'Orders to cut a trap door in each room and to dig trenches'

Lauren L. Schwisow

Shortly after completing B-24 training at Gowen Field, my wife, Reta, and I celebrated the Fourth of July with our families in Nebraska.

Soon thereafter our crew was assigned a plane in Topeka, Kan. We flew to Italy where we were based with the 15th Air Force, and on July 25, 1944, I became a prisoner of war.

It could be said that I went from feasting to fasting in 21 days.

The target of our ill-fated mission was the Hermann Goering Tank Works in Linz, Austria. We were bounced by 25 twin-engine and 125 single-engine enemy planes, according to a report on Mission 69 in 461st Bomb Group records.

Eleven bombers were knocked down over the target area. Confusion reigned! A nose gunner in one of the few returning planes counted 32 parachutes in the air at one time.

Fifteen percent of the 113 crewmen lost on that mission were completing their tours of duty. Our plane was set on fire by an FW 190. The fearsome sight of that plane and the German pilot outside my co-pilot's window is still etched permanently in my memory.

Discretion being the better part of valor, I jumped. I remember holding on to the D ring after opening my parachute. I had some romantic notion of keeping the ring to display to others. I believe I saw that being done in some movie. Unfortunately, my captors didn't see the same movie and weren't impressed.

I landed hard on my rump in a hay meadow. After a minute to clear my head, I stood up and was startled by a voice shouting something. Approximately 20 yards away stood an elderly man in some kind of makeshift uniform. He had a gun pointed at me and fired a shot. Fortunately he missed, either because of poor marksmanship or by design.

I was unarmed, so I just put my hands over my head. For me, the war was over before it really began. My first reaction was relief, "I'm down!" followed by fear, "that fellow had a gun pointed at me," and shock, "here I am on Mission No. 1 and it wasn't supposed to be like this." Anger, "not fair!" and loss, "I am no longer in charge," which became rudely evident when I was taken to a small building near the searchlight on which I had nearly landed.

A short time later I was joined by an enlisted man from another crew. We were loaded into an open-air truck and driven slowly through the country side, stopping several times to add more airmen prisoners.

All along the way we were the object of animosity, anger and curiosity to the local people. Their threatening gestures made me thankful I was under military control, albeit by the enemy.

Our journey ended before the stone walls of a very large camp. Upon entering the gate, I received a sound farewell kick in the rear.

We attracted the attention of other prisoners in the camp, but the guards would only allow them to look at us from a distance. One of the barracks housed women prisoners. During the afternoon, about a dozen dead bodies were wheeled in and dumped for later disposal.

Eventually, our number grew until we totaled about 35. Six of my crew joined me there and we spent two days and three nights together in that location. The terrible screams we heard during the nights reminded us that we were no longer masters of our own fates.

I didn't know the name of that camp until 1988 when I found its location and name in the Holocaust Museum while on a tour of Jerusalem. It was Mauthausen, an active concentration camp since 1938. Some of the buildings still exist today and function as a museum of peace. Reta and I visited there in 1990.

From Mauthausen we were moved to a railroad station in Frankfurt, where we welcomed the protection of German guards. The civilians were hostile and threatening, but with good cause, for over half of the roof of the train station was gone and as far as the eye could see on either side of the railroad tracks, all buildings were demolished.

We were taken to rooms deep below the station to await transportation to Oberusal, about eight miles north of Frankfurt.

Oberusal was the main interrogation center. I was placed in solitary confinement where I expected to stay at least six days.

After a session with the German Luftwaffe interrogator, it became obvious that this time could be better spent with the next one in line rather than with a guy who was shot down on Mission No. 1. So, I was moved on to Dulag Luft at Wetzlar.

There I had my first shower and the first substantial meal since my capture. In addition, each new arrival received a "capture parcel" from the American Red Cross containing basics such as a shirt, trousers, underwear, overcoat, wool cap, socks, tooth brush, etc. -- items which proved invaluable during the long months of winter.

I remember very little from Wetzlar to Barth, a fishing village on the Baltic Sea and the site of Stalag Luft No. 1, a permanent camp. I was assigned to a war-weary coach crammed closely with prisoners. I slept on different occasions in the baggage rack above the seats. We were always fearful that our train would be strafed by allied aircraft so the time spent sitting in the marshaling yards in Berlin elevated one's blood pressure significantly.

