Red Cross

The Red Cross ladies were wonderful.  They were full of information and advised us to be careful of what we ate until our systems got adjusted.

We stopped again before Camp Lucky Strike at another airbase, but here it wasn’t the Red Cross, and they were unaware of what the wrong food would do to us who had been so badly fed for so long.  They served doughnuts, sweet rolls and coffee, and plenty of it.  Most of us couldn’t eat much, and the guys who ate lots were sick.  I heard that one guy died, but I am not sure of this.  I was surprised that here I was able to eat and eat and I couldn’t.  We had adjustments to make.  It would take time.

We landed at Camp Lucky Strike before lunch.  It was a huge camp of tents in neat rows, neat roads and paths and mowed lawns.  No fences, no guards, no towers and no one shouting “Rausch, Rausch.”

We were led to a large tent where we were told we’d have a chance to shower and shave and we’d be given new clothes.  This was a receiving tent for incoming POW’s.  They wanted all our clothes.  They intended to burn them, all but our shoes.  I admit we were dirty, but we weren’t lousy.  We had tried always to be as clean as it was possible for us.  I never saw anything on me or my friends.

We stripped and gave up our clothes.  There we stood waiting for the next tent and the showers.  We had to run between tents the way we were.  The showers were wonderful.  We weren’t rushed.  We had soap and towels and enjoyed ourselves.  We were given plenty of time.

Then it was back to the tent for our new uniforms, new underwear and all the extras we needed.  But we were told it would be about 30 minutes before all the clothes arrived.  We stood around for over an hour, I think, waiting all nude.  Fortunately, it was a very warm spring day.  Right at this moment I was down to not one possession, but I was warm, no longer a prisoner, and I could wait even if I was back to the way I was born into the world, naked and owning nothing.

We talked and waited.  It seems that a new shipment of uniforms had to be unpacked.  They came and we dressed.  Everything was new except my comfortable old shoes.

We were taken to a row of new tents with cots and wool blankets.  Even without sheets they looked wonderfully comfortable, no struggle with bed boards.  I hadn’t seen a sheet for so long I couldn’t even miss them.

We were asked to stay in our tents for just a little while until duffel bags and our clothes issue would be distributed, even toilet articles.  I could brush my teeth again, something I hadn’t been able to do for months.

We were told we were free to wander about, stop at booths for milkshakes, and line up for meals.  Such lovely meals even though the food was very bland.  We had been warned again that we should be careful what we ate for a while and that they would only serve food that would be good for us until our systems became adjusted away from our prison fare.  The only promise they made that didn’t come off while I was at Lucky Strike was a musical show that never happened, but I was very contented except for my anxieties about going home, and they bothered me keeping me from sleeping.

In a couple of days, the sores on my legs were so much less painful.  I could walk comfortably.  Rudy, Russ, and I wandered around the countryside.  I got a chance to practice my French and even had short conversations with some people.  I certainly was not good at it.

We three came up on a big barracks used for storage of German equipment.  All that was left was insignia of all sorts.  I picked up some stuff, not much.  I still have a mug with the German Nazi swastika insignia on it.

One of the guys with us who told us he weighed 210 pounds when he was shot down said he would do his best to get it back.  He had about 80 pounds to go.  We were all way under normal weight.

Although the sores on my legs were healing because of all this good food, I felt as if I had a cold. I sneezed constantly and my eyes watered a lot.  I went to the camp doctor to see about this.  We were supposed to be examined, but I could see that with so many of us it would take weeks or more.  The doctor said I was okay and I didn’t have a cold.  My eyes continued to water and my violent sneezes continued.  There must have been something in the camp causing me much distress and shortness of breath.

After less than a week at Camp Lucky Strike we were told that we could either wait for official transportation to England or work out some means of transportation ourselves, which meant hitchhike.  I asked what we had to do to hitch a ride on a plane.  I was told to pack my duffel bag and go out to the airfield, find a cargo plane with a pilot who will take you on with his load.  We were given papers of identification and notices that in 10 days we were to report to a distribution center in London.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999

American Air Force

In the morning when we came out, we heard that the plans were changed.  The American Air Force was sending cargo planes for us, and we would be picked up very soon.  In about an hour we were marched out of the camp.  I was hungry, tired, and the sores on my legs bothered me a lot.  I decided as we were leaving to abandon all my things except what I wore and my letters and pictures.

