This
is a 2 page memoir written by Sterling Tuck, a pilot with the
705th
Visit
his website for more
The author
Also
read "Bail Out"
by Lt. Tuck
Our daily
poop sheet.
I'm not sure
this sheet was daily but when we did get it we usually received
a special sheet that contained the latest information on the war.
Click
here to see the daily poop sheet
Almost
every room in the compound had a map on one wall. In the first
months we received air raid information and shipping reports.
Then after D Day, we received data on the location of the front
lines. As the allies would move across France and Germany, we
would color map with a different color for each month. The German
guards who entered the rooms during roll call or for some other
reason, would study the maps and wonder how we got the information.
They never did locate our radio. Course, there never was a radio.
We got the information from a cooperating German Major.
I was assigned
to a 16 man room in barracks #3. Here are the names of the 15
men in my room.
1st
Lt. T. L. Gardner
Van Hixson
R.C. Westmeyer
H.J. Varela
2nd Lt. T.E. Eloranta
R.F. Bogner
J.R. Bonham
J.W. Davies
J.F. Krejci
P.U. Lovero
H.F. Morrison
R.H. Stowe
G.E. Syme
M.E. Daniels
Flight Officer J. W. Hutchinson
If
you have seen the movie "Stalag 17", you know what the rooms looked
like. The movie set was very realistic as far as portraying the
looks of the barracks and the rooms. We had wooden double bunks.
There were no springs and the mattresses and pillows were burlap
filled with hay. The hay would mat very quickly causing us to fluff
the hay about every other day. We had a small charcoal stove. It
would amaze you to see what some of the Kriegies had done to the
stoves. Some had blowers to help in starting the fires. Of course
these blowers were usually used in escape plans but we couldn't
let the Germans know that.
The term "kriegies"
is short for Kriegsgefangener which is (I think) the German word
meaning "captured at war". Prisoner of war is more like Haftling
kriege. As you can see my German is very limited. On a recent
trip to Germany, we found that we very seldom had to speak German.
We stopped at a little restaurant-bar in Prum and our waitress
did not understand English so I tried to order in German. I said
that I would like a beer and my wife would like white wine with
ice on the side. The waitress walked away and said something laughingly
to the bartender as she passed. I then realized that "ice" can
be interpreted as "eggs". I called her back and after going through
several explanations, I got her to understand that ice was sehr
kaltes wasser, (very cold water with knocking on the table). Ah
ha, she understood ice cream. We got the ice and our meal was
delightful.
A little
about the guys in my room. Eloranta was a tall blond Swede who
was a whiz at bridge playing and not too bad as a first baseman
on our softball team. Krejci was from Cleveland if I remember
correctly. Morrison worked in a lumberyard and had a mathematical
mind. One day I was working on a math problem. Someone asked what
I was doing and I replied "I'm trying to find the fourth root
of 456,976". Morrison was lying on his bunk reading a book. He
put the book down and after about 5 seconds said "Twenty-six".
I was shocked because I had never considered Morrison to be on
the intellectual side. About that, I never did change my mind
but one thing was for sure. He had a mathematical mind. Tom Gardner.
I don't know what Tom did before entering the service but I classified
him as a used car salesman. He was a sharp trader. He knew I did
not smoke and had saved several packs of cigarettes. He suggested
we set up a dice table outside our barracks. Of course, I put
up the money (cigarettes) while he made the table in real Las
Vegas style. We did very well for about three days except that
cigarettes were getting a little shabby. Some were reduced to
tobacco. Eventually, a lucky shooter came along and we were cleaned
out.
Ralph Stowe
was the only person in our room who was successful in escaping
from the camp. He was eventually captured and returned. The wheels
who were in charge of escape plans, tried their best to find our
how he did it and he would not tell them anything. I have a good
idea because he discussed his plan with me. He and I were to make
German work uniforms from the bed sheets. He made a jacket and
I made a pair of trousers. I had no intention of escaping with
him because his plan was to watch the guards in the towers and
when they were both looking in the opposite direction, we were
to run to the barbed wire fence, crawl up, jump over, and casually
walk down the road. Physically it would take a very good jump
because the barbed wires were in two rows spaced about 6 feet
apart. The advantage was that the posts had been staggered and
the opposing fence sagged slightly. We spent several days watching
the guards and timing the opportunities. There were many times
that they looked away from our position for as much as 2 minutes.
That would have been plenty of time to get over the fence. As
I saw it, it was a big risk because there was no assurance that
the guards would turn around. And the fact that we knew the guards
would shoot, made it less desirable. One day at roll call, it
was obvious that someone was missing. Yep, it was Stowe. I looked
under my mattress and sure enough, my trousers were gone. I was
not upset and wished Ralph the best of luck. He was captured because
it was cold and the potatoes were frozen under the ground and
dogs love to bark at strangers.
Stowe is the
only person in that room that I have talked to since leaving the
camp. A few years ago, I talked to him over the phone and he still
would not tell me how he had escaped. He seemed reluctant to talk
to me and I have a feeling that he did not remember who I was.
It wasn't the kind of reunion that I expected.
George Syme.
Nice quiet guy who pitched for our softball team. He didn't have
that big round up pitch which is so prevalent among softball pitchers
but he did have a big arc and could really zing the ball across
the plate. Jim Hutchinson. He was my favorite. Red head from the
State of Washington and had attended either Washington U or Washington
State. He played shortstop and was one of our best hitters. I
played third. We didn't do too well in the league. Finished somewhere
in the middle of the final standings. But we did enjoy playing.
