Personal Story of Richard Scott

The Saga of Baggy Maggy

The View from the Co-pilot's Seat

By

Richard Carrol Scott, Sr.

Our crew's story began at Peterson Field, Colorado Springs, Colorado, in early 1944. We experienced many unusual situations while getting to know the B-24 Bomber.

I remember flying at 23,000 feet in a chilling temperature of 40 degrees below zero - wearing insulated clothing that warmed as well as an electric blanket - when a stray 50-caliber bullet hull from another plane burst through our two-inch thick glass windshield and wound up way in the back end of our plane. It's path took it between Larry Hewin, the pilot, and me, the co-pilot. The freezing wind filled the plane. I stuffed a rag in the hole and we landed as fast as possible.

Pike's Peak and many other Rocky Mountains provided the backdrop for both the daylight and night time bombing practices. I remember another crew - our friends - whose plane hit a mountain top in the dark. No survivors.

After completing overseas training, our crew attended graduation excersises then headed to Lincoln, Nebraska for our overseas orders. We said good-bye to our families on June 30,1944.

Around 3:00 a.m. the next morning, we took off in our B-24, headed for Bangor, Maine. Around 4:00 a.m., while flying over the southern edge of Chicago, I could see a house on fire. The rest of the crew was sleeping. I was reading a book as we flew along. Of course, the plane was on autopilot and needed only occasional checking.

As morning brightened the sky, we were about a mile and a half high, still on our way to Bangor. The fields of Pennsylvania looked like a thick carpet had been laid over the ground. We asked the navigator, Wilmer, how far out of the way we would have to go to see Niagara Falls. He thought we meant how far are we from the falls and said, "About 75 miles." That was too far out of the way just to see Niagara, so we continued on to Bangor. After we landed, Wilmer told us it would have been only 20 miles out of the way, which would have been okay, but it was too late now, so we laughed it off.

Bad weather grounded us in Bangor for several days. We finally took off on July 4th, bound for Labrador. We flew over Canada for hours at an altitude of 8,000 feet - about 1 1/2 miles high. We looked down on millions of green trees, hundreds of lakes, and dozens of rivers. I imagined that MAN had never set foot on many of them. When we finally got to Labrador, we landed on a snow-covered runway - on the Fourth of July!

We had to lay over for several days due to hazardous weather conditions. We did get to eat breakfast with the Base's Commanding General. As George Sadler said, "He's just a BUCK General (one star)." I'm sure his tour of duty was lonely and this was one way the General broke the monotony.

From Labrador, we flew across the water to Greenland. There were hundreds of icebergs in the water and only ONE runway to land on. It started at the water's edge and ran uphill for about a half mile. The high end was about 200 feet higher than the low end. High mountains on both sides of the runway were too close for incoming planes to circle around if they missed their mark, so they had better be right the first time.

When it came time to leave, we took off going downhill. That helped us get to flying speed in a hurry. And, a good thing too! Any airplane still below flying speed by the time it reached the end of the runway would go right into the water. (I never heard of anyone actually going into the water).

We continued down the fiord to open water, climbing all the time so we would have enough altitude to clear the 5,000-foot thick ice cap that covered all of Greenland. A million needle-pointed ice spires completely covered the cap. I wondered how we could land among those spires if we had trouble. (Later, I heard of several planes that did have to land there). Fortunately, we did not experience any problems as we headed for Iceland, 800 miles away.

Iceland is near the Arctic Circle. We, again, encountered foul weather. During the several nights we spent waiting for the sky to clear, we had to cover the windows of our barracks with thick curtains in order to sleep. Standing outside, in the street, I could read a newspaper at any time of the day or night without the aid of any lighting other than that of the sun.

When the weather was suitable, we flew to Ireland, about another thousand miles over the North Atlantic. We circled Loch Neigh, landed, and kissed our new B-24 good-bye.

We stayed in Northern Ireland about a week. One enterprising family near our air base would hard-boil their surplus chicken eggs, bring them around to the Quonset huts (our sleeping quarters), and sell them to the "Yankee" soldiers for a shilling each (about 25 cents American). They never had a problem getting rid of the eggs. I remember a little sideshow I went to, along with about a hundred other Yanks. An Irish lassie of about 16 or 17 years old, dressed in native costume, demonstrated different Irish dances. Entrance fee was a couple of shillings.

When the time rolled around to move on, we marched down to their seaport and boarded a medium-sized ocean liner for a short trip across the Irish Sea to Edinburgh, Scotland. In Edinburgh, we boarded a train for the final leg of the journey to our air bases in England.

