Two or three guys had been out to the hospital and were suspected of having TB. They were taken out of camp and we had no idea what became of them. We were told that there was no TB in Germany and they were anxious to get rid of them. We also had a few guy's who couldn't stand the captivity and began to act very strange. As we said in the service: they went "round the bend". I know of a couple like this and they disappeared. They were perhaps sent home through the Red Cross in Switzerland.
One day the Germans told us they were going to give us a horse to eat and we were all looking forward to having some meat. We saw the wagon coming and all rushed down to the cookhouse to climb up and look in the wagon. It was a horse alright, the head, four feet and the tail. Wt all went back to our barracks and forgot about meat and German promises.
The German pilots knew our location and would fly over our camp often and very low. One day we saw a large bomber go over with a smaller plane sitting on top of it. They were probably testing something new as none of us had ever seen anything like that. Another day a plane flew very low over us at very high speed and it mystified us. After the war we learned that the Germans were testing Jet planes and these were the early ones undergoing testing. One day one flew very low over us and just after it disappeared over the treetops there was a loud explosion, a ball of fire and smoke going up. We knew it had crashed and we yelled and clapped... just trying to let the German guards know how we still felt about it.
It was getting to be colder weather and the Red Cross sent us warmer clothing. I got a GI overcoat which was very heavy and came down to my ankles. I also got two blankets, one a beautiful British Royal Air Force blanket. It was dark blue and very thick, With the air force insignia in the center. There was snow and that part of Germany had weather about the same as upstate New York. We were cold most of the time. I put my flannel pajamas on under my clothes and didn't take them off for several months. It was too cold to bathe very often and our clothes were getting quite dirty. I was still wearing the logging boots I had bought in California and my feet were always cold. I was again wearing the orange sweater that came down to my knees so I must have been a sight. I took some cloth, perhaps from one of my shirts, and made a pair of booties the size of my feet and another larger pair. I cut a German newspaper in narrow strips and packed it about three inches thick between the cloth booties and sowed them up. They were big and bulky, but I wore them in the barracks and they kept my feet warm. The Red Cross sent us some hockey sticks and skates so we decided to build a hockey rink. In an open space where the ground was level we smoothed a large area with the bed slats and piled up dirt about four inches high around the sides. We carried cold water in our water pitchers and poured it on the rink. Each night it would freeze and we'd put more on the next day. After a few days and thousands of trips with the water, we had a real nice rink. We made a puck out of a piece of tree root and teams were formed. The Canadians in the next compound had a very good team and we challenged them to a game. The big day arrived and our team was ready. The goalie was a tall red headed guy from our room and he slept in the bunk above me. The day before the game we all gave him some of our food so that he could build up his strength enough to play the entire game. I think the Canadians won but we had a lot of fun watching the game. The guards in the towers also watched the game of course. After a couple of months of hockey playing the sticks were broken off at the end and we had to play with them that way.
Soon it was Christmas and my third away from home. Under such bad conditions it was very hard to be cheerful. We did the best we could with decorations. Even though we were in a forest of pine trees, we couldn't get any inside the compound. We mixed the gritty powder that the Germans gave us for toothpaste with water and pasted it in the corner of the windows like snow. We also saved up a little extra food so we could have one good meal. The Germans had promised us each a bottle of beer for Christmas and we were eagerly looking forward to that. We each got a bottle, to our surprise, but when we got back to the barracks and opened it we found it was only a bottle of charged water, not beer. The only thing we could do was dump it out and save the bottle. Our spirits were low and this didn't help any. We spent the rest of the day thanking of our loved ones at home and wishing we were with them.
In January 1945 we began to hear the big guns from the east and we knew the Russians were advancing from that direction. On January 23 we were notified by the camp commander that the Germans had told him to prepare to leave this camp before the Russians came. They didn't want any of the highly trained airman to be liberated and have the chance to fight against them again. We were instructed to walk 10 laps around the perimeter each day for a total of 7 and 1/2 miles. This was not easy due to the weather and our weakened conditions, but we knew it was necessary to build up our bodies for long marches. We discussed different ways in which to carry our belongings and food. We had large safety pins and a shirt could be pinned up at the bottom with the arms tied around the neck, thus forming a sack. Another carrying device was to pin up the bottom of our heavy army coat and put everything inside. This was the method which I chose.
