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I also want to mention the slave labor at the camp. Most of the slave laborers were Russian, and it was the Russian prisoners that I got to know the best. We were not allowed to talk with them, nor they with us; so, all our contacts were when no German guards were visible. Looking back, I believe that the slaves knew that they were doomed, so they really did not value their lives, but rather tried to give the Germans as many problems as they could. The Germans in turn, hated the Russians, but were kept from killing them, because if they did, then they would have to do the hard, dirty labor themselves. The Russian that I knew best and became friends with was Ivan. We would speak in German, as he did not know English and I did not know Russian. One day I asked Ivan how old he was, as he looked so young. He said 16 and went on to say that when he was 14 the Russian Bolsheviks had come to his village, shot his mother and father, then took him, forcing him to join the Russian army. He had then been captured at Stalingrad and brought to the camp as a slave. One day Ivan brought a small wooden puzzle that he had made and gave it to me. I carried and hid this puzzle from the Germans. If the Germans had found it, they would have taken it. I still have that puzzle today. Every time I look at it, I think of my friend Ivan. I have grave doubts that he survived the war!
There were several incidents showing just how stubborn the Russians were. In one incident, they were atop a roof repairing it. Night was coming when the German guard blew his whistle for the Russians to come down. The Russians all ran to the other side of the roof, and as much as the Germans tried, they would not come down. At long last, the Germans were forced to climb atop the roof, fix their bayonets and chase the Russians off. As soon as they were down, they all scattered and hid. The Germans had to round them up one by one. I often wonder what punishment they received.
In another incident, the Germans were expanding the camp by adding a huge tent. The Russians were to build bunk beds four tiers high. One day when Germans were not looking, I sneaked into the tent. What I found was that the Russians had driven in as many as 20 to 30 nails on the end of a 2x4 and no nails anywhere else on the 2x4. If even the least pressure had been applied to any of the bunks, they would have collapsed. They were never used, however, as the camp was evacuated shortly after.
We arrived at this compound around the first of March. In early July, the Germans decided to evacuate the camp because the Russians were closing in. When the Red Army started its offensive, we were not allowed to go out of our barracks at night; also, all windows had a solid shutter placed over them, but we could still see flashes of light in the Eastern sky through the cracks in the shutters and clearly hear the distant sound of artillery. At this point, the Germans either had to leave us to be liberated by the Russians, or to evacuate us.
We had been on starvation diets; all of us had lost much of our body weight. Many still had battle wounds—severe burns from bailing out of a burning plane, shrapnel embedded in our bodies so that they oozed puss: none of us were fit for what lay ahead. I remember one POW whose face was burned so badly, most of his facial features were gone. I could clearly see where his helmet had protected his head and also where his oxygen mask had protected his chin. Another had his toes blown off while yet another had severe shrapnel still in his legs. There were many others injured, but these were personal friends of mine. None were given even the least medical attention. We also were heavily infested with both body lice and fleas.
The United States and Germany had both signed the Geneva Convention, promising to obey rules governing humane treatment of prisoners of war. When we were captured, however, the Germans informed us that we were not to be governed by this treaty. As they put it, “You are Luft [“air”] gangsters, killers of women and children. And you will be treated as such.”
Now , in the Second World War, bombing was not too accurate. There was always very heavy anti-aircraft fire that would explode all around, battering the plane. Bursts would violently rock the plane, so there was no way the bombardier could accurately aim his bombs. I will admit that a lot of bombs completely missed their targets, and many did fall on civilian targets. As a result of this, nearly every family suffered in some way. Most had someone—a relative or friend—killed in bombing raids, or had their houses destroyed. Pets were killed or were just scared out of their wits.
Unless one has been subjected to a bombing raid, there is just no explaining just how awful they were. While I was at Dulag Luft awaiting interrogation, there was a British air raid. Six POWs were killed that night. The Germans deliberately placed this camp right next to a big chemical plant. I had dropped bombs there myself.
