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This is the oral history of World War II veteran Robert A. von Sternberg. Mr. von Sternberg served in the U.S. Army with the 96th Bomb Group. He served in the European theater and his highest rank was tech sergeant. Bob was a POW. I'm Tom Swope and this interview was recorded at Mr. von Sternberg's home in Parma, Ohio, on July 21st, 2004. Bob was 85 at the time of this recording.
Where were you living in 1941?
1941, I was in the Air C-Army Air Corps.
You were already in, in '41?
I joined the Army Air Corps August 23rd of 1940.
Really.
And I went to mechanic school at Chanute Field, which is 125 miles south of Chicago. And I got my air, air mechanic's rating and was assigned to the Fifth Bomb Wing in Spokane, Washington.
What made you decide to join the Army Air Corps?
I had gone to University of Missouri for a year, but I was not able to finance any further college education at the, at that time and the Air Corps was beginning to really expand and recruit. And they offered us a program whereby we were guaranteed the school of our choice if we would sign up. And there was talk of a draft being instituted. So it was just a good time for us to get involved. So I joined the Air Corps and ended up in Spokane, Washington.
Hi.
Hi. [Interviewer addressing unknown person]
Yeah. The headquarters of the Fifth Bomb Wing, we had two airplanes in 1941, the spring of '41. We had a Stearman biplane and a B-18 bomber. That was the extent of our air arm, the air arm of our organization. And then I went back to Chanute again and took an instrument, aircraft instrument course and went back to Spokane in, I got back there in October of '41 and then war was declared in December.
Do you have specific memories of December 7th, 1941?
I, see, well, it was confusion. When that occurred, we were in Spokane. It's a total blackout. Everybody was running around at their wit's end, so to speak. We learned how to feel-strip machine guns and security members, measures were tightened up tr-tremendously. But we were f-four hundred miles off the coast, so it wasn't, didn't last too long before,
W-were there rumors that there were, Japanese were gonna be landing on the west coast?
I think there w-were rumors. I wa, I wa, I was, I, not aware of 'em at the present, a-at the time.
What was your reaction when you realized that it actually had begun for us?
Well, having been, I'd been in the service over a year by then, and it was just, I considered myself very fortunate that I was where I wanted to be and not involved in the draft.
Getting, backing up just a little bit: When you first went into the service, was it a tough adjustment for you to be in there with guys from all over the country?
Oh, no. No. It wasn't tough. It was very interesting. Along that line, we had, quite a few men came in from Fort Snelling in Minnes, Minneapolis, just outside of Minneapolis. And they were from the Iron Range. And these kids had an accent. And I said, "What is this accent?" Said, "We didn't speak English at home." They were all up there on Mesabi and Bemidji up along the Iron Range, and English was a second language. But they brought all these young people, we were all young. I say we went, were going to school five hour, five hours a day at least plus our military drill and so forth. But it was a very interesting experience. I was a little older than most the kids. I was 20, well, let's see, 23, 22; and the other kids were 18, 19. But-
What job were you hoping to get in the Army Air Corps?
Well, I was gonna be an aircraft mechanic.
That's what you wanted?
Yeah. And then the opportunity came to learn how to fly and maybe I could become a pilot. So I en-enrolled in the-
Cadet?
, Aviation Cadet Program. And I went down to Bakersfield, California, and took my primary and I got halfway through basic. By that time, I had soloed and was flying all by myself.
{laughter} You remember your first solo flight?
Not an, not any differently than any of other ones. But I had a personality conflict with my instructor in basic. And since I was, I was a staff sergeant when I went into the cadet program. I knew when I, if I came out, I would get my stripes back. And most of these cadet app, enrollees were threatened with, "You're gonna be a private," ya know. Well, that wasn't gonna to be for me, so as I say, said, we had a personality conflict. And I finally told this guy, "That's it. I've had it." So I washed out and I went from Bakersfield and went to Kingman, Arizona, and went to aircraft gunnery school and learned how to take care of, strip .50 caliber machine guns. And we went, took target practice with the airplanes towing targets and us trying to shoot at them, shoot at them. And I got to, I, I finished Kingman, Arizona, and I went to Pyote, Texas, where I joined a provisional bomb group: the "Berkowitz" pr-provisional bomb group. That's where I met the rest of my crew members.
Get along with those guys? Were they a nice bunch?