We marched out of the camp.  I had even left my precious coat.  The airfield was about a half hour’s walk.  We did see people carried out of a civilian prison.  They seemed to be in terrible conditions.  I was glad we were hurried past them.

We saw the planes, and they were ours.  The crews were Americans.  We boarded the planes, and we were free.  I tried to think of going home, but all I could think about was that I’ll never be hungry again.  I’ll never go to bed miserable because I was hungry, never, never, never.

As I remember it now, there was very little conversation in our plane.  I didn’t think of the past 18 months.  Now I experienced a new panic.  I was surprised that I felt an uneasiness at the idea of going home.  I didn’t want any change.  I hadn’t heard from anyone now for at least three months, so I had no idea of what may have happened over the last four months.  It took at least three to four weeks for a letter to get to me.  What changes could have occurred in the last 18 months.  Between the pain from my sores and my constant thoughts of food, I had had very little interest in anything else now for months, and here I was rushing off in an airplane to a new situation that I hadn’t had time or energy to think about.

We had been told we would be taken to Camp Lucky Strike in northern France for medical checkups, supplies, and arrangements for our return to the United States.  We landed about a half hour after our takeoff at an airfield where the Red Cross had arranged refreshments.  These refreshments were very bland.  I remember the milk, real milk that I hadn’t seen or tasted for so long.  But what else was there I don’t know.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999

Approaching Russians

That night after we were locked up, there were many unusual noises.  What little we could see from our window didn’t explain the noise, but when dawn came, the guards were gone, the dogs were gone, no guards in the towers, and the doors of the barracks were unlocked.

I went with some of the guys to the officers’ quarters.  Everything small was gone.  There was a radio turned on, but the only thing we could get that we understood was an appeal for help.  Over and over we heard “This is Prague, Czechoslovakia, calling the Allies for help.”  This appeal went out all day.

From our camp we could see out onto the North Sea.  We could see people out on the water in boats, mostly small row boats with women and children and old men just sitting out there terrified.  They knew the Russian Army was coming.  The Germans were absolutely terrified of the Russians.  These people feared for their lives and sat out there, I am sure, not knowing if their homes would still be there to come back to, if they lived through this day.

Then, we thought what if the population of Barth think of our camp as protection.  We rushed to lock our gates.  We hadn’t enough food for ourselves and no possible way that we could do anything for them.  We were lucky.  The people came very soon, and although they begged to come into the camp, we turned them away, and finally they were all gone.

Some of us walked out of the camp just to look around.  I went out by myself and wondered while I was doing this should I just keep going.  But then, I thought what if I got stopped by soldiers of any nationality.  How could I convince them of my status as an American POW.  What would they do, perhaps just shoot me.  There wouldn’t be a chance.  I was torn between taking a chance or not, and I let myself choose not to run.  I knew what I had here in the camp.  I knew that if we were, and I was sure we would be, overrun by the Russians, we would be recognized as POW’s and surely turned over to the Americans.  So I walked back to the camp.

I passed an old couple standing by their barn.  They were holding each other and crying.  They had their cow in the barn.  The noise of battle was gone.  It was quiet, so quiet that it was fearful.

When I got back into the camp, some guys I knew just had come back from a tour of the area.  They displayed loot they brought back, women’s jewelry, some German money.  I was appalled.  I had always been so sure our guys wouldn’t do anything like this.  They claimed they just pointed at the stuff that the German civilians had after they had walked uninvited into their homes, and the women just gave them anything they pointed at or anything they took, gave it to them in fear.  The guys who did this had no compassion and some of them I thought had been friends of mine.

About noon the Russian army started to appear.  The first evidence of them were soldiers on horseback.  They galloped along on huge horses.  These soldiers wore many medals which bounced against their chests.  We were being liberated, but we weren’t sure.  There wasn’t any wild display of joy.  There was only quiet compliance.