The English coaches were different from ours. On American trains, a passenger has the freedom to move from one end of a car to the other and even allowed to enter the next coach. Not so in England. Each car was divided into fairly small compartments, with room for eight to ten people. And there you stayed all the time the train was moving.

Our crew wound up at an air base near Hardwick, England. Once there, we attended lots of meetings and lectures.

As a co-pilot, I was assigned to fly my first mission with a totally different crew - for one time only. This crew had already flown a few missions. I figured this was to "initiate" me.

The target was a medium-sized airport in France. If we could drop bombs on the runways, they would then be unusable for the German planes. The most impressive feature of this mission happened just before we started our bomb run. The pilot, whose name I cannot recall, crossed himself in the standard Catholic manner. That awakened me to the fact that we were subject to being fired on, which I hadn't fully realized. On this trip, no shots were fired, but we were just lucky.

From then on, our regular crew flew together.

I vividly remember the next mission. It took about an hour of circling in our base's general area for all of the planes to get into the formation.

Then, we flew across the English Channel with a German oil refinery as our target. Oil was, as it is still, the life-blood of any army. As gasoline, it fuels airplanes, trucks, cars, etc. So, Hitler had his best sharpshooters surrounding the German refineries. Lots of our planes were on this mission. I saw more than a hundred. We were flying in a 12-ship formation at 23,000 feet - that's more than four miles straight up.

Our lead plane had three or four "visitors" on it - some Colonels and Majors who came along just for the ride, to see what a real air raid was like, and found out - the hard way! A "flack" shell hit their plane and set it on fire. The whole bomb bay area was ablaze, although no bombs had exploded as yet. The pilot had the presence of mind to turn his plane to the right to get out of the way of the rest of us. I lost sight of them after that.

This called for some TALL thinking. When the normal exit is on fire, there is another exit located near the folded-up nose wheel. But, it is rather small and fairly difficult to get through. I don't know if anyone made it or not.

Something else to think of - that plane was about 200 feet from our

plane. At four miles up, if that ground cannon's gun barrel had been 1/100 of an inch to one side, our plane would have been the one that was hit. Such things will make a philosopher out of a person.

A few minutes later, we saw a B-24 in a tailspin. We watched for about a minute and then couldn't see it any more. There were hundreds and hundreds of oily yellow blobs of smoke all around us. And, as each shell exploded, it scattered pieces of cast iron in all directions with the intent of hitting and destroying our planes. I saw a number of our planes go down in flames. We always counted the parachutes coming from each plane so we could report to our people back in England.

But we did bomb the refinery! That helped the war effort. After about a week, we were allowed to go to London for a weekend. The four officers from our crew stayed together. We saw the stage play, "Arsenic and Old Lace." It was pretty good. We had dinner in a downtown restaurant. While we were there, a siren sounded. That meant a "buzz bomb" had gotten through the coastal defenses and was headed for London. When we heard the siren, we all jumped up from the table, ready to hunt for a bomb shelter. We looked around, but no one else was paying any attention. We sat back down, finished our meal, and finally heard the buzz bomb off in the distance. I don't know where it hit, but it wasn't near us.

We spent that night on the top floor (4th) of a little hotel. Because of a shortage of space, we had to sleep two to a bed. About 4:00 a.m., Wilmer poked me in the side to wake me up. He said, "Scotty, listen!" Off in the distance, we could hear what sounded like a motorcycle. After a moment, the sound stopped. About five seconds later, we heard the thousand-pound bomb explode. Soon, there was another, then another. We heard one that sounded like it was headed straight for us. We held our breath. Fortunately, it flew right over our hotel and was still going when we could no longer hear it.

Buzz bombs are designed to run and fly until the fuel is exhausted.

Then, they tip over and head for the ground. It is random shooting, and thousands of Londoners were killed or injured by the bombs.

One of our missions was to bomb Nazi factories in France. Our plane was one of several dozen, and we were past the coastline when we noticed a small stream of oil leaking out of the Number 3 engine. We watched both the oil stream and the oil pressure gauge, and sure enough, the pressure on 3 started dropping, which meant we had lost one of our four engines. By this time, we were somewhere in the middle of occupied France. Larry feathered the propeller to reduce the drag on the remaining three engines, but even though we revved up the other three, we soon began to drop behind. Very soon, we had no choice but to turn around and try to make it back to our base, approximately 150 miles away. And, we were all by ourselves.

We scanned the area for German fighter planes, whose pilots would take delight in having such an easy target. After about five minutes, one of our crew called on the intercom and said, "Fighter plane at six o'clock."

