No Victory in Valhalla

by Ian Gardner

  We stopped early the next morning and the doors were opened. Stepping down onto the tracks into fresh air was wonderful as we went to empty our latrine buckets. As I was replenishing the drinking water the guard nearest me said that we could expect to reach our new camp by next morning.

  Situated 30 miles northwest of Dresden Stalag IV-B was one of the largest in Germany, covering 74 acres. Rosie continues his account:

  After arriving at 0700hrs, our boots were returned and we marched into camp. After being inoculated against typhus and several other diseases we were issued two blankets, 12 cigarettes, and a Red Cross parcel before being shown to our barracks. The Canadian sergeant major (WOII), who ran our compound, was known to all as “The Man of Confidence.” This meant that he was the duly elected liaison between the POWs and the Germans. During my time as a prisoner, IV-B was by far the best run, no doubt thanks to the efforts of that Canadian warrant officer. To us the additional Red Cross supplies were all valuable currency and could be readily exchanged for other more luxurious items that were available for the right price.

  I’m not saying that the Germans fed us well but we were receiving three small meals a day and began to get some strength back. Although the Russian area was off limits, Jim Bradley and I would walk over to the other compounds occupied by the Dutch and French. At that time camp life wasn’t too bad and we joined in with some of the sporting activities that were on offer such as basketball. One of the men from the 82nd Airborne, Patrick Bogie, was recruited for our “team.” Pat soon became our “mucker,” pooling food and cigarettes. Bradley didn’t smoke so he traded his ciggies for extra rations and collectively we exchanged all of our duplicate items.

  Over in the Canadian compound there were five or six Americans who had joined the Canadian Army, only to be captured at Dieppe.

  “While the weather was good the camp set up a basketball league, and Bogie and I qualified for places on the Canadian team and guess what? We won the competition. Most of the Canadians had been at IV-B for nearly two and a half years and were now receiving between ten and 12 cartons of cigarettes regularly per month! The Canadian press printed lists of its POWs along with their respective prison camps and invited people to send gifts to them through the International Red Cross. Of course these guys were now betting large amounts of ‘smokes,’ and because our team was doing so well they would reward us with two or three cartons every time we won.” Luckily for Rosie, the “Man of Confidence” also played on the Canadian basketball team and made sure that George’s prison records were changed from “Private First Class” to “Corporal.”

  By November it had begun to turn cold, as Rosie recalls: “With no heating, Jim, Pat, and I took to sharing a double bunk with six blankets. Every now and then we would rotate our positions so we all had a share of the ‘warm spot’ in the middle.” By December 1944, around 7,500 US POWs arrived from the Battle of the Bulge, although 3,000 were quickly transferred to other camps.

  “Some were paratroopers but most were from the 106th ID,” Rosie continues, “and of course we were all shocked by what they had to say about the Ardennes. Around January 5, due to overcrowding, we moved again but this time in Wehrmacht boxcars installed with coal stoves.” Thankfully, the journey was only 70 miles to the US NCO camp at Fürstenburg III-B, situated on the river Oder, southeast of Berlin. Rosie recalls:

  Our barracks were in a terrible state and hadn’t been used for some time. The bunks didn’t have enough slats so the next day we found an empty block and scrounged every bed plank we could find. That evening they issued each one of us 20 cigarettes. After reveille the next day we had hot showers, clean underwear (which was a minor miracle), and were issued one Red Cross parcel between two people… The rations at Stalag III-B were probably the best food we’d had so far. Trading with the guards was quite normal and we were always able to swap cigarettes for a loaf of bread or butter. One of the guys had a secret radio so we knew that the Russians were fast approaching from the east.

  On January 31, Rosie’s world turned upside down. Since December, to prevent repatriation, the Germans had been evacuating the main camps in Poland, Silesia, Czechoslovakia, and East Prussia. Thousands of POWs were herded east along three routes. The northern route emanated from East Prussia and followed a course through Pomerania to Fallingbostel. The southern began at Teschen near Auschwitz and continued through Czechoslovakia to Moosburg in Bavaria. The central route started in Silesia via Görlitz and finished at Luckenwalde III-A. The event became known as “The Long March,” and thousands died on the much longer northern and southern routes, with many covering 500 miles or more.

