the rank of Major before I lost track of him.

After eleven days, according to the straws on my shelf, we were all taken to a large room. There were about fifty of us and it was a sight you should have seen. We all had beards an inch or longer and the talking and hollering was deafening. Even the situation in which we found ourselves did not dampen the laughter and Joy of being with friends again. Bruce was the only man I knew but these bomber crews were immediately as close as long lost buddies. We all had a shower and then a shave. They gave us a little pair of scissors like you have in kindergarten and I cut Bruce's whiskers and he cut mine. We had to cut them off enough so the razor could do the rest. We only had one razor blade which everyone used (and it was dull) but we managed to get fairly clean without too much bleeding.

I a.s.sume the reason we were not interrogated further was due to the greater number of Americans being brought into the place. I also suspect that they weren't getting much information from second Lieutenants and were more interested in higher ranking officers who knew a lot more about the war effort in England. They were probably trying to find out more about invasion preparations. One thing of interest was a ceremony in England presenting a medal to one of the leading war aces of the time. He was shot down the next day and when he arrived at the interrogation center the Germans had a large picture of him receiving the award. It was hanging on the wall of the room when they brought him in for interrogation. You can understand how fast their extensive SPY system worked!

The next thing I remember we were all standing out in an open field waiting for a train. We were each given a cardboard suitcase from the Red Cross. Wt opened them and mine contained a sweater, pajamas, toothbrush and paste and several other small items which I forget, mainly because the sweater took all my attention. It was bright orange and when I put it on it came down to my knees and the sleeves were about six inches too long. It was Just straight knitting like a scarf and was probably done by some Volunteer who knew nothing about knitting but wanted to help the war effort as best they could. It was the best present I ever received. It was worth a million dollars to me under those conditions and I probably had tears in my eyes. I know everyone said that if the Red Cross were collecting money there that they could have had everything we owned.

As we were standing there talking, I heard someone mention the name Len Pierce, so I called out "Who knows Len Pierce?" I met the pilot who was flying with Len and he told me all about how Len was killed.

Len was lost on May 10 the day before I went down and it was strange to learn about it under these circ.u.mstances. I probably knew about it over there in the middle of a field in Germany even before his folks were notified. The pilot who had been flying with Len explained that Len's plane was damaged and he was trying to make it back to England.

His plane quit over the Channel and he had to parachute out. He landed in the water and the chute came down on top of him. He was tangled in it and drowned even though he was a good swimmer. He was flying with a good outfit and had shot down two enemy planes.

The German guards were standing around us with huge black dogs that I believe were Dobermans. They started marching us to a train in single file and the guards and dogs kept us in line. The dogs were staining at their 1eashes with teeth barred and saliva foaming from their mouths. They were really fierce and we were petrified with fear. They were only about six feet on each side us and you can bet we stayed in a perfect line! We boarded the train and started out with the hope that American fighters would not come down and strafe the train. We didn't know where we were going but figured it was to a prison camp.

Somewhere along the way the train stopped and down a bank below us was another train with all the people from it standing on the gra.s.s. They were about 200 feet from us and Americans also. We saw pilots we had gone through training with and a few we knew from other squadrons in England. We waved and hollered but our train started up again. It was on that train I learned my first German word "abort" meaning bathroom.

I forget how long we were on the train or if they fed us, but we were so apprehensive about our future we were less concerned about our a appet.i.tes.

Chapter 8 A POW

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 a.s.signed 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 s.p.a.ce 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 sweats.h.i.+rt 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 s.h.i.+rt, 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. .h.i.t by large sh.e.l.ls, and either when he was. .h.i.t 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 hara.s.s 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 was.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.signed 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.