'Shot Down' and 'Kriegie Memories' are
two of several books that were written by Ben Phelper after his
repatriation back to the U.S.A after WWII. He had been a member
of a B-17 air crew in the US Army Air Corps, was shot down and
incarcerated in the POW camp Stalag XVII-B. The booklet 'Shot Down' is
Phelper's hand illustrated and lettered account of his last mission;
'Kriegie Memories' is his account of his stay in Stalag XVII-B. While there he
managed somehow to take many photographs, most
of which survived in good enough condition to be developed after the
War. Phelper hand- lettered text to accompany and explain the
photos then privately published the two books. He contacted all the
former Stalag XVII-B POW's (“Kriegies”) that he could find and
Harley Tuck Sr is one of those who bought a copy of these two
books.
Beginning in 1986 when I, Harley Tuck Jr, first began
my project to transcribe my Dad's WWII material I inquired more or
less actively for the copyright status of 'Kriegie Memories' but all
the information I could find in 10 years indicated that it had lapsed
many years before. In 1996 I set up a website of Harley Sr's WWII
Diary and I included a few excerpts from 'Kriegie Memories' as a subset
of web pages to illustrate what HT Sr had been through during his own
time in Stalag XVIIb. In the summer of 2002 I recieved one
single email from somebody purporting to be Ben Phelper's widow. The
person wrote that the copyright on 'Kriegie Memories' was current; that
'she' held it and was trying to make money by selling the book to
relatives. 'She' demanded I take the 'Kriegie Memories' excerpts
off my website and I did so. However, after that single contact
I received no replies to my subsequent efforts to confirm the
person's identity.
That website has been offline for many
years, and in the meantime Harley Tuck Sr has died (29 Jun 2010,
R.I.P.) After his memorial service I gained possession of his copy of 'Shot Down',
which, interestingly, I had dim memories of having seen
when I was a child. The content of that booklet is a treasure in its
own right, showing the last day and final mission of a B-17 crew. It
makes complete the unique account of the WWII combat experience
starting with HT Sr's Diary, then being ' Shot Down' and finishing with
'Kriegie Memories'.
In light of the unconfirmed identity of
the person claiming to hold the copyright to these books and of the
considerable historical value of the information they contain, I have
decided to return Harley Tuck Sr's copies of these two of Ben Phelper's books to the CD-ROM containing Harley's WWII materials. I, myself, will distribute
it only to relatives or others who in any case would have access
to the family copy of the books; I am not responsible for what
they do with their copies of the CD-ROM. Additionally, when this collection eventually returns to the WWW, if anybody provides documentation that they possess a valid copyright, I will certainly remove the Phelper material.
Regards, and enjoy,
- Harley Tuck Jr
Jul 2012
Begin reading: Shot Down
Begin reading Kriegie Memories