  In retrospect, prisoners like George Rosie and Bud Estes were lucky, as the distance from Stalag III-B to III-A at Luckenwalde on the Elbe was no more than 60 miles. But the extreme cold and their worsening physical condition caused many problems, as Rosie recalls:

  The authorities decided to march around 4,000 of us to Luckenwalde. The painfully slow journey took six days and it was colder than hell. We had been given some old overcoats, which believe me was a blessing, but none of us had a hat or gloves or in some cases even boots! We trudged along into the afternoon and through the night with only three short breaks. The guards were constantly pushing to keep us moving. At first light we were given another rest stop but no food. Everyone had to rely on what little rations they had brought with them. By this time we were really struggling and up ahead I could see people throwing things away because they no longer had enough strength remaining to carry them.

  We stopped at a complex of barns where one of the prisoners approached an elderly woman for food. As he was in the process of exchanging a bar of soap one of the guards walked up and butt stroked the man across the back of the head. A few minutes later as we were entering the building, I looked down at the body and could clearly see that the man’s skull had been completely smashed in. We all thought, ‘You bastards – the poor kid was just trying to feed himself!’

  The following morning we were all cold and stiff… I could hardly move and eventually got to my feet feeling like a 90-year-old. Back on the road we were joined by hundreds of civilians who were also moving west. Later that afternoon we stopped near one of the concentration camps. We hadn’t seen anything like this before and were all shocked by the emaciated physical condition of the people. Our attention quickly turned to a camp guard who was beating one of the inmates with a club. As we moved off a POW at the head of the line hollered out, ‘You lousy goddamn Krauts – God will get even with you some day… He will, he will, he will!’ Others joined in and started shouting and swearing at our guards who completely ignored us and just carried on as if nothing had happened.

  Later that day after passing several German gun emplacements being dug by Jews our group was halted for a rest break. As we were getting back on the road I heard a bang. Word came back down the line that one of the Airborne men had been shot in the head because he didn’t get up quickly enough when ordered. I didn’t recognize the guy who was lying face up by the side of the road as we filed past.*

  At one point the prisoners stopped for the night at a small farming community. Rosie and about 30 other men were in a small barn when the owner, accompanied by a young Russian girl, came in with some soup and potatoes. It was not unusual for German women to have white Russian “slave” girls working for them as domestics. Most of these youngsters would eventually end up as displaced persons (DPs), unable to return to their families who for the most part, no longer existed.

  Things go better with Coke

  “I remember toward the end of the ordeal we passed through a small town where a number of locals had gathered to stare,” Rosie reflected. “They never said a word – just stood in silence and looked on. We must have been a sorry looking bunch by that time.”

  As the prisoners reached the far edge of the town they were amused to see a Coca-Cola sign hanging from a wall. Everyone to a man saw the irony and at that moment dreamed of taking a long slurp from a bot
tle or two. “A few hours later we crossed a bridge over the eight-lane ring road around Berlin, which was completely devoid of vehicles.” Eighteen miles west of Luckenwalde is the small town of Halbe, surrounded by the Spree Forest.

  By late April, the entire area would be devastated by a terrific battle (that became known as the Halbe Cauldron), in which nearly 100,000 people perished. Of course, to those like Rosie and Estes, who were shuffling along during the first days of February, it was just another town, as Rosie recalls: “At Halbe we passed another column of POWs heading for Luckenwalde. A few men in the other group had fallen out and were peeing by the roadside as we came by. Looking across I couldn’t believe my eyes. One of the men was Mike Michaelson, with whom I’d played softball back in Chicago. After a quick ‘Hello – see you later,’ we carried on toward our final destination. I learned later that Mike had been fighting with the 106th ID when captured on December 20 at St Vith… A mile or so west of Halbe, a bunch of German soldiers were standing at the roadside handing out food … one loaf of bread and a can of cheese for every five prisoners.”

