As we were gong down, we could see people shooting at us. A German fighter

We were put on a truck with eight others and carried into the city of Budapest. Once in Budapest we were given something to eat, the first food we had had since we were shot down. We were then questioned and our belts, shoe laces, rings, watches and everything that we had in our pockets was taken from us. We found out later that we were in an old political prison. The building was three stories high, and was open in the center with walkways around each staircase. All of the cells were solitary cells about four feet by sixteen feet in size with no windows, and one light bulb that burned all of the time. Our comforts consisted of one cot, a door with a slot through which bowls of soup were given to us twice a day, one loaf of bread a day, and one bucket for a toilet. No one ever spoke. Enduring seven days of this, you did a great deal of thinking. I counted the bricks in that cell a thousand times and I thought I would remember the number, but I don’t. After seven days of silence I was taken to a German officer for questioning. We had been trained to give only our name, rank and serial number. I was then sent back to my cell for another seven days, followed by another trip for questioning. This time, a German who spoke perfect English told me that he would say things to me that he only wanted me to verify. I was told the type of plane we were in, the type of bombs we dropped, the target we hit, our air base in Italy and where we were trained. I figured one of our crew members told them all of this information. I was sent to another room with three members of my crew and they said that they were told the same thing, and it was good to have someone to talk to. After a few days we were taken under heavy guard to a train station, where we were put on those notorious forty by eight boxcars that were known all over Germany; forty men or eight horses. I think there must have been forty of us in the car when more men were brought in. It was too crowded to lay down, so we had to stand or sit. We were locked in our boxcar and in the next one were the guards with their dogs. We only had one bucket for a toilet for over forty men. Some men were sick and some were injured. We were on the train for two days before we were allowed to get out and given water and bread. At this point everyone was getting filthy and many had dysentery, yet with still only one bucket on the boxcar. We stopped in a large rail yard one night and the R.A.F. came over dropping bombs. The guards left for shelters and we were left behind, locked in the boxcar. Luckily the bombs missed us but they did tear up some of the rails further ahead. We stayed there another day, still locked up. Finally, we started again, attached to another train, and we started seeing lots of bomb damage to towns and bridges as we passed through Poland. After five days the train stopped and we were told to get out. We were at a train station in a small town where there were guards with dogs to escort us on a one mile walk to our camp. By this time, we were in pitiful shape. The camp was still being built, but we were assigned to barracks with twenty-two men all together in one room. We had a spigot to wash up with and a latrine which had ten holes and many times you didn’t have time to wait. For that reason it was a very good thing our government sent lots of clothes and shoes to the camps.

In the camp itself there were almost ten thousand airmen and a few British airmen in one division, and there were four divisions total. The division that Peterson and I were in did not include any other members of our crew. I found out later that Botwright, the engineer, was next to us and we could holler to him across the barbed wire. We finally learned that one of our crew members had been killed, two were in a hospital somewhere in Hungary, and the three officers were in another camp about ten miles from us.

We had roll call twice a day, and were given soup and one-fourth of a loaf of sawdust bread a day. Once in a while we got Red Cross parcels which were like Christmas to a child. We were each supposed to be given a package, but we usually had to divide one package four ways. The packages contained everything you needed for a week; canned cheese, canned meat, crackers, candy bars, chocolate, cigarettes, toilet paper that was worth a fortune, a sewing kit, playing cards, biscuits, and writing paper. Cigarettes were often used as money; so many cigarettes for a candy bar, so many for a sweater, so many for socks and so many for a pencil. Many old prisoners were getting parcels from home that included clothes, food and cigarettes. We received a variety of things from the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, but it was the food parcels that kept us alive. Many more men would have died had it not been for those food parcels. We had a number of POWs who went out of their minds and tried to climb the electric wire fences. Guards in the towers would shoot over their heads as a warning but always had to shoot them because they were so determined to try to escape.

