October 5, 1944, over 300 B-17’s left the U.S. air base at Sudsbury, England on a mission that will be long remembered by this writer. It turned out to be one of the most savagely contested missions of the war, the target was Germany’s newest “jet under-ground factory installations and air-base,” located near Munster, Germany.
The Nazis were many months ahead of the Allies in their development of jet aircraft. During the last days of the war in Europe, when the Luftwaffe put several types of jet-propelled aircraft into operation, the Allies had nothing to match the fast new jets. The new NE-262s had a speed of around 600 mph, and could flash through a bomber formation doing its damage with four 30-mm cannons and be out of sight a moment later. The fastest Allied fighter, the P-51, had a speed bf 400 mph. After the war, Herrnann Goering, long-time chief of the Luftwaffe, made the following remark: “I am convinced that the jet planes would have won the war for us if we had had only four or five month’s more time. Our underground installations were all ready. Our factory had a capacity of 1,000 to 1,200 jet airplanes a month. Now with 5,000 to 6,000 jets, the outcome would have been quite different.”
This was ‘the day’, our B-17’s, or Flying Fortresses, hit the target at around 12 o’clock, noon. The sky over the target was black with exploding 120 mm shells from the many big guns on the ground, and with German fighter-planes coming in from all. directions. “Bombs-away” came from our bombardier on our inter-com system, and 5 one-thousand lb. bombs were on their way. Our bomber shook violently as an anti-air-craft shell exploded and tore away one of the four 1,000 horsepower engines from the right wing. From 29,000ft. a crippled bomber was dropping out, of the big formations headed back home to England. It was us! And it was hard to accept what was really happening. Bail out! Bail out! The pilot was telling us to leave the burning plane as soon as possible. I brought the ball-turret into position so that the trap-door would open inside the bomber, it took only seconds to unhook that precious oxygen-mask, and scramble for my emergency chest-chute. Hooking it to the chute-harness that I was already wearing, I pulled my way to the escape-hatch ready to jump. The tail-gunner caught my eye, and he was in trouble getting loose from all the gear that we had to wear. He was soon with me, and getting his chest-chute on, we were able to bail out at approximately 20,000 feet.
Now our training on bailing-out was very clear to me, and I remember that we had been told to free-fall, in order to get out of the sky, and not be a target for some gun-happy German-pilot, or from guns on the ground; and so, what I figured to be around 5,000 feet, I pulled the ring on my chest-chute, and came to a very hard, jolting stop; for now I was moving down at a fast runner’s pace. Landing in a wooded area, and leaving my chute dangling in the top of a pine tree, I managed to get down to earth by climbing down the tree. I realized that I was supposed to hid my chute, but there was no time for that, as I knew that German soldiers or civilians had watched me come down, and would be very close to me at this time. Moving from this marked spot, I travelled about 100 yards before finding a low-growing spruce tree to hide under. Pulling pine-needles and dry branches in around the trunk of the tree to keep from being seen, I heard shouting and sounds of the enemy looking for me and it was only a short time later I could see the legs and feet of German soldiers. At times they got very close to me, and I was thankful that they were soldiers instead of civilians. Soldiers had orders to take prisoners, but civilians would murder the downed flyers.
It was about 2:00 A.M. the next morning before I could move very far in any direction, without hearing the patroling soldiers. I was able to get into a ditch and high-growing undergrowth, it was impossible to escape from this well guarded area that was being patrolled by German troops. For 11 days and nights, I walked and made my way back into Holland. Hiding in haylofts, straw-stacks and wooded-sections in the day time, and moving only at night in a northwest direction, with the aid of a small compass that was in my plastic “escape kit” that was kept in a pocket of our flight suit. It was from this kit that I had been able to squeeze a small tube of sulphasalve into a flak-wound in my shoulder.
In order to obtain food, it was necessary to find apple orchards near homes, or drive a cow into a corner of a pasture to fill a can, or whatever container I could find with milk. Hiding in lofts of barns seemed to be the best, as I could find eggs, cow feed of different kinds, and food that kept me going. Germany was in complete control of Holland at this time, so I was constantly aware of German patrols and the German. Army moving into this part of Holland.
I watched a Dutch farmer from the loft of his barn, and noting the lack of German soldiers around this place, I took the chance of getting to the farm-house just before dark to ask for help in getting into the “well-known’Dutch-underground”, which was the only way of getting back into France and Allied hands. My contact with this Dutch family proved to be a very sad mistake, as the German-Gestapo at a nearby village was notified. I was taken as a prisoner-of-war, and returned by train to my first prison camp at Dulag-Luft, Germany near the City of Frankfort. One the way to this place, our train was caught in an air-raid at Ham, Germany. It was night and the big, British Lancaster Bombers, were on their way to this rail-center. I was taken by guards into an underground bomb-shelter that was well lit up with fluorescent lighting, it was all that the German-guards could do in trying to keep the angry civilians from taking my life. I was thankful that they had their orders to take me into Frankfort, to be interrogated.
