Issue 39.12
Our crew minus the two wounded men and the co-pilot who was killed was placed in a cell that was 8 feet by 6 feet. The only bedding we had was the straw that we salvaged from the carts that carried the wounded. The cell was locked but we were guarded by a 14 year old German boy who had the hardness of a man. We were only in our cell for about four hours when we were taken out and loaded into a truck with some Germans and started on our journey to a POW camp in Germany. We came to the small Italian town of Brixen. Along the way we saw gangs of workmen repairing bridges and other Things that our bombs had destroyed. The German guard tapped me on the shoulder and tried to say “You did that” as he pointed to the damage. It did us good to see so much damage done to important objectives. We were put in a cell that already had eight other American flyers so we were quite crowded. The next day we were taken out of our cell one at a time and interrogated. It was then that I found out that our co-pilot had been killed. We spent some days in that tight cell.
We played word games to pass the time. One guard gave us a lighted cigarette now and then.
When that happened all nine men would take turns to have one puff and then pass the cigarette to the next guy. Those cigs were smoked down to lip and finger burning size. We were taken to a ‘more prison like’ prison and had a bit more room and then we got two meals per day which was better than a few black bread pieces.
On April 18th we started on our journey to go to Germany where we would be in a POW camp. The party consisted of nineteen prisoners and four armed guards. We traveled by any means available which was by truck and train but mostly we walked. When we were on a truck or train we would go only so far and then we would come to another destroyed bridge. We came to a town near the city of Munich and as we walked through it we could seethe utter destruction and smell the burned human flesh. It looked like the Eighth Air Force had done a good job.
We were taken to a large building for the night and were given some thin welcome soup and black bread. Many buildings around us were still burning from the bombing of the previous day. We boarded a train and our destination was Mooseburg. All of the windows in the rail cars were gone so the wind and rain of April chilled us to the bone. This was an allied prisoner of war camp and it was good to see Americans who fed us and introduced us to Red Cross packages where we replaced some of the rags we had on our backs. The next morning we arrived at Mainburg which is the interrogation center that all captured allied air crews went through. The main interrogator’s name was Scharff and he was very persistent but I held to the orders that all American soldiers get. That is to give only name, rank and serial number. I saw on his desk a paper that had much information such as personnel at all 15th AF of each wing, group and squadron. Now all we had to do was to wait for Patton’s Third Army guys to show up. This happened as the sound of machine gun firing and cannons roaring. The guards faded away and the ‘Stars and Stripes’ were raised. Life would again be worth while and valuable for the 25,000 people who were freed that day.
Sam Wyrouck can be contacted at 801-707-2666.