I said, "Is it one of ours?"

The reply was, "Can't tell."

I remembered that the American P-51 fighter plane looked like the German FW-109 from the front. I told our gunners to clear their guns and make sure they were ready to fire instantly. After a scary five minutes, the fighter plane closed in enough for us to see it was an American P-51.

After heaving a huge collective sigh of relief, we asked him to escort us back to the channel, which, of course, he did. Then, we thanked him and continued back to our base while he returned to his in Southern France.

By the middle of September 1944, we had gone on five bombing raids. Some were to damage runways on French airports so the Germans couldn't use them and some were to bomb Hitler's very important oil refineries.

Then, our 409th Squadron was temporarily taken off bombing raids. Paris had been retaken from the Germans. The train rails were left in mangled condition. A million people in Paris were without food. We flew to Liverpool, in the south of England, to pick up a large number of flour filled sacks (300 pounds each) and transport them to Orleans, France, where they were transferred to army trucks. The trucks drove the flour approximately forty miles to Paris and distributed it to the people to sustain them until the railroads could be repaired.

In transit, we flew over the beaches where the June 6, D-day Invasion had taken place. We saw bumed-out villages, destroyed tanks and trucks, crashed glider transports, etc.

In September 1944, 100 days after D-day, the war in Europe seemed all but over. British and American forces had dashed across France and Belgium and German defenses were collapsing everywhere. The Allied Commanders felt that one bold thrust could open the way to Berlin and end the fighting.

"Operation Market Garden" was the brain-child of Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, Britain's favorite general. It was the greatest airborne assault in history. Its main objective was to capture, intact, five bridges across big rivers like the Rhine (at Amhem, Holland), and the Maas and Waal (also near Amhem). But, we didn't know about this until later.

Someone in authority had the "bright" idea of flying the supply planes in formation, 200 feet above the ground.

Advantage: Before the enemy knew we were coming, we would be past them and they wouldn't have time to grab a gun.

Disadvantage: Formation flying at 200 feet is different. Normally, in a turn, the outside airplane climbed a bit and the inside airplane dropped down, but all the aircraft remained in the same geometrical plane. Not so at low level. All aircraft remained in the same geometrical plane, but that plane was parallel to the ground. In a left turn, the airplane on the left lost sight of the airplane on his right, and that could be dangerous.

On September 17,1944, we practiced a "new" way of formation flying in our B-24 bombers. We flew at 200 feet - or less - from the ground. At one point, we even flew through some shrubbery which was, at most, ten feet high. Over our radio headphones, we heard someone in another plane shout, "Pull up! Pull up!" Did they mean us? They didn't say.

Anyway, low-level formation flying proved feasible. The idea was that a 12-ship formation, at 200 feel altitude, would be gone before an enemy soldier had time to fire and hit a plane.

On the same day, September 17, about 1900 paratroopers dropped behind German lines in Holland to distract a portion of the German army, which would now have to fight on two fronts. The theory was that the Germans might very well withdraw farther into Germany rather than face the added risk of being shot at from two directions. It was our job to drop supplies to the paratroopers on Monday, September 18. We were told it would be a "milk run."

We took off about 3:30 p.m. I didn't even wear my coveralls or my army shoes. Why bother? This was only a "milk run." We crossed the English Channel in formation, at about 200 feet above the water. At this low level, radar couldn't pick us up. We crossed the beautiful fields of Holland, so bright in the afternoon sunshine. There were ten of us in our old B-24, "Baggy Maggy." She was given this name before we saw her, having flown many missions prior to being assigned to us. When I say she was old, I truly mean it. Larry Hewin was flying and I was co-pilot, or second pilot as the Dutch say.

I remember seeing a windmill or two, and some civilians, as we flashed by. We were traveling around 150-160 miles per hour and were positioned off the left wing of the Squadron leader. We trusted that the lead navigator knew where we were going. Everything was working fine. Before anyone on the ground knew we were coming, we'd be past them and out of range.

As we neared the target area, the lead plane gained up to about 600 feet of altitude to allow time for the supply boxes' parachutes to open. Unfortunately, this gave the enemy a much better chance to shoot at us - and - they did! Suddenly, a loud explosion tore a hole fifteen to sixteen inches in diameter in the left side of the Baggy Maggy, next to Larry, and sprayed our control room with many small pieces of red hot steel. Most of them embedded themselves in Larry's left arm and the calves of both his legs. Imagine, if you will, red hot bits of metal piercing about 1/2 inch deep into your flesh and remaining there. Some of the metal bits hit arteries.