We arrived at Stalag Luft I in early August 1944.

I was first assigned to a tent, and in September I was moved to a newly constructed section of the camp. I only mention this because 13 of us from the tents skillfully managed to get assigned the same room and we stayed together until the camp was liberated the following May 1945. Our number expanded to 24 as more fliers came into camp. We bonded together and developed a feeling of family, which helped me, at least, to get through the dark, cold, boring days of winter, 1944-45.

At first, food was sufficient, as our standard Red Cross parcel, weighing 91/2 pounds, supplemented the German allocation. The parcels contained cube sugar, cheese, jam, crackers, a chocolate bar, meat pate, coffee, margarine, corned beef, Spam, prunes or raisins, powdered milk, salmon or tuna, soap and cigarettes.

Unfortunately, we went from one parcel for two people in October to no parcels in January. So I went on the German diet plan, about 800 calories per day - a guarantee to result in weight loss.

We were constantly hungry, and the only topic of conversation was food. We could each visualize that special dish for which we longed. For me, I dreamed of pancakes. Oh, how I fantasized about a glorious stack of hotcakes with butter running down the side, smothered in syrup. But reality gave me five or six thin slices of German bread per day. A loaf was said to weigh 31/2 pounds, was aged three days and the contents were 60 percent potato flour, 30 percent rye flour and 10 percent sawdust. We also had a small serving of potatoes or rutabagas, some dried vegetables, occasionally weak barley gruel with weevils, ersatz coffee, and sometimes a hint of meat which was undoubtedly the contribution made by a poor horse who didn't run fast enough to escape the American airplanes.

The enforced leisure also brought out the talent in the POWs. We built our own cooking utensils from Kilm cans. The solder from Spam and corned beef cans went into many kinds of molds to make wings and other insignia. One POW made a professional-sounding violin.

On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, starvation ended with the arrival of 2,000 Red Cross parcels, and they kept coming for the entire week until the total reached 76,000.

I ate, got sick and joined the long lines to the latrines. On April 24, 60 tons of potatoes were delivered to the camp. From famine to feast!

All throughout captivity, our camp had access to the news via the British Broadcasting Corp. Several clandestine radios, which the Germans tried to find on a number of searches, kept us abreast of the happenings of the war.

We knew the end of the war was coming close because we could hear the artillery fire. Both British and Russian forces were in position to liberate the camp. Rumors were rampant. Liberation could come at any time, but no one was certain when.

On April 30, Col. Zempke, the American camp commander, gave orders to cut a trap door in each room and to dig trenches from our room to other trenches for protection in case the Germans decided to fight over our camp.

I also learned 50 years later that on the day before, the Germans had given the order to evacuate our camp, but Zempke refused. We had been keenly aware of the demolition taking place at the nearby flak school and when the camp ammunition dump was detonated, it felt as though the 10,000 prisoners would go into orbit.

Around 2400 hours on April 30, an eerie stillness settled over the camp. The next morning, we saw our own M.P.s in the guard tower.

Stalag Luft I was liberated. The first Russians to make contact with the camp were a group of Mongolian cavalrymen. They were mounted on shaggy-haired ponies, a picturesque but scary lot.

Late on the afternoon of May 2, we demolished the fences that were the visible symbols of our confinement. Then the situation really got dicey. With the fences down, POWs went into Barth, a small village near the camp, or wandered around the peninsula or started walking toward allied lines even though ordered to stay in camp by Zempke. About half of my roommates walked out of camp and headed west.

I stayed because I was too pragmatic, reasoning that thus far I was still alive and I trusted our leaders to get us home. In my diary I griped about the delays, the confusion and, at one time, being ordered by the Russian commander to get ready to march to Rostock, either to entrain to Odessa or to meet allied lines. This order was countermanded by a Russian general. On May 7 the Russians drove a herd of Holstein cows. These were milked first and then slaughtered. Several entries in my diary mentioned getting up at 4:30 a.m. to go milking, something I knew how to do from my early days on the farm in Nebraska.

The details with the Russians were finally worked out and on May 13, I boarded a B-17 from the Eighth Air Force, 306th Bomb Group. We landed at Leon, France. I considered that the end of my first mission, just 293 days after beginning.

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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