Our biggest problem was to eat more food and try to build up our strength for what lay ahead, while saving some food to take with us. On the evening of January 28 we were told to get ready to leave. We put on all the clothes we had and I put on the flannel pajamas over my underwear, not knowing that it would be two Months before I took them off again. We divided our remaining food as equally as possible and sat around waiting for the order to march At the last minute they gave each of us a full Red Cross parcel and we were sorry we had not eaten more during the last few days. Just after midnight, at approximately 12:30 am on January 29 we were ordered to leave. I put on my overcoat carried the heavy Royal Air Force blanket and suddenly realized what a heavy load I was carrying, the miserable conditions, and that it had only begun.
Chapter 9 First March
There were about lO,OOO British and American POW's who gradually left the compound. We formed a line down the road to the southwest through the pine forest, in the cold, as the snow fell gently. We looked back, Bruce and I, at our home for the past eight months. There was a red glow in the sky above our compound as someone, in a last act of defiance, had set fire to his barracks before leaving. This march was to last for six days and we were to walk sixty two miles. There was about four inches of snow on the ground. and during the first mile we began to realize that we were too weak to carry everything. I took the heaviest cans of food out of my coat and threw them in the snow. I kept the powdered milk as it was the lightest and most nourishing food. Soon the road was littered with food and extra clothing. We knew that we would need the food later, but it was a choice between that or falling behind and possibly losing our friends. About a mile down the road we could hear the Russian guns getting much louder (they were thirty miles away). Suddenly there were some rifle shots and we all scattered off the road, diving head first into the snowy brush. It turned out to be a false alarm so we stopped praying and got back onto the road. At daylight the wind began to blow and for the next two days we marched in a blizzard. We stopped at intervals for ten minute rest periods, dropped into the snow and just dreaded getting up again. We marched this way until noon the following day when we reached Freiwaldu, a distance of eighteen miles in eleven hours. We stopped at a farm house and the barn was full so Bruce and I laid down in the snow against the back of the barn out of the wind. During the afternoon we took turns going to the farmhouse to get warm. Bruce and I got into the kitchen and the farmer and his wife were there just looking bewildered. The German soldiers were noted for taking everything from the people in the countryside in the places they occupied and the Americans were just the opposite. After our time was up and we were warm, Bruce and I took some cans of food out of our packs and gave them to the woman. It was our way of saying thanks to them for allowing us to get warm and we received a smile from her as thanks. Then we returned to the blizzard. Later on during the march we did pick up some things around the farms and it must have been hard for the farm people. Having thousands of Americans crowding into every space must have been traumatic for them. The British prisoners were soon mixed in with us, as all became scattered in line. They were the most amazing people I have ever known. They were always happy and singing, innovative in finding ways to carry their packs. After a few stops at farms they would come down the road with baby buggies, carts and makeshift hand carts created from old wheels they found. I recall one group with packs piled high in a buggy. They also found sleds which worked until the snow melted. Under the miserable conditions no one gave thought to trying to escape. The American colonel who was in charge of us recommended that we stick together for reasons of safety. We had few guards with us and they were mostly old men. The old man with our group rode a bicycle and carried a rifle. It wasn't long before he was walking too and when we had rest stops we immediately fell to working on the blisters we had developed on our feet. We even patched up the guard's feet and it wasn't long before we took turns carrying his rifle and pack. This was the only way that he could keep up and we felt sorry for him. We began again at 6 PM and marched all night in the blizzard. The next day we arrived at a little village named Muskau. Thus far all we had to eat was cold food that we were carrying and some bread the Germans had given us. We were so cold and hungry as we looked for a place to get inside. Bruce and I found a place inside a small stone church in the center of town. We were crowded in so tightly that the only spot Bruce and I could find to sleep was next to the altar. On each side of the altar was a section filled with dirt, with many small white crosses stuck in the dirt. We removed enough crosses to make a place to lie down and when we left we smoothed the ground and replaced the crosses. This was Monday and the first sleep we had since the Friday before. We were very weak and desperately needed it. It was also a relief to get inside away from the cold and snow. We were sti11 eating cold food and more bread from the Germans. With so many men on the move, they had no way to feed us and by this time in the war they barely had enough for themselves anyway. I know our guards had even less than we did. When we