First distribution of American Parcels will be next week... on a split basis with Canadian...two men sharing a pool of 2 full parcels... two types of American Parcels are on hand... #9 contains Lg. Pwd milk, prunes, corned beef, 8 oz. cheese, 8 oz. biscuits, Nescafe, 2 pkgs. orange powder, margarine, salmon, choc., cigarettes, vitamin tablets and liquid coffee... cigarettes will be taken out and distributed separately. Interlagar Bouts: Interlagar boxing has a color of its own. Wednesday and Thursday, under the klieg lights in K lager, G.I.'s in battle jackets mingled with Luftwaffe guards, Padres and RAF men from England and all the Dominoes, to witness two nights of fast, clean fighting. In the hush hush silence imposed by English rules, the labored breath of spent fighters on Kriegie rations was audible above the swish of leather and the quiet voice of the outside referee.
Tuesday May 25,1944 BWN
Marvel Mentor:
Training for the Big Fight Card June 5-6 , Lager A boxers have the benefit of top flight ring experience.Foremost among the men who are grooming our youngsters is George Fiest ... During his ring career he met most of the top men in his class...Today the " Bearded Marvel" is under his wing...Ringside: Geo. Pratt says A Lager boxers coming along in fine shape. Kirby, Weatherford, Boisvort, Red Houser getting into form.
Saturday June 10,1944 BWN
Big Time Show:
Madison Square Garden moves to Heydekrug as top flight boxers from all the world converge on E lager for the greatest sport spectacle ever staged in a Kriegie Camp...Randy Villa heads a group of Big time " solid senders" slated to jam the session with hot licks... Lumberjacks from the North Woods, Steel men from Pittsburgh, Acct. and engineers, rail workers from the Pacific coast, Ohio mechanics and Texas cowhands carrying the Blue of the Pratt Stable will compete with RAF and RCAF boxers from Britain, Scotland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Five thousand spectators are expected to view the Kriegie Welter Championship Contest... Two Day Card: Promoter Geo Pratt, presents a two day program of Feature bouts Monday and Tuesday afternoons. Climax of the meet will be...between Jno (KO) Tracey and "The Bearded Marvel" Tuesday PM...Killer Kirby and Aussie (Perry) will push the main bout for interest Tuesday in the major heavy match...Two Extremes: ... temperament- background and boxing style will meet Tuesday as KO Tracey and the " Bearded Marvel" face each other... A Dempsey- Tunney parallel may be enacted as the Marvel springs from his corner like a wildcat and weaves in to range of precision puncher Tracey. The background of these two men reflects even more contrast; Tracey spending his youth in Ivy Clad Cloisters of England... the Marvel sweating by a blast furnace in Smokey City...like his father and two brothers... while Tracey knows both Eastern and Western civilizations... a keen student of literature and languages, he excelled in school athletics and amateur boxing in Britain...He's won all his fights as a POW, two by knock-out.
Wednesday, June 14, 1944 BWN.
Kriegie Spectacle:
...Shortly after noon on Monday, 5000 Kriegies made their way to Heydekrug Stadium...AAF on one side of the fence, RAF on the other...to watch... Swing opened the program and the eager crowd ate it up. Hail Heydekrug: ...Inter lager hot shots howled at each other across the wire and at the contestants and several thousand cigarettes changed hands on the big matches...Red Callahan worked the mike on the first day, Power failing on the second - music and announcements had to go out over the air on their own.
First Day: First bout: Sailor Boisvert (E) and Assasin Adams (K) both ponderous... the Sailor took on left jabs...Third: Hotchkiss (A) vs Longford (K)... a good fast bout, lots of action to a draw...Seventh..Kirby (E) vs Perry (A)... the Semi Final. Won by Kirby on power. Floored Perry 6 times. Tech KO...New Champion: Staging a grand finale to climax a great two day show, the " Bearded Marvel", Steve Swidirski" came from behind to beat John Tracey...A great sportsman and boxer with terrific punching power, he went down before the speed and stamina of The Marvel... who took his Sunday punches and came back to win. Simple and unassuming, the new champion disclaims credit and insists ( his trainers) steered him to the title.