Larry's body probably shielded me from most of the shrapnel but I was hit by several small pieces causing numerous cuts, plus one piece hit the metal bulkhead behind me and caromed into the back of my head. It is still there, 53 years later. The force of the shrapnel knocked my head down to my chest and stunned me. As you may suppose, the tremendous excitement at that point caused utter chaos for a few seconds. I told Larry, "I've got it."

Our radio-man. Bill Kirlin, and our engineer, Don Dukeman, helped put Larry on the floor of the radio room directly behind the pilot's compartment and directly under the 800-pound gun turret. They administered first aid, putting tourniquets and bandages on his gushing arteries, as well as giving him a shot of morphine from our first aid kit.

Under normal conditions, the B-24 was very easy to control. A thumb and forefinger could handle it (a real pussycat). However, once the explosive shell hit the side of our control room and blasted a sixteen inch hole in the wall. Baggy Maggy turned into a raging tiger that seemed intent on killing us all!

When I took over the controls, the plane was in a rainbow-shaped path that would have smashed us into the ground, killing all on board instantly. Normally, I would have returned the controls to the central position and that would have been enough to straighten the plane out. Normally.... but not this time. So, I kept the controls moving, trying to find a balancing point to fly straight and level. As it turned out, the balancing points were as follows:

hand-turn the wheel to extreme left,

push it forward about ten inches, and

force the rudder as hard as I could to the extreme left. After doing all this, the plane flew straight and level.

I began to read the instruments to see what they could tell me. First, the engine heat was in the red (up against the peg). This told me that we had lost our engine oil. A red hot engine is liable to freeze up and stop at any time, unbalancing the plane. I tried to gain altitude because we were only 600 feet above the ground. Not a good idea because we would be a much better target for ground fire. But, I was still stunned from the piece of shrapnel in my head. Also, my vision was impaired by the blood running down my face from the many scalp wounds. Being shot tends to make a person somewhat excited, which flaws the thought processes...

Ordinarily, 750 feet per minute would add to our altitude. Not this time! The air speed needle began falling rapidly. The B-24 stalls at around 120MPH. We would need about 3,000 feet of altitude to recover. At 600 feet, we could not afford to stall.

I returned to straight and level flying. Then, I tried to gain only fifty feet per minute. No dice! The speed needle began dropping again. Okay, I'll fly straight and level. However, we began to slowly lose airspeed again. I dropped the nose a bit to increase speed. Sure it worked, but I lost precious altitude as a result. Next, I tried to lower the wing flaps to increase the lift. No response. That meant the hydraulic line had also been hit and all the fluid was lost, preventing me from lowering the landing gear. Of course, I am in the only airplane in the United States Air Force that absolutely, positively, was not to be landed with wheels up! (I personally added to that warning: "Unless you absolutely, positively cannot help it!")

About that time, it occurred to me that the American front lines were probably only a few miles (15 or 20) to my left and we would be much better off if we landed south of the current battle line. At least we would be in friendly hands. The only trouble with that plan was that a 90-degree left turn was required and all my controls were already as far to the left as possible. I gently turned right by relaxing the controls just a little. When we had turned 270 degrees, I again flew straight and level, headed for the American lines. But, the turn cost me 100 feet of altitude and we were perilously close to the tree tops. "I turned too late," I thought. All this time, I had been frantically looking for an open field to land on. My injuries did not keep me from being acutely aware of what could happen to the plane should it crash into the trees - shear off the wings, burst the gas tanks with 600 gallons of fuel on board and four red hot engines. But, all I could see ahead were row after row of trees, about 40 feet high, surrounding each field.

I called on the intercom, "Everyone prepare for a crash landing." I thought I was talking to the whole crew, but only George Sadler could hear me. George was in the bombardier's room, directly below me. He responded, "Do you think I'd better come up there?" "Absolutely," I replied, "as fast as you can!"

By this time, my arms and legs were rapidly wearing out. George sat in the pilot's seat and helped me hold the controls. When it became apparent that we were going to have to land pretty quickly, George suggested that we drop our load, preferably into the trees to make recovery difficult. I agreed, so George went into the back, opened the bomb bay doors, and let the boxes of supplies, with their parachutes (42 of them) fall into the trees.

Finally, I gave up. The plane was literally flying through the top branches and the next row of trees was waiting - with bigger branches -because, by then, we would be lower still. So, I pulled back the throttles and headed down into that dinky little space to land, wheels up! But, I just couldn't do it. I could tell that we would still be going at least 60 MPH when we hit the trees and we'd be in a huge bonfire.