Well, I, I liked, I, I liked it. My pilot was a young man from Grenada, Mississippi. Was also Regular Army, as was I, so the two of us hit it off re-real well. But I, our pilot was John White from Grenada, Mississippi; and we had a copilot from Omaha, Nebraska; and a navigator from Bro-Brockson, (ph) Massachusetts; bombardier came from Mount Vernon, Illinois. And we had five other enlisted men. In fact, my tail gunner is still alive. He lives in Lincoln, Oklahoma. He's a retired golf pro. He lost the sight of one eye during the war, and over the years he's lost the sight of his second, of his other eye. But he's the happiest-go-lucky gentleman you'd ever wanna meet. And I've, I saw him in Oklahoma City or in Tulsa at our conven, at one of our conventions about six or seven years ago. We had a wonderful reunion. My radio operator was in Atlanta, Georgia. I have talked, I've talked to him on the phone three or four times since we came back, but I've never had a chance to meet face-to-face with him. The other enlisted men have dropped out, dropped by the wayside. I understand my waist gunner is in Florida somewhere. But the rest, the rest of the crew is, have all passed away.
What else do you remember from your training?
Training as what, a pilot, pilot,
When you, when you were training.
--gunner, or mechanic?
Oh. Well, the stage that we were at after the crew was assembled, the training with the crew.
Oh. Well, we used to fly, when they, when they formed our, our crew, we're in Pyote, Texas. That's way out in the middle of west Texas, and nothing around there for year, miles and miles. So we would fly a lot of formation flying, which was very important since being in a bomber the bombers all were, well, parti-participated in formalized flight patterns, really. And so it was practice, practice, practice seven, eight, nine hours a da, for one mission, training mission. So it was, had long, long day many da, many times. But we were out there in west Texas and there wasn't any place to go anyways, so- {laughter}
Ya might as well train. {laughter}
Might as well train. And the PX had beer, so it worked out pretty well.
Okay. How about any of your other phases of your training? Any stories come to mind about any of those other things that you trained for?
Well, not really. I trained as an aircraft instrument specialist and, as I said, we only had two airplanes. And the Stearman didn't have but about three instruments: an altimeter and an air speed indicator and another instrument that t-told you how yer, told whether or not you were in balance. I've forgotten what the name of the instrument is. But I didn't do too much instrument repair. And, as I say, I thought I'd learn, take flying lessons, which I did. And I, I soloed, and- But I just never finished the cadet program.
What crew position did you end up with then?
I ended up as a top turret gunner.
On a B-17?
And the crew's engineer, so to speak. And we had two waist gunners, a tail gunner, and a radio operator and a pilot, copilot, bombardier and a navigator. And later on in England, our ship, our crew was designated a lead crew, which is a dubious honor, really, because it turns out that lead crews were the first plane that the Germans would try to shoot down since without the lead ships in the formation, bombing was not as accurate. But my, my crew was designated the lead crew and we went to school for a couple of, eight or ten weeks in England, learning the intricacies of, of the radar s-system. In 1944, radar bombing was becoming perfected. And they took our ball turret gunner and that ball turret out of our, our ship and installed a disk and a rotating, which rotated and was the device whereby you could bomb without being able to see the ground, fairly accurately. Our copilot became the radio operator, and we were designated as a lead crew and would lead formations anywhere from 18 to 100 planes on var-various missions. And unfortunately, we didn't get the milk runs because they didn't use radar for milk run, ya know. Most of our missions were deep penetration missions, which meant Berlin and targets very, in, in central Germany.
When did you make that crossing over to England?
We left in November of '44 from,
'44 or '43?
, forty, November of '43. We went from Alexandria, Louisiana; we flew to Kearney, Nebraska. And we got to Kearney, Nebraska. We received brand new plane. And we left Kearney and flew to Presque Isle, Maine, and then to Goose Bay, Labrador. And then we flew to Prestwick, Scotland, which was a long, long flight. And all along the route, we could hear distress signals: ships going down, icing up, and so forth. So we were rather relieved by the time we got to Prestwick. We got to Prestwick, they took the plane away from us. {laughter} And they shipped us to a site there in England, a po, it was called a pool. And this pool consisted of replacement personnel. And we were there and then we were assigned to the 96th Bomb Group, which was in Snetterton Heath. It turned out that the 96th Bomb Group was, had the second highest losses of any group in the Eighth Air Force and the highest losses in the Third Division. The Eighth Air Force consisted of the First and Third Divisions which were B-17s and the Second Division was B-24s. So we ended up in Snetterton Heath. And I went back there 1975, I think, and toured the old base. Our, our museum, we have a museum there that, the base was taken over. Both parts of the base were taken over by a boys' school called Eccles Boys' School. And their history, history students take care of our museum. The boys' school took over the hospital building as one of its classrooms and they gave us some of, a Quonset hut, which was, had been the morgue during the war. So the 96th Bomb Group has an org-organization. It's very active even to-today, and we have a museum there. We also have a young, have a gentleman who was a 10-year-old child during World War II. And Jeff Ward is sort of our custodian there. He'll, if you go to England, give him a call. He'll meet you at the rail, train station and take ya out to the air base. That air base is the site of a stock car racetrack, and some of the same concrete is still being used today that was used in the runways. And there are just a couple of the buildings still there that were there during the war. But-
You remember your first combat mission?