started marching again we were really in bad shape. We were so weak with aching muscles and blistered feet that we began to worry about whether or not we could keep going. The boys from our barracks were still together and wanted to keep it that way. The only good thing was that the blizzard had stopped and it was beginning to thaw a little. Many of the guys were falling out now and laying along side the road. Bruce and I were having trouble and soon our knees began to buckle and we would fall down. Our legs were so weak that they wouldn't hold us up any longer. We would help each other up and go a little further. After several falls we crawled to the side of the road to rest awhile. We were worried about being separated from our group so struggled on as long as we could. Finally, so far behind our group, we gave up. After many falls we decided to lay there on the ground with the others who had dropped out. Then we began to worry about what the, Germans might do to us and concluded that we might be shot. That thought was enough to make us get up and keep going no matter what. We made it to Sremburg where we were going to spend the night. When we later arrived at Nuremburg we discovered that those guys who had fallen out along the road had been picked up by trucks at the end of the line and sent by train to the camps to which we eventually marched. They got there a week ahead of us. Ironic things like this seemed to happen to me all through these years. I stayed that night in a very large building 1ike a gym or a warehouse and we were packed in so tightly that there was barely room to lay down. There was only one small light bulb hanging about forty feet up on the ceiling. You couldn't see anything once it got dark. In the night when someone had to go to the bathroom there was no light to see by or room to keep from stepping on someone. We just ran as fast as we could, with our shoes off, over the top of everyone. There was only one small door at the far end of the building and everyone that was stepped on would yell, swear and wake up the rest of us. At least it was dark so they didn't know who did it to them. When we got up the next morning they were passing out watery barley soup from a big drum outside the building. This was the first hot food we had had in four days and we were very hungry. I got a cup full and took a big drink of it. The broth was so hot I burned my tongue and mouth so I couldn't taste the rest of it. I downed it all and was warmed inside. I was lucky not to have any back problems on this march as the weight of all my belongings in the bottom of the coat really pulled on my shoulders. When we left this place we walked a few miles to the railroad yards where we were to make the two day trip by train to Nuremburg and Camp X-111D. By this time we were all getting diarrhea from drinking the water we got along the march. It was not the same as the spring water we had in Sagan. With all the cloths we were wearing it was not easy to suffer from diarrhea. At this time we thought the worst of the march was over as at last we were getting a ride, but it was nearly a disaster. We were put into box cars, fifty men to a car with out guard. We were packed in so tightly we could not sit down and there was very little air. In order to sleep, we sat down all wound around each other and tried to Keep our heads out at best. A couple of the guys fastened their blankets across the corners on nails and made a hammock in order to make more room. It didn't help much because they were always getting in and out due to the diarrhea. There was always someone at the door in a bit of a rush waiting for the guard to unlock and open the door. Two guys would hold the victim by the arms while he let his rear hang out the door. When the train made stops we were all outside immediately with the same problem. One time the train stopped at a station in the middle of a city and we all jumped out onto the platform between the trains with the same problem. We all went right there on the platform with the German civilians walking around us. We didn't have time to be embarrassed as we couldn't wait any longer. We were so miserable we didn't care any more and everyone was in the same condition. After two days of this we arrived at Nuremburg. It was approximately February 4. We were farther south now and the weather was a little warmer. We were relieved to have made the trip without being strafed or bombed by our own comrades as we knew the Allies were aiming at all the trains they could find. It just gave us out more thing to worry about. We walked three miles to the new camp outside Nuremburg. The conditions at this camp were much worse than those at Sagan. The camp had been used by Italian officers who were prisoners and it was filthy, dirty and muddy. Bruce and I managed to stay together and get into the same barracks but we had lost Ullo and the others from the barracks at Sagan. The barracks were in sections with bunks for twelve men on one side of each section. A cooking area with a table was on the opposite side with an aisle down the middle. Each man did his own cooking on a stove which we turned on its side to make more of a cooking surface. When we found something to burn, we cooked on the stove. The remainder of the time we ate cold food. It was becoming more difficult for the Red Cross to deliver food parcels to us and some weeks we got half a parcel, other weeks none. We were hungry all the time and gradually getting weaker. The water, however, must have been good here as we were