I pushed the throttles wide open one last time. Those blessed red-hot engines came on, managing to lift us through the tree tops and, miracle of miracles, there before me was an open field at least a half mile long-with NO trees. I yanked the throttles back and whispered a prayer, "Lord, it's all up to you now." And with that, I flipped off the Crash Bar Switch and blacked out.

When I came to, I was still strapped in my seat, but it had been jerked loose from the floor, and I was upside down, completely enclosed by the wreckage. I was pinned in so closely that I could not release my seat belt in order to get out.

I could see George Sadler outside and I called to him. He was in such a dazed condition, I had to call him several times before he could locate where my voice was coming from. He unfastened my seat belt and everything around me collapsed. I got out of the demolished airplane and set about checking up on the crew.

A civilian doctor had arrived at the scene very soon after we crashed and had already pronounced Bill Kirlin dead before I woke up. His body was caught in the wreckage in such a way that we could not get him out.

By this time, I realized that my knee had been injured in the crash. I also discovered my bottom lip had been cut all the way through and my left, upper, front tooth was hanging out, and my forehead and face were covered with numerous cuts.

Larry was lying on the ground, receiving medical attention from the civilian doctor. The others had injuries ranging from minor to severe. I counted mine minor.

Many civilians from Holland and Belgium came to the crash site. The Germans arrived soon and sent the civilians away. The underground arrived before the Germans, but with all our injuries, they could not help us.

The Germans loaded us onto a horse-drawn wagon and took us to a nearby village. From the wagon, I took one last look at what was left of Baggy Maggy and thanked God for having known Bill, who had elected to hold the tourniquets on the pilot. (Later, when I wrote Bill's mother, I included the scripture from John 15:13, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.")

I also thanked God for the safety of the nine survivors.

The wagon took us to Hoogstraten, Belgium, where we were kept overnight in a red brick school building, under guard.

It was here that a German officer, sitting behind a desk, asked my name, rank and serial number. I told him. Then he asked how old I was, and I said, "I can't tell you." And in response he said, "You can't tell me how old you are?" When I said "No", that was the end of my interrogation. Many others were less fortunate than I. You know - solitary confinement, a little bread and water and mistreatment.

The next morning, they took me to a hospital in s-Hertogenbosch, Holland. The nurses were not only pretty (probably 18 or 19 years old), they were very competent, as were the doctors. I remember them laughing and joking with the injured men.

I stayed in the hospital for two weeks. A doctor dug the dirt from my knee (I still have a caved-in place about as big as a quarter), and they checked me over each day. The cuts on my face were now healing. My lip had to heal by itself and I kept pushing and holding the tooth in place. I don't recall when it finally stayed in by itself, but I kept the tooth for 48 years.

I walked around inside the hospital often. Once I passed a door marked "Kinder" - Children! I knew few Dutch or German words, but learned many in the days to come.

When I left the hospital, with two of my crew members, we stopped at a prison camp near Hamburg. We were separated there and I was taken on to an enlisted men's camp, Spangleburg IX, in Germany.

This was not the official place for me, but after a few days, they had papers ready so I could be moved to Oflag 64 in Poland. When I left, a fighter pilot was headed for the same place. It was good to have his company until we reached our destination. The same guard escorted us all the way.

We had a short lay-over in Berlin. The guard used his own money to pay for us to use the coin-operated "toilets" (rest rooms to us). We asked the station master where we could get some water to drink. He said, "Nicht trinken wasser - boomers!" We understood what he meant - the bombers had polluted the drinking-water system.

When we boarded our assigned train, there were no empty seats. The guard made two German men give us their seats.

A German woman with a basket of apples sat across from us. Here we were, in our prisoner-of-war jackets, but she took two apples from the basket and handed one to each of us. I quickly took mine and said, "Danke." I ate the apple, gnawing it from the right side of my mouth, carefully avoiding my tooth on the left, which was still very sensitive.

At Poznan, in Poland, we had a four-hour wait before we would begin our last lap of the long journey to Oflag 64. The train station was like a "beer joint." While we were waiting, I mentioned to the other pilot that the Germans didn't know about secret compartments in a billfold because they had emptied out my billfold, but didn't find the American dollar in the secret compartment.

The pilot could speak German so he told the guard that I had an American dollar bill. The guard could have confiscated it, but instead, he offered to buy us a beer and a dill pickle in exchange for it. The dill pickle, although small, was very tasty. Of course, the beer had no alcohol - Hitler needed it for munitions. It tasted like colored water, but at least it was liquid (and I didn't care for beer anyway).