Within an hour there were Russians everywhere.  We stood around and watched.  None of them took over the guard towers, but the gates were closed.  They rounded up the four of us who had been camp leaders in the camp before this one, and I was one of them.  This gave me some worry, but it was only to make lists of all the American POW’s.

We were put to work in the departed German officers’ office, and from their records the Russians wanted a completed list.  We worked all night at this list.  It seems so vague to me now.  I was tired and hungry.  We only had the remains of our Red Cross box and nothing from the cook house.  It had been stripped of any supplies.

Morning came, and we finished.  I couldn’t sleep in my bunk, it would have been too noisy.  I found the gate open so I wandered out to a field.  It was a warm day and the grass was dry.  It was spring and a lovely morning.  I just lay down in the grass and went right to sleep.  When I woke, I discovered the Russians had driven in a herd of cattle and had slaughtered them.  The meat was ground up, and we were each given some which we managed to cook and eat.  We didn’t get much, but it was delicious and a great supplement to what little we had.

The Russians announced they were putting on a show, an entertainment for us to which we were invited.  We were to go into a huge barracks that had been out-of-bounds to us.  My friends and I went together.  We expected some pleasant entertainment in spite of the language barrier, but there were guards inside the doors, armed guards, and they wouldn’t let you turn around and leave.  When I saw them, I wanted very much to leave.  The entertainment was all in Russian, their language, and after a while I tried to leave again and was turned back.  I really couldn’t even try to enjoy myself or try to understand what they were doing, I was so preoccupied with wondering, what next?

The barracks had a stage and benches for the audience.  I spent most of the time trying to understand what was happening and looking for any means to escape from this building.  I couldn’t understand the armed guards, and my relief was so great to find when the show was over that we were allowed to leave.  They must have used the armed guards to insure themselves of an adequate audience.

But before we left, we were advised that tomorrow we would be marched out of the camp and were to start a march to Odessa.  I had only a vague idea where it was, but I knew we’d have to cross Germany and Poland.  Some of us could make it, but how many would still be alive when the successful ones made it there.  We didn’t talk about it, but I was mad at myself.  Why hadn’t I walked away when I could have done it.  I couldn’t have been worse off.  In fact, I felt I would have had a better chance.   As I remember, I didn’t sleep much.  I tried to plan what I’d do and how much I’d carry.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999

Pain in Many Flavors

Days were getting longer and it was even getting warmer in the room.  Spring was finally here, early spring, and I should have felt better, but I didn’t.  I had a toothache; it was a constant ache.  The pain became very bad most of the time.  I knew there was a POW who had been a dentist in private life, and I knew that he had a pair of pliers and did do some emergency dentist work.  I went to him for help.  There wasn’t anything he could do but pull the tooth.  He had no drugs, nothing but his pliers.  I sat on a stool, showed him my aching tooth, gripped the seat of the stool with both hands, and waited.  He got the pliers into my mouth, gripped my tooth firmly and started to pull.  He pulled and pulled.  He changed his grip a couple of times much to my dismay, and gradually I felt movement of the tooth; then it was out, completely out.  It didn’t break.  I was lucky it came out whole.  My jaw was very sore, but the terrible pain was gone.  I did feel bad so that I forgot for a few hours that I was hungry.  My toothbrush was gone and had been for some time now.  The only thing I did for my healing jaw was to wash my mouth out frequently.

With spring coming, we’d be able to wash our clothes and had the pleasant surprise of a real shower.  We were taken to an outdoor arrangement where there were a lot of overhead sprinklers.  We stripped and crowded onto the wooden platform.  Not everyone was brought at once, but there were so many of us when I was there that we were elbow to elbow or face to face or back to back depending on how you stood.  It was dangerous to drop your soap.  If you could stoop, you’d probably never get back to a standing position.  But it was so nice.  We had time to wash and to get really clean, and the water was warm.  This happened only this once in this camp.

