During the editing process for the book, a number of passages were cut for reasons of length. Below is additional content that fans of the Lost Airmen will find to be of interest.
The Stanley Crew in Great Britain
The following story would have appeared at the beginning of Chapter 2, “Shot Down Twice.”
The crew reconvened in Topeka, Kansas, traveled by train to New York City, and boarded the USAT John Ericsson for England. Their convoy’s Atlantic crossing passed uneventfully. Stanley attended Mass most mornings and rosary meetings in the evenings. The rest of the crew gambled their way across the ocean.
A few days after docking in Liverpool, the crew reported to a replacement depot in London. They noticed an acute scarcity of automobiles. Bicycles served as the main mode of transport. The currency was maddeningly non-decimal. Evidence of the blitz loomed everywhere.
Americans had taken over the country. George Orwell groused that “Britain is now an Occupied Territory.” Brits complained the Yanks were “oversexed, overpaid, overfed, and over here.” GIs countered the Limeys were “undersexed, underpaid, underfed, and under Eisenhower.”
While the US presence in Britain had declined from its pre-D-Day peak, 800,000 American soldiers still inhabited the country, including AAF personnel from the Eighth Air Force. Those on leave descended upon London with abandon. Many took the phrase “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may be dead” quite literally.
Sporadic V-1 attacks still plagued the city. The buzz-bombs foreshadowed their arrival with eerie, sputtering sounds. Just before impact, the engines cut out. A thunderous explosion followed. Inevitably, sirens peeled as ambulances and fire trucks rushed to the detonation site.
The Stanley crew hit the town while their pilot toured the historical sites. They visited the infamous Windmill Theatre, where naked men and women posed on stage in motionless silhouette while rowdy Americans threw peanuts at them. At night, they visited Piccadilly Circus, the center of the prostitution trade. People-watching in Piccadilly was a “must” even for GIs not seeking sexual services. The call girls—known as Piccadilly Commandos—walked the blacked-out streets shining flashlights on their ankles to display their wares.
Plaisance and Seaver marveled at the openness of the prostitution trade. The girls brazenly propositioned passing GIs, setting their prices according to rank. Plaisance declined one and entered a pub. Seaver, staggered behind, his face white as a sheet. “Bob!” he exclaimed, “A girl just grabbed my balls!”
Forrest Smalley possessed no such reserve. The next day he claimed to have spent the night with a prostitute on the top floor of a three-story hotel. A buzz bomb struck the other side of the building, knocking them off the bed.[i]
[i] Rich Relations, pp. 149-154, p. 202, p. 241; Flight to Black Hammer, pp. 70-1; Plaisance letter, February 12, 2000; Stanley letter, August 1944; and Stanley interview, p. 3.
The Stewart Crew Forms and Travels Overseas
Chapter 4, “Following in Tito’s Footsteps,” tells the story of the Stewart and Dean crews. A previous draft devoted a chapter to each crew. Below is the original introduction to the Stewart crew in a chapter called “A Crew Alchemizes.” This version gave a far more detailed description of the crew’s formation, journey oversees, and interpersonal relationships than the final draft.
The fast-growing AAF Forces faced a dual problem in transforming civilians into airmen. It had to provide the technical skills essential to flight. It also needed to instill a military ethic foreign to most recruits.
Interwar army and naval officers were largely descended from previous military officers. This warrior caste considered themselves to be “gentlemen” in the old Southern sense of the word: white, Protestant, well-educated, cultured, and “well-bred.”
The old guard Air Corps officers who now led the AAF possessed these values. They wanted the hordes of freshly minted officers being churned out of flight schools to be cast in their image and indoctrinated with their beliefs and standards. Asa result, the AAF emphasized that class distinctions should be maintained between officers and enlisted men.
Every aircrew needed to navigate the tension between the Army’s demand for discipline and holdover civilian casual attitudes. Meanwhile, personality conflicts and petty resentments were bound to occur. They were young men leading other young men. A certain level of disharmony was inevitable. [i]
***
Lt. Charles “Scotty” Prescott Stewart Jr. fit the AAF’s profile perfectly. Self-assured, intelligent, athletic, and handsome, Stewart had attended an elite college preparatory school, Milton Academy, and then Harvard for a year and a half. He and several Harvard buddies joined the AAF in a fit of mass patriotism in December 1942. His father, also a Harvard man, had trained as a naval aviator during World War I.
Despite his stellar qualifications, Stewart had to pass his physical and mental examinations and earn his way through flight school just like everyone else. He began his basic military training at Atlantic City at the same time as Private Charles Stanley. They shared the same inglorious introduction to army life: unheated hotel rooms, barking drill Sergeants, and constant marching in the freezing February wind. The army, Stewart concluded, was a disorganized mess. Everything took twice the time it ought to. To succeed, all he had to do was keep his mouth shut, his eyes and ears open, and obey orders first and ask questions later. He won his wings in March 1944.
Stewart possessed a pilot’s panache. He enjoyed drinking good whiskey with his Ivy League friends. Several female acquaintances wrote to him frequently. He indulged in the forbidden practice of buzzing—flying his B-24 so close to the ground that earthbound mortals ducked their heads—to pay noisy calls on girlfriends and his mother.
Stewart’s crew completed their B-24 training Chatham Field, Georgia. There, ten recent civilians from divergent social, ethnic, educational, regional, and religious backgrounds were supposed to fuse into an efficient military unit. Their lives depended on their ability to function as a team. It was up to Stewart, as the aircraft commander, to make it all work. [ii]
***
Like Scotty Stewart, bombardier Harry Carter grew up in Connecticut. They had nothing else in common.
Carter’s father had been a small shop owner who went bankrupt when the Depression struck. He joined the WPA to feed his family and dug ditches for $12.00 a week. Shamed and disillusioned, Carter’s father took to alcohol and died at age 59.
To help support his family, Carter rose at dawn every day before high school to deliver fruits and vegetables. Harry’s schoolwork suffered. He figured his grades did not matter because his family could not afford college anyway.
Carter was in no hurry to get into the war. He waited until his number came up and was drafted into the infantry. By chance, he was assigned to basic training at Atlantic City. An opportunity arose and he transferred to the AAF. Carter was classified as a pilot but washed out of flight school. He became a bombardier and earned qualifications as a navigator as well.
The Army made Carter an officer, but hardly a gentleman. Profane, irreligious and unpretentious, his sympathies always fell with the underdog. He neither sought nor desired the privileges of rank. He never required enlisted men to salute him unless someone was around to report the infraction.
Carter took an instant dislike to his blue-blooded pilot. Stewart enforced the rules that Carter detested. Carter called him “Charlie,” not “Scotty” to cut him down to size.
One hot August day at Chatham Field, Carter entered their quarters to find Stewart lounging in his underwear. The room was strewn with the usual mess that occurs when young men room together. Stewart ordered Carter to clean the place up. A head taller than Stewart, the bombardier loomed menacingly over his commander. “If you want this place cleaned up,” Carter retorted., “do it yourself. I’m a Lieutenant too.”
The copilot, James Michalaros, and the navigator, William Craven, were both flight officers. Small of stature, friendly, and reserved, neither had any interest in enforcing discipline. That left Stewart on his own to keep the crew in line.[iii]
***
The enlisted men on the crew represented a cross-section of America. Husky, affable Joe Sedlak served as the upper turret gunner and assistant engineer. People liked and trusted him. His parents had emigrated from Czechoslovakia in 1911 and he grew up speaking Czech in his home.
Sedlak was a had earned a football letter at Oklahoma State University. He wanted to be a fighter pilot and passed the qualifying exams. His entire preflight class was told that the AAF no longer needed them as pilots. Gunners were still in demand and Sedlak became a good one.
Sedlak was granted a 10-day pass soon after joining Stewart’s crew. He used it to go home to Oklahoma and marry Marcella, his high school sweetheart. The day after they married, Joe left for his assignment at Chatham Field. Marcella soon followed and rented a small apartment.
Joe spent a lot of time off base with Marcella. He often reported late for the crew’s training sessions. His comrades tossed off amiable taunts. “Joe—what kept you?” or “Hey Joe! You look tired. Try to get some rest next time.” Stewart did not share their amusement. No matter how much he chewed Sedlak out for his tardiness, his lectures had little effect.
There seemed to be plenty of reasons to live for the moment. The trainers were war-weary B-24s deemed too rickety for combat. Accidents were common. In late July, a B-24 crew died when they crashed near the base. It might just as easily have been Stewart’s men.
Stewart’s men experienced their own close call. Two engines caught fire during a training mission. Stewart brought them home, but the crew worried for their lives. Things happened in the air no pilot could prevent.[iv]
***
Stewart’s lower ball turret gunner, Powell Robinson Jr., shared a similar background with his pilot. Their fathers had both graduated from Harvard. Robinson had also attended Stewart’s prep school, Milton Academy. Despite these commonalities, the insurmountable wall of rank separated them. To Stewart, Robinson was just another enlisted man.
The AAF had disqualified Robinson from Officer Candidate School for poor eyesight. How, he wondered, could his vision be judged too poor for pilot training but good enough to hit speeding enemy fighters?
Manning the lower ball turret required special courage. It was the most isolated position on the plane and claustrophobically small despite its Plexiglass construction. In combat, the ball turret gunner had the best view of upcoming danger, fostering a profound sense of vulnerability.
The potential for being trapped in the ball during an emergency was even more unsettling. While the B-17 ball turret was fixed in place, the B-24’s ball turret gunner trusted his comrades in the fuselage to retract the ball during flight. If the turret jammed, the ball turret gunner faced the unattractive prospect of being stuck until the plane landed. If the plane took hits and fell to earth before he could escape, the ball gunner might be doomed to share its fate.
Despite its drawbacks, Powell Robinson felt safe there. The ball had its own escape hatch, so he could bail out by releasing two trap-door handles over his ears. Many ball turret gunners did not wear a parachute due to the cramped space. Robinson could fit a parachute on his back and still squeeze his body into the ball.
With his winsome good looks and an eager expression, Robinson seemed youthful even for the age of nineteen. He had met with steady girlfriend, Peggy, when he was 15 and she was 14. Peggy was too young to travel, so, Robinson’s only visitor at Chatham Field was his mother. [v]
***
Robinson looked up to the older enlisted men, particularly the flight engineer, John Elmore. Elmore was a portly, slow talking mechanic from Texas. At age 25, he was the “old man” of the group. Unassuming, quiet, and competent, he had the complete confidence of the other men. Elmore’s wife Onetta lived in a small apartment near the base. He was not a newlywed, however, and tardiness was not an issue.
Radio operator Claud Martin had been the assistant manager of a seed store in civilian life. Pleasant, steady and soft-spoken, Martin’ was liked and respected by all. Sedlak called him “Razor,” short for “Razorback,” because he hailed from Arkansas.
Lantern-jawed Richard Heim joined the crew late in their training. Heim’s dog tags indicated “H” as his religion—Hebrew. As a Jew, he felt a special duty fight the Nazis. He tried to become a pilot but failed the depth perception test.
