by Ian Gardner
Don and another man opted to join the Czech guerrillas and, despite the language barrier, fought with them for the next two months. He continues:
We didn’t take any prisoners, and to us every dead enemy soldier was a “good comrade.” We soon met up with the Russians, who were brilliant, and it was while working with them in early May that we finally hooked up with the American 1st ID. To be honest many of us wanted to continue fighting but were told that it just wasn’t an option. So we were sent to Camp Lucky Strike at Le Havre to await shipment home. At that time I had long hair and a full beard and weighed around 115lb. When I enlisted on September 12, 1942, I weighed 180lb! The quartermaster at Lucky Strike issued us with cash and new uniforms, and for the first time we had access to decent food and regular showers.
We were given 48-hour passes to Paris and spent a wonderful couple of days exploring the city and its restaurants. My prison buddy and I met up with two American Army girls and spent an afternoon enjoying the sights. It was strange to think that only one year earlier we had been paraded through the streets like criminals. The Parisians we came across seemed slightly distant, but at least it was better than being spat on. It is fair to say that the behavior of some American servicemen at that time wasn’t particularly good, which probably didn’t help the situation.
The following day we intervened at one restaurant when a drunken soldier stood on a table and began to sing lewd songs in front of the other customers. We told the man and his friends that they were a disgrace to our uniform but nobody seemed to give a damn. By this time I was fuming and through gritted teeth responded, “You might want to be careful when you leave.” “Why?” came the reply. “Because somebody might be out there waiting for you.” At that point, I turned and walked outside, expecting at least one of them to follow, but the cowards decided to make a run for it and left through a back door.
After returning by train to Le Havre we boarded a passenger ship for the voyage home. Two weeks later, at the end of June, we docked at Newport News and were sent to a large military base in West Virginia. Here, I was given two months’ leave and said goodbye to most of the POWs before heading home to the west coast with my three remaining “muckers.” There were a lot of young women with small children on the train, and we offered our overcoats as blankets and pillows for some of the kids. When we reached Marysville, California, I said a final farewell to my buddies and never saw them again.
From here I hitchhiked to San Francisco and caught the bus to San Rafael. Since I’d been away my parents had moved to a new address – 28 Hart Avenue – so I took a cab (the taxi driver never charged me) and arrived at their house around midnight. Although my folks were asleep the front door was unlocked. Walking into their bedroom, I picked my dad out of bed and said, “Hi Pop,” before hugging the life out of him. During the commotion my mother awoke and burst into floods of tears. We stayed up the rest of the night talking … reaching across every now and then just to touch my Mom’s hand… It was good to be home.
On August 15, 1945, six days before Don’s leave expired, the Japanese surrendered and World War II officially came to an end.
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On April 25, the link-up of US and Russian troops at Torgau on the river Elbe affected the dynamic of many POWs in northeastern Germany. The situation on the enemy flanks after this momentous event ceased to be of any further importance, and the only justification to Germany for continuing the war was to allow their divisions in the east time to fight their way back into the areas held by British and American forces.
At one point Hitler actually considered using a threat to execute 35,000 POWs (there were around 270,000 prisoners in Germany in 1945) unless the Allies agreed to broker some kind of peace deal. However, SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS Gottlob Berger (who had been appointed general commander of POW camps in 1944) convinced Hitler that using the prisoners as hostages might be a better idea. Thankfully, neither option materialized, although the resulting forced migration from east to west caused the deaths of thousands of Allied POWs and concentration camp inmates.
Dozens of 3rd Bn men like Ross were captured during the first few days of Normandy, including Capt John McKnight and his radio operator Joe Beyrle, Pvt David Morgan, and Jim Brown’s twin brother Jack, who all came from I Co. Others previously mentioned, such as George “Doc” Dwyer, Ray Calandrella, Johnny Gibson, Marty Clark, and Joe Gorenc, along with Joe Mielcarek, Jim Sheeran, and Bernie Rainwater, eventually managed to escape and return to the United Kingdom before the invasion of the Netherlands. Most of these, including Ray, would eventually return to active service and fight at Bastogne.