I began to get sores on my legs.  They began as little red spots and grew into ulcer like lesions.  They caused me much pain, and as they developed, they seemed to stab painfully into my muscles.  The outward signs were small, quarter-size crater-type sores.

There was gunfire in the far distance every once in a while, and this made me worry about my painful legs.  I needed them.  We had to assume that the fighting was sometimes close and sometimes driven back by the Germans.  The gunfire coming from the east, we felt sure it was the Russians they were fighting so close to us.

I really worried that the sores on my legs would make it impossible for me to walk.  I forced myself to walk many times around the camp.  The pain was intense when I started to walk, but once I was moving the pain subsided.  But, to stop walking caused the pain to come on again just as severe.  Much later I was told this was due to my poor diet and lack of protein among other nutrients.

I knew that we would be forced to leave here soon, and I just had to keep myself able to walk, so walk I did everyday round and round still agony to start and stop but fine while I moved.

Even with the constant pain in my legs, life was a lot better.  It was warm, and we could get out in the daytime.

In April a German soldier who had been a guard in our first camp came looking for Rudy and me.  He remembered us because he’d done some trading with Rudy and me due to the fact that I’d been the secretary of that camp.  We remembered him.  He was a brutal overbearing guard and not one we were interested in ever seeing again.

He sought us out.  He was desperate and wanted our help if he could get to America; he wanted to be able to go to either one of us for help.  He probably had also been to the other guys he knew and whom he had mistreated.

Neither of us would do anything for him.  We had even suspected him of stealing our food at times.  We hardly spoke to him, and he left us.  He looked miserable.  I felt a little sorry for him but not enough to even say I’d help him.

The battle sounds were more frequent now, and one of the guards one day said you guys had better dig yourselves a shelter.  He spoke English well.  He was a considerate chap as were many of our guards.  They weren’t all brutal.  He also said that the Russians might be over this camp even today.

Then we could hear the battle very close and could even see the clouds of smoke from explosions and gunfire.  We all grabbed our klim cans and dug, but long before we could dig an adequate shelter, the battle moved away and we relaxed and even stopped digging without a thought that we might still need a shelter.

Digging with klim cans was not the most effective means, and I really felt if the town near us, Barth, fell, then surely the Russians, who were our allies, would certainly take over this prison camp.  Surely, I hoped, we’d be turned over to the American Army — I hoped, I hoped!

Life went on at a dull pace.  I continued to look for potato peels and I walked.  Rudy’s foot had healed, and he walked too.  I’m sure for the same reason as I did.  We didn’t talk about our ailments.  I had no idea how far I’d have to walk when this was all over.

We never went out together.  There always had to be someone watching what food we had.  Everyone had a food partner for protection.  Just being out of the room did cut down on the time we thought about food so intensely.  Very often we told each other about great feasts we had with our families, wonderful memories but painful.  We thought more about the feasts than about our homes.

We no longer had a radio to depend on.  Our only news was rumors and what the guards told us.  We knew the war was going badly for the Germans but nothing of the details.  We were told Roosevelt had died and that Harry Truman was our new president.

We had burned all the wood we could tear out of the barracks.  Many of us were bothered by sores on our legs.  We no longer got any mail.  Red Cross parcels did get through in some amounts sometimes.  We hadn’t had parade for some time now.  I thought that most of the officers were gone because we saw only the guards on duty.  Some of these guards yelled at us for our obvious lack of sorrow because of the death of Roosevelt.  That wasn’t our most important problem at the moment, but some guys tore off pieces of our roofing as mourning bands on their arms, and that seemed to satisfy the guards.

One day while I was walking around the camp, a guard in one of the towers yelled down to us.  He was a guard we knew from the previous camp, one we liked.  It was very painful for me to stop walking, but I did so that I could hear him.  He repeated himself a couple of times telling us how lucky we were we would be going home soon, but he, he would be lucky if he ever saw his home again.

