Looking back on my experiences of 43-45, I'm not sure I remember correctly all what happened, but my feelings are still vivid. This next chapter is related to prison camp experiences.

The day I was shot down, the mission was a short one. We didn't take off until 1pm or so. We were supposed to bomb railroads at the north end of the Ruhr valley. Everything went normally until after bombs were dropped, then a burst went off just under the nose of the ship punching holes in the plexiglass nose. We had time for a crew check, and there were instruments from the panel on the pilots lap, I remember. Then another few seconds, and a blast from an 88 went thru our right wing punching a big hole. Luckily the round exploded a few hundred feet above us- not on contact as it was designed to do. We had time for another crew check, all were ok. Then a few seconds later, a third blast in the fuel streaming out below us set us on fire. The abandon ship bell rang, the pilot pulled out from the formation, and he held the ship steady while we all got out. Then the ship went on automatic pilot, and he got out too. When I left, I hooked on my chest chute to the chute harness I wore all the time, ran back to the waist door and dove out. I must have pulled the ripcord immediately, since when I came to I was floating down, with a genuine birdseye view of everything below. It seemed like an eternity floating down. I could see a man on a bicycle pedaling along the country road below me, trying to be close to where I would land. Just before I landed, I heard a machine gun blast. I looked up and there were a few holes in the parachute canopy. Bitter people! Didn't blame them.

[Twenty- five or so years after the war, Harley was an agricultural missionary in Thailand where he met a German dairy expert. After several months they got to know each other well enough to broach the subject of what they each had done during the war. It turned out that the German man had been an anti-aircraft gunner on an 88mm gun stationed outside Hamm, Germany from the fall of 1943 through summer of 1944... ]

All of the crew were picked up over an area about 20 miles long. We all were collected in a jail, put aboard trucks that took us to a railroad center. Several times the guards protected us against angry civilians. During that first night, I noticed that we were riding in a Model A Ford Truck with a big tank on the left side of it where some kind of gas was produced from charcoal or burning wood to power the engine with.

A few days later, we were in an interrogation center near Frankfurt-on-the-Marne. Then after a few more days in cattle cars we were in our permanent camp about 4 km above Krems, Austria. The officers went to a prison camp in Northern Germany someplace. It was weeks after being captured before I stopped hoping that it was all a dream, and that I'd wake up back in Rattlesden.

It might have been about 1 May when we enlisted men arrived at the prison camp near Krems, Austria, about 35 km west of Vienna, on the Danube River. In this prison camp were about 4,200 American non-commissioned officers. In each of 3 or 4 large compounds there were four barracks, each end of which had bunks for 150 men, with a washroom in the middle. At night when we could not go outside, we used some of the washroom drains for urinals. On the south side of us were other compounds of Polish, French and other nationalities. Often a man from a nearby compound would begin talking to us in some foreign language. In short order some of our group would come who could understand him, be it Czech, Polish, French, Russian or whatever. This emphasized what a mixture of cultures were in our American group of prisoners of war.

Some of the barrack spaces were not used for living space. We had one of the barrack halves for holding classes. Skilled men who had been teachers or instructors in civilian life taught classes. We even had one superintendnet of schools teaching. To keep me busy, and probably more healthy emotionally, I went to classes most of the time, every moring, 6 days a week.

I took classes in practical home wiring, Spanish, German, and other subjects. Afternoon and evenings I walked, played bridge, attended musicals and went to some of the Broadway plays put on by the group of actors (occupying their own half of a barracks), and got into all kinds of discussion groups. My time in prison was a time of generally good morale, and I gained much from the many discussions which were common. Religion, philosophy of life, how to get along with others and the purpose of life were a few of the topics I gained much from. It was during this time that I decided I wanted to go to University, probably since the men I respected were university students or graduates.