Saturday June 24,1944 BWN
Stage Scribbles:
Lest we forget,...Blow It Out opens Monday, July 3. Two performances on July 4...Scoreboard: July 4. Big Events being organized by A,K and E lager. Projected program includes football, softball, boxing and wrestling matches.
The first issue of " The Barbed Wire News" was posted on April 18 and our last issue was dated June 24, 1944. It was a single sheet of paper 12 by 17 inches, typed up on an old Swedish typewriter with hand lettered headlines. I covered the "sports beat" for Tom McHale and the camp was bursting with preparations for the Fourth of July Gala. Orchestras were rehearsing, and singers were vocalizing without mercy. This activity was all on the surface; everybody knew that the Russians were driving through the front in a new summer offensive. They had a column heading right for East Prussia.
The Germans didn't want us to know that an evacuation was imminent, so they went as far as Konigsberg to get our costumes. Anything to make us think things were normal. We in turn, posted stooges at every barracks door to aid our activities. Outside, prisoners played ball. Inside,men sewed shirts into carrying cases and expanded their food combines. In the Vorlagar, men detailed to unload freightcars, used every trick in the book to leave canned food unpunctured. When they showed up in the barracks for distribution, they were promptly commandeered for the evacuation. Our carefully constructed illusion of normal life, was about to come to an end.
The camp evacuation was in several phases. Eleven hundred Army Aircorps and 900 RAF NCO's were taken by rail to the Baltic Port of Memel. The main group of 1000 Americans left the camp in the late afternoon (about 1500 hrs) on Friday, 14 July, 1944. This group boarded the Masuren, a captured Russian vessel. The second group was mostly English with less than 100 Americans, who left the next day. They were reportedly on the Insteberg of German registry.
This was Saturday, 15 July and they left in the early daylight hours. The last group to leave was a British contingent from Lager A. (They left 3 escapees behind hidden under the floor of the wash house) there were 3000 of them who went by train from Hydekrug to Thorn. They eventually ended up at Stalag 357, Falling-Bostel.
The lead group from Lager E, had marched two miles to the train, which took about 4 hours. There were over 50 men in most cars. Alan King, a paratrooper, had found his way from Stalag VII and Stalag IIB before getting to six. This routine was getting familiar: " I sewed some shoulder straps to a British duffelbag before I left camp. It was filled with clothes and food. We got another Canadian parcel on the way out the gate and I had a rolled up blanket under my arm. That was all my worldly possessions. I recall seeing truckloads of old men dressed in WWI uniforms as we marched down to the train station at Heydekrug. We boarded boxcars for a half day ride, standing, to Memel. There, we boarded a ship and were put down in the hold. The toilet was a big bucket they let up and down on a rope from the upper deck. Hunger, by this time, was a way of life, so I didn't eat or drink anything!"
Carter Lunsford had been at the head of the column with Bill Krebs as interpreter, and some of the security staff: "I remember walking from the train to the dockside. The Masuren was a rusty old coalboat that had been commandeered by the Germans; it still had the Hammer and Sickle on the funnel. I knew we were in for a time of it, when they gathered our packs and bags, and just dumped them down into the hold of the ship. There was a single ladder and we all had to climb down it and find a place.
It was dark, the heat was unbearable, and had a heck of a time trying to sort out those belongings. We were physically stuffed in there like sardines. There some sick men with us and one fellow was mentally unstable. On the first day out, we had been able to go up on deck to relieve ourselves and get some air.
At some point, this poor fellow jumped overboard; the doctor yelled out, "He's krank!He's krank!" but before we could do anything, they shot him. Hy Hatton was one of the last to board and his diary held a brief account:
"After reaching Memel, we were placed in the aft hold of a freighter that contained several thousand prisoners. So many were loaded into the hold, that we were three deep on the floor. It was impossible to reach food, sleeping was out of the question and there was no means for relief, we were aboard that freighter for 56 hours. When we reached the dock, we were unloaded and then placed in crowded boxcars again."