Painfully I started walking again, and I walked a long time that day.  I wanted to be able to walk out of this camp, and if need be, walk west until I could get help.  I decided I’d take nothing but my food, go it alone or with Rudy if he wanted to do this.  These plans were never firm; so much depended on what happened next or in the coming day or week.  We had no idea what would happen.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999

The Misery of Russia

As I said, Rudy stayed in the room mostly while I went out scrounging.  He played Russian Bank, a card game that caused violent arguments.  I grew to hate the sight of anyone playing the game.  I wouldn’t play it or even watch if I could help it.  After lockup I was trapped.  I had to be aware of it then.  My number of D bars was slowly becoming smaller and smaller.  I had now rationed myself to one-half a bar and only on Sunday.  I looked forward all week to Sunday and to the nighttime when lights were out and all was quiet.  It was a pleasure to wiggle into my two blankets which I had arranged into a cocoon style so that I had the same thickness on all sides of my body.  All settled down, I’d think of my D bar and wait.  When I thought all the other fellows were asleep, I’d get it out of my pocket and slowly eat the half a D bar, and for a while I felt sort of content and fell asleep.

Winter had seemed so long with the cold, the hunger and the monotony of being inside all the time.  And my hatred of Russian Bank and the arguments it caused was a constant irritant.

I had to be on constant guard of my food.  I could trust only Rudy if I went out.  It was about this time that I devised a plan of slicing my share of bread in the morning into five slices.  My plan was that I would eat my usual four slices during the day; then I’d have one slice to carry over to the next day.  If I did this every day for a week, on Sunday I’d have six extra slices of bread.  I wouldn’t tell anybody about this plan, and I thought about it a lot.  I’d have so much to eat on Sunday.  I’d have a feast then and top it off with my half of a D bar.

I never succeeded in carrying out this plan.  I’d go to bed thinking of this slice of bread that I had and no one else had and think of nothing else but this slice of bread.  I would try to think of something else, but I couldn’t; and I couldn’t sleep because of this one slice of bread.  I had to finally get the bread and eat it.  I excused myself by promising I’d carry out this plan after this one time of giving into my hunger.  I never succeeded, and in just a day or two gave up this whole plan.  I did, however, continue to slice my bread into five thin slices and spread the pleasure of it over the whole day.

It was hard to be hungry all the time, even after you ate.  No one can imagine what it is like, a constant ache and the only thing you think about and dream about.

I still received letters from home, but no one received any parcels.  I imagine they were all lost in transit or stolen by hungry civilians or soldiers.

I shaved only a couple of times a week and washed only my underwear because I wore all the rest of my clothes all the time to keep warm.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999

Stalag Luft 1

We arrived at our destination early in the afternoon.  We could see when we got out of the freight car that we were in the town of Barth.  We were marched through the town.  People watched us, but they were quiet.  It was now 1945, and the war had been going on so long.  The Allies were pressing them, and the Russians were advancing from the west.  Times were hard for these people.

We were marched out of the town north towards the North Sea.  This was a vast camp with a huge vor lager.  We weren’t being mistreated on this arrival, but the guards kept marching us around.  They kept breaking off small groups and joining them up with other groups all in a very obvious effort to break up groups of POW’s.  In one maneuver I was moved out away from my friends. I was dismayed, but in another movement I was marched right near to them, and as I passed, I jumped over into their group.  It was a crazy thing to do.  I could have gotten punished if caught, but I wasn’t caught and we four marched off together, but not for long.  Rudy and I were assigned to the small barracks and to the same room.  Russ and Gotty were off somewhere else.  We could visit them in the daylight.

These barracks had rooms with the same number of bunks in them as our last barracks, also a stove behind a low counter and a picnic table and benches in the middle of the room.  To our dismay the men already in the room talked mainly of food.  When sex was no longer the main topic and food was, you knew hunger stared you in the face.

I got a top bunk.  Rudy had a lower one on the other side of the room.  The room was cold.  It was getting late, and we received the usual stew.  When the lights went off, I went to bed fully dressed.  After all was quiet and I hoped most of the men were asleep, I took out one of my D bars and consoled myself with it.  I needed some support.  This was an old camp, and I knew that food was scarce and that times were getting tough for our captors.  We were coming to some kind of an end.  How would I get back?