Not necessarily.
Nothing comes to mind?
No. It wasn't,
Nothing particularly frightening or __+?
, it wasn't very spectacular. It was very traumatic, ya know, just, we went, w-we went and got back and that was fine, ya know. But there were, you know, these missions were eight, eight, nine hours. Ya get back, when ya went out the chaplain was there in a little jeep givin' us a prayer. When we came back the jeep was there, but they had a bottle of scotch. {laughter} And my copilot didn't drink, so I got his double shot plus mine. It was worth coming home for. Yeah. {laughter}
Were most of your missions into Germany?
Yeah. Yeah. We had a few, I think we went, Romilly-sur-Seine was on a Pas de, Pas de Calais, which was the ?invasion coast?. We h-hit that a couple of times. But most of ours were deep penetrations because, as I say, we were a lead crew and we had a "Mickey" or a radar installation onboard.
Any particularly memorable missions that you recall?
Oh, we had one where we lost our oxygen. And it was a gradual leak apparently, the oxygen, so it was rather, the crew began to doze off, so to speak. And we were losing altitude and finally our copilot, somehow or other, roused himself and was able to bring the plane up and level off. We were very, very fortunate, ya know. We came out of that pretty good. But-
Any targets that you really dreaded going after? A.: Well, Berlin was the target. But we went to Ludwigshafen. We went to Brunswick, couple times. We went to Berlin three or four times. I was shot down the 8th of May, which was just a month before the invasion and a year before the end of the war. So things were building up to a very high pitch as we got closer and closer to the invasion date. So-
How many missions did you fly?
I got 18 and a half missions.
Eighteen and a half.
Yeah. And we got shot down, beautiful, beautiful sunny day. {laughter} And we were going to Brun, Ber, we were going to Berlin, and near Brunswick we got shot down. Fighter planes came through the formation. And, as I say, lead crews were the first ones to be picked on because get rid of the radar and that way you've eliminated some of their bombing accuracy. But they,
Why don't you tell me as much as you remember about that mission.
Oh, well, it was just a beautiful sunny day and we were on our way and we were going into the target. And we hadn't gotten that far and we were attacked by German fighter planes: F-180s and Mess-Mess-Messerschmitt 109s. And we had a colonel mission commander flying in our sh-plane. And, at the time, I remember he saw the flak out front. He said, "I want a flak suit." And I told him, I said, "Sir, we s, we stand on our flak suits {laughter} in the f, in the cockpit" because we wanted more protection from the ground or from below. So I got him a flak suit and he put the damn thing on. And we were attacked and the plane caught fire and the pilot issued his bailout orders and the last thing I saw, I turned around and there was the pilot waitin' for this co, this ma, what's it colonel or major, mission commander to get out of his seat, which he couldn't do because he had his flak suit on. So I, that's the last I saw in the cockpit and I was crawlin' out the bomb bay doors and the ship exploded. And I ended up with, hangin' in my parachute. I, before I bailed out, I, I, every mission I took my shoes with me 'cause I have very small feet and I had heated flying boots, but they were too big for me. They were fine for flying and I knew if I parachuted, I'd lose 'em. And sure enough I did lose 'em, but I had my GI shoes on my, attached to my parachute harness. And so when I landed I was able to put, I had a pair of shoes, which was very fortunate 'cause some of the men came down barefooted and there aren't very many shoes available in Germany at war time. But I landed in a potato field, I guess it was. Didn't know where I was. And I could see other guys coming down around me. And when I landed there was an old man standin' out there in the field. He must have been 75. And he looked, came over and looked at me. And my face was burnt and I had a dislocated shoulder. So I fig, I, I didn't know where I was. So I said to him, "?Franzosisch?" He says, "No." I says, "Netherlands?" "No." I said, "Deutschland? He says, "Yes." So I stayed right there. And pretty soon a German soldier comes up on a bicycle {laughter} with a rifle hanging over, on his back. And we take, gettin' my parachute disconnected and he sticks that on the, on the bike and he marches me into this little town of Verden, Verden, Germany, and took me into the guardhouse. They had a military contingent there and they took me in this guardhouse and there were, some of my crew members were there. The co, bombardier was killed. And the pilot and the mission commander, they were killed also. But the enlisted men all came through. So that was a long day. We ended up in