March to liberation: A Memoir of World War II Experiences

We slept on straw ticks on the floor. Later, my ball turret gunner and I were separated, but still in the same barracks. There was a line separating the barracks. Even though we were in the same barracks, we were separated for all intents and purposes. I would say thirty to forty prisoners were on each side.

Our early morning routine started with a call out for reveille.

They lined us up in formation in front of each barracks, two lines, one in front of the other. The German guard would count us off to make sure everyone of us was there. After reveille, we were allowed to walk for fifteen to twenty minutes. To the best of my knowledge, there were about a dozen barracks to each compound, and four compounds. At one end of each field there were German headquarters, and at the other end were the guard towers with machine guns and a double fence. Between the headquarters and the guard towers was a large field, almost the size of a football field. There were six barracks on either side of this field.

At one end of our side of the barracks there was a washhouse and shower. We were allowed to shower once a week. We had one potbelly stove, this was our only heat source. We were issued one blanket and one pair of long underwear for each prisoner.

One of the things that we did for entertainment, if one could call it entertainment, was after taking off our long underwear we would pick the lice out of the seams. Lice were a constant irritation.

Each prisoner was given a bowl and a spoon. We were issued one bowl full of broth and about one fifth of a loaf of black bread.

This was our daily subsistence.

Occasionally, we’d get a piece of fat in our broth, I use the term ‘fat’ as a general term. Bugs and worm-like maggots in the soup, literally, were the only source of protein we got. It seemed rather gross in the beginning, but after awhile we thought it was pretty good stuff. It was our basic livelihood. I weighed 175 pounds when I was first captured. Three or four weeks after I was liberated, my weight was 123 pounds. I had lost at least 50 pounds.

Our daily routine started with a walk out in formation. We’d come in and they would let us do whatever we wanted for a short 32