My main hobby at that time was playing Bridge: I did become one of the most desireable partners to play with. We had a library of books provided by YMCA of Switzerland, which had about 2-3,000 books. I think while in prison camp I read most of the classics like Dickens, Shakespeare, etc. So many other men wanted to check books out that we could only have them for about 4 days, so we had to read them quickly. I used one of the 2 post cards given to me each month to write home, the other to write to YMCA and request books on agriculture. When I finished reading them, I donated them to the library, as everybody else did. Musicals, musical instruments and printed plays also came from Switzerland. So we had plenty to do, if we wanted to keep busy. Looking back on some of the men and how they got thru the timein prison camp, I think playing cards and smoking wasn't too good for them, especially all day and every day. At that time, I also sang in the protestant choir in church. It was conducted by a Catholic Priest who followed the army manual for Protestant services. Our choir sang the "Haleluia Chorus" Christmas Eve and was broadcast over the speakers we had in each of the barracks by then.

To the Glossary!

As POWs, we got the equivalent of a German non- commissioned officer's monthly salary (on paper, anyway) with which we could rent a projector and certain movies from the Germans, buy supplies for putting on stage plays, pens and pencils and paper, and many other things we thought were important. Some things' availability was restricted, because they couldn't be anything which the guards thought might be used in a war-like way. Also, the war the Germans were conducting made a lot of supplies scarce.

Most of the weeks we got a Red Cross food parcel. I think that the Germans might have put the railroad cars carrying our food parcels to the various camps and bearing the Red Cross in the middle of railroad cars carrying stragetic goods, since sometimes we received food parcels with slight shrapmell damage. The Germans probably used the parcels that were damaged more severely.

Many of the items in it were from the US Army Food stores, sent with the help of the US Army. Each food parcel was about two times the volume of a shoe box. We'd line up by barracks, generally on Saturday, and receive our parcel. The Germans would stab each canned item with a bayonet so it would spoil soon, in order to prevent us from saving up food to escape. The contents were ideal: dried milk, semi sweet chocolate bar, some sugar, liver paste, spam, cheese, whole wheat crackers and a few other items such as 6 packs of cigarettes. I always traded my cigarettes for another package of cheese. Our medium of exchange was usually packs of cigarets. We maintained health with these food parcels and with the hot water and raw vegetables that were provided by the Germans. Our daily ration of bread was very black, and tasted sour when we first got to the prison camp. I got to like the taste pretty quickly. Perhaps once a week we did get a very small ration of meat, about 30 grams. Often it was about the size of a tablespoon or so. In time I got very hungry for meat, and caught myself looking with anticipation at a cat wandering by but some other man got to it first.

Some of the men had strong scissors which we used for tin snips to cut up some of the larger cans in the food parcels. With the beads cut off the top and bottom, the tin was flattened out and crimped together with others so we could make little stoves for heating our coffee and milk. Usually we'd have two little compartments on each side of a simple oven so we could "bake" cakes made of shredded chocolate, cracker crumbs, milk powder and sugar. We always shared food preparation with a friend- I shared with Mac, the former flight engineer of our crew. With careful use and sharing with others, the cardboard that the food parcels came in was enough fuel to cook or heat our food for one week.

All of us enjoyed making problems for our guards, who were Austrians (mostly men too old to be soldiers on active duty). When someone was returned from trying to escape and was sentenced to 21 days in solitare and bread and water, we felt that the sentence was too severe. All of us would get orders from the camp commander of the POWs to pull a slowdown. We would not get up to go out to roll call in the morning. Our kind old Austrian guard would have to wake each of us up and escort us out to the open place for roll call- 150 of us! Of course after too much provacation, he'd draw his pistol, and then we would not cause any more trouble, since he was MAD. But that only happened when too many of us had to be escorted out to the area for roll call, and then some would duck back into the barracks and jump into bed when he was occupied escorting others out.

One time during the summer an American POW - we never learned his name- in a camp up in Germany was just doing his duty as he saw it: he was forever escaping. After many near successes, his biggest problem was getting across national borders, where he was always caught. The Germams probably admired him, since they admired those who did their duty as soldiers, no matter what. The Jerries decided to move him to a prison camp in Bulgaria, far from any national borders he could cross to freedom. He and three guards were on the train coming through Krems, and they had no money to buy a noon meal for him or themselves. They decided to come to our camp to get a meal. The American was escorted into a barracks, and was given something to eat. He got up to leave with his guards, and at the door, said, "Just a second, I forgot my jacket" and went back in, and was never seen again.