the University of Hanover up in the garret of an old, old building in this university. This building had been taken over by the Vermark (ph) Afrika Korps as a hospital. And they would bring us downstairs to go to the john. You could see all these German soldiers in hospital, in beds and so forth. And there were, you know, we didn't encounter any ani-animosity at all with the soldiers. So we left Hanover and got on a train and went to Frankfurt am Main. Sp, we spent a whole day on the train, it seems like. And with my name von Sternberg, they decided I must know a little German. So I was always the one that was called to help out in situations where they needed somebody from our, our group to feed, we had a wounded man up in a boxcar. They had him on a stretcher. He was severely burned. So they took me up through, through the train twice to try and feed the man, give him some water, and make him as comfortable as possible. I walked through this train. The third-class coach where we were, were wooden benches and so forth. But first class was all velvet and plush. And I saw German officers with their fur-lined trench gray coats, women with furs, and here I {slight laughter} walkin' through this train I musta looked like a real bum. That was a long day, May 8th. No. May, that was, that would be probably May 10th.
So then you were interrogated there?
I was interrogated at Dulag Luft, yeah. Every, all the,
That was in Frankfurt?
Frankfurt am Main. We got t-t, in the train station there at Frankfurt and they put us on a charcoal burning bus, which is j-j-just a bus with a big tank on the back and they, they burn co, charcoal. And this is the still, they got enough volatile liquid out of it. Well, {laughter} Dulag Luft was up on a hill. So we had to push the bus up the hill. {laughter} But it was, it was a one time experience.
What do you remember about that interrogation?
Well, it was text book interrogation. They, each man was put in a separate cell and all it consisted of was a bucket and a, and a mattress and a light bulb, ya know. And you were alone there. You didn't hear anybody, hear anything at all. I remember this chap came in, very businesslike, with his scratch, scratch pad and said, "I hope you're feeling better," and blah, blah, blah. By that time, I had, had my burns treated and my shoulder reset. And he started off saying, "We'd like to have your name and address and your unit so we can notify your parents," ya know, and so forth. And we were all instructed to merely give name rank and serial number, which when you look back 50 years back, y-ya had your dog tag. On your dog tag you had your name and your address. {laughter} So it was really stupid, ya know. But, I mean, they went through that routine. Name, rank, and serial number is all we would give 'em. And he would get very indignant and storm out and saying. "Well, your parents will never know what happened to you," you know. And after two or three days they threw, put us, put us on a train from Frankfurt am Main and the enlisted personnel were taken to a brand-new camp up near the North Sea in Pomerania. I entered this camp. I was the 144th man in the camp. My dog tag was 1144. When I left there were 10,000 Allied prisoners there. And that was in February and when the Russians were advancing from the east, and the Germans put us on the road. And we wandered around northern Germany. Some, some of 'em, some of the men were there on, on the march from February through April. I got, I was fortunate, I came down with an ear infection and I was able to be taken into a hospital in a prisoner of war camp in Neubrandenburg, which is 50 miles north of Berlin. It was Stalag 2A. And this, this was a, not an airman's camp; this was a POW camp. It had French, German, I mean, French, Russians, Italians, Dutch. They had the entire Dutch Army Officer Corps in camp there and had been there for quite some time. I mean, it was really established. My camp, which was Luft 4 in Pomerania, was, as I said, was brand-new. When we walked in, they gave us a big burlap bag and marched us past a pile of straw, and we stuffed each bag with straw and then that was our mattress. And, as I say, we, the bunk, we had about 16, 16 men in each room, had 10 rooms in each cam, in each lager, or each barrack and each compound had, oh, 10 or 15 barracks. My crew ended up in a different lager than I was because I volunteered to run the first aid station, which we had in our camp. And we didn't have any medical, medical personnel at all until they brought in a contingent of medical people who had been captured in Italy and South, and North Africa. And when they brought this medical contingent in, they moved the first aid station out of our camp, out of our lager into the four lager, which was less secure. But I ran the first aid station for a couple of months before we had any trained personnel.