  The men stopped for the night at a “mock village,” previously used by Germans troops for FIBUA training – Fighting in Built-up Areas. “The following day we reached Luckenwalde and were herded into an area containing seven enormous circus tents. I heard that only 2,800 out of the original 4,000 made it to III-A. Those of us who remained were divided into smaller groups of around 400 and each assigned to a tent.” There were already 7,000 men at Luckenwalde, and the huge influx of extra POWs made living conditions increasingly difficult.

  A few days later Rosie saw Capt John McKnight, who had been in command of I Co before he was captured during the early hours of D-Day. McKnight had just come in from Silesia via the central route, which made Rosie’s trip seem like a walk in the park. Not much more than a skeleton, it would take McKnight (who weighed only 67lb) another three years before he returned to some kind of normal health, but he was never the same again.

  By late February contrails from high-flying Allied bombers heading for Berlin were a constant feature in the skies above the camp. Incredibly, the small radio was broken down and smuggled from Fürstenberg to Luckenwalde. “I don’t know how they managed it but the radio continued to provide vital information regarding the progress of Allied forces.” The world-famous German prewar boxing champion Max Schmeling visited Luckenwalde during a tour of American camps, completely unaware of the resentment he was generating among the long-term emaciated and ragged prisoners like Rosie. “Some of the new guys rushed across to meet him and get his autograph, but to me, Schmeling, who had joined the Fallschirmjäger (German paratroops), was just another Kraut and I certainly wasn’t going to welcome or treat him as any kind of hero.”

  Rosie continues his account of the POW camp:

  All through March the weather was horrendous, with high winds and plenty of rain that damaged our “big top.” The Germans sent a Russian prisoner across to carry out repairs but he was slow and I don’t blame him. That little guy was in no hurry to go back to his chums starving to death in the Russian compound [Germany maintained that as the Soviet Union had not signed the 1929 Geneva Convention it was not obliged to uphold its stipulations regarding treatment of Russian POWs]. At least we were getting some food and the odd Red Cross parcel. To cut a long story short, finally, as the Russians approached, the guards fled and we were liberated on April 23, 1945. Many of the Russian prisoners were absorbed back into the Red Army and sent off to fight in the battle to conquer Berlin. Can you imagine what those guys would have done to any Krauts, male or female, that they ran into?

  Rosie and Bud Estes from H Co joined a small group and decided (against direct orders from the officers now running III-A) to leave the camp and walk west toward US forces fast approaching the Elbe. Some, like Jim Bradley and John McKnight, remained behind and were not repatriated until a week later. Bradley and McKnight were among the lucky ones.

  Around the same time the Russians closed the camp and refused to release any more prisoners until everyone had been “politically screened.” From the Elbe, Rosie and crew were flown to Mourmelon, where the 101st Airborne Division still had a rear-echelon presence. Rosie’s old boss from the 81mm mortar platoon, 1st Lt Pete Madden, who was recovering from wounds received in Bastogne, made sure that the boys had everything they needed including transit passes to Camp Lucky Strike for final shipment home.

  Guten Morgen Herr Morgan

  Pvt David Morgan was only 19 years old when captured shortly after dawn on D-Day. Morgan and several other men from 2 Ptn I Co were selected as security and jumped in with the 3rd Bn Pathfinder Detachment ahead of the main drop. Dave’s POW experience was altogether different from that of many of the others, as he recalls: “I arrived at ‘Starvation Hill’ on Saturday, June 10, with another colleague from I Co, Pfc Bill Harrington. The following day Sgt Sid McCallum and Pfc Jack Brown [who were also part of the security team from 2 Ptn] were brought in.” A day or so later Brown was shipped out by truck to Rennes, along with Calandrella, Gorenc, and Dwyer. Morgan and Harrington remained at “Starvation Hill” for a further two weeks until the evening of June 25, when they were sent on foot toward Alencon. Along the way the prisoners, who included about 12 officers, were held in a hayloft in the grounds of a château.

  Dave Morgan continues his account:

  As we were only allowed to move at night, it took us three days to reach the château, where we remained for nearly two weeks. During our stay we helped four guys escape so the Krauts temporarily removed our belts and bootlaces, which quickly put a stop to any further attempts to break out! On the night of July 11, we hit the road again, and during the march (which took us another week to complete) we stopped over at a school and spent the last 24 hours at a railway station.

