 “On February 3, 1945, we were flying our first mission back with the 8th Air Force, and our duty for the day was fighter escort for the bombers. I had over 20 combat missions at this point, and we were at 19,000 feet over Dusseldorf, when the engine on my P-51 suddenly quit for no apparent reason. I tried repeatedly to restart the engine, but to no avail. I turned and headed west, hoping to glide the plane past allied lines. I figured it was better to stay with the plane than bail out. Unfortunately, the P-51 wasn’t the world’s best glider, and I ended up about twelve kilometers east of allied lines. I belly landed the plane into a field and ended up in a pond, about a foot deep in water. The Germans in the area came running towards me, so I put my hands up, climbed out of the cockpit, and walked out on to the wing. I slipped on the wing and fell face first into the water. The Germans thought it was comical and laughed so hard, they didn’t shoot me. That, plus they wanted me to help them pump out the gasoline in the P-51.
I was turned over to a guard and sent to a German airbase. I didn’t speak German and my guard didn’t speak English, but we both knew high school French, so we were able to communicate. When we left the next morning to travel to the interrogation center in Frankfurt, we had walked about a half-mile, when my guard motioned for us to turn around. We went back to the airbase, at which point I discovered my guard had forgotten the bullets for his gun. We ended up at his home that night, where he fed me, including apple struddle, which tasted quite good. We traveled all day and night and got on a train in Dusseldorf at 3:30 am for the ride to Frankfurt. While we were walking through a park in Frankfurt, a guard at the local jail approached us, and began a rather loud conversation with my guard. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but it was rather apparent the jail guard wanted my guard to shoot me. Fortunately, he refused. At the interrogation center, I was put in solitary confinement for eleven days, and was then sent by train to the POW camp at Nuremberg. |
On the way to Nuremberg, our train, which had ‘POW’ painted on top of the boxcars, went into a siding, when suddenly, a P-51 appeared and strafed the locomotive. We had to sit in the siding for quite some time until another locomotive arrived to replace the destroyed one. Just outside Nuremberg, I watched the 15th Air Force bomb the city. I arrived at the camp on the 20th of February, and the camp was lousy. I remember eating ‘grass soup’, and dividing the Red Cross parcels, usually one parcel divided between four POWs. On April 2, 1945, we marched from our camp near Nuremberg to a camp at Mooseburg, which was just north of Munich. The march there became more and more disorganized with each passing day, and we found ourselves sleeping in churches, or barns, and bartering our soap and cigarettes for potatoes from the farmers. After spending some time at the new camp, the SS came one day looking for hostages to take with them to Austria, but our camp guards refused to let them take any of us. I was there until the 3rd Army, led by General Patton, came and liberated our camp. When I arrived back home in Rockford, Illinois, I found out that on the day I was captured, orders had come through to the base at Bodney, promoting me to a 1st Lieutenant.” |
“My first combat mission was to Cologne, Germany, and I remember seeing the massive cathedral down below. My call sign was ‘Angus 67’, and I vividly remember flying as the wingman for Col. Joe Mason, whose call sign was always ‘topsy’, on his last mission. He was the 352nd FG Commanding Officer at one time. On November 2, 1944, I was the wingman for 1st Lt. Earnest O. Bostrom, and the mission we flew was to Merseburg. We were assigned to bomber escort, and my job was to protect the flight lead. We engaged enemy fighters, and soon Bostrom was on the tail of a ME-109. I was busy protecting him while flying off his wing, when I looked back and saw another ME-109 boring in on us. I, to this day, clearly remember yelling over the radio, ‘Bostrom, break right’. He did a 180-degree sharp turn to the right, while I did a 180-degree sharp turn to the left, and we eventually joined back up. Bostrom ended up shooting down two ME-109s that day and later became an ace, while I never once fired my P-51 machine guns in combat. After I was taken as a POW later in the war, I was listed as MIA, and never reported back to the squadron. After the war ended, I returned home and started my professional career in the dairy industry. I retired and eventually moved to southern Arizona. While playing golf one day, I met a gentleman who mentioned he had served in the war. It was Dan Britt from the 352nd Fighter Group, who informed me of the 352nd FG Association. After being listed as MIA for 50 years, I was reunited with members of the group, and saw them for the first time at the San Diego reunion in 1998.”