What, what made you think you were qualified to do that? Did you have medical background?
Well, I had worked in a drugstore in Chicago be-be, while I was, before I went in the service. And they just asked for an-anybody who, who'd be willing to help, you know. And let's face it, there was nothing to do in that camp but sit. And those who sat felt sorry for themselves and the people who made it a point to do something: work in the kitchen or work in the library or somewhere, time passed a lost faster.
__+ You definitely had to find something to keep busy, right?
Yeah.
What else can you tell me about life in Stalag Luft 4?
Well, as I say, when we started out there, we didn't have much. And our man of, American Man of Confidence was a chap from Florida, real nice man. He had been a fireman in Palm--West Palm Beach, I believe. So he was our, our camp leader. And then we had, each barracks had a barracks commander. It was all very democratic. Everything was done by consensus, so to speak. Our camp interpreter, his name was Hans Zigarote (ph). And he was from State College, Pennsylvania. He was born in Germany and he was scared to death that they'd fi, they'd find out that he had been born in Germany. But he was a fine chap. And I never was able to find whatever happened to him af-after the war, but- After we'd been there two or three months, we had cla, they set up different types of classes. We had classes to learn how to play bridge, to speak German, those are the two I remember the most. But we had classes like, we had baseball. {laughter} But, got to play, we were able to negotiate sometimes with some of the guards using cigarettes for extra specialties. He brought in the bread in __+ managed to steal some of that bread__+ slice of bread analyzed and it came out 22 percent sawdust. But it, it tasted good. {laughter}
{laughter} That was also known as black bread; is that right?
Yes, black bread. It was black and heavy, terribly heavy, but it was better than nothing. We had four huge kettles in the kitchen which they used for he-heating hot water and making soup and cooking potatoes and turnips, kohlrabi and cabbage and so forth. We began to get some Red Cross parcels. The other camps had been established had a very fine system where Red Cross parcels were distributed, oh, every two or three weeks for one person. Well, by the time we got our camp going, it was weeks before we got any Red Cross parcels. And when we did get 'em, we only got, I think, one, one parcel would be separated for 10 men. But there'd be powdered milk. There'd co, ?Airsot's? (ph) Coffee. There'd be margarine, canned margarine, biscuits and so forth. Really, if you had, if you had a parcel to yourself you could eat pretty well. But we never got to that point, as the war was winding down. And the French, bless their hearts, the French were in ch-charge of distrib-distributing the Red Cross parcels. Course, they'd been prisoners longer than anybody. We'd a probably done the same thing, ya know. But they took, they, they skimmed the top. And I know, speaking of the Red Cross, when the people became prisons earlier in the war and went to Dulag Luft, they would give them a kit, like one of these laundry suitcases that you used to take to, take to college and ship your dirty laundry home, and in this suitcase they had some pajamas, some underwear, a few things like that. And it really was very nice. But, as I said, by May of 1943 or forty, May of '44 they weren't distributing any more parcels. The Air Force had 58,000 prisons. That's a lot of prisoners. This, this doesn't take into consideration any of the ground peop, ground forces that were captured in North Africa and Italy. And those p-people were brought up into Germany as the Germans retreated. But I'd say half of our chapter is Air Force personnel and the other half are ground troops and a few Koreans and we have one Vietnam and we, we have t-two or three from Japan. But most of us were all in Germany.
How long was it before your family back in the States found out you were a POW?
We were missing in action I, I think it was around six or eight weeks before my mother heard. What happened, I was and exception. My uncle was a provo marshal in England. And I used to stop and see him when I'd go into-to London on leave. He, he was stationed in Braintree with an MP detachment there. And he was a captain. And I used to stop and see 'im. So he had picked up people from my camp who went AWOL and our first sergeant knew my uncle, at least knew who he was. So when I didn't come back, he called my uncle and said, "Bob's plane was shot down and it's a possibility that he got out okay. There were, there were, parachutes were seen" and so forth. END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE; BEGIN SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE. My uncle wrote his wife, my aunt, who was living with my mother and said that I was missing. {laughter} So they knew about three weeks before. My mother wrote the War Department. {laughter} Wanted to know wh, about her son. And they wrote her back wantin' to know how she found out about it. But, yeah, she, she heard about, I'd say, oh, between two and three months. And my brother was in the submarine service in Australia. We couldn't have been further apart, my twin.