We arrived at Oflag 64 to find it was a ground officers camp. Wrong place again! However, it was not a total loss. I had seen lots of Germany and some of Poland traveling by train. The scenery was beautiful in the fall of the year and also as the winter months came on.

I received warm clothes here, but didn't realize at the time what a life-saver they would be for me later, on the long march that was yet to come.

I never saw the fighter pilot again, but feel sure he, too, ended up at Stalag Luft III.

Indeed, I was lonely and longed for news from home, but I had not stayed in one place long enough for the mail I sent to be received, then to get a reply back before I was moved again.

Stalag Luft III - here I come, to join thousands of other prisoners of war!

By the first of November, I had finally settled in at Stalag Luft III, a POW camp for air officers. This was where I should have been all along, but it took the Germans two months to get me here.

In early December, the YMCA brought in ice skates - at least a dozen pair. Some of the POW's made a dike about a foot high and about fifty feet square, for a skating rink.

We carried pitchers of water from the middle of the compound and poured it inside the dike. The temperature was below freezing so the water quickly turned to ice. However, the surface was rough.

A few days later, the temperature rose to above freezing and the ice melted. That night, a hard freeze came, and the next morning, the ice skating rink was like a mirror. On went the skates! But, I didn't try it. I had never ice skated and couldn't think of a worse place to break an arm or a leg.

We stood for a long time in the cold, just watching them. They were like professionals.

It was coming up on Christmas, in prison, deep in the heart of Germany. But, I had a pleasant surprise, because a special program had been planned.

Some of the prisoners presented a Broadway play. The Man Who Came to Dinner. Had it been in the states, it would have gotten an excellent review.

One young man played a violin. Either the Red Cross or YMCA had brought it into camp and he certainly had a special gift (added to lots of hard work, I'm sure) for playing it. It lifted our spirits as he played.

Another prisoner, who was a doctor, hypnotized several of the POW's. To one man, who was a big football player type, the doctor suggested that he might like a drink of whiskey. The man said he'd like one. The doctor handed him an empty cup and pretended to pour whiskey into it. The man drank it, wiped his mouth and said it was good. "Would you like another?" the doctor asked. "Sure," was the reply. So, the cup was filled again, then again. After drinking the third cup, the man became drunk. Some believed it was a made-up deal, but I thought, with hypnosis, it could be for real.

The entertainment helped us to forget, for awhile, that we were cold and hungry, and far away from our families and friends.

It was now January 1945. I had been a prisoner of war for four months. I'd had no communication with Lucy Faye or anyone else, since I had left England. Letters were plentiful from family and friends then. Some prisoners got mail, but no letters written to me ever reached me. I had written many times, and could only hope that the letters I sent had been received, so that my loved ones would, at least, know that I was alive. It was a dismal time - icy cold, the ground covered with ice and snow.

Toward the end of January, the Russian army front started moving in from the east, to probably no more than 100 miles away. As they got closer and closer to our camp, we could hear the firing at night.

The Germans did not want the POW's to be reclaimed by the Russians since, perhaps, we could be used against them. The Germans still thought they could win the war - and this was only about three months before the war was over. So, in order to keep the Russians from taking us, we were alerted that we would be moving out of camp. We had about an hour to get ready.

We packed our few belongings, along with the food that the Red Cross had given us. I took a bed sheet, which served a very useful purpose the next day. All this was tied up in a blanket. We bundled up with as many warm clothes as we could get on.

Fortunately, I had an overcoat which had been given to me while I was at Oflag 64 in Poland, plus a pair of army shoes, and a pair of wool gloves. All three items were new! These had come from a small warehouse that the Red Cross had set up to distribute the items as they were needed.

When they asked me my shoe size, I asked for the smallest pair they had. They were size 8's - two sizes too big - but they were "lace-up" shoes and came over my ankles. These size 8 shoes were what I later walked 165 miles in.

We moved out about midnight, a full moon shining on the ice and snow. Even so, I found little beauty in it because of the severe cold.

Sometime during the next morning, my ankles began to give way. Vic Bubbett appeared out of the mist to help me. He took my sheet and tore strips and bound up my ankles tightly so that I could keep walking. My knee was also giving me trouble. Thanks a hundred-fold to him or I would have been left behind to die in the cold - or be shot.

The roadways we followed curved and snaked back and forth. We came to an "S" turn in the road. The string of prisoners and guards were going around this "S" turn when one of the German guards saw a reflection where the moon had made a glint on the metal work of another German guard's rifle. Thinking it was the Russians, he shot. The other guard heard the bullet zinging by and shot back. Both firing at each other and thinking "Russians!"