  Early the next morning (July 18) the Germans provided some trucks and drove us the rest of the way to Alencon. At the camp we met up with another guy from I Co, Pvt Tom Jackson, who was happy to share his bread ration with us. Over the next three weeks we worked on a local railroad and also a German military hospital that seemed to specialize in burns. Our billet was well run by a British NCO who would get everyone up in the morning and take roll call, etc.

  We left for Paris on August 9, in eight large trucks, and just outside Chartres the convoy was buzzed by a Spitfire and a P-51 Mustang. Although we had been given white bed sheets to wave, the Spitfire still strafed the convoy, killing several people, including a German warrant officer. Our truck was badly damaged and one man, named Griffiths, who wasn’t quick enough, almost had his leg severed by a cannon shell. Despite our best efforts to tourniquet the wound, Griffiths died a few minutes later in the back of the vehicle.

  About 5pm that afternoon we reached Chartres, where we stayed for the night. As we were sleeping more prisoners and trucks arrived. By first light our convoy had doubled in size to around 15 vehicles, and before we got onto the wagons each of us was given a Red Cross parcel and a small loaf.

  A train was waiting at Gare de l’Est, and the prisoners loaded the following morning, 45 men to each boxcar. The lack of drinking water coupled with the hot summer days made for a stifling trip as the train trundled northeast through Château Thierry and Reims. At one point, when the doors were finally opened, the men were treated to the sight of a number of naked French girls taking a communal outdoor shower. However, before the train arrived at Châlons, several prisoners had managed to escape.

  On August 15, Morgan and Harrington reached Frontstalag 194. “It was good to see Jack Brown and some of the others,” Morgan recalls. Jack raised his foot to show Dave the wooden clogs he had recently been given by the French Moroccan POWs held in the adjacent courtyard. Morgan was only at Châlons for four days before he was sent with Brown and Harrington to Stalag XII-D/Z on the Luxembourg/German border at Trier, 30 miles southeast of Bastogne. “We passed through Nancy and Metz before arriving at the camp on August 23,” Morgan continues.

  The histo
ric city of Trier is situated in the Moselle valley, and Stalag XII-D/Z was located at the top of Petrisberg Hill overlooking the town. “Trier was the biggest camp we’d ever seen, and after living in a boxcar the steep walk up to the entrance seemed exhausting. The place was full of vermin and the food barely edible. We stayed at Trier for about ten days before being sent southeast across Germany by rail via Stuttgart to Memmingen VII-B in Bavaria. We had several stopovers, and one I recall was Stalag VII-A at Moosburg near Munich. As Moosburg was an NCO camp most of us weren’t allowed to enter and had to stay in the boxcars, although the Germans did open the doors for us during daylight.”

  Despite being only 60 miles southwest of the satellite labor camps around Landsberg, living conditions at Memmingen were a world apart. “On arrival we had food and coffee waiting. The American prisoners were very welcoming and gave us a bunch of stuff, including cigarettes and a few bottles of beer. We were billeted in two large tents and surprisingly had a decent supply of Red Cross parcels. Most, like me, were soon sent to work in the town but a few days later, on September 25, the Germans selected 25 men, including Jack, Bill, and myself to go and work on local farms a few miles further south.”

  The three friends boarded a train to Kempten, from where they were trucked east into the foothills of the Bavarian Alps toward Friedrichshafen and Lake Constance to the town of Weitnau:

  From here our group went to Kleinweiler, where over the next seven months we did a variety of jobs, including tree felling, railway and canal repairs, plus snow clearance during the cold, hard winter.

  It’s funny but we became quite friendly with the locals and I even got myself a regular girlfriend. I used to say hello to the kids as they went to school and they always replied jokingly, “Guten Morgen Herr Morgan.” There were many Russians and Italians working nearby under the forced labor program at a factory producing wooden handles for stick grenades. One of the Italian prisoners that we got to know made a lovely wooden box with the initials “M-B-H” burned onto the lid and gave it to us as a present. Strangely, our crew was liberated by French Moroccans on April 29, 1945; it was an amazing feeling to know we were free again.