While I am into
sports, let me tell about boxing. I was talking about boxing one day
and I guess the guys considered I was a blow hard. So I asked if anyone
wanted to put the gloves on with me. No one wanted to but they managed
to talk Hutchison into it. I don't think Red wanted to box but he was
sort of pushed into it. Well, Red was no boxer, and the match did not
last very long. On one of the holiday gatherings, Colonel Zempke, the
fighter ace, challenged anyone in the camp to a boxing match. I believe
it was to be staged on July 4th. Naturally the guys in my room wanted
to see their blowhard get his head knocked off. They insisted so strongly,
that I agreed to challenge Zempke. When I went to the wheel barracks,
there was a long line. Must have been 30 guys there to challenge. I
decided not to stand in the line but I must admit that I was curious
to know just how good he was. He finally accepted the challenge of a
paratrooper. The bad thing was that the paratrooper had been wounded
and I don't think he was back in good shape. They had the boxing match
and I was sorry I wasn't up there in the ring. It would have been a
pushover. (Zempke, if you are reading this, I am ready)
My big mouth
got me into another match. A couple thousand enlisted men had
been brought in from Latvia or Lithuania. They were housed in
an area behind our mess hall. One of those young men was from
Akron, Ohio and looked me up to talk about home. We struck up
a casual friendship and during the course of the conversation,
I mentioned that I boxed. Not professionally but kind of neighborhood
stuff. The kid took the story back to his barracks and wouldn't
you know but I was challenged to a boxing match. I accepted and
when I arrived in the enlisted area, I found that they had set
up a ring, appointed a second for me and had a huge crowd of heavy
bettors and were anxious to see that "officer" get his nose broke.
Someone mentioned that my opponent was a former Golden Glove fighter
from Chicago. We fought three two minute rounds. It was a very
good fight and I ate lots of leather. Neither of us was bloody
but both were tired and sore. Since the judges were all enlisted,
I figured I did not have much chance of winning. I was truly surprised
when they called it a draw. I had a feeling there was much respect
in that crowd for both of us. We had given them a good fight.
Football
We had a six
man football league. Hutchinson was our quarterback and I played
end. Red could really throw a pass and I was able to catch them.
We won the league. It was tag football but blocks were allowed.
The games could get a little rough but it was good exercise.
When I arrived,
there were only the south and north compounds. The south compound
was for the British but several hundred Americans were in that
compound. As the north #1 filled up with about 2,000 men, the
north #2 was built. When north 2 reached 2,000 men, north 3 was
built. I am pretty sure that north 3 also held 2,000 men. All
of these were officers totaling about 6,500. Toward the end of
the war, the enlisted men came in and were housed in the area
labeled enlisted area. They had come in from camps in either or
both Latvia and Lituania which was being overrun by the Russians.
When those
enlisted men arrived, they were tired and hungry. We did not have
very much food ourselves but a collection was made and food and
some other items from our personal supplies were made available
to the enlisted men. Sometime later, I heard that the enlisted
men were complaining that they were not getting as much rations
as the officers got. They received the same rations. There may
have been some misunderstanding because several of the officers
had managed to save personal items which had been mailed from
their families.
We all pulled
duty as KPs (kitchen police). I was on the roster about three
times. We spent the whole day peeling potatoes and turnips and
cutting away the bad cabbage. Since we had to do that only once
every 150 days, no one complained.
Speaking of
food. When I first arrived at the camp, we each received a Red
Cross parcel once a week. The parcel usually contained a can of
powdered milk which we called Klim. There was (you may say were
if you wish) a box of raisins or dates. a D-Bar which was a chocolate
bar, six packs of cigarettes, a can of Spam, some coffee, and
a small can of liver patê.
The parcels
along with the German supplied potatoes, turnips, cabbage, bread,
barley, and beet sugar, served us adequately for a couple months.
Then things got a little worse. The parcels started to come in
once every two weeks and then one parcel for two men and then
hardly any at all. Those parcels, which did arrive now, showed
signs of having been opened and quite often, there was no coffee
and fewer cigarettes. During the decrease in parcels, there was
also a shortage of food from the Germans. Following D-Day, there
was very little movement of supplies. The heavy bombing and the
low level strafing kept the trains and trucks from moving during
the daytime. I understood that the parcels were shipped by train
from Switzerland, which was a long way from our camp. After the
Battle of the Bulge, we started to feel the pangs of hunger. Being
hungry was not as bad as the lack of proper nutrition. Our breakfast
consisted of a bowl of barley, which was cooked up in the kitchen
of the messhall. The best way to eat the barley was to not look
at it. A barley worm looks very much like a piece of barley even
when it is cooked. So if you did not look, it was very good. Occasionally
we had meat but the boys in the kitchen - some of whom had been
butchers in civilian life - said it was horse meat. I weighed
about 170 lbs when shot down and when the war ended, I was down
to 140 lbs.
One day we
noticed that the Germans were erecting another building across
the street from our barracks. Naturally since we had nothing else
more exciting, we spent quite a bit of time watching the construction.
It looked very much like our barracks. After completion of the
building, we watched the Germans carry several boxes and bags
into the building. Then we noticed that some of the boxes were
marked with the symbol for dynamite or explosives. A building
just across the street loaded with explosives seemed just a little
dangerous. One day and order came down stating that almost everyone
in our barracks would be required to move to another barracks
wherever we could find a vacancy. I moved into a room in the barracks
where my Bombardier lived. Another order followed the first one.
This one required all the Jewish men to move into our former barracks.
On our dog tags we had P for Protestant, C for Catholic, and H
for Hebrew. There is not much doubt that the Germans figured that
if the explosive loaded building ever blew up, several of the
Jewish men would go with it. Fortunately that never happened.
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