You had a twin brother and he was in the Navy?
Yeah. He was in the submarine service, and,
, he was in the Pacific.
, he was in the Pacific, and-
Did any mail get through to you in the camp?
Yeah.
You did get some letters from home?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got some, I got some letters from, I've got letters my mother wrote me and I have letters that I wrote my mother.
Were you able to write much in your letters,
No. No.
, back home?
They gave you a form. And, in fact, one was a postcard. And I sent, sent it out in October saying this is my Christmas card. And we had pencils. Didn't have any pens or anything, but- Mail was, we got some mail. Course as the war went, pro, war progressed, well, we got less and less, ya know. And, but the Red Cross was very active here in the States with families. Telling them what, what to try to send: packages and what to put in the packages. They also served as a rallying point for families. My mother was in touch with the other crew members' parents to, to a good extent, but-
Were you able to keep up on war news much when you were in the camp?
Well, yeah. I know I, when I was runnin' this first aid station we would get, they brought in newspapers the ?Vocus Rebierbachter? (ph) and the Allgemeine Zeitung all sorts of German newspapers. And we, I used them to, well, to place on top of tables and so forth. And I'd always leave the war news up, ya know. But we, we would hear, supposedly there were some radios in the camp. Now when we got to, when I got to Neubrandenburg, they had a map on the wall. The French and the Dutch and the Italians had been there for years. They, they had it pretty well organized. They had the maps on the wall showing the progress of the, 'specially the Eastern Front. But the Russians, the po, I used to, we had a, one lager at Neubrandenburg was Russian. And those poor devils, I never saw worse cases of starvation and maltreatment in my life. No wonder they don't like the Germans. It was God-awful, and I know damn well the German prisoners in Russia got the same kinda treatment. But they used to march those Russians out into the woods, eight o'clock in the morning and march 'em back at four o'clock in the afternoon. And they hadn't eaten all damn day. And they, those that didn't work, they didn't live. So we were very, very fortunate.
So you didn't have any incidents of abuse from your guards? Did you get along with those guys?
There were, there were occasions when things weren't too good. I know, I remember one time, one of the German officers came back screaming about his sheada (ph) Muchen. We had bombed Munich. Ya know, he apparently had been on, on leave and gone home and saw all this debacle, really. It was a shame. And he took it out on the Air Corps prisoners, ya know. You c-couldn't blame him, really. But we found a lot of the German soldiers that we encountered were old World War I retreads, really. All the young people were in the, in the f, on the front. And it was the old-timers that were called into service. And I know the, one of our camp commandants, his name was Schleip (ph) and he had one arm that was severely crippled. He had been a World War I officer. And some of the other officers were, were gentlemen, so to speak. I mean, you respected them, they treated you very well. I had occasions where men would come up for sick call and stand there by the German doctor, hands in their pocket and they'd pay no respect. And I'd tell 'em, "Look, pay some respect and the man will take care of ya." And they soon learned that if they would salute and say, "Yes, sir. No, sir" the doc, the doctors were much, much more willing t-to treat 'em.
You mentioned that one officer taking it out on the Army Air Corps about Munich, what did he do?
Pardon me.
You mentioned that one,
Yeah.
, c-comin' back from Munich, what did he do to the guys when he was-
Well, I just heard all this haranguing and so forth. And then restrictions were tightened up. Ya know, would be loose for a while and they'd tighten them up again.
You lose some privileges or whatever
Yeah. We had one chap jumped out of the window and th-they shot him. And they brought 'im in the first aid station. And everybody was rather upset there and they said, "Were, were gonna take 'im out." I said, "You better wait till after it's dark. 'Cause everybody's very upset," ya know. So they s, they said, "Okay." And he died right there at the, on the table. And they waited till dark and took 'im out.
Got that guard. They took out the guard you say?
No, took out the guy that jumped out the window.
Oh. Oh.
The prisoner. He was shot.
You didn't want that, the other people in the camp to see that-
Yeah. They brought 'im in the, into the first aid station,
, aid station, right
And the doctors said to me that he was __,? ya know. And I said, "Well, leave 'im here till dark."
'Cause you knew that'd be a problem if the other prisoners saw 'im.