finally getting over the diarrhea. I should mention one of the observations I made about men at this time and know I'll always remember. The prison experience really separated the men from the boys, as the saying goes. I suppose it was because of their background that some of the biggest and strongest men were the ones that could not take this situation. They couldn't carry packs, cook, even light a fire and needed the most help during the toughest parts. The men you least expected to would become a tower of strength. It made me realize that I was a better man than many of the men I would normally have looked up to. There was a dirt road through the center of camp and we used this for walking for exercise. We didn't get enough food to exercise much and there was no room for sports. One of the guard towers was close to our barracks and it had a searchlight which rotated back and forth at night to keep us in our buildings after dark. They threatened to shoot anyone outside after dark as there was no wide open space between our barrack and the barbed wire fence with the pine woods beyond. They also didn't have the large guard dogs loose in this camp. We didn't have any hot water here so we did not take any baths or wash our clothes for two months. Our mattresses were burlap filled with shredded paper and so filthy that every day that the sun shone we would take them outdoors to air with our blankets. We soon discovered we were infested with bedbugs lice and fleas. Don't ask me why but they never bothered me at all. I would lay on my bunk and they were so thick that I could see them jump from the guy on my right to me then on to Bruce on the next bunk. Some guys were scarred all over their bodies from the bites, but I can't remember having a single bite. A boy named Lindstom was in the bottom corner bunk and he was so sick he didn't move the last three weeks we were there. His skin was Just raw from the fleas. One of his buddies was feeding him and I wondered what happened to him when we moved out of this camp as he couldn't walk. When I was in Atlantic City for discharge I met him on a street corner and had a visit with him so I knew he made it. About a week before we left this camp, the Red Cross sent in some insecticide and we put it all over ourselves and our clothes and blankets. By the time we moved out a week later we had rid ourselves of most of the insects. Next to our barracks was a large one room building used for a wash house. It contained only some old sinks and two cold water faucets so we seldom used it. The old boards ran up and down on the sides and we were gradually taking them off the building to use for fire wood for cooking. The Germans forbade it so we had to sneak around when they were not looking. The nails would make a terrible noise when you pulled the boards off so we would loosen them very carefully during the daytime when the guards were not looking and at night we would time the sweep of the searchlight to dash out and rip one off, then run for the barracks before they turned the searchlight back and shot us. The noise of the nails was awfully loud in the night and would alert the guards. By the time we left this camp, all that was left of the wash house was the roof. We had outside toilet buildings for daytime use but no inside toilets for nights although we weren't allowed out at night. At the and of the barracks was a small room with a twenty gallon garbage can for use at night. It had to be carried out by two men in the morning and emptied into the outdoor toilet. It was almost always full and running over when you carried it. We drew cards every morning and the two low cards got that dirty Job. Bruce had terrible luck and got the low card about twice a week whereas I only did it once or twice. We didn't have any toilet paper, but. found that a cigarette pack contained four sheets of thin paper if you separated it carefully. I cut the tail off one of my shirts and used that then washed it out in the wash house. One day there was a rumor going around that a shipment of toilet paper was coming in and we all lined us to get it. By the time it was divided up each man received three sheets. Big deal! We finally got a chance to take a shower at the other end of the camp, about a mile down the road that ran through the camp. Every so far in that wash building there was a one inch pipe hanging from the ceiling. They only turned the hot water on for a few minutes for each group so you had to work very fast. About five guys would get under a pipe and we would Jostle to all get wet as it was only a small stream of water coming out. We soaped ourselves then crowded under again to wash the soap off before the water was turned off. In our group were four or five white men and one black man. We must have made a beautiful sight all trying to get under the water at once. As I look back on it this is what was meant by true integration! On the walk back to our barracks some of the guys were too weak to make the trip and fell down. We didn't realize that in our weakened Condition the hot water was too much for our systems. The stronger men carried the weaker ones between them back to the barracks. This was the only good bath I had during the final two months as a prisoner. Each morning we had to line up outside for roll call which was the way they kept track of the number in each barracks to determine that no one had escaped. We had a bugle player who played revile when the German Camp Commander and his group came in every morning. As soon as they arrived Inside the wire