Heim’s original crew had crashed during a training mission. One man died and the rest were hospitalized. Heim had been lucky. His pilot had forgotten to bring his high-altitude equipment to the plane, borrowed Heim’s gear, and left him behind.[vi]
When the time came to depart for the European theatre, Marcella Sedlak and Onetta Elmore took a train westward. Marcella did not know it, but she was already pregnant.
Stewart and his crew were assigned a new plane at Mitchell Field on Long Island. They were to fly it across the Atlantic Ocean in a convoy of aircraft. Stewart, who worried the war might end before he got into the action, considered the assignment to be a lucky break. As a farewell present, his father presented him with three cases of Schenley whiskey. Whiskey was scarce because the government had commandeered the entire industry. The pilot mischievously labeled his stockpile as “medical supplies” and stashed it aboard his aircraft.
The crew’s nose gunner, George Schiazza, invited the enlisted men to a home-cooked meal at his family’s house in nearby Queens. His parents were Italian immigrants, complete with stereotypical thick accents. Homemade wine flowed freely. Oklahoma-bred Joe Sedlak tasted pizza for the first time. [vii]
***
Stewart and his crew leapfrogged with a formation of B-24s from Mitchell Field to Gander Field, Newfoundland. There the convoy became weathered in. With time on his hands, Joe Sedlak asked a doctor look at a carbuncle on his neck. He figured the flight surgeon would lance it. Instead, the doctor hospitalized him.
Sedlak had not been released when the order came to take off. The enlisted men, realizing they might never see their friend again, took matters into their own hands. A few grabbed Sedlak’s belongings while Dick Heim and George Schiazza appropriated a jeep, sped to the hospital, and yanked him out of bed. They arrived at the tarmac barely in time for their scheduled takeoff. Sedlak was still in his pajamas.
Stewart ignored Sedlak’s AWOL status and let him on the plane. The men resented that Stewart had been prepared to leave Joe behind, but admired him for relenting.
The crew crossed 1,300 miles of ocean to the Azores Islands without escort, a feat that boosted their confidence both in their pilot and in themselves. [viii]
***
The Azores introduced the crew to foreign shores. High stone walls demarcating small farm lots dotted the landscape. Barefoot Azorean women bore twin bouncing buckets suspended from springy poles slung across their shoulders. Peasant men drove carts hauled by exotic oxen. Dirt coated everybody and everything.
After a day at the field, Stewart and two other pilots were ordered to report to the operations room. The base commander claimed the barracks where the three crews had stayed were damaged. He called each of the pilots into his office one-by-one and accused their crews of getting drunk and causing the breakage.
Stewart asked his men about the incident. All denied culpability. Stewart returned to the commander and defended his men, even after he was threatened with a court martial. The commander gave Stewart two choices: pay a $25 “donation” to the base’s Welfare Fund and depart, or face charges and stay several days. Stewart knew a shakedown when he saw one. Angry but powerless, he paid the cash out of his own pocket and left.
More important to the crew, Stewart had accepted their word and defended them at his own peril. He was beginning to win them over. [ix]
***
The crew joined the 485th Bomb Group stationed in Venosa, Italy. They kept the plane they delivered from the States and began flying missions.
Their first was a milk run to northern Italy. The second was supposed to be equally undemanding, an attack against the railroad marshaling yards at Salonika, Greece. “Boys, today you have another cake-walk,” the briefing officer assured them. “You’ll be back in your tents by three this afternoon.” To take advantage of the easy mission, a pilot with 49 mission credits—needing just one to complete his tour—took the copilot’s seat in place of Michalaros. A Major from headquarters also joined Stewart’s crew as an observer to pad his mission total.
Bombardiers always flew their aircraft via their own controls over the target. When the time came, Carter called Stewart on the interphone. “Ok, Charlie, let me have the plane.” For reasons known only to himself, Stewart refused to relinquish the controls. Baffled, Carter dropped his bombs as best he could and called out “bombs away.”
Just then, a flak shell slammed into the B-24 next to Stewart’s. A tremendous explosion blew it into three fiery pieces. Two parachutes popped out. The aircraft behind tried to avoid the debris but failed and went down too. Two planes were gone and several men were dead.
Stewart’s crew barely had time to register the disaster when their own aircraft was riddled with jagged shrapnel. A fragment pulverized the Plexiglass in the ball turret. Wind shrieked in. Wiping powdery glass from his eyes, Powell Robinson saw nothing but crimson. His desperate voice erupted over the intercom. “I’m hit! I’m hit! Oh, God, I’m bleeding!”
Stewart kept calm. “Everybody stay put until we get out of here,” he ordered. Robinson was stuck in the turret. Its hydraulics were out. He was facing forward, exposed to the winds and below-zero temperature, and could not turn it to block the gushing air.
Tense minutes later, the aircraft passed out of the flak zone. Carter and Heim cranked the ball turret into the fuselage and lifted the youngster out. Red soaked his flight suit. He seemed to be in shock. Carter and Heim probed his body. “Where are you hit?” asked Carter. “Where does it hurt?” echoed Heim. Dazed and frozen, the gunner remained mute. Gradually, they realized Robinson was barely scratched. The red stuff was hydraulic fluid from a ruptured line.
The crew landed with the vast relief of those who are shot at and missed. Surveying the damage, Stewart’s ground chief was amazed the plane had made it home.
Word got around that Salonika had unexpectedly hosted retreating German anti-aircraft batteries. The crew dubbed their aircraft “Salonika Sal” in honor of their survival. [x]
***
The Stewart crew flew several sorties over the next few months. Most were forays against heavily defended targets. Salonika Sal, with all her foibles, got them through every time.
When it came time to consider the enlisted men for promotions, Stewart decided only John Elmore, the engineer, Claud Martin, the radio operator, and Powell Robinson, an armorer, were worthy. They worked during the missions. The others, Heim, Schiazza, and Sedlak, had never seen an enemy plane or fired a shot in anger. To Stewart, they were just along for the ride.
The trio grumbled. Gunners in other crews were being promoted. Everyone on the crew faced equal danger. It was not their fault no fighters had shown up. Feelings ran so high that the three of them discussed taking Stewart aside and beating him up—a court-martial offense. Fortunately, Michalaros caught wind and talked them out of it.
Carter was no help. He mocked Stewart’s habit of pocketing the loose nails he found around camp. What, he wondered aloud, did Stewart plan to do with them? Certainly, he was not about to construct anything.
Most of the men remained ambivalent toward Stewart. They never developed a fond nickname for him. He was always “Lieutenant” to his face and “Stewart” behind his back. Only Claud Martin genuinely liked and admired him.
The turning point came during a mission when Sedlak’s electric flight suit malfunctioned soon after takeoff. He would likely suffer frostbite when the aircraft achieved altitude. Missions were to be aborted only for the best of reasons, such as a mechanical problem so severe the plane could not reach the target. Any pilot who aborted came under intense scrutiny. Nevertheless, Stewart returned the aircraft to base and took the heat.
The crew knew Stewart had stuck his neck out. He had also defended them against false charges in the Azores. He had displayed cool courage during the Salonika mission.
Most importantly, Stewart relented and granted Sedlak, Schiazza, and Heim their promotions. This meant more to them than the increase in pay and status. It signified that Stewart recognized their contributions as members of the crew. Perhaps the men had also come to understand that Stewart’s job was to be their boss, not their buddy.
The men had always appreciated Stewart’s ability as a pilot. Now they began to respect his character. Stewart was only 21, but he was learning that leadership was more than a birthright or a matter of rank. He was developing into a man who the crew would gladly follow into the dangers of aerial combat. [xi]
***
Worn out by two months of combat, the crew was sent to the rest camp at Capri. Stewart’s officers we assigned rooms at the Grand Hotel Quisisana, a famous resort in the heart of the old town. The rooms were large but bare. Food was plentiful but water was scarce. Nightly meals were served with wine and champagne followed by dancing in the lounge. Stewart wrote a long letter home singing the praises of the Red Cross staff tending to the airmen.
The enlisted men visited the Blue Grotto, but mostly just relaxed. In town, they amused themselves by vainly tempting Robinson to be unfaithful to his girl back home.
Dick Heim had a gift for mimicry and often amused his crewmates with impressions of popular movie and radio stars. One evening Heim stood before a group of men and began his unmistakable imitation of Colonel John Porter Tomhave, commander of 485th Bomb Group. Tomhave, a tall, lean, West Point graduate, often honchoed the missions personally and had earned a Distinguished Flying Cross for leading a raid against Ploesti. He always ended the early morning briefings with a stirring pep talk.
Heim brandished a mock swagger stick at an imaginary map. “Today—we bomb the most dangerous target in the whole Third Reich!” he began. A melodramatic speech highlighted by classic Tomhave mannerisms followed. “It’ll be tough men,” the ersatz Colonel crescendoed, “but just follow me. I’ll get you through!”
Heim felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to meet Colonel Tomhave’s gaze. Heim snapped to attention. Tomhave dismissed him with an unsmiling salute and tromped off.[xii]
[i] Patton, A Biography, p.20 and p. 172; and The Officer’s Guide, July 1943 Edition, p. 201.
[ii] Stewart letters of February 1 and 15, and September 1, 1943; Carter interview, p. 5; and Stewart interview, pp.1-5.
[iii] Carter interview, pp.1- 4, Carter-Sedlak-Martin interview, p. 14; and Sedlak interview, p. 4.
[iv] Claud Martin interview, p. 1, Sedlak interview, pp. 3-4.
[v] Robinson interview, pp. 1-4 and Robinson interview by Charlie Stewart, p. 2.
[vi] Carter interview, p. 3 and Heim interview, p. 2.
[vii]Don’t You Know There’s a War On, p. 128 and p. 264; Sedlak interview, pp. 3; and Stewart interview, p. 6.
[viii] Sedlak interview by Charlie Stewart, p. 1; Heim interview, p. 2; and Sedlak interview, p. 3.
[ix] Sedlak interview, p. 8; Stewart interview, p. 7; and Stewart letter September 22, 1944.
[x] Carter interview, p. 5; Heim interview, p. 3; Carter-Sedlak-Martin interview, p.15; Robinson interview, pp. 7-8; Sedlak interview, p. 10; and Stewart interview, p. 9.
[xi] Carter-Sedlak-Martin interview, p. 14; Sedlak interview, pp. 4-6 and p. 10; and Stewart interview, p. 9
[xii] Hartford Times, November 27, 1944; This is How It Was, p. 18; Heim interview, p. 11; and Stewart letters, November 8-14, 1944
Wartime Sanski Most
Chapter 6, “Stranded in Sanski Most,” describes the wartime history of the area and the initial interactions between the townspeople and the airmen. The excerpt below gives further details on the atrocities that occurred there during the war.
The people of Sanski Most had suffered terribly during the war. As soon as the Germans invaded, three brothers named Gvozden, staunch Serbian patriots, hid arms and ammunition in case the German offensive succeeded.