The ship crossed the treacherous Baltic waters all day Saturday (l5July) and Sunday (16 July). The men had to find a way to cope with this impossible situation. Don Kirby rememberedthe start of the journey:
"There was one guy in there that was an all around musician, Delgado, and he started us off singing. The guys were getting a little panicky. Boy, it was scary because you knew the air was full of planes that just might come down on you anytime. The only opening up there was where the ladder went through the hatch cover. One RAF man claimed he had thrown down the mine fields where we had to go. He said there were hundreds of them around. On each side of the boat, we had seen these things made out of wire that stuck out and could catch mines. Every once in a while you'd hear something bang up against the hull or scrape alongside. You'd say to yourself: "Here it comes!" Cramps in our legs and bowels were becoming real problems as the trip wore on."
Sometime in the early morning hours of Monday July 17, the first boat docked at Swinemunde. The time was approximately 6:00 a.m. Back in Heydekrug, the second group of British and Americans had remained overnight and Tom McHale described the closing of the camp: "We were permitted to take only what we could carry. This meant selecting and discarding even some of our few POW possessions. We had moved out in two groups because of restricted rail transport and Frank Paules had asked me to stay behind.
Relays of Germans had come into our deserted camp; first Luftwaffe guards and then Wehrmacht guards from a nearby post. They scavenged abandon barracks, picking up what the POW's had left. Here were members of the so-called master race mopping up behind American POW's! We marched out into the Vorlagar to pick up two Red Cross parcels for the trip and there was a large contingent of Russians. We proceeded to Memel by rail and there, several thousand of us were put into the hold of a coal boat for the two day trip across the Baltic. This was probably the marine equivalent of The Black of Calcutta."
The second group arrived in Swinemunde in the afternoon of Monday, July 17. After the Insteberg docked, the men were unloaded and immediately marched to awaiting boxcars. The PW's from the Masuren had spent the one whole day, aboard their 40 & 8's on a railroad siding; right along the dockside. Swinemunde was a busy naval port and CarterLunsford described the scene:
"The doors to the boxcars were open and we could see all the activities around us. It was a welcome rest, after the misery of the last two days. The siding was right beside a German battle cruiser, The Prinz Eugene (which usually sailed with the Bismarck). We watched all day long, as the German sailors practiced their battle drills and piped officers on and off the ship. Water was scarce and it was hot in there, but I had a flask and we shared it. At some point in the late afternoon, Feldwebel Helmut Shroeder came to our car. He was the interpreter from Luft 6 and a good man. He told us that guards from Luft IV were coming to take charge; we were all to be put in chains!"
The prisoners were shackled in pairs, hand and foot. The cars carried as many as 55 men and guards, for the trip which would last until approximately one o'clock p.m. (1300 hrs) on July 18, 1944. Hy Hatton was with the wounded prisoners, who were not all required to wear chains. Some of the prisoners were forced to remove their shoes and belts. Don Kirby and Clyde Tinker had found a way out:
"When we pulled up at that siding, we were there for quite a while. They made the mistake of putting chains on and leaving us alone. Back in those days, there was always some American who could do things he wasn't supposed to do. We had a guy with us who could get some of those shackles off; our arms were still linked, but our legs were free. We set it up so it looked OK, but we could get em off if we needed to."
As night closed in, the boxcars lumbered on towards their fate. The 2000 Hydekrug sergeants were unaware that on 17 July, the commander of Wehrkreise 6 (the military district from which Luft 6 took its name) had issued a field order to all concerned parties. Lt. Col. Bombeck, the commandant of Luft IV and Hauptman Richard Pickhardt (the abwere officer) would have received the new order that Monday: " Recaptured, escaped POW's lose their rights and are to be returned to the Gestapo."
The new camp had been opened in May. Bombeck and Pickhardt had a mutual contemptfor American Airmen and the Geneva Convention. Neither was afraid to test the limits of their authority and this was in accordance with the rapid erosion of prisoners rights within the POW system. Bombeck would seek to interfere in the control of the food supply and mail and he was openly contemptuous of both the protecting powers and prisoner welfareagencies. Pickhardt's Abwere officers and guards would become known for their individual cruelty and savage nightime intrusions into the barracks.