The guards were frantic and furious. Within an hour the POW Camp commander, a German, had us all out in the field for identity checks, comparing our POW dog tags with our pictures on their records. While we were all out in the field, other guards checked the latrines and the attics of the barracks. Even in the middle of all this we still gave the guards problems. Once when they paused for lunch they left several hammers and a ladder, which promptly disappeared. The ladder was reduced to splinters suitable for our little stoves in about 10 minutes

The next day things got more exciting: the Gestapo showed up, very business like, with the skull and crossbones on their lapels. We didn't fool around at all, we followed instructions and kept quiet unless spoken to. Inspections and searches went on for three days, but the man was never found. As far as I know, the end result of the search was two dead police dogs that were brought to smell out the missing man, fierce dogs, trained to kill. They got into a fight and were so badly injured they died.

I never took an active part in all these activities, I was just a bystander who enjoyed watching who did what to who. I would participate in some activities, if I had enough company. I did on occasion join groups of men who would sit leaning on a post. One of the men would be working a saw behind his back until the post would barely stand up. Then during the change of guards, he'd give it a little nudge, and carry it into the barracks to be splintered up for fuel for cooking.

Besides "borrowing" anything we could get our hands on, for a while we got supplies thru the mail and care packages, especially from the Swiss YMCA. The guards always suspected the British prisoners of recieving things they shouldn't have, so they went thru all the things the Englishmen got very carefully. The Americans didn't have that reputation at first so for a long time we were getting things like cameras, tools, special foods and other things useful for escape attempts.

In the year or so I was in POW camp, the only people killed were those who went stir crazy, and were not responsible for their actions. There was a warning wire about 8 ft from the fence, and if a person crossed the warning wire, he could be shot, according to the rules of the camp. Some were. The elected camp leaders would complain to the Red Cross officials who came to check on our conditions every 6 months or so. The complaints were often limited to the fact tha t the Germans forced the non-commissioned officers to work, which was against the Geneva Convention. Of course this was related to the Germans finding tunnels that someone had dug trying to escape. The Germans would force the first men they could find, at gun point, to fill up the tunnels.

We had regular news from radios hidden from our guards. The POWs in the compound next to us, Polish and other nationalities, would go out on work parties, working for the nearby farmers whose products were needed for the war efffort. They would be given, or they would steal, old radios which when tossed across the fence to us were worth quite a few cigarettes. The more skilled radio men in our camp would use the parts to make radios to get the news. Where they hid the radios, I don't know, but we had the news every day. One of the POWs would come around every day and read the latest news while a lookout would warn us if a guard was coming. Every month or so, we would have to go out to the roll call area, and the guards would go through everything in our barracks looking for the radios, or perhaps just making it a little miserable for us. After the Invasion started, D-Day, in June 44, the news was more exciting. About 6 months after the invation, we had a big map on the wall with a red string where our news sources said theAllied troups were, and a blue string where the German broadcasters said we were. The guards would come up and look at the map and walk away shaking their heads. In early April 45, the Russian army was getting close to Vienna. Our guards knew from rumors that if the Russians took over a German POW camp, the guards would all be shot and the prisoners would be turned loose to find their own way to friendly armies. We were told to take only the barest essentials, a few extra clothes, perhaps butter (since for its weight it had the most calories) and be ready to march out to the West. We walked 180 km in about 20 days, sleeping in farmers' big barns at night. We stole any food we could lay our hands on, including wandering piglets, onions hanging drying in the barn rafters, loose chickens etc. One night, or late evening, I crawled into a farm house basement to liberate some potatoes. They sure tasted good raw, or baked in thecoals of a fire that night. One time, for several days all I had was dandelion greens, boiled. Better than nothing. During this hike, the Red Cross officials did not know exactly where we were. We did not get food parcels often and it was hard to walk without enough food. But in spite of everything, we had more food than our guards had to eat. One time we received half of a French Red Cross food parcel- honey cake, marmalade, and other rich foods.