The Yugoslavian army surrendered within weeks and Bosnia became part of the puppet Croatian state, the NDH. The state-operated radio station issued menacing statements. “The three-fingered sign of the cross will disappear!” the radio blared, a threat to the Orthodox Serbs. Croat newspapers hailed the end of “Serbian Oppression.” Instead of the word “Serb” or “Serbian,” they used the derogatory words Vlasi and Vlaski, meaning people of low social and moral status. They called Serbs “Greco-Easterners” as if they had not lived in Bosnia for a thousand years.
Motorized Nazi brigades passed through town. Representatives of the puppet regime appeared. They wore the uniforms of the old Yugoslav army except for one detail—a “U” centered on a new-style hat. The Ustashe had arrived.
The Ustashe set themselves up in the local gendarmerie barracks. A sergeant-major with little soldierly bearing named Djuro Vezmar took charge. His sunburnt face always smiled. Curly black hair protruded from under his Ustashe cap. If not for the uniform, he might have been taken as just another hardworking peasant. He strolled around town always ready for friendly conversation.
One morning in early May, someone discovered Vezmar’s body in the city dump. He had been shot. The murder shocked the town. It was the first in memory.
The next day, the three Gvozden brothers were found dead in the same dump. Their mutilated bodies indicated they had been tortured. The people whispered that they might have been Chetniks, a word just recently revived.
A day later, the Germans sent the local telal, a Muslim town crier, to the marketplace. Banging his ceremonial drum, he announced that all Serbs between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five must assemble within the hour or face a penalty of death.
All the Serb males crowded into the basement of the school. After a few hours, two German officers arrived with a local Muslim judge named Ibrahimpasich. They ordered the Serbs to file into a courtyard lined by German soldiers. Several were selected and marched off into the rainy distance. The rest were dismissed.
Not long after, the Germans returned, marching through the rain behind the slow, steady beat of a drum. Twenty-seven corpses heaped on horse-drawn carts trailed them seeping blood. Hostages spared to bear witness to the slaughter followed. The survivors were ordered to empty the carts, put nooses around the victims’ necks, and hoist them onto the budding trees lining the square. The Germans dismissed the crowd, certain they had taught the Serb population a lesson they would not soon forget.
The massacre confused the townspeople. They did not understand what had triggered the butchery. Were there really Chetniks nearby? Had the death of the Ustashe sergeant-major incurred the Germans’ wrath or was it something else? No one seemed to know.
Later word spread that the slaughter had been provoked by a nearby Chetnik rebellion instigated by Ustashe crimes against Serbs and Jews. Yet the reason did not matter. The Germans and the Ustashe meant to terrorize the population with or without provocation.
The same week, as they had for a millennium, Serbs gathered from nearby villages to celebrate the feast of Saint George on the banks of the swollen Blija River, a tributary of the Sana. Someone informed the Ustashe the gathering was a Chetnik assembly. Ustashe and German soldiers arrived and took their positions. A German was injured during the ensuing confrontation. In retaliation, the troops opened fire on the helpless townspeople and leveled their villages. A Muslim provocateur named Hasan Sabish had been paid two thousand Kuna, fifty cents in American money, to wound the soldier and instigate the carnage.
By one count, a thousand men, women and children were murdered during the reprisals. They were buried in a mass grave near Sanski Most.[i]
[i] Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Second World War, p.122, So Help Me God!, pp. 117-23, and Shadows on the Mountain, p. 301.
Olin “Baker” Houghton’s First Adventure
Chapter 8, “The Weakest Link Breaks,” notes that Baker Houghton had been missing in action previously when his pilot crash landed their plane in occupied Italy. The following excerpt provides the details of that adventure.
Over the Adriatic, a second propeller had to be feathered, then a third. Down to a single engine and desperate to avoid ditching in the sea, Dickie headed for an island off the Italian coast. The final engine conked out just as he approached the shoreline.
Dickie belly-flopped onto the beach wheels up. Sand spewed up into the bomb bay, but the plane held together and skidded to a merciful halt. Dickie had executed a powerless, emergency landing without a single injury. Still, the island lay far north of the Allied lines.
The crew knew the enemy would soon come looking for them. None of them had side arms. They would be helpless if discovered, so they split into three parties and fanned out in different directions to avoid detection.
Houghton and three others reached high grass just down the beach and paused to decide what to do next. There were two only options: get as far away from the crash site as possible or stay put and risk being picked up by enemy patrols. The path ahead would take them over open ground. The four decided to hide instead. In the movies, it was always the ones who panicked and ran who were shot or captured.
A gunboat approached. Germans and Fascist Italians landed to search the crash area. They captured a trio of airmen right away and herded to the awaiting gunboat.
Houghton’s quartet spent a restless night in the brush. In the morning, an Italian fisherman approached in a rowboat and the Americans chanced flagging him down. One of the airmen spoke Italian and the fisherman agreed to take them off the island.
On the mainland, the fisherman introduced the Americans to Partisan contacts who supplied them with food and civilian clothes. Warned of nearby fascist sympathizers, the airmen pooled their escape kit money and purchased a fourteen-foot fishing boat. They sailed down the coast with a Partisan guide and hid in an inlet.
After a week of near starvation, the weakened men set sail again. A fierce wind broke the mast and blew the boat out to sea. After two nights on the Adriatic, their Partisan guide rowed them to the coastline. Canadian troops found them and transported them back to their airbase.
Houghton hoped his trials behind enemy lines would be his ticket home, but he had not been missing long enough. He returned to combat as a “bastard gunner” who rotated among aircrews.
Houghton’s third mission after his narrow escape featured another close call. A piece of flak penetrated his ball turret during a mission against rail yards in Lienz, Austria. He would have been killed if he had not recently vacated his station. Houghton termed himself “The little man who wasn’t there” in a letter home. He could not help wondering when his luck would run out.[i]
[i] AFHRA Microfilm Reel B0604, p. 1121 and p. 1129; The Townsman, newspaper of Wellesly, MA, December 8, 1944; Houghton interview by John Davis, pp. 4-5; and Houghton radio interview, December 24, 1944, p. 6.
Herky Marrone and Jim King’s Journey to Sanski Most
Pilot Herman Marrone and copilot James King, having bailed out of their aircraft after the rest of their crew, are reunited with them at the end of Chapter 8 without a description of their journey. The following tells how they reached Sanski Most.
“Oh, my God,” he muttered, and jumped.
A fighter approached. Germans were known to machine-gun Allied airmen midair. Before he had time to worry, the aircraft was upon him. A white star flashed by.
Marrone relaxed, but just for a moment. A thick forest rushed up. He braced for trouble. His body scraped through branches and hit the hip-deep snow. The circling P-51 wiggled its wings and sped off.[i]
Marrone uncinched his parachute and Mae West and dropped them. He craved a cigarette but discovered he had lost his pack. Jim King must have landed nearby, so Marrone backtracked northward through the snow.
After a time, Marrone fired his .45 into the air. The white blanket smothered its report. The pines pressed close. Marrone saw no point in wandering aimlessly. He gave up on finding King and turned south toward the coast.
Marrone trudged through the deep snow until he reached a small village nestled in a narrow valley. Unsure of whether its inhabitants would be friendly, Marrone lurked in the forest until dusk. Wet, cold and hungry, he summoned his courage and approached one of the homes. He wrapped on the door with one hand, pistol ready in the other. No one answered. Relief mixed with despair. He rallied his spirits and prepared to knock again. A plump young girl opened the door.
“Amerikanski soldat!” he exclaimed. “Da” smiled the girl.
“You’re in, Flynn,” murmured Marrone as he entered.
A family of three girls and an old man welcomed him. His host offered a glass of “schnappe” which turned out to be eye-popping rakija. The oldest girl, Angela, took off his wet GI boots and passed them to her sisters with wonder in her eyes. “These kids think my boots are strictly 5th Avenue—Belgrade,” mused Marrone.
The family fed Marrone some fried corn dough and cold goat meat from a common plate. About 7:30 PM, a few Partisans arrived. Marrone felt exhausted but agreed to guide a search party for the rest of his crew. He led the group out into the woods, but his back stiffened and he was forced to give up. He figured the locals would quit too, but they kept going.
The family gave Marrone the only bed in the house. The old man offered to have Angela sleep with him for warmth. Marrone took in Angela’s hefty girth and declined. After all, it was only a small bed.
About 2:00 AM, the excited search party woke Marrone from a sound sleep. They had found a parachute and a yellow Mae West. Marrone motioned they were his. Disappointed, the Partisans gave up for the night. Marrone went back to sleep.
Marrone arose at 7:00 AM to lead another search. He got no further than the night before. This time, indigestion stopped him. The party abandoned the search again and returned to the house. After a few hours, they set out for Drvar, about twenty miles to the southwest. Angela wept as he walked off down the path with his guide.
Marrone reported to the Partisan headquarters in Drvar. There a sinewy, lithe, English-speaking Partisan introduced himself as Lt. Michael. They shared a couple of strong, thin cigarettes while they talked. Michael would escort Marrone to the larger and safer town of Sanski Most when the next train passed through.
Late in the afternoon, a pair of Partisans ushered Jim King into Marrone’s room. King had spent the night in the mountains without food or shelter. After a bit of soup, the pilots hit the sack not caring they shared the bed.
A rainy day passed with no sign of the train or of the rest of the crew. The following morning opened with the rumble of a distant thunderstorm. The rain turned to snow. Midday, Marrone and King watched a column of Partisans march out of town. They had not heard thunder. A battle raged nearby.
The Americans huddled in their room. Near bedtime a group of tipsy Partisans burst in, including a few tough-looking women. Some sat on the bed. They passed a bottle of rakija around and the Americans took a few untidy swigs. One man spoke a few words of English. He seemed to say the train would arrive the next day.
The leader motioned at Marrone’s wrist. He wanted Marrone’s GI wristwatch. Not wishing to offend an armed drunkard, Marrone complied. Soon he and King yielded everything they did not need, including their pistols. Marrone even handed one of the Partisan women his rosary beads. Satisfied, the guerillas departed. The footboard collapsed as Marrone and King climbed into bed. They slept at an angle hoping the Partisan was correct about tomorrow’s departure.
Lt. Michael rousted them at 3:30 AM. The train had arrived. He bore six loaves of corn bread and a side of goat meat. Marrone wondered why they would they need so much food. The maps from their Escape Kits indicated Sanski Most lay only 30 miles away.
The train did not depart until 10:00 AM. Its flatcars exposed the military and civilian passengers to the bitter winter air. Marrone and King were assigned to the tiny locomotive cab with Lt. Michael, the engineer and the fireman.
The train traveled at a snail’s pace. Not far out of town, it stopped for water. The menfolk formed a bucket brigade to a stream. The locomotive began again, only to stop repeatedly for wood, water, or to gather steam to climb a steep grade.