The German guards were extremely scared of the Russian soldiers. When Hitler had run his armies against Russia, they were so sure of victory that they mistreated their Russian prisoners and shot many unnecessarily. The Germans knew the Russians would do likewise.

As soon as the firing started, we promptly dove into the ditches full of snow, and lay flat on our stomachs. The guards then began yelling for us to get out of the ditches. We got up and had just gotten lined up again when, all of a sudden, another shot was heard and back into the ditches we went.

That night, the guards commandeered barns - more like sheds- from the farmers, for us to sleep in. Since we had had no sleep the night before, and even though we were crammed in like sardines and could not even turn over, it felt good to lie down. I was sooo tired and my feet were icy cold. I thought by the time I woke up, they would be warmed up, but they weren't. The frostbite bothered me for a couple of years.

We walked about 20 miles per day and on our second day's journey, I was able to trade a package of tea to a young German lady for a loaf of fresh baked rye bread. My first real bread in a very long time. The exchange was made through the window of her house. She was speechless to get tea - then repeatedly said, "Tay? Tay?" She probably hadn't had any tea for several years.

That night was spent in a beautiful cathedral. POWs were everywhere - on the floor, on the benches. I slept on a kneeling bench, perhaps a foot wide.

I would like to add now, that there were not enough guards to properly guard us. We were strung out over miles and miles. Some of the time, we couldn't even see a guard. The guards were old men - the younger men were in the fighting war. These old men were not used to walking either, and I actually saw some of the young POWs carrying rifles for the guards to help them out.

The third day of the march seemed colder. My feet were all but frozen. I felt at this point, none of us would survive. I felt nothing could keep us from freezing to death.

We came to the edge of a town called Chemnitz, a manufacturing city. The guards left us. When they returned, they moved us farther into the city and herded us into a brick factory. It was like an oven inside. Warmth at last. We went up to the second floor. There were holes in the floor sort of like chimney flues. Little flames came up through these holes.

WE BEGAN TO THAW OUT! I!

Some of us still had some of the Red Cross food left and we used the fire that came up through the holes as a stove to heat up the food. The guards were sitting behind us - as cold and hungry as we were. We invited them to have a cup of coffee. They very quickly accepted.

At last!! Sleep plus warmth!

We had walked three days to reach the railroad station in Chemnitz. (The name is probably not the same now.)

The next morning, 53 men were crammed into one boxcar. The French called the boxcars "40 and 8's" because they were designed to carry forty men or eight horses. And here we were - 53 men, standing up all night, with the doors locked - not even able to get out to use the bathroom. One man, who had pneumonia, was the only one allowed to lie down.

This was the lowest part of the war for me. Complete darkness, cold and rainy, with a leaky roof. I prayed, "Lord, please temper the wind to the shorn lambs." He heard my prayer and the rain stopped. I thanked Him for answering so quickly. It helped a lot but it was still cold.

As we traveled, the train would repeatedly speed up with a jerk. Had there been a place to fall, everyone would have fallen. This went on again and again, all through the long night (and for the rest of the three-day trip).

The next morning, a major, who was the highest ranking officer on board, took charge. He numbered us off: 1-2-3,1-2-3,...,1-2-3 - until we all had a number. "Number one's can have half the box car to lie down and sleep for three hours. Number two's may sit down, and number three's remain standing," he ordered. I was a number two and it was good to sit down! But when our time came to sleep, that was something to be thankful for.

Over the years, I've thought many times of this major. I never knew his name, but each time I thought of him, I prayed for a special blessing for him wherever he may be.

We ended up at Nuremberg, where the trials were held later. They put us in an old ex-Italian prison camp - a dirty -filthy - place.

Beds were three-bunkers high, but right next to each other and touching. You had to crawl over someone else's bed to get to the back of them.

We hadn't had a bath for about a month, so we were interested when an announcement for a shower was made. We should be at a certain gate at a certain time to march to the showers. And wouldn't you know -1 had to go to the bathroom and was late in getting to the gate.

About 20 POW's were already 100 feet down the road and the gate was locked. When I called, "Hey!" they ignored me. So, I didn't get my shower. I also didn't get lice on my clothes, like the others did - Thank you, Lord.

After the shower, at least one person became infected with lice. The lice seemed to start at one end, and each night, they would migrate to the next bed. Fortunately, I was on the end row and the day I found one louse on me was the day the Red Cross brought in the DDT powder. It came in small boxes, like a pepper can, so that you could sprinkle it on you. At this time, DDT had not been banned as a poison. We sprinkled it on us and on our beds. The DDT was a "kill-all."