Following D-Day, after a brief spell at Dépôt de Remonte, all of the POWs including those from 3/506 ended up at the Hôtellerie Notre-Dame (“Starvation Hill”) south of St-Lô, where they were eventually split into three distinct groups. The main body, numbering around 700, was sent southwest by road to a military base at Rennes (Frontstalag 221). This group included Dwyer and Gorenc, as well as Brown and Calandrella, whose footwear had been stolen by the Germans. Two smaller groups were also mobilized for movement (southeast) to a temporary facility at Alencon. The first departed by truck around June 10, and the other followed on foot two weeks later.
Shortly after their arrival at Alencon, a number of men from the first group were selected for a march through Paris. Among those forced to participate were John McKnight, Joe Beyrle, Bernie Rainwater, Jim Sheeran, Pvt John McKinstry (81mm mortar platoon), Marty Clark, George Rosie, Jim Bradley, and Don Ross, who recalled the march when he was finally a free visitor to the city.
Dwyer, Brown, Calandrella, and Gorenc fared better and as part of the main body were sent by train to Frontstalag 194 at Châlons-sur-Marne (near Mourmelon). The circular route from Frontstalag 221 lasted 23 days and followed a convoluted course through the Indre-et-Loire region of central France – where Dwyer and Gorenc made good their escape.
In total, some 2,000 Allied prisoners converged on Paris for the “Walk of Shame” that took place around June 20. Flanked by armed guards, the heavily bearded prisoners were formed into three enormous columns and marched past the Arc de Triomphe in a long meandering procession en route to Gare de l’Est railway station. At the head of the column were two German officers and dozens of cameramen, all eager to photograph every aspect of the “humiliated” servicemen. Loudspeakers were placed along the route, broadcasting propaganda stating that all paratroopers were in fact convicted criminals and rapists who had been given the option of joining the army rather than go to jail (which was partly true in Chester Molawa’s case). The column came to a halt beyond the iron footbridge spanning Rue d’Alsace, alongside the station. From here the POWs, including the 3rd Bn men, were loaded aboard dozens of 40/8 boxcars and sent via Château Thierry to Reims and then Châlons-sur-Marne.
Ray Calandrella remembers the living conditions at the barracks:
Sanitation at the former French cavalry barracks was not great and the water was even worse, but we did receive one Red Cross parcel between two men each week. The parcels were incredible and contained tins of salmon, meat roll, and condensed milk, as well as cigarettes, cheese, candy, and other delicious products. We had many air raid alerts, especially when the railway station was being bombed. Some like me were sent on work parties to the station to help clear up after the raids. I’d heard from one of the French civilians down at the station that the Allies weren’t far away and expected them to be here in about ten days. The work parties were issued extra rations of soup plus one food parcel per four men. On August 19, I made plans to escape with a boxcar buddy called Elmer Draver from the 29th ID.
Two days later, after we’d gathered enough rations to last until September 10, I helped Elmer climb up into the attic at the barracks. During morning roll call, Elmer was listed as missing, and despite a rigorous search, the Germans didn’t bother to look in the loft – which wasn’t really surprising as the ceiling hatch was about 15ft from the fl
oor. I carried on working down at the station for a couple of days, gathering more water and rations. On August 23, I joined Elmer by means of a rope he lowered made from knotted blankets.
Coincidentally, that afternoon, with Paris on the verge of liberation, around 1,000 POWs were moved to Limburg Stalag XII-A and XIID/Z Trier in Germany. With the barracks now empty, Calandrella and Draver remained in hiding for the next six days until Châlons was liberated on August 29. Two days later, on September 1, they were evacuated by air back to England, where Elmer opted for “ZI” and Ray returned to the battalion at Ramsbury.