After eleven hours, they arrived in Srnetica, less than halfway to Sanski Most. Bad news awaited them. The connecting train to Sanski Most was delayed by a couple of days. Now Marrone and King understood why their guide had packed so much food. Lt. Michael asked if they wanted to walk the rest of the way. It could only take a day, but shelter would be uncertain. King had already spent a night in the open and did not care to repeat the experience. The airmen decided to wait.
King found an empty cot and fell into a deep sleep. Marrone gravitated toward the wood-fueled stove. There he made time with a Partisan girl named Stanka using the few Italian and Bosnian words at his disposal.[ii]
The next day dragged. Marrone tired of hearing the stationmaster yelling “Sanski Most lokomotiva” into the telephone. Midafternoon, the sound of heavy bombers broke the monotony. Marrone and King ran outside and yelled “get them for us!” An explosion interrupted their cheers. They hit the deck wondering whether the junction was a target. No more bombs hit. Likely, a hung-up 500 pounder had been jettisoned by an engineer.
The train arrived after midnight. Marrone, King and Lt. Michael boarded a boxcar holding a half-dozen Partisans and several crates of cigarettes. The locomotive built up steam and slowly puffed away.
Near morning, a mild jolt interrupted Marrone’s dozing. He thought nothing of it until several Partisans scrambled out of the open boxcar door. Marrone figured he had better jump too. He rolled to the bottom of a ravine. King followed.
The train was derailing. Marrone wondered if it would topple on him, but it settled on the rail bed, slightly ajar from the track. The Partisans climbed up the bank and used planks to set it aright.
The derailment seemed to be the last straw for King. Days ago, he had bailed out of their B-24. Now he was jumping out of boxcars. He withdrew into his mind. His conversation dwindled to phrases like “this is good”—when he ate—or “give me a light” when he wanted a smoke. Most often, he just said “I’m cold,” which was always true.
At 3:30 PM, the train got underway again. Along the way, the Partisans—with Lt. Michael translating—told glowing tales of the comforts of Sanski Most. Plentiful food. Cantinas. Women. Comfortable beds. It sounded wonderful.
The train’s arrival in Sanski Most dashed all such hope. The town appeared dark and dreary. No warm meal awaited them. They slept on the floor of an unheated room with only old parachutes for warmth.
They awoke to another disappointment. The breakfast consisted of weak potato soup, followed by another dose for lunch and more for supper.
Late in the day, the pilots reunited with their crew. Everyone was safe, but Earll and Dennis were injured and confined to a loosely-termed “hospital.” Marrone had seen cleaner outhouses.
The crew gave the pilots the low-down. With their arrival, about four dozen American fliers were sheltered in town. The Germans had taken Bosanski Petrovac thirty miles to the southwest. More Germans inhabited Banja Luka, 30 miles to the east, and controlled the rail line to the north. Sanski Most was surrounded on at least three sides. No one knew about the fourth.[iii]
[i] Grottaglie and Home, p. 42; Marrone letter, January 10, 1945; and Marrone interview by Greg Krupinsky, p. 5.
[ii] Marrone diary, December 11 to 15, 1944.
[iii] Marrone diary, December 16 to 19 1944.
Russian Roulette in the Skies
I deleted the story of Curtis Eatman’s crew from the book because it did not drive the central story line, added thousands of words of text, and would have introduced several characters to the narrative that do not appear later–thus unnecessarily burdening the reader with the task of remembering the names of ten more airmen. It stands on its own however, as a compelling tale.
Every airman dealt with the stress of combat in his own way. Some prayed. Some drank. Some chased women.
Charles Haynes, a copilot from Morgantown, West Virginia, wrote. An avid diarist afflicted with the writer’s curse of self-awareness, he examined his fears and articulated them on the written page daily.
Haynes’s father lost everything in 1934 when a sinkhole from a mine swallowed the construction company he founded. He was forced to take distant jobs that allowed him to return home to his wife and six children only on weekends. None of these hardships, however, shook the family’s Baptist faith or their determination to see their children attended college. Both Charles and his younger brother John had been students at the University of West Virginia when they enlisted in the AAF.
Haynes sported a Clark Gable mustache, enhancing his resemblance to the rakish actor. A cigar dangled constantly from his lips. If only he felt as confident as he appeared.[i]
Haynes and his crew were assigned to the 465th Bomb Group in Pantanella. They bivouacked in a tent across the runway from Lt. Charles Stanley’s 464th.
Signs of death suffused the camp. Missing crews haunted barren tents. Their wooden doors bore chalk marks tallying missions. None came close to the requirement for going home. B-24s flaunted shrapnel scars. Veterans of mere weeks murmured of the horrors they witnessed.
Haynes’s pilot, Curtis “Cy” Eatman, began flying with experienced crews. Eatman, a hotshot from Mantua, Alabama, had once been reprimanded for landing his B-24 like a fighter plane. Yet even Eatman was daunted by what he discovered in combat. His second sortie was the brutal October 13 raid against Blechhammer that resulted in Stanley’s side trip to Romania.
Eatman described the experience to his officers when he returned that evening. Two of the Bomb Group’s 31 planes had failed to come back. Someone did the math. At that rate, their chances of making it to 50 mission credits were slim. They were playing Russian roulette in the skies, and would likely lose.
The crew would have been even more discouraged if they knew the real odds. The 465th had just completed a study on its casualty rates. Only 43 percent of its men finished their tours of duty. The majority were killed, wounded, prisoners of war, or missing in action.
One mission, Eatman saw a plane go down in flames. The next day, he and Haynes turned in their chest parachutes for more reliable backpack chutes. The drawback was that the backpacks could not be worn while they flew. If they ever needed to bail out, every second would count.
Surrounded by death, Haynes obsessed over it. The crew’s first mission did not temper his anxiety. The target, Vienna, was defended by more anti-aircraft guns than any other city within the reach of the 15th Air Force.
Vienna seemed harmless as the giant formation approached. Reality set in when a plane exploded in a nearby box. Debris floated downward. The sky filled with so many explosions that Haynes wondered if any ship could make it through. A shattered B-24 dropped past from above, barely missing his plane. Wounded warbirds turned off. The formation began to break up.
Haynes resisted the urge to abandon the bomb run. Shrapnel pierced his plane’s nose, but no one was hit. Another shard cracked his windshield and knocked slivers against his goggles. After an eternity, the flak departed. Haynes breathed easy. He had survived his first mission.
That night Haynes lay sleepless until daybreak. Five more restless nights passed.
Two planes collided over the Adriatic on the return trip from his next mission. One fell into the sea. Haynes saw only a pair of parachutes blossom, and those men would not survive for long in the water. Worse, the target had been missed completely. Ten lives gone for nothing.
Over the next several weeks, Haynes caught himself becoming dejected over minor annoyances, such as a petty argument or a letter’s failure to arrive. He also found unusual importance in everyday events such as radio programs or letters from friends. In his off hours, he fixed up his tent, corresponded, and reminisced about his humdrum routine at home. Maybe, he thought, latching onto the mundane helped him cling to his sanity.
If so, the technique worked. Haynes began to sleep, even during the nights before missions. He developed the ability to put the next sortie out of his mind until the early morning briefings. He still felt a lump in his throat and pangs of fear every foray. The return trip felt like a reprieve from a death sentence—until he went up again.
Haynes considered himself to be reasonably happy despite the mortal danger. The sensation felt extraordinary. Apparently, a person could grow accustomed to anything, even the prospect of one’s imminent demise.[ii]
On November 20, when the Dean crew was shot down over Blechhammer, a stroke of fortune forced Eatman’s crew to return early. On the way to the target, their top turret gunner, Edward Hahn Jr.—a big blond kid from San Francisco—became red in the face, felt feverish chills, and passed out twice. The Group Leader, Lt. Colonel Clarence J. Lokker, ordered the pilots to take him home.
Later Haynes found out how lucky they had been. Just before bombs away, Colonel Lokker’s aircraft suffered a direct hit in the left wing and fell to the earth ablaze. The deputy commander of the first box took over and completed the run. The leader of the second box, however, suffered a severed a rudder cable and could not make his turn off the target after he dropped his bombs. The rest of the box followed him into a concentration of flak. The result was a massacre. One B-24 burst into flames and blew up midair. Another plane headed toward Russia with two engines smoking. A third made it to Italy before its crew bailed out.[iii]
Without Hahn’s illness, Haynes’s B-24 would have been flying in that second box. This time his crew had been lucky. Next time—who knew?
Two weeks later, on December 2, the crew returned to Blechhammer. Haynes reckoned the flak made Vienna and Munich look like a penny arcade. Stanley’s Yellow Love was one of several planes shot down that day.
Even the supposed “milk runs” were brutal. On December 6, as the 465th departed for a quick trip to the rail yard at Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, a ship blew up at the end of the runway. The other planes took off through its smoky wake. Weak flak covered the target, but twenty enemy fighters jumped the formation after the bomb run. Me109s attacked Eatman’s aircraft from the rear. Tail gunner Andrew Jay, a 27-year old highway foreman from Alabama, deterred them with his tracers. The B-24s fought the German fighters for an hour until P-38s arrived. Back at the base, charred body parts and bloody clothing still littered the runway.[iv]
Worse, headquarters had devised a complex plan to attack Blechhammer’s North and South complexes. Normally, one Wing attacked the North Complex while the other tackled the South. This time, however, HQ split the 49th and 55th Wings, so that half of each passed over the two targets simultaneously. Hopefully, the twin prongs of the formation would divide and confuse the flak gunners below. The orders emphasized that “Close timing and tight formation is essential to success.”
The mix-up cost time. Several planes turned back due to mechanical difficulties. Eatman and Haynes had drawn an old ship, “White Love.” Its number three engine vibrated, but not badly enough to justify an early return.
The 464th’s lead plane picked up the target on radar about 45 miles out. The 465th’s radar worked fine too. Both groups zoomed toward the target.
Suddenly, leaders of the two formations realized they were coming in simultaneously rather than in tandem. The 465th veered hard to the left. Once again, disaster was narrowly averted. Everybody cursed the overcomplicated scheme.
The flak did not begin until bombs away, but when it did, it came with a vengeance. Bursts permeated the formation. Red eruptions mixed with black. The blasts swelled until they filled the sky. Shrapnel ventilated five B-24s from the 464th but none went down.
White Love bounced. Her skin resonated with the sound of pelting metal shards. The explosions crescendoed and ceased. The formation headed for home.[v]
Eatman’s number two engine faded so he feathered it. White Love reached Yugoslavia, but her number 4 engine died, and its propeller would not feather. The plane lost altitude and fell behind the bomb group. Italy was out of the question. At best, they might reach Vis.
The solid undercast obscured all landmarks. Their navigator, Flight Officer William Evans, had volunteered for the AAF because he thought it would be the safest branch of the service. Now it would be his job to get them out of this jam.
Evans dead-reckoned their course as best he could. When he guessed they were near the coast, Eatman took the plane down to reconnoiter. They were already over water. Eatman decided Vis would be too hard to find. Instead, they would head landward and find a place to bail out.