Now came part of the “Hell” that I was to face. The 21 days of solitary confinement in cement cells without light, and with very little food would be very hard to describe. The few days that I was brought out of solitary-confinement was to try to break my spirit, and find out more about the missions, or the names of crew members that may still be unaccounted for. I finally left this “brain-washing” hell-hole, and was shipped by box-cars, with other P.0.W.’s, (at this time I made contact with my tail-gunner, engineer and pilot, and found out that we had all been accounted for, with the exception of MacDonald, our radio-operator). We found out that we were being shipped into East Prussia to a place known as Stalag Luft IV. As we neared Berlin, our train load of British and American P.O.W.’s, were caught in an air-raid by our own B-17’s. The big train-engine was unhooked from our box-cars, and moved to a safer place, we remained locked in, not knowing if our bombers would hit this particular target or not. The bombs exploded around us, and we thought that the end had come.
It took the most of two days to remove wreckage and torn-up tracks, but we were spared for more of what the German’s had to offer their prisoners of-war. Finally Stalag Luft IV, and our prison home for the next four months. This prison camp was divided into four, block-square compounds each containing around 2,000 P.O.W.’s, and well guarded with machine-gun towers in the middle and at each corner of the compounds, along with the double-barbed wire fences. There were ten Conservation Corp. (CC-type) barracks in each of the four sections, and around 200 men were forced to live, 28 to 30 men to each 18 foot X 18 foot room. The barracks were all elevated above the ground, about 2 feet high, so that they could be raked under each day by the German-guards, or goons as we called them. No chance for a “Hogan’s Heroes” escape from this prison camp. In this one camp, Stalag Luft IV, there were around 10,000 air-men that had been shot down or crash-landed in Germany. To give you an idea of what happened in World War II, as for the loses in one category, more than 4,750 B-17’s were lost on combat missions, or about 40% of the B-17’s that were built. The USAAF in Europe suffered 24,288 bomber crew members killed, 18,804 wounded, 31,436 taken prisoner and 18,699 missing in action, most of them later presumed dead.
Our diet of food was very meager, as the Germans were having trouble getting food of any kind into P.0.W. camps. A daily diet consisted of one or two boiled potatoes, a few thin slices of black, German bread, which was hard to take when we first arrived, but later on became known as cake. This along with a hot-water drink that was made from baked-bones, and ground into powder that dissolved in water such as coffee, along with barley soup at times. The Red-Cross food parcels arrived intermittently with powdered milk, canned food rations, cigarettes, and other small items did help to keep the “Kriegies”, as we were called, from starving to death.
The latter part of January 1945, the sound of the fighting on the East front grew closer to our camp. By the sound of the big Russian guns and explosions that grew nearer each day, we all, felt like maybe Uncle Joe Stalin would soon be liberating us.
Our news-committee, which had the means of getting radio-contact with the out-side events told of the Russians encircling Berlin. This left only a small corridor between Berlin and the Artic Sea that was left open, if the Germans were to get us out before being encircled by the Russian Armies.
February 2, 1945 was a “day to be remembered” in the lives of the 2,000 P.O.W.’s of Stalag Luft IV. About 2:00 A. M. the German-guards gave us the word that we would be evacuating as soon as day-light came. Wearing all the clothes that we could find, along with our home-made knit caps and scarfs made from discarded sweaters and old clothes that we were able to get our hands on, we tried to get ready for a forced march that none of us knew just where we were heading for, or how long we would be marching. According to some of the English-speaking German-guards, who we became to know pretty well, we would be at least six or seven days in reaching another P.0.W. camp in the northern part of Germany. With two grey-woolen blankets tied in a roll, we were able to make a make-shift pack that we could wrap around our shoulders. As we left the prison-compound we were issued a Red Cross Food Parcel, and from it we took the items that we could stuff inside the blanket-roll. We knew that along with food items, that soap was something that was as necessary as food, and so this special item was taken with our small food supply. Many of the P.O.W.‘s did not realize the importance of soap, and lived to regret this along the “Black Hunger March”, that was to last for over three months.
We were separated into groups of about 400 to 500 men, with a well-armed German Guard for about each 20 P.0.W.’s, we started out on what was to become known as the “Black Hunger March” or “The Shoe Leather Express”. Zigzag routes over back roads and trails would lead to a farm house with a large barn or two, and each evening if we were lucky, the Germans herded us into these barns, feeding us boiled beets, potatoes or whatever the livestock menu included. In one barn, after about five days on the march, we were shown sack after sack of what looked like cement sacks, and were told that they contained human fertilizer, or the remains of political prisoners and others cremated near this section of Germany.
Flu, diarrhea, along with suffering for lack of food, took their toll of prisoners as the march continued day after day across the Northern part of Germany. The Germans kept a few wagons at the rear of each group to pick up those who fell. The only candidates for the “meat wagons” were those who couldn’t get back up with the pursuasion of a sharp bayonet.