I said, "And take 'im out then." That's, which is I think was the smart thing to do 'cause you see, 2,000 prisoners see them take somebody out on a stretcher, you know, is not too, not too good. But that's a long time ago.
Any escape attempts in that camp?
No. No. Our camp was built to circumvent escapes. The other camps were older camps and had escape committees and so forth. But our barracks were put up, w-were built on st-stilts and there was no way you could get from the barrack floor down below the dirt. The st, the barracks were high enough that the police dogs, I mean the German shepherds, they had patrolling could get underneath the barracks. So there really was no way you could start to do any tunneling or anything like that.
Now you said you were in Stalag Luft 4 till what, about February '45?
February '45. Yeah. And then you could hear the, you could hear the guns. And some of 'em went out by train. And they went down to so-southern Germany. I've forgotten where they went. But we were on the road. And everybody in northern Germany was, seemed to be on the road. Lot's of refugees. Wagon after wagon after wagon, ya know. And our, our, one of the officers that was in charge of our con, our group had a SO, Standard Oil road map is what he, what he had. But we would march on these roads up there in northern Germany and at, at night would, normally we would be able to get into a big state farm. They had a lot of state farms up there and s-stay overnight. There was very little food. That was the most harrowing part of the whole experience was being on the road. As I say, I was lucky enough to get into the hospital at Neubrandenburg. This, this hospital had a surreal doctor, who was a prisoner. And he wore wooden shoes. And I thought it was really a paradox where he would be, he had a nice tunic, but he had wooden shoes. And-
Were you in that hospital then for the rest of the war, then?
Well, I was, they moved me out of the, out of the, the hospital proper, probably, the first of April. And I was just in the general lager for the final six or eight weeks. And then we moved up the hill to the German Army barracks. Beautiful barracks. We were there for a couple weeks. Russian Army came in. I was really impressed with the Russian Army. They had all American equipment, I mean, their tanks and so forth. But they lived off the, off the countryside. Th-they didn't have a group that came in and did the, did the laundry for you or cooked your meals. They lived off the, ya know, if they had 500 men, there were 500 rifles. And they had women. The Russian women were dressed just like the men.
Were they okay to you? Did they treat the Allied,
Oh, yeah.
, prisoners good?
We, in my particular situation they were fine. Some of the men claimed that the Russians were g-gonna hold on to them and ship 'em up, back to the Crimea or that way. But the Russian group that I was involved with were very cooperative. And they put us on a couple of trucks. And I went through Sternberg, Germany {laughter},
There you go. {laughter}
, on the way to Luneburg
Is there a family connection to that? {laughter}
No. No. No. {laughter} But I ended, I ended up in, in Luneburg, and then they said, "Where do you want to go? Paris or Brussels or where do you want to go?" I says, "I'll go to Brussels. I don't want to go to Paris." So I went to Brussels for a couple of days. And by that time, by that time they had a system. We were called RAMPs: returned allied military personnel. They took us into a bank there in Brussels, and said Air Force go to this gate here or this window. And I got several hundred dollars. I never did pay it back that I, that I recall. And then I caught the train form Brussels to Camp Lucky Strike. I was at Camp Lucky Strike there by Le Havre for a couple of weeks and then they said, "Where do you want to go?" And I thought Well, I might as well go back to England. So I fl, I said. "I want to go back to England." So I got on a B-17 and they flew me right back to Snetterton Heath, my old air base. And then I stayed there one day and I went down to London and met my uncle who was still there and came back through, through Southampton on LST. Took me almost three weeks on an LST. A lot of the guys flew back, but I wasn't that fortunate. We got back to Norfolk and got off this damn LST, which was a flat-bottom scow. And they march us up into the mess hall line and here's the big chow line. And who was serving chow? German prisoners of war, fat and sassy. I weighed a hundred pounds. {laughter}
Do you remember the date you were liberated?
May 8th.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah.
You there you go. So you, so it was VE Day basically. Any celebrations with the end of the war, the liberation, and all that happening?
N-not really. I, I went in-into Neubrandenburg, when the Russians came, in to look around. And a lot of the pop-population had fled when the Russians went in because the Russians were coming. And there was people hangin' from fence posts or lampposts and so forth. And the Russians had broken into the warehouses there, their food warehouses and we, and stripped 'em bare, from what I understand, and what populous was, that was left were very upset because they figured that was their winter, their food for the winter. And the Russians had wiped 'em out. But, as I say, we didn't celebrate until, when we got to Brussels. That's where. And I stayed at the YMCA lodging there for a few days. And I finally ended, got home in July.