Eatman flew northeastward until they were well inland. A gap appeared in the clouds. He nosed in and found a long valley. Evergreen-filled mountains stretched on either side. Evans recognized the location on his maps. It was as good a spot as any. The number one engine acted up. They were down to one good engine. It was time to get out. [vi]
As Evans stuck his head out of the alleyway, Ed Hahn bounded onto the catwalk and pulled the lever closing the bomb bays doors. His eyes radiated blind panic. He had sealed off the main exit. Joe Dearman stood on the half deck gaping in amazement, as did Jim Powell, the radio operator, and Lamont “Monty” Pakes, the engineer.
The bailout buzzer rang. The plane would not stay aloft for long. They had to go.
Bombardier Bill McGee took charge. He edged past Hahn and pushed the bomb bay handle down, rolling the doors open. He stepped on the catwalk and coaxed Hahn forward. Seconds passed. Hahn’s eyes dawned. “I’ll go, I’ll go,” he repeated.
Hahn sat down and dangled his legs over the catwalk. Just when the situation seemed under control, he popped up again and clung to the bomb mounts next to McGee. No one else moved.
McGee coaxed Hahn into a sitting position again. A second later he was gone. The airmen peered below. No one could pull Hahn’s ripcord for him. He was about to disappear into the void when his parachute flowered. He would be all right.
Hahn’s fear had been contagious. Someone had to break the spell. McGee leapt. The rest followed. Evans crawled through someone’s legs and fell.
Evans sensed no movement amid the fog. A pang of loneliness struck his heart. He felt as solitary as could be. Distant voices rose, perhaps from running and yelling children. A dog barked. The noises gave him a good feeling. Maybe he was not so alone after all.
He passed below the clouds. The ground neared. The breeze swung him like a pendulum. He experimented with the shrouds, first tugging on one side and then the other, but it only seemed to make matters worse.
On an upswing, Evans headed face-first toward a craggy tree. He threw his hands over his eyes. His back struck the trunk. Somehow, his body had pirouetted midair. He found himself lying in snow among a group of large boulders and huge evergreens. Downhill, a soldier approached accompanied by a troop of children. The soldier’s rifle caught his eye. It seemed menacing.
Evans had been briefed there were Partisan, German, and pro-German troops in the area. This man was not wearing a German uniform, but there was no way to know where his sympathies lay. The airman’s first instinct was to hide. He darted uphill through the deep snow but ran out of breath after only a few steps. He looked back. The soldier had halted too. Evans climbed a little further. The figure kept pace. The man would have taken a shot by now if he meant any harm. Moreover, Evans was leaving deep tracks in the snow.
Evans reversed course. When he got close enough, he spotted a red star on the soldier’s cap. The two embraced. Beaming children gathered. The airman broke out chewing gum and chocolate bars. He felt like a million dollars. [vii]
Strange, thought Haynes. I’ve been afraid for weeks. Now, when I ought to be, I’m not. He put his head down and rolled out.
Haynes tried to track Eatman’s descent but lost him in dense fog. A sound like a tin roof being flattened by a falling tree penetrated the stillness. White Love had smashed into the mountainside.
Haynes emerged from the fog and discovered he was soaring toward the tip of an enormous pine. He yanked on his risers to lift himself over it.
The next thing he knew, Haynes lay in three feet of snow beneath the tree. He did not know what happened, but guessed the parachute had collapsed, caught in the limbs, and broken his fall. He had been very lucky. [viii]
The soldier and the children guided Evans to a tiny village in the valley. Within hours, Jim Powell, William McGee, Joe Dearman, Ed Hahn and Monty Pakes joined him. Both McGee’s and Pakes’ parachutes had failed to open on the initial tug. They dropped thousands of feet before opening their chutes manually. Despite his reluctance to jump, Hahn had landed without issue and found the village on his own.
Andrew Jay and ball turret gunner Harold Wamser were brought in later by mule. Jay had broken his left leg. Wamser was slightly better off with broken bones in his right foot. Fortunately, they landed near each other and were found quickly by Partisans. They took the only two beds. The rest slept on the floor after a tasty meal of potatoes scalloped in goat’s milk and cheese. [ix]
Before long, he spotted a barn and farm house hunched at the foot of a mountain. The spot reminded him of Appalachian hollow. An old woman sat with her back to him milking a goat. Haynes strode behind her and said “Americano.” The woman turned, smiled, and extended her hand. It was covered in dung, but Haynes shook it gladly.
Haynes wiped his hand on his flight suit as the woman pointed at the farmhouse and spoke. He looked at her blankly, so she motioned he should follow her. Inside sat Cy Eatman surrounded by a crowd of men, women, and infants.
Their hosts offered goat milk and black, hard-crusted bread while the airmen pulled out their maps. As best as they could figure, they had landed 50 miles northeast of Split, far from any major towns or roads. They guessed they might reach the coast in two days. The estimate would give them much bitter amusement over the weeks ahead.
The next morning, after a louse-infested, sleepless night, the two airmen set out toward the coast guided by a local. Along the way, they passed White Love’s crash sight. A squad of Partisans was stripping the plane of everything, useful or not.
A Partisan runner caught them later in the day. The rest of their crew was being sheltered in Kupres, a village to the north.
The pilots reached there well after dusk. The reunion was joyous but to the point. Andrew Jay spoke of dangling his broken leg from a mule and swore he would never ride one again. Haynes felt too exhausted to eat. He drank some water, dropped on the floor, and slept.[x]
The next day, Eatman took Jay’s words to heart and asked the local Commissar for a wagon to carry the injured men. No, the Commissar seemed to say, the path is no good. A wagon won’t make it.
They set out around 10:30 AM. Despite Jay’s protests, he and Wamser were once again set on mules. Up they climbed into the snowy mountains. Felled trees often blocked their path. The Commissar was right. Travel by wagon would have been impossible.
The knowledge did not make life any easier for the wounded airmen. Their legs constantly dragged on snowdrifts. When the mules stumbled, their broken limbs slammed cruelly against the ground. Haynes and Hahn stopped Wamser’s mule, helped him off, and fashioned additional splints over the ones already casing his leg. Wamser was immobilized to the waist, but the newly affixed branches offered a measure of relief.
Haynes heard Jay scream from ahead. Figures moved to take him off his mule. The snowfall at the mountain crest lay so deep his leg constantly dragged against it. He would have to be carried between the shoulders of two other men. Haynes soon realized that he and Hahn would have to do the same for Wamser. They passed over the ridge with great difficulty.
The going was easier downhill. Late in the day, they reached their destination, the Partisan base at Bugojno. They had been traveling north, away from the coast, but the town was the closest stronghold in the area.
A Partisan guided the rest of the airmen to their quarters, crashed his rifle butt against the door, and ousted an old couple from their beds amid protests from the Americans. It’s okay, the Partisan seemed to say, these people are German sympathizers. Despite their misgivings, the airmen bedded down for the night.
In the morning, the airmen discovered they were being sheltered in one of the most picturesque cities in Bosnia. The town stood on an oval hill divided by a river that caromed over a hundred-foot cliff. The hilltop’s low stone fortifications gave the look of a medieval royal capital. It had been the seat of Bosnian kings before the Ottoman conquest of 1463.
The airmen were even more captivated by the townspeople. Everyone looked cheerful despite their obvious hardships. Haynes noted a cemetery where a hundred German soldiers lay buried in graves marked by wooden crosses. Two buxom Partisan girls chopped at them with axes. No doubt, the firewood would soon warm a Partisan barracks. [xi]
At first, the airmen were informed they would be transported to Sanski Most. After a few days, however, the Partisans changed their minds. On December 24, they were told to take the train back to Bugojno and travel onward to Split by way of Livno. Perhaps word had come that Sanki Most was already overcrowded.
Just after dark, as the airmen boarded the train, they realized something was amiss. Jay and Wamser were not in sight. The injured men would be left behind. Everyone protested, but their Partisan guard ignored them. Haynes wrote a quick note to his injured friends explaining that the Partisans were forcing them to go. He asked a young girl to carry it to the hospital. The train started off. Jay and Wamser would have to fend for themselves.
The boxcar was packed so tightly the airmen barely found room for their feet. Sitting or lying down was impossible. A Partisan began singing and others joined in. The airmen responded with “Pistol Packing Mama” and the “Air Corps Song.” “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” seemed especially appropriate.
The train traveled through the night, breaking down at irregular intervals and stopping to take on wood and water. About noon, it came to a standstill at a siding. McGee suggested they get off the train and start a fire. It might be some time before they got going again.
The fire warmed them, but it was small consolation. It seemed a rotten way to spend Christmas. Everyone felt homesick, exhausted, lice-ridden, dirty, hungry, and miserable. Haynes’s mustache drooped. A Partisan soldier appeared and handed them something. It was a can of American corned beef. No doubt, it had been airdropped from an American C-47 transport. There was barely enough to split among the eight of them, but it gave a taste of the good old USA. All agreed it was just what they needed to raise their spirits.
The train started off. After dark, it died a final time. Everyone began walking through the moonlight. After two hours, the party spotted a convoy of Dodge trucks carrying a platoon of Partisans. The airmen found room as best as they could. The worst of their journey was over.
They reported to the Commissar’s office in Livno the next morning. The Commissar introduced them to two other American fliers, pilot Lt. Frederick Coe and his copilot, Flight Officer Kenneth Hoffman. They had been shot down the same day as Eatman’s men but did not know the fate of the rest of their crew. Eventually, a Partisan journalist informed Eatman that Andrew Jay and Harold Wamser would be transported by train to Sanski Most, where a hospital and an airstrip awaited them. It was just as well, thought Eatman. At least they had been spared the worst of the journey. [xii]
[i] “About Nova and J.C. Haynes,” by Charles Haynes, unpublished, 1984.
[ii] AFHRA Microfilm Reel B0616, p. 787 and p. 964; and Haynes diary, October 14 and 17, and November 3, 1944.
[iii] AFHRA Microfilm Reel B0616, p. 899-90. Lt. Col. Lokker reached the ground safely, but he was captured by German civilians and hanged by them. See World War II Bombardiers, by Philip A. St. John, p. 33.
[iv] Haynes diary, November 20 to December 6, 1945, and Fifteenth Air Force Against the Axis, p. 292.
[v] AFHRA Microfilm Reel B0595, p. 1800; Reel B0616, p. 1090; and The 464th Bomb Group in World War II, p. 138.
[vi] AFHRA Microfilm Reel A6544C, p. 100; MACR 10637; William Everett Evans Jr. interview, pp. 4-5; and Haynes diary, December 18, 1944.
[vii] Evans interview, pp. 5-7.
[viii] Haynes diary, December 18, 1944 entry.
[ix] AFHRA Microfilm Reel A6544C, pp. 99-105; Evans interview, p. 7; and “Downed Flier Gets Chance to Repay Favor,” Danville (Virginia) Register and Bee, August 24, 1992.