In January 1945, after several disastrous attempts, Joe Beyrle and Pfc Arnaud Rocquin (506th Regt HQ Demolition Ptn) successfully escaped from Stalag III-C Altdrewitz, near the Polish border at Küstren. Wading east toward Poland along the banks of the river Warta, Beyrle managed to shake off the dogs and their handlers who had been following him. “Two days later, after walking toward the sound of advancing artillery fire, I ran into a Soviet tank squadron who, much to my amazement, were using ‘Lend-Lease’ Shermans. The only Russian words I knew were Amerikanskii Tovarisch [American Comrade], which at least stopped them from shooting me. The Russian troops quickly found an officer who spoke a little English and I was able to explain my situation. Somewhat reluctantly the Russians gave me a submachine gun and a brief lesson on how to look after it. I was assigned to one of the tanks, whose commander was a woman, and became one of her supporting infantrymen.” It was a similar story for Rocquin, who also managed to hook up with another Soviet unit and spent the next few weeks fighting with them.
Ironically Stalag III-C was liberated a few days later, after a 48-hour tank battle, and around 25,000 Allied POWs set free, as Pvt Bob Hayes from B/506 recalls:
After the Russians led us out of the camp we found out that we were on our own. Initially I was in a group of about 300 Americans but we decided to split up into smaller groups of 8–10 men.
My group was heading for Moscow and hitched rides on military vehicles whenever we could. For once, fresh food wasn’t a problem as the Germans had abandoned their farms and houses in the rush to evade Soviet forces. The Russian troops seemed friendly enough to us but it was clear that we were still on our own. By hopping trains through Poland we made it as far as Warsaw, where the Russians finally took action and began to round everyone up. I mean by then there were hundreds if not thousands of liberated prisoners mingling in the streets. The Russians provided accommodation and made sure that we were well fed. Eventually, after two or three weeks, everybody was sent 600 miles southeast to the Black Sea port of Odessa in the Ukraine for repatriation.
Incredibly, the Russian tank unit that Beyrle was working with arrived at the now abandoned III-C. “I was still shaking my head in disbelief when one of the Soviet soldiers asked me to come with him to the commandant’s office. In the room was a safe and my Russian chums were trying to figure out how to blow it using some quarter-pound blocks of US nitro-starch. When we got the safe open the guys helped themselves to all the shiny stuff and didn’t seem interested in the American, Canadian, French, and British currency … which I happily piled into a large satchel, thank you very much. While in the office, I was also able to locate my POW record card and picture, which ironically turned out to be one of the few things I managed to bring home!”
One month later Beyrle was wounded in the groin. “While recovering in a Russian field hospital somewhere in Poland, Georgi Zhukov, the Russian commander-in-chief and all round Soviet hero, visited the facility. I couldn’t stand upright like everyone else on my ward which kind of got Zhukov’s attention. Through an interpreter we had a short conversation during which I asked if it would be possible for him to write me a note of safe passage as I had no formal means (except for my record card) of identifying myself.” Years later Beyrle learned that his tank commander, who was only a year older, had been killed just one month after he was wounded. When Joe was discharged from hospital, he tried to make his way to Moscow, heading east in a Russian medical evacuation convoy toward Lodz, Poland. Inevitably he was redirected to Warsaw and joined the thousands of other Allied servicemen awaiting shipment to the Black Sea.
The men spent about two and a half weeks at Odessa while the port was being cleared of German mines and booby traps. Bizarrely, the first ship to arrive was His Majesty’s Troop Ship (HMTS) Samaria, the same passenger liner that had brought the 506th PIR to the United Kingdom on September 15, 1943.
After the Samaria unloaded its precious cargo of sugar, the POWs were allowed to board, as Bob Hayes recalls: “We set sail for Port Said in Egypt, where we were issued new uniforms and $100 cash.” From here the ship continued to Italy, where Beyrle underwent surgery to remove more shrapnel from his groin. On April 1, 1945 the Samaria left Naples, bound for the United States, and ten days later arrived in Boston.