To say that we airman were hated, is to put it mildly. Fliers that were unlucky enough to be captured by civilians were most often clubbed to death or thrown in the bomb fires alive. My crew was lucky; we were captured by the German military. Later, we were spit on, taunted, and also had water thrown on us. One POW was at a train station when someone pushed him into the path of a train. He was killed.
So, we were not well received by the people along the way as the Germans marched us to the railroad station, and literally jammed us into a boxcar, perhaps 75 men into one. The boxcar was so crowded that we couldn't even sit down. This was on a hot July day, and they give us absolutely no water. We were very uncomfortable. There was absolutely no sanitation of any type. During the night they took us to the port of Memel on the Baltic in Lithuania and put us on board in the closed hold of a very crowded dirty coal ship named the S.S. Masuren. It again was so crowded that one could not sit down. There were several inches of coal dust on the floor, no sanitation and very limited drinking water. We were on this ship for four days. During this time, we were given no food. We arrived at the Baltic Sea port of Stettin, then in Germany but now occupied by Poland.
There, we were jammed into a train guarded by 12 to 13-year-old arrogant, defiant Hitler Youth. We were shackled, and I was made to put on my overcoat, even though it was a very hot day in July. We were then taken to a town called Gross Tychow. We were desperate for water and food, but none was given. When they unloaded us from the train, there was a redheaded German lieutenant—“Hauptman”—who spoke perfect English. He told us how lucky we were that we were to be given two Red Cross parcels, which at that time was unheard of. The most Red Cross parcels I had ever received was one parcel divided by three men, and now they were giving us two. I could hardly believe it. But, as soon as they handed out the parcels, the Germans fixed bayonets and in came the dogs. The German lieutenant was telling us to run and telling the Hitler Youth and a group of Marines that had been brought in to start bayoneting us and to shoot us. It was sheer torture running on a hot July day with our overcoats on and shackled to another man, trying to hold on to two Red Cross parcels while being bitten by dogs and jabbed with bayonets.
We already had lost much body weight prior to this, and with nothing to drink, we lost a lot of body fluid through perspiration. The dogs were frantically biting at our heels. Anyone near the guards was bayoneted, not to kill, but to wound. One of our men had 60 puncture wounds. They ran us this way all the way to our next camp, which was about five kilometers away. If someone stumbled, he was jabbed and beaten with rifle butts. The poor man shackled with him also was beaten until he carried his fallen comrade or got him to his feet. It soon became very obvious why they had given us the Red Cross parcels. They wanted us to drop them, so they could pick them up as if we didn’t want them. Most of the guys did drop their parcels.
I did manage to keep both of my parcels; when I went through the strip search, however, there was this large, brutal guard that we called Ham Hands. He insisted on taking both parcels away from me. I kept on insisting that they were Red Cross and therefore were mine. He took out his pistol, and started to whip me with the butt of the pistol. Five times I insisted they were mine, and five times he hit me on my head and chin. At last I knew there was no use, and I had to let him keep them. My head and face were a mass of blood. But, I finally got away. Later when I was lying out in the compound, he came out looking for me. I am sure that he intended to finish me off. I saw him coming and hid my head so that he couldn't see any blood. He walked back and forth past me, cursing in German, but finally left. I still have a scar on my scalp, also one on my chin. There was a rumor in camp that he had lost a daughter in a bombing raid; this I do not know for certain, but anyone near him would receive his wrath, in one form or another.
As I said, it was a hot July day and we had not had food or water for the last four days, except for the tiny sip of water I had on the ship. The Germans kept on pumping water from a well, and letting it run on the ground, but would not let us have any water. They kept some of the men out in the compound for two more days, with no food or water. That evening I had the first food that I had in days. It consisted of two small raw carrots that were about two inches long. I was so hungry that I ate both carrots as well as the leaves.