To the Glossary!

The large number of POWs were kept in groups of 300. We must have really raised havoc with the farmers in whose barns we stayed each night. We kept to the back roads, climbed many hills and went thru many picturesque villages. 4-5 times we passed German refugees who were fleeing from the American Army coming from the west. First there would be a big army truck, often a Studebaker truck probably liberated from the Russian army, or perhaps captured from the Allies. Then a nice car loaded down with personal belongings, then a smaller car, loaded too. A wagon might be next, then a small cart, and several times the long train of vehicles, all being towed by the army truck at the head of the caravan would be ended by a loaded baby carriage, taking advantage of the free tow. You could hear the army truck coming, roaring along in low range up a hill pulling all those vehicles behind it. Yes, we found some interesting piles when they went down hill, since some didn't have brakes. To avoid trouble when we came to Lintz, Austria, we had to get up and start hiking early in the morning to get thru the town before many of the citizens got up. After 18 days of hiking, we finally stopped in a big woods, where the Inn River and the Danube meet. We might have been camped there for 5-6 days. We had to make our own shelter to keep the rain off, peeling bark off small trees to make shingles to lay on a frame over us. We had one blanket each, and by doubling up and putting pine needle mats under us, we didn't do too badly.

One morning about 8am when we were just beginning to stir, we heard a clankedy clank and a tank with a big white star on its side came into the woods. We could see the periscope looking around. Then a hatch opened, a helmet came up, and we heard the GI ask, "What the hell you guys doing here?" It was one of the lead tanks of Patton's Tank Battalion. A couple of days, really hard to take came next. Then Army trucks came to take us to a German air base nearby, where old faithful C 47's took us to a field hospital near Cherborg, France, for physical check ups. We got a lot of nice food and snacks, since our bodies couldn't take much for each meal.
 
 

T/Sgt. Harley H. Tuck
Route 7 Box 170
Olympia Washington
 

Dear Folks: May 12, 1945

I'm now in La Harve, France, or anyway, in a P.O.W. center near that city. I've been here for 2 1/2 days, doing not a thing except eating and sleeping. All of us ex-Kreiggies (ex P.O.W.'s from German word Kriegsgefangenen meaning prisoner of war) are eating to our hearts content, often I'm not hungry when going up to the messhall but it looks good so in I go. The food is plain, no spices, but very good and almost every meal I have trouble packing what little the K.P.'s give me. It is, I bet, hard for you to believe how good we feel to be back on G.I. grub again.

Almost all the returning ex- P.O.W's are going through this base. As soon as my group recieves clothes, a shot in the arm, and some paper work completed, we will come home on the first returning convoy available. In short order, so the officers here tell us, we are shipped from New York to the nearest Army base near home, Ft. Lewis in my case, from where we get 60 day furloughs. It sounds too good to be true. That is the reason our return address is our home address.

As you probably thought after reading my letter from Branau, I was feeling kind of rough. Eating concentrated "K" + "C" rations for 4 days after the black bread + Jerry soup + Red Cross food parcels of a year, was mighty hard on digestive systems, + I was half sick at the time. We flew from
an airfield near Branau (which
is Hitler's birth place on the                        160
Inn River on the boundary between              3
Austria and Germany)                              ----               160 MPH
in C-47's 25 men to the ship.                      480
None of us got air sick, it's a
wonder I believe. It took 3 hrs to get here, about 480 miles. The best deal of all was we got hot coffee and donuts just after getting out, before leaving the airfield. On the base here, I've met my (ex) operations officer who went down 4 days before my crew did, + the old buddy of Lt. Gilleran, my pilot. He is a swell fellow, Captain bars + all. The night we got here my engineer + I saw him walk by + after flagging him down, he recognized us + brought us up to date on all the news. My pilot hasn't come in camp yet, but I've been to visit the navigator, Lt. Lazarus, + haven't found Bomb. + Co pilot, but they are in camp someplace.