This was totally in line with the changes in the system, after "The Great Escape" from Luft III. Until April of 1944, the Wehrmacht (armed forces) had been able to successfully promote treatment in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. Hitler's response to the English breakout was immediate and irrevocable: "We must make an example". Fifty officers were liquidated by agents of the SS and Gestapo.
Camp security and prisoner transfers were the responsibility of the Abwere. Their chain of command extended to the German high command, but they worked closely with the other state mechanisms for organized violence. The fact that the July 17 orders came from military high command indicated that the new policy was accepted by those who previously had upheld the letter, if not the spirit of the Geneva Conventions.
Madness was about to envelop the prisoners. It could have been the inspired act of cruel and vicious individuals, given too much power without restraint. It may have been a case of organized violence meant to break their will. There are no documents to tell us.
Kiefeheide was a small farming community close to the Polish frontier. This far off, and heavily wooded part of Pomerania had only been settled by Germans for a short time, but they were fiercely loyal to the Reich. The long line of boxcars pulled slowly into the small crossing and the Heydekrug sergeants tumbled grateful from them. The 24 hour ride had been crowded but uneventful, and everyone looked forward to removing their shackles. They were waiting for a chance to wash, eat and rest in their new quarters. They got off in small groups and moved slowly along the dusty tracks towards a clearing up ahead. It was 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 18, 1944.
As group of Luftwaffe guards from Luft IV approached in their grey-blue uniforms, they formed a double line and herded the group up the road. The pace was brisk, but orderly, and the some onlookers began to crowd around. Men with dogs appeared, as the column began to stretchout over the 3 km to the camp. Those back at the siding were standing in the blazing midday sun for almost an hour. Before long, young Kreigesmarines with fixed bayonets, SS guards and more Luftwaffe men showed up; they lined up on the flanks of the column.
Suddenly, a short, red-headed captain appeared with white uniform and cap. He jumped up on the loading platform and started yelling: "Macht schnell!"... "Quick march." Clyde Tinker was shackled to Don Kirby and he was in bad shape: "We was coming into that little town, when all the trouble started. We still had our pack and whatever we owned; we were ankle to ankle and wrist to wrist, but really my legs were free. I could see the fellows ahead of us who started out already. Now this fellow Pickhardt, got up on the platform and you could tell he was nutty as a fruitcake... "You fellows are going to run from here to the camp!"... I heard some guys saying: "We're not going to do it!"
So it started out that some of us weren't running. I wasn't going to if the rest weren't.Pretty soon, dogs came up and the guards started shoving their bayonets atus. By now we were running, but Clyde wasn't in good shape. The strap around his shoulder and neck got too tight and he passed out, so down we went. I took the pack off him and just dropped it. All this time the guards were nudging us along and I started carrying him over my left shoulder. He started to breathe a little easier, but by then the dogs started to come in after us.
I realized we weren't going to make it with all our stuff. Now there's this guard off to the left hand side and he's running along making noises, trying to impress this Captain. I dropped my bag in front of him; it was just like a cross body block. Well... cripes.. his gun went up in the air and he went over ... boy oh boy, we moved right out of there, I can tell you that!
Just about that time we were inside the town and I will always remember those narrow little streets - curving around, and the stone-brick buildings. They were right up against the street and the people were lined up on both sides just yelling at you and cursing and spitting every now and then you'd see a face that looked like maybe they felt sorry for us - but not enough of them! The dogs were at our arms and legs and the guards were hitting you with their rifles.
About that time, we came across an obstruction in the road; a puddle, that we'd have to go around. There was a soldier laying in the middle of the road. He was out of it and a guard was coming up towards him. The dogs were tearing at his legs. It was Hy Hatton, lying there, just afew yards ahead of Kirby: "I was in a group that was not handcuffed. When we reached Kiefeheide, we were unloaded from the trains. The Commander of the new camp had assigned young sailors as our guard (said to be Kriegesmarines). They had fixed bayonets, which they used to cut off our packs so they could pillage the cigarettes and rations. Because of the injuries I incurred when I bailed out from the plane, I was unable to keep up with the men and fell down near a group of other POW's who were under guard. At the Commanders' instructions we were forced to get up and continue the march. Whenever I stumbled from pain, which was often, I was hit with the butt of a gun. Finally, I could continue no longer and fell. I saw a guard charging towards me with his bayonet fixed, but I was unable to move."