Adam Klosowski from Sturgeon Lake, Minn. and I planned an escape, he was the Waist-gunner on the B-17 Crew that I flew with, and he was a constant companion of mine. It was his knowledge of the Polish language that gained us extra barley, pieces of bread, and other kinds of food along the march. The Polish people were slave laborers on many of the farms we stopped at. A few times we were allowed to rest an extra day at some of these farms in order to repair our worn out shoes and clothing - wash out some of the body lice and dirt that accumulates by wearing the same clothing night and day for the many weary, hungry weeks of being forced marched beyond human endurance.
After crossing the Elbe River into the middle of Germany, we were straffed from the air by our own fighter planes on two different occasions. Not knowing just what the Germans had in store for us, my buddy and I started making plans to escape if we got the chance.
We made good our escape on April 13th, the 69th day of the “Hunger March”, by passing through a small opening in the side of the barn. It was a cold, windy and rainy night. The German guards found shelter from the storm under two trees about 100 feet apart. We were able to crawl on our bellies between them and made good our escape. We traveled at night, and hiding at daybreak.
We did realize that we would be shot if an attempt was made to escape on this march, but again we had no idea as to what the Germans planned to do with us, or if Gen. Patton’s forces or the British would try to liberate us. By trading American cigarettes that came in the American Red Cross food parcels, that were issued twice in the 69 days of the Hunger March, we were able to get matches, a little black bread, and some information of what direction the closest Allied Armies were, before escaping.
Our main source of food during the 13 nights and days, before reaching the British Army lines, were small seed potatoes that were planted at this time of the year. We would get on our hands and knees, and go down a row and dig up these pieces of potatoes. At night we would go into a wooded section where we could hide, and by placing our blankets over the top of us in a tent-like fashion, we would build a small fire to cook or bake the potatoes.
Using the stars as our compass, and marking out rail-road tracks as to direction, we tried to keep going in a westerly direction, and to try to keep out of the main movements of the German soldiers and equipment as we neared the front lines. We hid in ditches and wooded sections by covering ourselves with pine boughs, or whatever we could get; and also in straw-stacks and hay-lofts, fortunately we were able to keep from getting caught.
Experiences during the eleven days and nights, when evading the Germans, and going into Holland; and then the last 13 days and nights are given in detail - such as running upon a huge camoflaged German-Army encampment with row after row of tents, painted tanks, and army equipment, and thinking for sure that we were right in the middle of their army. Getting almost caught in the loft of a barn, when a German family evacuated their farm and filled their wagons with straw from the place we were hiding.
In the early hours of April 25th, with the moon shining about half bright, we tried to work our way around a mechanized unit we could hear and see. Going across a pasture without the help of hedge-rows or anything to hide in, we were spotted by British troops and stayed on our stomachs in a ditch in the middle of the pasture by machine-gun fire until they then held us down with bayonets. As they shouted for us to stand and raise our hands above our heads, we discovered that they were British soldiers. Of course they thought we were Germans, and we surely thought that they were the enemy. That moment brought more relief and thankfulness in our hearts than we ever thought possible.
They took us back to their front line base, we found out that the Officers were quartered in a red-brick farm house where we had stolen some rhubarb from the back yard, only an hour or so before we were caught. They were quite chagrined when we showed them where we had taken the rhubarb from right under their noses.
White bread, eggs and sweets made us deathly sick, and we were rushed back to the closest Air-base, and then flown into the 7th General Hospital in London. My weight was 98 lbs. at this time, having lost 491bs. since being shot down.
We were FREE and SAFE once again. There was “Old Glory” floating in the English breeze in front of the American Based Hospital. Now we realized that any sacrifice would be worth the price of keeping this “Flag” waving. I am sure that the tears running freely down our cheeks were more than words could ever, ever express.
Instead of sleeping 28 to 30 P.O.W.'s in a room approximately 18 ft. by 18 ft., and each two men, sewing their two light German blankets together to make a sleepbag to keep from freezing to death, instead of having that hungry feeling of never remembering how it feels to eat until you get full, instead of those barbed wire fences and machine gun towers surrounding you, instead of never knowing what was going to happen in keeping alive, instead of being forced to get up at day-break and march all day long with barely enough food or strength to force your body along, instead of all these terrible night-mares; here we were in beds with clean, white sheets, no guards, plenty of food of every kind - AND MOST OF ALL - our Freedom and a chance to go back home.
THE MAIN THING I WANTED TO POINT OUT IN MY P.O.W. STORY, IS THE FACT THAT A GREAT MAJORITY OF AMERICANS DO NOT KNOW WHAT FREEDOM IN AMERICA REALLY MEANS
H. LYLE GRANT
“From Heaven into Hell” a full length book will soon be released by the publisher.