[x] AFHRA Microfilm Reel A6544C, pp. 99-105; and Haynes diary, December 18 and 19, 1944.
[xi] AFHRA Microfilm Reel A6544C, pp. 99-105; Reel A6544B, p. 726 and p. 735; and Haynes diary, December 20-4, 1944; and Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, p. 406.
[xii] AFHRA Microfilm Reel A6544C, pp. 99-105; Haynes diary, December 24, 1944; and Evans interview, p. 8.
Our Leader, Clark Gable
Chapter 19, page 263, states that “Jack Mulvaney carried the word that crewmates Ed Kutch and Joe Foto had stayed in Livno with two others, Lewis Baker and Tom Tamraz. The four of them straggled into Bari eleven days later, having been trapped in Livno for some time by a raging blizzard. The following is the fully story of the four airmen’s escape.
While Stanley and his crew packed to go stateside, Lewis Baker, Ed Kutch, Joe Foto and Tom Tamraz languished in faraway Livno.
Ed Kutch had returned from Prolog and reported tough going ahead. He thought the fourteen were crazy to scale the cliff during a snowstorm. Why hurry? Conditions would improve sooner or later.
But the weather did not clear. In fact, it worsened. The blizzard continued for days.
The four airmen stayed at the house of a stout woman and her two equally substantial daughters. One night, the three women frantically roused them from their sleep. Tamraz translated. The Germans had taken a city just 30 miles away. A truck would depart for Prolog in the morning. The Americans should be on it.
Lewis Baker still fought pneumonia and perhaps a sinus infection. He felt weak as a kitten. A doctor warned him not to travel for at least three days. Baker prepared to disobey. “If they get any closer,” he confided to his journal, “The Doc is going to see how fast I can walk, run or crawl.”
The snow turned to rain, then back. A foot of fresh snowfall covered a base of ice. No one was going anywhere. Fortunately, the enemy steered northwest, bypassing Livno.
Snowed continued through the following day, the next, and the next. Supplies ran short. Teams of citizens, including the airmen’s hostesses, shoveled roads so trucks could get through. Baker guessed he and the others might be stuck for weeks.
One day, the women of the house asked Joe Foto to chop wood. He tried to oblige, but they soon interrupted him. “Vi ste slab, ne dobra,” they cried. “You’re weak. No good.” They took up the chopping while Foto skulked off.[i]
Tom Tamraz procured provisions from the mostly Muslim merchants. The vendors became quite friendly once they realized he spoke Turkish. Despite the food shortage, he bought two chickens for 300 Kuna, a cheaper price than in Sanski Most.
Tamraz was out foraging when he ran into half a dozen Partisans feeding a German prisoner. Tamraz asked “Sta ima?” “What’s up?’ This is his last meal, they answered. We’re shooting him. You can’t do that, Tamraz protested. It’s against the Geneva Convention. He’s been tried, they retorted, and we don’t care about any treaty.
Once the man finished eating, the Partisans amused themselves by ordering him to conduct small arms drills. Tamraz demonstrated a few maneuvers of his own, hoping someone in authority would happen by and stop them. After a time however, the tormentors grew bored and asked Tamraz if he wished to watch the execution. He did not. The Partisans marched their prisoner behind a wall. Shots rang out. One Partisan emerged wearing the prisoner’s boots. Another had donned his trousers.
Tamraz had loaned his map of Yugoslavia to Bigfoot. Now he wanted it back for the final leg of the journey. Lt. Michael, Bigfoot and the rest of the escort were bivouacked outside town.
Tamraz approached the encampment in the snowy dusk. “Zaustaviti!” a sentry called out. “Halt!” Tamraz kept coming. “Ne razumijem! Amerikanac!” “I don’t understand! American!” he called back—though he comprehended perfectly. The guard yelled again and cocked his rifle. The man who Dr. Johnson had labeled a coward advanced. “Ne razumijem! Amerikanac!” Tamraz repeated as he walked past the watchman.
Lt. Michael greeted Tamraz warmly and introduced him to his comrades. When Tamraz explained his purpose, he ordered Bigfoot to return the map.[ii]
Days passed. The snow fell unabated. Foto killed time by tossing cards into his hat. Tom Tamraz kept the bedridden Ed Kutch company and they became fast friends. Their argument on the train ride from Sanski Most was forgotten.
The roads remained impassible. Joe Foto was grateful for his flying goggles every time he ventured outside. Food grew so scarce that Tamraz’s best contacts ran out. They heard of a Partisan kitchen much like the one in Sanski Most a mile away. They tried it once and decided it was not worth the walk. For three days, they lived on fried dough and tea.
The four debated whether to remain until spring. Beyond the weather, they worried they were too sick to travel. They did not know of the train from Sinj to Split. As far as they knew, they would have to walk the whole 35 miles to the coast.
Nevertheless, the arguments for leaving seemed compelling. They all needed doctors and medicine. Baker still ran a fever. Foto coughed chronically. Even Tamraz, the healthiest, suffered from constipation. Their Escape Kit money was nearly gone, and Tamraz’s ill-gotten supply of salt had run out. Baker craved an American cigarette.
Tamraz made one last search for food in the Moslem quarter. Miraculously, he procured three dozen eggs for the trip.
On January 30, the skies cleared. The next day a B-25 and four P-51s swooped over town. The populace scurried for cover. A man ran up to Lewis Baker and urged him to take cover. “No,” said Baker. “Amerikanac! Dobra!” The man shouted “Amerikanac!” too, and people emerged gazing at Baker as if he were a god protecting them from certain destruction. [iii]
At last, plows cleared the roads. On January 31, the town’s Commandant informed the airmen a truck was departing for Sinj at 7:30 AM the next day. Four spots were reserved for them.
The Americans arrived at the appointed place at the appointed time. No truck. Someone explained it had already departed. Livid, Baker marched over to the commandant’s office. Tamraz served as translator. We want to leave tomorrow, he demanded. That truck had better be ready.
This time the Americans arrived a half an hour early. The truck was there, but the driver showed no inclination to depart. The Americans paced to keep warm. At 7:30, the driver took off without warning. The airmen beat the sides of the truck until he stopped. They climbed aboard panting and cursing. Inexplicably, the driver refused to continue. He sat impassively for an hour and a half, ignoring their pleas. Then, just as unaccountably, he started the truck and rolled off.
The Americans were on their way at last. Before long they reached Prolog, where Ed Kutch had turned back once before. The airmen would have to scale the cliff. This time, at least, the climb would not occur in a blizzard.
They made their ascent, pausing frequently to catch their breath. The sun shone brightly as they reached the summit. Below the valley stretched to mountains shrouded in white mists. Ahead, a gentle slope a promising green. After another five miles, a Partisan driving a jeep picked them and gave them a lift into Sinj where they checked into a small hotel.
Unbelievably, their quarters featured beds, clean sheets, pillows, and even a flush toilet. For dinner, they ate “C” ration pork and beans. A Partisan Commissar joined them and asked about the Army Air Forces. His questions sounded too much like an interrogation. Who was their commanding officer? Clark Gable, they jibed. He was a hell-of-a-guy, just like in the movies. [iv]
The next morning, the four airmen took the train to Split, a lovely three-hour journey, and found the American liaisons. Three tons of supplies had arrived since their fourteen comrades had passed through. The British cargo ship that brought the supplies remained in port.
The Allied liaisons now offered real soap, insecticide for the lice, shaving cream and razors. For the first time in forty-one days, Baker took a restorative hot shower. Fresh uniforms were also available, even if they had to mix sizes a bit.
A new contingent of American brass had arrived in Split, including a Colonel who Baker had met while on rest leave at Capri. The Colonel, shocked at Baker’s change of appearance, wondered if he could help. He was throwing a party that evening at his apartment in honor of the cargo ship’s officers. He invited Baker and the three others to attend.
When the four arrived, however, the guards at the door made them feel less than welcome. “Stay in the background,” they ordered. “You can watch and eat but you can’t participate.”
The British guests mixed with American officers and a few Partisan officials. The Partisans brought along a dozen or so young ladies—not the stout peasants the airmen had seen across Bosnia, but lovely, well dressed women who looked at home at the upscale party.
Food and drink abounded. The chef worked miracles with the main course, spam. A porter offered coffee with sides of cream and sugar. The girls eschewed the coffee and insouciantly drank the cream straight out of the server. Lord Calvert flowed like water. A mischievous American adjutant flashed his B-4 bag at Foto. It brimmed with bottles of bourbon and Canadian whiskey.
The Colonel asked Baker how long he had been missing-in-action. Forty-one days, Baker replied. Then they’ll send you home, offered the Colonel. Baker doubted it. He would believe it when he walked through his parents’ front door.
The brass had just started pulling rank for first crack at the prettiest women when a shrill whistle blew. A Partisan lieutenant shooed the girls away and they waived goodnight. The officers’ eyes flashed disappointment. War was hell indeed.
Nevertheless, the party had impressed Joe Foto, as did the plentiful food, clean bunks, and showers. He was in no hurry to depart. He heard truck drivers were needed to deliver supplies to the interior, so he found Lt. Pfeiffer and volunteered. “No,” laughed Pfeiffer. “We’d all be court-martialed.”
The four airmen boarded a ferry a few days later. Its British captain seemed unhappy to see them. “I wish that you Yanks would stop dropping your bombs in the Adriatic,” he groused. “You sink more of our ships than the enemy’s.”[v]
After an overnight stay at Vis, a ferry carried them to Italy. The Colonel in charge of repatriating evadees was not used to men arriving by ship. “Who are you guys?” he grumbled. “Where the hell did you come from? Nobody tells me anything.”
The four stood before him at attention. He pointed at Foto. “What do you want to do?” he bellowed. “I’ve been in Yugoslavia for two months, sir,” Foto rejoined. “I’d like to get checked out at the hospital.” The others agreed. The Colonel grunted and acquiesced.
First, however, they were debriefed. Foto and Kutch noted that Lt. Coe’s plane might have been saved if they knew about the emergency airstrip at Sanski Most. Lewis Baker emphasized that the entire ordeal had been unnecessary. The three C-47s could have carried all 84 airmen out of Sanski Most on January 5.
The doctors diagnosed Ed Kutch with dysentery and internal bleeding. After a month in the hospital in Bari, he transferred to an infirmary in Boston.
Lewis Baker suffered from severe weight loss. After a period of rest and recuperation, he flew missions until the end of the war.
Joe Foto spent a several weeks recovering from pneumonia. When he returned to squadron, his commander informed him that Wing Headquarters had changed the criteria for going home. He had to be missing 60 days, not 42. Foto had starved in Livno for nothing. Fortunately, the war was nearly over. He flew five milk runs before V-E Day came.
The doctors assumed that Tom Tamraz had dysentery like everyone else and prescribed medicine to bind him up. It was exactly the wrong treatment. After a few days, a nurse realized the mistake. Tamraz had not had a bowel movement in a week. He developed a case of hemorrhoids so severe he needed surgery.[vi]
[i] Lewis Baker diary, January 24-26, 1945; Joseph Foto interview, p. 15; and Tamraz interview, p. 55.