As stated before, there were twenty-two men in our room, and all of the rooms were alike. Each room had a little coal stove and we got three bricks of coal a day. Bunks were built around the room, each three high and two wide. Peterson and I slept together, as most of us had one partner with whom we divided food, shared clothes and ate together. Peterson was a great help to me in every way and I hope I was to him, especially after we left the camp and tried to survive the Black March. Everyone in the camp had a special buddy; you needed one to survive, and Pete became my special buddy. We lived together, talked together, ate together, planned together, marched together, and on that awful march, we slept together. I know I needed him to get through that terrible winter, and I think he needed me. As Pete said, we were closer than brothers. He only got mad at me once, over the coffee water. He walked about a half mile to the creek for the water, and back a half mile to the camp where I was building a fire. The guard had allowed him to go. When he got back, I accidentally knocked it over. Boy, he was mad; no coffee water! Pete was, and still is, a very special person to me.

Christmastime was coming and that made it harder for everyone. One guy in our room suggested that we start saving our food for Christmas. Then the idea came to make a cake for Christmas day. Each one of us would give something from our parcels such as powdered milk, chocolate, sugar, or salt; anything that could be used to make a cake. When Christmas came we had lots of food and a beautiful, big cake. Some men in another room had fermented sugar, raisins and other things to make alcohol, and we traded some of our cake for enough alcohol for all of us to have a couple of swigs. The alcohol was very potent, especially on our empty stomachs with that rich cake. Years later there was an article written about our cake and printed in The American Legion Magazine, December, 1957.

Some of the men in our room had musical instruments sent from home or they were able to get the guards to get instruments for them. These musicians would get together and play. At Christmas the Germans allowed us to use a large hall and the men with instruments gave a wild party. You should have seen the crazy dancing that was done until the last song, "White Christmas," was played. After that last song, each one of us went back to our room with tears running down our cheeks.

We were getting some war news by a small radio the size of a pack of cigarettes that had been brought in a piece at the time and kept secret all the time that we were there. We were able to receive the BBC once a day on a certain wavelength. One person listened to it, told other men who in turn told other men in each of the barracks who then went around to each room to spread the news of the day.

We knew the war was about over and that the Russians were coming toward us. But, we did not know where or how fast they were coming until we began to hear big guns in the distance that were getting louder. On February 5, 1945, word was sent around to get what you can carry and be prepared to leave the next day. Early the next morning on February 6, we were told to fall out and we were marched out the gate in groups of two hundred men with one guard for every ten prisoners. With every twenty men there was a dog. We went to a warehouse where Red Cross parcels were hoarded by the thousands and we were given all that we could carry. The snow was knee deep and the temperature was ten degrees below zero. We did not know where we were going or how long we could last outside in this weather. In addition, we had no idea that history would later call our journey the "Black March." The longer we marched the more things the men began to throw away; clothes, shoes, and extra food parcels, having no idea we would last long in this weather and in our physical condition. The guards, on the other hand, were young and in good condition. They allowed the dogs to nip at the legs of stragglers and would themselves often stick the slower prisoners with bayonets. We walked about ten kilometers before we stopped for the night in a snow-covered open field. Every one of us were dead tired, hungry, and thirsty. All that we had to drink was the snow that we could pick up and eat. During the march, many, many nights we slept on the ground in the ice and snow. Peterson and I each had a blanket and a long Army overcoat, made of heavy wool. We put one overcoat on the ground and covered up with the two blankets and the other overcoat. The blankets were thin like burlap and did not do much to keep us warm. We were not allowed to build a fire even if we had something that we could burn. One morning we awoke to find that someone had switched our top coat and exchanged it for a short one that only went to mid-calf. Our other one went down to my ankles, and was really warm.

Not too long after we started on the march, I had my twenty-fourth birthday on February 11, 1945. My good buddy Pete (Paul Peterson) presented me with a small piece of bread for my birthday gift. He had saved the bread for me from his small rations for a couple of days. You can imagine how much this meant to me.