After talking to some of the P.O.W.'s here, my tale of woe: 18 days march of +-200 miles, sleeping outside most of the time, in barns several nights, 1/10 loaf black bread + thin barley soup every other day or so, 1 French Red Cross parcel after about 10 days march etc etc far into the night, is a picnic. Compared to some of the men's trips. One outfit marched for 90 days, from a camp on the Baltic to Munich, zig zagging west + east as the doings on the western + eastern fronts progressed. The Jerries marched them at night. Such is life. It did my heart good to see some of the Jerries that had guarded us on our march working on a pontoon bridge under G.I. supervision, before leaving Branau.

It's 8 P.M.- just got back from a trip to the mess hall, got 1/2 canteen cup of apple sauce + a hunk of bread + jam. The only thing wrong with this grub here is that there isn't enough fruit- just wait till I get back home. If I can't get enough fruit, I'll plant bearing trees in the front yard.

Oh, yes, if I get a discharge soon, I'll head for the agriculture school in Pullman + take a course specilaizing in fruit raizing + any other sideline like beef cattle hogs etc. that would come in handy. Under G.I. Bill of Rights, the government will pay tuition + expenses for a veteran's education to the tune of $500 a year for tuition + school expenses, $50 a year for a single man's living expenses. That is an opportunity not to miss. Do you know what Tad + Grover plan to do after the war? As yet, we've recieved no definite information on what will happen when we report back to the Army after furloughs. Some fellows are bound to be discharged because of poor health, but I don't believe I'll be discharged unless they get rid of all ex-P.O.W.'s. Who knows? There's not much use writing, as they say we might beat our letters home. When I get in the vicinity of Tacoma, the 1st thing I'll do is go to the Ordinance plant. where Pop works, wait + come home with him or grab the car + high tail it home. See you then. Say hello to everybody!

Love

Harley                       (over)

To the Glossary!
 
 

May 13, Sunday 10 A.M.

There is still not much activity around here. For breakfast I had stewed prunes + peaches, cream of wheat, scrambled dried eggs, bread + apricot marmalade. What a meal.

Dear Mom: As today is Mother's Day I wish you all the happiness in the world. I hope everything is fine at home and everybody is as well as I am or better. Maybe next year on Mother's Day, all of us boys can be home with you and Pop,- how many are home now? More than a year ago, back at England, I ordered some flowers to be sent for Mother's Day, and a good month ahead of time. Did you get them?

My letter is jumping from one train of thought to another, but I can't help it. It has taken me an hour to write the above. Have my personal belonging been shipped home from England?, along with some money I had too. Some of the men from the 447th in Stalag XVII B recieved letters from the outfit informing them that their stuff + money had been sent home. But what's worrying me more than anything else, is, my diary that I kept from the time leaving staging area U.S.A. until shot down. I had all my missions, daily life ETC. Has it turned up? I'll chase it to the end of time if necessary, to get it. Mom, do you remember when I came home on furlough, asking me to keep a diary? I started it because you asked me to, but afterwards I got interested + used it for reference a lot, finally it contained so much interesting + useful information on all of my activities, etc. that I couldn't think of stopping it, altho several times I was 2- 5 days behind. One of the men in my hut said he'd take care of it + send it home for me, but he went down 2 days after we went down, so he might not have had time to. It is probably in Wash-D.C. someplace now.

I recieved that parcel you sent me. Everything in it was very useful. I took all the candy underwear + sox on the little hike.

Here it is, now, almost lunch time (1:00), nothing to write about, + plenty of paper left. I'll write every chance I get + will probably be home soon

Love

As this is written May 21 and 22, 1987, I'm sure I've forgotten much, and perhaps not remembered correctly some experiences. These experiences were helpful in making me more mature, and it was during this time that my interest in a university education got a start, as well as an interest in the Protestant Church, an interest in sociology, including group dynamics etc. All in all, these experiences in World War 2 were important in helping me develop to the extent that I have. It wasn't a very painful experience, but is one that I'd like to share with my family and friends.
 

End of Diary
 
 

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