What was your reunion with your family like when you finally got back?
Well, I tried, I put it off as long as possible.
Why's that?
Oh, well, my mother was in New York City where, staying with friends in New York. And so I, when I knew that I, I went to Fort Sheridan, got discharged. Or I got my 90-day parole at Fort Sheridan. So I was able to spend a few days in Chicago and kind of unwind. And so when I got to New York, I was ready to be smothered. And I was. And my brother hadn't gotten back yet from the Pacific. 'Cause the war wasn't over there until August, but- We were supposed to go to the Pacific after the 90 days.
Even the former POWs were scheduled, too?
Yeah.
Really?
Yeah. Yeah. I had it in my orders to report to Miami Beach, but that never happened, which was good, ya know.
Did you have any particularly close buddy either when you were flying or, or in the prison camp?
Well, yeah. I had close buddies, ya know. Ya try to develop some, some closeness. When ya have bad situations, it's nice to have somebody to support each other, you know but- It's kinda, kinda hard after the war to keep those associations current, you know. And that's what I found out: everybody went different ways. I tried to get in touch with my pal's family in Mississippi, but I never was, never was able to contact anybody. His name was White, and I called every White in the phonebook when I was at- We had a reunion, reunion in Jackson. And he was from Grenada. And I called every White in the phonebook and never was able to find him. But,
Now, though, did you say your pilot was killed, though?
Yeah.
You were trying to get in touch with his family?
Yeah. The family, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
And I saw my copilot a couple of times. He was from Omaha. He was a mail clerk and lives in Omaha. And, as I say, I, I've been in touch with my tail gunner. He's got such a, for a man who's blind, he is so upbeat and such a pleasure to talk to, you really, after you finish talkin' to 'im, you, you really benefit. You just, from hearing this enthusiasm. So we met in Tulsa when we had a reunion there. I met his wife and his daughter. As I say, he was a gulf pro.
I guess I forgot to ask because I know how tough it was to do, but did you ever get close to hitting anything as a gunner?
Yeah. I got credit for one,
You did?
Yeah. One of my Air Medals is for enemy aircraft. Yeah.
That was pretty tough to do; wasn't it? Shoot down one of them?
Well, yeah. But I, you know, this top turret is a hydraulic controlled turret which was, it had its own sight and everything. And you're up above the plane. You got a nice range there. You c,
Was that a Messerschmitt that you got, Me109?
I don't know if it was a Me109, but they confirmed it and that was the main thing. I, we got an air medal for five missions. And if you got, after you got five, 25 missions, they'd give you a Silver St, a Flying Cross.
Right.
But- So I got, I got three Air Medals and one enemy aircraft, but- I've been treated very nicely by the VA, and most of us have. When the chapter was formed in 1979, the atmosphere was very antagonistic between veterans and the Veterans Administration. And over the years, the POW groups have managed to reverse that. And we have, we're on a much more advan-advantageous situation. The VA goes out of their way for us. And this has all been done through being nice to each other.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
It was __ you used to hear stories by different veterans of battles they had with the VA. You don't have that anymore. They finally found out that it's easier being nice to each other. Course our national office is in Washington. We have one office in Washington and one in T, our headquarters in Texas. But w-we've had very, very fine results from legislation. And they've really gone all out for us, which is great.
When you think about the war years, does any other particularly vivid memory come to mind?
About the war years?
Mm-hmm.
No. I was in the service five years, you know. So it had its ups and its downs, so to speak. And, as I say, I was, I was very fortunate not being eligible for the draft. Because I, I wouldn't a made it as an infantryman.
Yeah.
I, in fact, my graduation class at Chanute Field was scheduled to go to the Philippines, my mechanic's class. And we were quarantined for something, I don't know what the disease was, but they held us back two weeks and the succeeding class went to the Philippines and they were all captured. So you see, we were very, very, very fortunate.
Very good. You think that covers it?
That covers it. Yeah.
Very good. I totally forgot about that. Your plane had a name?
Roger Dodger
How'd they come up with that name?
I don't know.
{laughter}
Well, I think the copilot came up with it.
Did you have any kind of a good luck charm when you flew?
No.
I sometimes remember to ask that.
No, I didn't. I wasn't superstitious.
Yeah. Once in a while that comes up.
Yeah.
But I don't always ask that.