Kirby continues: "I asked Clyde: "Can you walk a little" and he said "Yeah". I told him:"We've got to go over there and pick this guy up." Now, my right arm was full of Tinker so I reached down with my free arm and picked up Hatton. He wasn't all that big of a guy, and I was glad of that. We half carried and half dragged him, and off we went. All along that run, we had our own guard giving us a real workout on the back and shoulders. Finally we got to the entranceof the camp and I laid Hatton down. There were some guys there who grabbed hold of him. It was kind of like running a race. The guys from the head of the column were waiting there for us, cheering us on. I think the whole thing took us an hour.
Hatton wasn't the only one to benefit from Don Kirby's great stamina that day. JohnCavanaugh was another who was unable to keep up the pace: "Kirby was right there to help us along. If you couldn't move along fast enough, he'd give you a few minutes protection from the guards and the dogs. When you were ready, he'd half carry-and half drag you up the road a little farther."
By this time the scene at the station was near madness. Allen King, the paratrooper, describes it: "The German Captain kept yelling and screaming and the young German sailors were jabbing and poking us with their bayonets. Each time they'd jab us, they'd yell out the name of a German city that had been bombed: "Ein fur Hamburg, Ein Fur Koln!". It was a wild scene, packs were discarded along the road and they had to be hurtled. We all thought we would bemassacred!"
Hy Hatton continues: "After we reached the camp, we were crowded into the Vorlagar and not permitted to go into the regular quarters for two days. We were kept out under miserable conditions. As it got dark there were a few tents up, but most of us were out in the open field, exposed to the weather. At this camp, no medication other than first aid was available."
Perhaps 150 men made official reports of being wounded or bitten, but many more were just too exhausted or discouraged to seek help. Capt. Pollack (RMAC), an English doctor from Luft 6, had his hands full. For most, the journey was over. Frank Paules and the camp staff faced a chaotic scene. There was much to be done, but the Commandant had turned adeaf ear to their pleas: "I was carrying a pass from Luft 6, so that I could move from one Lager to another. When the guards saw that, they took me in for interrogation. It was then that I met Big Stoop for the first time. The pass seemed to enrage them and they sent me down the line and beat me on the head and shoulders. I tried to protect myself, but there wasn't much I could do. I lay there for a while and finally managed to get outside to the Vorlagar. That nite, they sent a guard to tell me that if I persisted in trying to be a camp leader they would turn me over to the Gestapo.
Laying there, I remembered what my father ( a Lutheran minister) had told me: "If ever you're in real trouble, don't ask for it to be removed, ask for the courage to face it." I went to sleep and the next morning, I went out without fear. It's not always your fault when you get knocked down, but it's your fault if you don't get up again. Afterwards, I was told by one of the friendlier guards, that the Run Up the Road was really an attempt to have us escape. On each side of the woods, were German soldiers ready to open up on us. They wanted us to panic, so they could cut us down. I don't think they figured we could hold together like we did."
The mixture of fear and anger makes men unpredictable. If the Germans were trying tomake a point, then the Americans had something to show them. Kirby spoke about anger: "There's times in your life when you just say - I'm not going along with this anymore! You just get so angry that you just reach down to your boot straps and give it every thing you've got!"
Doc Nordstrom had celebrated his fortieth birthday as a PW: "My lungs were at the bursting point, fighting for breath. Not much longer could I stay on my feet at this killing pace. Then came a wonderful sight, as we broke out of the woods into a vast clearing... another two hundred yards to temporary safety at the new camp.
Once inside, we pitched headlong to the ground. As we lay there gasping for breath, a young lad, grinning from ear to ear, came prancing among us with the assertion, " The Krauts were sure hot today!" Most of us had made the jaunt, suffering minor injuries. Of the hundreds of severely injured, only a handful were admitted to the prison hospital. The German doctors recorded those casualties as victims of " Sunstroke".
Alan King spoke of the attitude of many ex-POW's: " That experience was a sure cure for gripers. We all deal with life's inconveniences and problems, but then you think of The Run up the Road, and the days behind the wire.