he would start playing a swinging revile. He really played some hot music and we would clap and cheer which made the Germans angry. We stood there while they counted us and once in awhile someone too weak to stand would fall and lay there on the ground. After roll call we would carry them back to the barracks. Most of the weakness was caused by inactivity and having only barely enough food to survive. Once a day they gave each of us a cup of soup which was all that they prepared in the cookhouse at this camp. One soup was barley and water (mostly water) and a dirty gray color. The other was a green soup made with dehydrated vegetables. This soup had black bugs, about the size of ladybugs, floating on top of it. Some of the guys could never eat this soup but I was so hungry that I did. At first I took my spoon and skimmed all the bugs off the top and ate the rest. I wondered why it was so crunchy until I discovered that there was a beetle inside all the dehydrated peas in the soup. After that I just stirred the soup up and ate it as fast as I could. These two months were very nerve wracking due to the continual bombing of Nuremburg which was only three miles away. The Americans bombed it almost every day and the British at night. Nuremburg had a large railroad terminal and was a favorite target. When the bombs fell, the ground and barracks would shake and everything fell off the shelves as the windows broke. During one raid the bombs were so close that one wall of our barracks moved Six inches. At night we crawled under the lower bunk together for safety as we couldn't leave the building. In the daytime we look two bed slats with the blanket folded on top and held it over our heads to go outside and watch the bombing. This was to protect our heads from all the shrapnel that was falling on the camp. The camp was right in the middle of the ring of big German anti aircraft guns that circled Nuremburg. One of these guns was in the woods just over the fence from our barracks and the noise was terrific. We watched the smoke rising from the city of Nuremburg those days and nights. When the British bombed at night they dropped flares which lit up the entire area and the searchlights that were probing the sky. We watched from our windows and worried that a bomb meant for the railroad yards so near us would fall on our camp. We had begun to dig trenches, but they were only a couple of feel deep so we never used them. We were more interested in just standing around and watching the planes go over. We began to see more of our fighter planes flying down low and one day a P-51 flew very slow1y over the middle of our camp, only a hundred feet up. We could see the pilot and we all ran around waving our arms and yelling at him to get out of here before he was shot down. We began to hear rumors and sounds of battle again and were told we would be moved. We didn't know where, but after the poor food monotony and misery we had had for two months, we were glad to be leaving this place. We didn't need to prepare for this march because we had nothing but the clothes on our backs and blankets so were ready to go any time.
Chapter 10 Second March
On April 4 we began marching to the southeast away from the advancing Americans. It would have been nice to wait there for liberation, but the Germans had different ideas. At least now we knew it would not be long before we would be free. The Germans did not guard us much this time and we were nearly on our own as we marched. Our ranking officers made the decisions to march mostly at night to avoid mistaken attack by American fighters. We also had ten minute rest breaks every hour and the Germans gave us enough bread and soup to keep us alive. We went through the railroad yards at Nuremburg and saw the bomb damage. We were glad to get out of there before another raid came. Our line was soon spread over seven miles and we made the decision to stay with the group instead of trying to escape into the woods and head for the American front. Probably some of the crazier ones did try it.
We spent the first night in barns and any building we could find. The weather was much warmer and we enjoyed the nice spring days. I pinned a sock to my pant leg, found a pop bottle in a trash pile. and carried it full of drinking water. When we went by houses the Germans stood along the road watching us and very often they would fill my bottle with fresh water. The Germans in the areas that had not been bombed were friendly, but those in the cities were more hostile. The American fighter planes were flying over us every day and we could see the smoke from the bombed cities all around us.
The second day I was on a blacktop road and just coming out of a wooded stretch where I could see the line up the straight open road ahead. Some P-51s came over and started shooting at the line of men about a quarter mile ahead of me. The men dove to the side of the road and spread out a POW sign we had made from strips of white cloth to be used on just such an occasion. The planes stopped shooting, but not before two were killed and several wounded. I was lucky to have been still in the woods where we could dive for cover in the trees. After that we marched at night when we could but that too presented problems. It was so dark at night that we suffered from vertigo and had trouble walking. We finally pinned small pieces of white cloth on the back of the one in front of us in order to have something to follow. Sometimes we walked with a hand on the shoulder of the one in front too for orientation.