We were at Nuremberg for about two months. One day, American Air Force bombers flew over and bombed Nuremberg. Our camp was about two miles away from the city and we watched from our windows. The bombers were dropping their bombs on the town and the ground anti-aircraft guns were firing back trying to hit both the bombs and the planes. A few planes were shot down.

The next day, the crews from downed planes were brought into our camp. They brought us news of the war - much of which we had not heard.

While we were in Stalag Luft III, one of the prisoners had managed to construct a working radio that could pick up the British Broadcasting System news reports. We would casually gather together in one of the big rooms in our prison complex and receive a brief up-date on the latest developments. About three days after we had learned what was really happening, the Germans would give us their version of the same events. They always made it sound as if they were winning.

Periodically, the Germans performed personal searches of the POWs. During one of the searches, the English POW that had the tiny, little radio, held it in his hand over his head while they searched his pockets.

We learned that President Roosevelt had died and that Harry Truman was now president of the United States.

By late April, we were still in danger of the Russian army releasing us. We left Nuremberg, heading for Moosburg. It was now spring, still a bit cool, but I was thankful that the winter had passed.

Vic was still with me, or maybe I was with him. At least we had stayed together. This was a more relaxed march since we weren't half frozen now and we could hunt for extra food.

Once, we stole some potatoes from a farmer's cellar. We had no pots or pans, but we did have a can that we had saved after we ate the contents. We cooked the potatoes in this.

Another time, we took a half gallon of cattle feed from a barn. It was a mixture of dried peas and wheat. We spent a long time picking out the peas, then soaked them overnight. The next morning, we cooked them and ate them. They tasted great, even without salt or seasonings.

At this point, I could take my middle finger and thumb and reach all the way around my arm just below the elbow...do not know how much weight I had lost.

The camp at Moosburg was not a camp just for English and American airmen. There were also Indians, with their big turbans, Australians, with their big, floppy hats and many others of our allies.

We had only been at Moosburg for about two weeks when General Patton's tanks came over a hill about 5 miles away. This was on, or about May 1. We watched a tank battle between the Germans and Americans for about 30 minutes before the German tanks retreated.

About 30 minutes after the battle, here came a big Sherman tank right up to the gate of the prison camp. The prisoners went running through the open gate and swarmed all over the tank until all I could see was the gun-barrel sticking out over them.

In the meantime, someone had run up an American flag over the city of Moosburg, about a mile away.

I had a very strange feeling when I saw that American flag flying. There had been times when I felt like I would not make it through and here I was - LIBERATED! "0 me, of little faith!"

And yet. God was with me all the way. When I asked for help in finding a place to bring the plane in for landing. He supplied it. When I left it up to Him after I turned off the Crash Bar Switch, nine out often men survived. During the times when we did not know if food would come in time, the Red Cross trucks would appear with some parcels. When my ankles gave way, He sent someone I did not even know to bind up my ankles so that I could continue walking. ("Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these, ye have done it unto me.") He supplied a brick plant when we were all but frozen. And He brought me home to family and friends.

I even got to walk across the bridge over the Blue Danube River (in spite of the fact that had a 500 Ib. bomb attached to it!)

Now to finish up the account.

Within an hour after our liberation, a kitchen camp had been set up and they began cooking food for us. I had white bread for the first time in 7 1/2 months. It tasted almost like angel food cake. I had to learn to eat it all over again.

After a day or two, they were busy getting us back to France (literally thousands of us). At first, they flew plane-loads of us and I was on the next to the last plane. I found out later that the ones who were left had to come to France on trucks.

The plane I was on landed at Paris to refuel. While we were there, here came the Red Cross lady with doughnuts and hot chocolate. I am ashamed to say that I ate six doughnuts. I had no willpower to resist them. Thanks to the Red Cross again.

From Paris, I went to camp "Lucky Strike," near the coast. We had received some of our back pay and at some place in the camp, probably a PX, I bought a gold bracelet (at least the color was gold) for Lucy Faye and a smaller one for Carol Ann. She still has her bracelet and the remains of Carol's, fifty years later.

I stayed at camp Lucky Strike for about two weeks before boarding a ship headed for the United States of America. On the ship, we ate, and we ate, and we ate!. Full balanced meals! Besides that, I ate almost a full box (24) of Hershey's chocolate bars. I fattened up in a hurry. By the time I got home, you couldn't tell that I had ever missed a meal.

When we were coming into the harbor at New York City, just by chance, I looked out the window at the exact right time to see the Statue of Liberty. Home at last, after seven and one-half months (which seemed like years) as a Prisoner of War of the German government.