[ii] I’m Off To War, Mother, But I’ll be Back, p. 108, and Tamraz interview, pp. 53-5.
[iii] Lewis Baker diary, January 28-31; and Tamraz interview, p. 44.
[iv] Lewis Baker diary, February 1 and 2, 1945; and “My Thirteenth Mission” by Joseph Foto.
[v] NARA Record Group 226, Entry 136, Box 29; My Thirteenth Mission” by Joseph Foto; Lewis Baker diary, February 3 and 5, 1945; Foto interview, p. 16 and p. 19; and Tamraz interview, p. 59.
[vi] AFRHA Microfilm A6544C, p. 43; Reel B0607, pp. 1399-1400; Foto interview, p. 16-7; “My Thirteenth Mission” by Joseph Foto; and Tamraz interview, pp. 60-2.
Stalag Luft I
Chapter 20, “Far from Over,” summarizes the experiences of the Lost Airmen imprisoned in Stalag Luft I after their capture. The following gives a more complete account of their confinement.
Barker Houghton, Charles Fribley and Eugene Quinn had bailed out of Hixon Eldridge’s seemingly dying plane without orders. The locals who found them sold them out to the Germans along with ten AAF fliers from the 98th Bomb Group.
The captured airmen lay on the hay-strewn floor of a freight car in the Vienna rail yard. Their guard had left them to their fate. Air raid sirens wailed plaintively. Flak guns coughed shells skyward. Bombs screamed down and landed like blows from a giant sledgehammer. Brutal concussions rattled their bones. Flashes of light seared through their closed eyelids.
Houghton peeked out through gaps in the boxcar wall. A locomotive disintegrated in a cloud of steam. Cattle cars splintered into smithereens. Sonic forces cast people about like the sweep of an invisible hand.
The bombing stopped as suddenly as it began. The guard returned from his shelter and released the airmen—belatedly, they thought. Their train had escaped destruction, but it was trapped by grotesquely twisted tracks.
The Sergeant led the prisoners through the rail station. Civilians emerged. Their mood turned from fear to anger at the sight of the Americans. “Luftgangster!” “Terrorflieger!” they jeered. The rowdier among them threw punches. They would have beaten the airmen to death if the Sergeant had not ushered them away to another platform.
After a time, the guard handed his submachine gun to one of his charges and excused himself. The Americans gawked at each other in amazement. Slowly the logic of the situation dawned. They could not shoot their way out of Germany. If they tried to escape, the civilians would tear them apart, machinegun or not. When their guard returned, they gave the weapon back to him.
They boarded the next train in depressed silence. Houghton, Fribley, and Quinn had been strangers before they boarded Eldridge’s aircraft. They would spend the duration as POWs. Quinn’s only footwear was the stocking feet of his electric flight suit. Houghton, who had evaded capture once before, had been less lucky this time. Fribley could have gone home if he had managed to return from his 35th sortie. As his captor had said, the war was over for him, though not in the way Fribley had hoped.[i]
The train arrived at Frankfurt am Main a day and a half later. The station’s arched metal roof, once filled with panes of glass, now contained only shards. Trucks transported Americans to Dulag Luft Zwei in Wetzlar a satellite of the POW collection point at nearby Oberursel. “Dulag Luft” stood for Durchgangslager der Luftwaffe, or Transit Camp-Air Force. There they would be processed, interrogated, and passed on to permanent camps.
Passing through the barbed wire gates, the Americans were led not to one of the two dormitory-style buildings that housed most of the POWs, but to a third building containing 200 tiny solitary confinement cells. It was the Germans’ way of softening them up prior to questioning.
After four days of solitude and meager rations, prisoners faced skilled interrogators well versed in American slang and profanities. Most of these Luftwaffe intelligence officers were familiar with America and tried to draw airmen into conversations about their hometowns. Often, they claimed to be Americans who had accepted the Nazi party line. The queries were friendly, at least at first. After the airmen relaxed, the Germans mixed in innocuous military questions. If that failed, the interrogators nonchalantly demonstrated they already possessed more knowledge than the prisoners did themselves. Sometimes, shocked fliers blurted out revealing responses.
When Barker Houghton’s turn came, two friendly Luftwaffe officers greeted him by rank and name. They knew Houghton had been shot down previously and that the Italian underground had helped him return to his base. They knew his escape route, the names of his Partisan helpers, and his hiding places. They understood his crewmates fates better than he did.
Houghton kept his head. Any stray detail might prove fatal to his friends. He recited his name, rank, and serial number. They asked again about his evasion and claimed to know the answers to their questions. Houghton repeated his name, rank and serial number, certain a beating would ensue. Instead, he was sent back to his cell.
Days later, he returned for more questioning. The interrogators posed the same inquiries, but more insistently. Houghton remained firm. Once more they ordered him to solitary.
More days passed. At last, the Germans removed Houghton from his cell and placed him with the general POW population. Everyone there had received the same treatment.[ii]
Eugene Quinn endured only a brief interrogation. A short while later, however, the Luftwaffe officers summoned him again to answer one more question. Would he be interested in sending a telegram to his parents to let them know he was safe?
Quinn had heard the offer would come. His superiors advised he should refuse. The Germans might use the telegram as a propaganda ploy or send agents to harass his mother and father. Quinn disagreed. By now, his parents knew something was wrong. This was his only opportunity let them he was alive. There was no propaganda value in that. Certainly, German spies had better things to do than to accost a lowly tail gunner’s family. He accepted the proposal.
Two days before Christmas, Quinn’s telegram arrived at his family’s home in Baltimore. The US government notice that he was MIA did not arrive until weeks later. No mysterious characters pestered the house. The worst effect of Quinn’s decision was that his parents were soon deluged with junk mail soliciting contributions to prisoner-of-war relief funds.[iii]
Disconcerting news arrived. The Allies had suffered setbacks in the Argonne forest. Nonetheless, morale remained high. The POWs remained confident their side would win.
Conditions were tolerable. Red Cross packages supplemented their rations. The barracks lacked heat, but most of the men owned warm flight suits. Those without enough clothing could get sweaters or socks from Red Cross representatives.
On Christmas Day, the reassuring boom of Allied bomb strikes emanated from the town’s railroad station. The prisoners celebrated the holiday in earnest, if only to show the Germans their spirits remained unbroken. They laughed, sang loudly, and devoured delicacies from special Red Cross packages—cans of turkey, Vienna sausages, fruit, and pudding. Captured paratroop chaplains conducted services. Houghton attended an Episcopalian service and received Communion for the first time. He scrounged a bible read it fervently over the next few days.
The airmen soon boarded another train for their ultimate destination, Stalag Luft I near Barth on the Baltic Sea. Their path took them through Berlin. Though not allowed outside their boxcars, they witnessed ample evidence of massive Allied bombing raids. Burned and gutted buildings lined the tracks for miles on end. Most lacked roofs. Glassless windows returned their stares. Elderly people picked at rubble searching for the remnants of their lives. No American had seen such destruction, not even in London.
On New Year’s Eve, the train paused in a Berlin rail yard. A bribed guard brought some beer and schnapps and the POWs prepared to usher in the New Year with gusto. Soon, however, air raid sirens wailed, and bombs rained all around them. The men passed the contraband bottles, wondering which slug would be their last. The explosions crescendoed and ceased. Fribley, Houghton and Quinn had survived a second heavy bomber attack.
They reached Stalag Luft I the next day. As they entered the camp’s double barbed-wire gates, the airmen realized they would not pass through them again until the end of the war.[iv]
Stanley Schwartz of Ted Keiser’s crew arrived at Stalag Luft I about a week later. Schwartz had also been processed at the Dulag. As a Jew, he needed to be particularly careful during his interrogation even though he had taken the precaution of wearing a false set of dog tags declaring his religion as Christian. Blond haired and blue eyed, he resembled the Nazi ideal more than many Germans. His captors assumed that “Schwartz”—a common German surname—indicated an Aryan ancestry.
Schwartz possessed the advantage of having learned Yiddish as a child. His vocabulary contained enough German that he could understand much of his interrogators’ discussions.
Schwartz convinced his captors he was an ethnic German. When they suggested he ought to help his cousins by divulging information, he insisted he was an American at heart and declined. They accepted his response and let him graduate to the general barracks.[v]
Houghton, Fribley, Quinn, and Schwartz were part of a rapid expansion of the prison’s population. During their stay, the Stalag’s population increased from 5,000 to over 9,000, well beyond its designed capacity. The original facility, the South Compound, had been supplemented by a West and two North Compounds. Now the Germans completed another annex, North 3. While the first complex included amenities such as latrines, running water, and recreational and mess halls, Houghton, Fribley, Quinn, and Schwartz resided in the latter, shabbier accommodations.
The Stalag’s roster featured a Who’s Who of captured American aviators, including Lt. Colonel Francis S. Gabreski, the top ace in Europe with 28 credited kills. Other famous residents included Lt. Col. Ross Greening, a Doolittle Raid veteran and Major Jerry Johnson, with 16 kills.
Most importantly, the senior Allied officer was Colonel Hubert Zemke. Headstrong, irascible, and driven, Zemke brought the same determined leadership to the camp that had made his 56th Fighter Group the highest-scoring American unit in Europe. Credited with 17.75 kills of his own, Zemke had been ordered to take a staff post. He decided to fly one last time. Ferocious weather accomplished what the Luftwaffe could not. Turbulence tore his wing off and Zemke bailed out. A badly injured leg precluded escape. Of German descent, he spoke his captors’ language well enough that he did not need an interpreter to communicate with them.[vi]
Barracks were constructed of rough-cut wood with a central corridor and dormitory rooms on either side. Each housed about 30 men in double or triple-stacked bunks. Built on foot-high stilts to discourage tunneling and facilitate patrols by vicious German shepherds, the barracks sieved the little heat offered by pot belly stoves.
Every morning and evening the men ushered out of their barracks for roll call—rain or shine, warm or cold. Allied officers conducted the roll with the military precision to demonstrate they were still soldiers. The efficient display also minimized the time spent out in the cold.
Inactivity—the psychological strain of waiting—preyed on the men’s minds. Many of them laid idly despite the availability of outdoor exercise. Poor footgear and weather kept some inside. Malnourished and depression stopped others. The camp library offered several books, but all reading had to be done by daylight. Houghton read the recent bestseller “The Robe,” which fed his newfound religiosity.[vii]
The possibility of escape occupied the minds of many. A committee reviewed and coordinated all plans to break out.
Most attempts involved tunneling. The sandy dug easily but also contributed to cave-ins. A high water table caused flooding. Unknown to the POWs, the Germans had installed seismic sensing equipment and knew when burrowing began. Guards would allow their captives to dig for weeks only to “discover” the tunnel as it neared the fences.