The next morning we were still tired, had sore, blistered feet and were very hungry. All of us were cold and some were sick. We had camped by a little stream which we drank from and used for a latrine. We were moved out and went to the road a short distance away and found that another group had used this stream ahead of us! That day everyone was getting concerned about how long we could stand this without heat, hot food, and shelter, especially those who were sick. The guards were beginning to push us harder, to walk us faster, and give us fewer rest periods. More men were falling out and we did not know what was happening to them. The guards threatened to shoot us if we could not keep going. We walked until almost dark when we reached a school where we had some protection from the outdoors. We had hoped to be able to keep warm inside, but our clothes, shoes and socks were soaking wet. We were warned by some of the older prisoners not to take off our shoes because our feet would swell and our shoes would shrink as they dried. So, we slept in our wet shoes. If we dared to take off our shoes for the night, we tied the strings together, and put them around our neck for safety. We could not march without shoes. We estimated that we had walked about sixteen kilometers. That night we could hear heavy guns and British bombers came over and dropped bombs ahead of us.

We started out again the next morning with even more men who were sick, tired, and having trouble with their feet. As we had been warned, some men could not get their shoes on because their shoes had shrunk. We were pushed again that day because the guards wanted to get further away from the Russians. Many more men began to drop out and we heard some shooting behind us. We felt that it was probably the guards carrying out their threats. We hardly stopped except maybe to let military traffic go by. The Germans were going towards the sounds of the big guns. The condition of the men continued to get worse. One night we were able to get into a big barn where we had hay and straw to lay in to keep warm and rest. That barn felt like a motel. We stayed over until the next day and then began another day of walking. We came to another prison camp which was used to get everyone together. There was every nationality you ever heard of. The French Moroccans had long black hair worn under a turban and they washed it every day under the spigot and took baths out in the open. When they went to the latrine, they carried a little pitcher with water, didn’t use paper even if they had it, using instead their left hand. They then washed their left hand and did not us it to eat with.

It was now April and it was getting warmer. We did not have to walk as far and fast, and found more schools and farms to sleep in. We began to hear more big guns behind us. On the night of April 24, 1945, we were in a big barn when we heard a terrible sound which turned out to be an American armored car coming to find out where we were. The next morning an American spotter plane came over very low, waving its wings back and forth. We were going toward the Rhine River and later saw two tanks and armored cars with American markings coming toward us. The Americans had stopped at Bitterfield on the Rhine River, waiting for the Russians to get there. We were told they were part of Patton’s forward division. We were liberated at Bitterfield on April 26, 1945. The Americans helped us cross the river on a temporary bridge because they had blown up all of the bridges in the area. Peterson and I were taken by a tank crew to a house that the Americans had taken. We were told to burn our clothes which we gladly did. We had not had a warm bath in two months, had worn the same shoes, had not had a hair cut, and were in terrible condition. We both got into the largest bath tub I have ever seen, large enough to swim in. It was wonderful to be able to shave and put on clean clothes. Each of us were given a big glass of whiskey and all of the food that we could eat. With full stomachs, we went to bed with a large feather blanket that made us feel like we had died and gone to heaven.

The next morning, April 27, 1945, we wrote letters home and the tank crew mailed them for us, even though they were not supposed to. I later found out that my letter was received by my wife Franny on the morning of May 8, VE-Day. From there we were trucked to the Hallie staging area, where we were flown to Rheims, France on May 10. We flew to La Harve, France on May 13, to Camp Lucky Strike which had tents for all American ex-prisoners. At Camp Lucky Strike we were fed around the clock and had egg nog between meals. After a few days you would not recognize your friends because they had clean clothes, hair cuts, and lots of food that caused us to gain a great deal of weight which was partly due to fluid build-up. Many men got terribly sick because of over-eating and our systems could not handle the rich and abundant food.

By now the war was over and we had to wait for ships to come to take us home. Later we learned that they kept us longer so that we would gain some weight before we got home to our families. We boarded ships on June 5, and arrived in New York on June 11, 1945. We docked on June 12, and were taken to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey in preparation to go home. We were put in barracks according to the state you lived in. During the next day or two we were put on a train bound for Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Upon our arrival at Fort Bragg, we were again examined, given new clothes, and $50.00 to get home. I was able to catch a bus to Fayetteville and then another to Hillsborough. At six o’clock on the morning of June 15, 1945, I walked to my Uncle Ewell’s house and he took me home to Franny and the rest of the family. I was finally back home and thankful..