Interestingly, within a month of the Samaria leaving Odessa, the Russian authorities closed the port and held thousands of liberated POWs against their will for “political screening.” Those found to be of Russian descent or whose families had left the Soviet Union seeking political asylum were detained by Stalin, who planned to use them as collateral in the postwar European carve up.
“I recall the date of our arrival vividly because it was the day before President Roosevelt died,” Hayes remembers. “After being processed at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, we were all given a 60-day leave and I went home to Indiana to see my folks and get things straightened out with my girlfriend, who had married another guy!” Joe Beyrle was reunited with his family on April 21, who showed him the official notices they had been sent about his mistaken “death” in Normandy and another letter from a 1st Lt R. B. Stevens representing the “Army Service Forces Office of The Fiscal Director,” demanding that they refund the $861.60 awarded to them as a “death gratuity!”
The road to Dresden
During the early stages of their captivity, George Rosie, Jim Bradley, and the others were sent into the streets of Alencon to excavate unexploded bombs. Afterwards the prisoners were moved a few miles further east to another transit camp at Chartres, located in a block of warehouses. “There were about 300 Americans in our part of the building,” recalls Rosie. “As the floors were covered with straw most of us soon became infested with fleas. Two days later we were on our way to Paris for the big march. In certain places there were hundreds of people lining the streets, men and women side by side, jeering … and on several occasions I saw guys getting punched as they passed by.” Most of these civilians were right-wing Vichy supporters placed along the route at specific points to abuse and antagonize the prisoners. Rosie was walking behind Jim Bradley and recalls, “One girl was running down the column ahead of me spitting at the men who were nearest. She got to Jim and was just about to let loose when he hawked up in her face … she wasn’t expecting that! I thought, boy we are going to catch hell now, but the guard just pushed her back into the crowd and we carried on.” Not long after the POWs’ unmarked train departed Paris, the locomotive was strafed by Allied fighters and badly damaged. The men spent the next few hours anxiously waiting inside the boxcars until a replacement engine could be found. Some of the bullets from the attack struck the first few carriages and Rosie and his friends prayed as the new locomotive was hooked up.
The laborious journey that followed spanned a couple of weeks due to constant track repairs before finally arriving at Châlons. On August 23, Châlons itself was evacuated and the prisoners sent to Limburg XII-A for processing. Limburg XII-A was situated south of the Ruhr valley a few miles east of Koblenz close to the border with Belgium and France. As a transit camp the primary function of XII-A was to process all newly captured POWs before sending them on to other camps deeper inside the Fatherland. Traditionally, the new arrivals would be interviewed, documented, and issued prison numbers. Due to the transient nature of the camp, no letters or Red Cross parcels were possible. However, the men were allowed to fill in one postcard containing the most basic informa
tion, which was then sent via the Red Cross to their next of kin. The Stalag held around 20,000 men who came from all corners of the globe, including Africa, France, India, Italy, Russia, Great Britain, and America.
“We were assigned to three large marquees with straw scattered across the ground and for the first time in almost 50 days I was able to wash in fresh water,” recalls Rosie. He continues:
Our captors issued us with an identification tag perforated down the center apparently so the metal could be split and one half placed in your mouth if you died!
During the interview process the Germans asked what our former occupations had been. You can imagine some of the answers: “Rum Runner,” “Pimp,” “Cowboy,” and so on and so forth. Back in our tent we learned that an Air Force sergeant had been worked over pretty badly by one of the guards using a rubber hose. We soon found out that when the Krauts said “Move,” we moved. And fast! A few days later while we were on parade about 400 names were called, mine included. After being directed to a wooden barracks we were showered and deloused before being sent to the railway station, where once again they took away our footwear.
After boarding the boxcars we were surprised to find some bread and corned beef on the floor. The guards sarcastically told us that this was more than enough to feed us for the next three days! Although crowded and stuffy we traveled through the night, which at least gave us some feeling of security. [The paratroopers were heading 240 miles east across Germany to the town of Mühlberg on the river Elbe.]