Nevertheless, the prisoners made more than 90 escape attempts. Few reached beyond the fence and none traveled farther than Barth. The language barrier, plus the necessity for money, identity cards, and travel permits rendered success impossible. In the end, even if one managed to get outside the Stalag, there was nowhere to go—at least until the Red Army neared. By then, there seemed little point in taking the risk. Eventually, Zemke concluded his men’s limited energies were better spent on improving their living conditions.[viii]
Until January, when Houghton, Fribley, Quinn, and Schwartz entered the camp, the German treatment of the POWs had been largely benign. After the New Year, however, a regime led by Oberst (Colonel) von Warnstedt began. All rules became enforced to the letter.
Now any prisoner who stepped out of his barracks during an air raid could be shot. While all prisoners knew the rule, warnings came from whistles, not sirens. Sometimes the alarm was lost in the background noise of thousands of crowded men. In March, the guards shot two POWs well after bombers had passed overhead. Neither man was challenged by sentries before they were gunned down. No doubt, the guards had been looking for an excuse to shoot.
The prisoners’ lives grew more miserable at every turn. The guards confiscated clothing and furniture with flimsy excuses. Coal declined. Sanitation disappeared. Vermin infested the barracks. A power failure shut down the water supply for three days. Some desperate men resorted to scooping rainwater from mud puddles.
Morale fluctuated with the availability of food. Usually, seven prisoners split the daily ration of a loaf of bread. POW volunteers prepared one hot meal per day, usually sauerkraut or dishwater stew concocted from turnips, rutabagas, or beets. Sometimes, following air attacks on roads cluttered with horse-drawn carts, the prisoners were treated to a dose of horsemeat.
Starvation was staved off only by Red Cross food parcels containing cans of spam or corned beef, oleo margarine, prunes, powdered milk, biscuits, soluble coffee, sugar, D-bars (a bittersweet chocolate), jam, cheese, and salmon, along with cigarettes. Spam was the real staple. The prisoners would boil it, fry it, or add it to their stew.
Soon a lack of Red Cross packages forced Colonel Zemke to cut rations in half. Twice again they were halved. From mid-February through the end of March, no parcels arrived at all.
Scarcity bred a striving black market. Houghton traded two D-bars—worth an enormous twenty dollars—for a knit wool cap with his nickname, “Woof,” embroidered on its forefront.
Though strictly verboten, trade also flourished between the POWs and their captors. Zemke’s men procured enough electronic parts to assemble a carefully hidden radio. Nevertheless, he took steps to ensure his men would not swap necessities for frivolous items like schnapps.
By March, the food supply fell below subsistence level. The resourceful prisoners proposed that Red Cross packages stockpiled in Sweden could be shipped to Lübeck, a port near to Barth. The POWs would help load them onto trucks. The scheme came into operation in early April. Packages became plentiful for the first time in two months and normal rations were restored.[ix]
Even as the outcome of the war grew more certain and food supplies increased, so did the POWs’ worries that the Germans might do something drastic. The guards ghettoized the Jewish airmen into a separate barracks. Speculation rose that the more fanatical Nazis might impose their Final Solution on them.
The danger was not limited to Jewish prisoners. A rumor spread that Hitler had ordered the execution of the general POW population. Another possibility was that the guards would resist the liberating Russians, a scenario certain to be disastrous for the POWs.
In case they needed to defend themselves, the prisoners formed secret commando and MP squads armed with cudgels and knifes. Renewed outdoor activities masked combat training.
A few officers proposed taking over the camp. Zemke forbade any such action, believing a revolt would result in a great loss of life and might provoke the very atrocities he was trying to avoid. Instead, he issued orders detailing how the POWs were to behave in the event of a transfer to Allied authority. Specifically, there would be no revenge against enemy personnel.
Late in April, Oberst von Warnstedt summoned Zemke to his office and read him a teletype order. Berlin had ordered the Kommandant to prepare to evacuate all prisoners from Stalag Luft I and take them to a location near Hamburg.
Zemke understood the implications immediately. The rail network in Germany was destroyed. The 9,000 POWs in the camp, many of whom were sick, wounded, and malnourished, would travel by foot. Supplies would be scarce. Casualties would be high. Moreover, the order meant the Red Army must be near.
On the other hand, if the prisoners refused to evacuate, the Germans might force them. An SS regiment stood nearby. Their intervention would result in catastrophe.
Zemke called a meeting of his staff, including the senior British officers. After an open discussion, Zemke asked them for their opinion via a secret ballot, the only time he invited a vote during his career. Refusal would be dangerous, and not just for the men under their command. Reprisals might be taken against the officers who were voting.
Nevertheless, the staff voted overwhelmingly that they should stay put. They spread the word through the camp and activated the commando squad. Zemke notified von Warnstedt of their verdict. In the event of a forced removal, the Kommandant and the high command would be held responsible for any loss of life. Everyone nervously awaited the German reaction.
The next day, von Warnstedt informed his superiors of the POWs’ position. Further, he argued he did not have enough staff to force them to move. Unless he received orders to the contrary, they would remain at Stalag Luft I. Zemke learned of the communication through spies.
Time passed without any word from the German high command. Still, the signs were encouraging. The guards stopped enforcing the rules. Intercepted BBC broadcasts urged POWs to stay where they were because liberation was imminent.
Security eased. Zemke sent three teams in different directions to search for Allied troops. Meanwhile, he prepared to take over the camp at the first sign of trouble.
On May 1, von Warnstedt beckoned Zemke to his office for the final time. The once arrogant Kommandant announced “the war is over for us.” He asked if he and his command could leave without bloodshed. Clearly his intent was to find the Americans or the British and surrender rather than submit to the marauding Russians. Zemke answered with a resounding “yes.” That night, the Germans skulked out of camp and fled to the west.[x]
Rid of their captors yet not quite liberated, the men felt the exhilaration of freedom as only those who have lost it can.
Still, chaos reigned the countryside. Leaving the compound could be dangerous. Zemke and his staff found themselves in the odd position of keeping their long-imprisoned subordinates confined until the Russians arrived. Some of the men, intoxicated with the elixir of liberty, went “over the hill” despite the MPs’ best efforts. Moreover, the starving German locals now looked on the Stalag as a source of food and sanctuary from the Red Army. Allied sentries kept a lookout in both directions, staving off civilians while preventing their fellow soldiers from going AWOL.
Baker Houghton shared the impulse to skedaddle but lacked the energy. Instead, he stuffed himself with the suddenly plentiful food. The camp’s loudspeakers played a BBC radio broadcast of Hit Parade, which always counted down to the most popular song. To the delight of all, the number one hit turned out to be Bing Crosby’s “Don’t Fence Me In.”
On May 2, the first Russian troops arrived, drunken Cossacks on horseback armed with Tommy-guns. The airmen tore down the fences with an abandon some compared to toppling goalposts after a raucous football game. A few prisoners shot off pilfered flare guns. Sparkling red and green projectiles flew among the wooden barracks. The officers feared a devastating fire.
Things settled down when a Russian colonel arrived and took charge. An uneasy relationship with the Russians began. Unruly Red Army troops were as apt to take POW belongings as they were to loot the German population. Russian officers suggested the former prisoners should stay out of their way as they cleared the countryside.
Eventually, order returned. A limited number of POWs were allowed to dispel the monotony by visiting nearby Barth. Eugene Quinn was one of the lucky few. Some got into trouble. At least two were murdered by vengeful civilians. Quinn made friends with a man named Schultz who claimed to have a cousin living in Quinn’s native Baltimore.
V-E Day was enlivened by a ceremonial burning of the camp watchtowers. Several maddening days passed while British, American, and Russian authorities negotiated their release.
Russian demands for a quid quo pro delayed the process. They wanted the Americans to turn over a Soviet turncoat, Andrei Vlasov, who had been captured by the Germans in 1942 and had raised a 50,000-man army of former Red Army soldiers to fight Stalin. His group had surrendered to the US Army in Czechoslovakia. Vlasov was handed over to the Russians on May 12 at 2:30. Uncoincidentally, American planes landed near Stalag Luft I an hour afterward.”[xi]
[i] Quinn interview, p. 7.
[ii] AFHRA Microfilm Reel A6544, p. 577; and Houghton 1999 Veterans Administration Questionnaire.
[iii] Quinn interview, p. 6 and p. 10.
[iv] Houghton interview by John Davis, pp. 8-9; and Houghton interview on Women’s Radio Journal, December 24, 1945.
[v] Keiser interview, p. 4; Chester interview, p. 23; and Sharon Schwartz interview.
[vi] Zemke’s Stalag: The Final Days of World War II, Introduction and pp. 1-19.
[vii] Joseph Schaller diary, January 23 and 27, 1945; Houghton interview, pp. 9-10; Quinn interview, p. 12; and Zemke’s Stalag, p. 17, p. 20 and p. 42.
[viii] Zemke’s Stalag, pp. 35-38, and Quinn interview, p. 11.
[ix] Houghton interview, p. 9; Quinn interview, p. 10; The Last Escape: The Untold Story of Allied Prisoners of War in Europe 1944-45, p. 248, Zemke’s Stalag, p. 28, p. 58 and pp. 60-6; and Joseph Schaller diary, January 27, February 4, and March 8, and 18, and April 1, 1945.
[x] The Last Escape, p. 248, and Zemke’s Stalag, p. 69 and pp. 73-82.
[xi] Per historian Patricia Wadley, in her book Even One is Too Many, cited in The Last Escape, pp. 248-50.
The Fates of Colonel Tomhave and Captain Boehme
Boehme, Charles Stewart’s copilot on the day he was shot down, is mentioned in Chapter 4, “Following in Tito’s Footsteps.” Tomhave, commander of the 485th, was the officer mocked by Richard Heim in the Stewart crew narrative above.
The ambitious Richard Boehme, who had flown as Scotty Stewart’s copilot when they bailed out on November 17, had returned to Italy far earlier that the rest of the crew. He soon received a promotion to Captain and became the Group Operations Officer.
Meanwhile, Colonel John Porter Tomhave, the West Point graduate who had caught Sgt. Richard Heim mocking him in Capri, continued to lead the 485th Bomb Group on combat missions.
On February 16, Tomhave—with Boehme sitting in the copilot’s chair—headed a raid against a jet aircraft factory in Regensburg. The mission went fine until the formation encountered unexpected flak on the return flight. Tomhave’s lead airplane suffered shrapnel hits. The B-24 just behind him, piloted by Lt. Carl Stockdale, lurched left, right, and left again. His wing slammed into the side of Tomhave’s aircraft, severing its tail. The two planes crashed within a half mile of each other near Chiusaforte, Italy. Ten men died, including Captain Richard Boehme.
Colonel Tomhave parachuted safely but was soon captured. Three days later, Allied fighters strafed Tomhave’s train as it carried him toward Germany. Tomhave was killed by the friendly fire. Just 28 years old, he left behind a wife and a young daughter.[i]
[i] AFHRA Microfilm Reel B0644 pp. 351-2; and Richard Boehme Individual Deceased Personnel File.