Chapter 7

At seven O'clock on the evening of May 11 we were called for a short mission to France. This was my twenty third mission my army records show that I flew thirty seven missions. I don't know what caused the difference in the records. As far as I knew, it was my twenty third mission and I was glad it was to be a short one. Bruce and I had recuperated from the night before and he was flying as my wingman. We got over France and were attacked by a large group of enemy fighters. We were soon scattered all over the sky engaged in combat and Bruce, who was to be off my left wing guarding my rear, wasn't there. All I saw was an ME-109 directly behind me. He must have come from above so quickly that I missed him. I immediately started a right turn, but it was too late. The next thing I saw was two rows of bullet holes chewing up each side of my instrument panel. The armor plate behind the seat was only a foot wide and the bullets were hitting the instruments about twenty inches apart. I'll never know how my arms kept from being hit.

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

I saw my plane go down, crash and burn several miles away. I found out later that I was in Luxemburg near the city of Metz. As I neared the ground I could see that I was going to land in a plowed field near a small village. I was not facing in the right direction and tried to turn and steer myself by pulling on the chute lines. I almost died of fright when the chute folded half under and so I let go in a hurry. The chute opened again correctly and I landed in the soft dirt of the field without even falling down.

The landing was very easy and I immediately got out of the chute harness and began to run for the woods that were on either side of the field. I had gone only about ten feet when I heard a rifle shot and the bullets whizzing past me so I stopped and held up my hands. The German was coming across the field toward me from one direction and a group of twenty people from the village were coming from the other. The group from the village reached me first and one of them took out a package of Lucky Strike cigarettes, gave me one and lit it for me. They were French and all smiles. they could have hidden me if the Germans were not right there. the German was a young boy, but I gave up any thoughts of escape as he was the one with the gun. He took me back to the road where he had a bicycle. It seems the Germans patrolled the roads on bicycles during air raids and captured the Americans when they saw the parachutes coming down. If I had not opened my parachute so soon he might not have seen me and I could have reached the woods safely or the townspeople could have hidden me. It was almost dark now as it was 8:00 pm. I walked along the dark road with him behind me on the bicycle carrying the gun. After about an hours walk we came to a city where I was taken into a building where there were several German soldiers. They made me empty my pockets and took my watch. They were interested in my 'May West' life vest so I showed them how it worked and they all jumped when I pulled the pin and it inflated. I was then put in a dark room, face down on a cot with my ankles drawn up behind me and tied to my wrists. They left me this way through the night and returned for me in the morning. Than I was taken into the city of Metz where I was joined by some other prisoners. Bruce was with them and I was very glad to see him and know he was safe. We had been shot down at the same time. There were several fellows from a bomber crew and we were a group of about ten. They took us down one of the busy streets and we were a little nervous as to the reaction of the civilians who we had been bombing, but they just looked at us. None of us spoke French and they were probably afraid of the German soldiers with us.

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

When we arrived at the interrogation center we were separated and I was put into a small room about ten feet square with a high ceiling. There was a little window about fifteen feet off the floor which gave a little light in the daytime. The only furnishings in the room was a wooden bed with a burlap mattress filled with straw. I could just faintly hear the prisoner in the next room and later learned that some of the prisoners tried to communicate with one another by tapping on the wall in Morse code (which we had learned in training). We were fed three times a day by the guard stationed in the hall outside. In the morning there was one slice of bread and a cup of tea, at noon a cup of barley soup, and at night the bread and tea again. It was just enough to keep you from starving. I got so hungry that when eating the bread I would put my jacket over my lap, eat over it then lick the bread crumbs off the back of the jacket. I tried to keep track of the days by taking a stick of straw out of the mattress and putting a one inch piece on the board at the head of the bed each morning. With nothing to do all day you would soon begin to wonder if you had counted the day or not. I would sometimes spend several hours worrying: did I or didn't I do it? The bathroom was down the hall so when you needed to go you banged on the door until the guard came. There was no paper and no water so we couldn't keep clean.

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

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

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

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

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

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

As we were standing there talking, I heard someone mention the name Len Pierce, so I called out "Who knows Len Pierce?" I met the pilot who was flying with Len and he told me all about how Len was killed. Len was lost on May 10 the day before I went down and it was strange to learn about it under these circumstances. I probably knew about it over there in the middle of a field in Germany even before his folks were notified. The pilot who had been flying with Len explained that Len's plane was damaged and he was trying to make it back to England. His plane quit over the Channel and he had to parachute out. He landed in the water and the chute came down on top of him. He was tangled in it and drowned even though he was a good swimmer. He was flying with a good outfit and had shot down two enemy planes.

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

Somewhere along the way the train stopped and down a bank below us was another train with all the people from it standing on the grass. They were about 200 feet from us and Americans also. We saw pilots we had gone through training with and a few we knew from other squadrons in England. We waved and hollered but our train started up again. It was on that train I learned my first German word "abort" meaning bathroom. I forget how long we were on the train or if they fed us, but we were so apprehensive about our future we were less concerned about our a appetites.