At this camp, which was called Stalag Luft IV, there were no provisions at all for taking a bath. The only thing one could do was to take a sponge bath with by removing a stocking or some other piece of clothing to be used as a washcloth. Food at this camp was even more inadequate than at the last camp. The rooms were very crowded and were meant to accommodate 12 men. Instead there were twenty-four men to each room. They also had the same rules that we had to barricade ourselves into the room each night. The only form of entertainment was walking around the compound, which I did daily. But, in a weakened condition, even that was hard to do. There were no provisions for heat, not even one stove in this building—only body heat.
Believe it or not, even at this stage, there was still humor. One of my buddies was complaining about something: I told him that he never had it so good. After all, he was getting paid at the rate of $2.25 a day for not working, also was provided with a roof over his head, and even a Red cross parcel about once a month. One thing some of us would do was to spread a wild rumor, like some great allied victory, then wait to see how long it would be before we again picked up that rumor, and see just how much had been added.
At Stalag Luft IV, just as it had been at VI, we were allowed to write four post cards and two letters each month. All had to be written on prescribed lines and had to be written in block letters. One had to be very careful as to what could be said, as all of them had first to be censored by Germans. All incoming mail was censored first by American censors and then by German censors. Anything written in numbers was cut out with a razor blade while other things had a big black censor mark over them.
Most mail or packages from home never made it. I only received one package and it contained cookies. They were all broken, but it really lifted our morale to get anything from home. We always shared everything: we ate every crumb. We even read other people’s letters, even love letters. Some POWs did not receive even one letter. I was the first one to receive a letter and it was from my girlfriend in England. It had a bright lip imprint, and everyone got to read it. It was so good for morale. My mother sent numerous packages. She was allowed to send one every 60 days, which she did, but I only received that one package. To this day, I think many Germans had a very good snack with packages from the U.S.A.

One poor guy received a letter from his wife. She wrote about German POWs held at a camp near her. She went to visit the camp, made friends with some of them and decided to give her husbands golf clubs to them, for, as she put it, they were lonely and she wanted to give them something to do. She was sure that some German women would also visit us and treat us well, bake us cookies, perhaps even wash our clothes for us. At that time we were starving, eating the residue of codfish after the oil was extracted, and it had been allowed to spoil before giving it to us. There were no women anywhere near our camp, and even if there were, we were strictly forbidden to talk to them. The poor guy was so upset with his wife, he was fit to be tied and of course the teasing he received was just as bad. I remember some of the teasing ran like this. “You had better be ready to also give up your fishing rod and deer rifle.” “You are only jealous because that Kraut that got your clubs is a better golfer than you.” “Just wait till your wife lends him your car.”
Another wife wrote saying she was baking all the cookies she could and was using all her sugar ration on cookies for the German POWs. She sent a pair of bedroom slippers, as she knew he used to enjoy his slippers while reading the morning paper. She inquired as to if the Germans were giving us newspapers written in English.
While we were at Stalag Luft IV, our latrines were slit trenches, which had to be pumped out almost daily. The Russian slaves did this. They had a machine that they would do this with. It was mounted on a wagon and pulled with a team of oxen. It consisted of a large tank, and atop it was a huge iron valve, which looked a lot like a manhole cover. On the back of the tank was a large hose that extended into the latrine ditch. There was a pump-like device mounted along side the tank. They would pump a gasoline mixture spray into the tank, light it and then there would be a loud explosion. The manhole cover would fly up then clamp down, and this would cause a vacuum. The sewage would be sucked into the tank. Now, this worked very well, until one day when the Russians decided to sabotage it. The German guard was not paying too much attention, so the Russians started to pump the gasoline mixture and did not stop, but just kept pumping for the longest time. When the German guard realized what was happening, it was too late. The first Russian pumped all the harder; the second Russian lit a match. There was a very loud explosion, and the tank split wide open. We were standing in formation a few feet away and everyone was sprayed with a good dose of sewage. The next day, both of the Russians were back, this time pumping by hand.