This was winter, and we were advised after we had been there a few days that we would get only four brickettes of coal for our stove each day.  Brickettes were about four inches long and about three inches in diameter, hard pressed coal dust.  Our room held a meeting, and we voted to save the brickettes until Sunday, and on Sunday we’d have a warm day.  So on Sundays we kept a low fire going as long as we could.

The days were monotonous.  There were no organized activities here.  The room was only a little less cold than outside.  Red Cross parcels arrived, but never one per man, generally four men to a parcel and sometimes more, even up to eight men to a parcel.

Each morning we each got a piece of sour dough bread.  It looked as if it had been baked either packed in sawdust or sawdust added to it.  The bread was very dark rye bread color and bitter to the taste, but we ate it.

Some guys from another room found a way to get into the attic so soon all rooms had access to it.  A democratic plan was formulated.  Attic space above each room and half the space above the hall was private property not to be invaded by members from another room.  All wooden parts of the building construction not absolutely necessary to hold the building up could be extracted and used for firewood.  As spring came we could finally feel the building sway in the wind ever so gently.

One of the guys in our room made a small toy-size stove out of a couple of klim cans.  He had gotten some potato peels from near the cook house where they had been thrown.  For fuel he used bar soap from the Red Cross parcels.  It burned nicely without smoke and was ideal for this small stove.

We had by now been forced into a system of food partners.  You had to have someone you could trust with your share of food or else you couldn’t leave the room unless you carried everything out with you.  As it became more and more scarce, food was our most prized possession and uppermost in our minds day and night.

Rudy and I teamed up.  He was having trouble with one of his feet.  He thought it was frost bite, and I could see how it could happen, it did get so cold at night.  So on our team Rudy generally stayed in the room during this long winter, and I went out.  I had acquired a small box and with it I went out to look for pieces of paper and potato peels from near the cook house.  It was exciting to bring some back and also exciting when we had a turn at this small cook stove.

The potato skins were a big addition.  They weren’t good, but they helped.

The stew was an important event in our day.  Two guys would go to get the container.  Each day there were a different two men, and after they divided the stew as evenly as possible, the two who carried the container to the room had the privilege of scraping the insides of the container dividing what clung to the sides between them.  We all looked forward to our turn.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999

The Russians

At the end of the month while on parade the German officers announced we would be leaving in the morning for a new camp.  We should be ready in the morning early to march out of the camp.  None of us had trouble deciding what to pack. We owned very little, and it all went into the suitcase.  But it was cold.  I had a green knit hat my mother had put in the package that had the bean bag, and I didn’t want to wear it.  I didn’t want to attract attention.  I had a tan scarf that I had bought with some of my cigarettes from another POW.  I sewed about 12 inches of the scarf together at the center, which made a very practical hood and still left enough on each end to wrap around my neck or pull up over my mouth to protect me from the cold.  That is the way I marched to the train, my blankets over my shoulders, my overcoat buttoned and suitcase in hand with mostly my precious Red Cross food.  We marched down the long gravel road, the road we had had to run up only last summer.  There were no civilians watching us, only our guards.  We wondered if the civilians had been moved out too from this area because of the Russian advances.

When we arrived at the railroad station, there was the usual freight train, and as usual my friends and I got in the same car, and as usual it was packed so that it was only possible to sit with knees drawn up and suitcase alongside.  I had a terrible boil on my seat, and to relieve the pain, I rolled my blankets in the shape of a doughnut so that I could sit easier.

Soon we were moving.  We had been told as the doors slammed that we were being saved from the Russians.   It was a dark, overcast day.  Our total trip this time took two days and one night. We didn’t move very fast and were often stopped.  During the day Russ Goodwin, who had sung professionally, sang for us at times.   

We stopped during the day once, let out in a field, and got some water.  There were new guards here, much older men, rough in manner with their guns drawn and pointed at us, yelling “Rausch, Rausch” all the time.

At night we stopped and didn’t move most of the night.  It rained all night and was cold and damp.  We could hear much activity outside and could see other freight trains near us.  We kept very quiet.  We didn’t want to attract attention because we would be helpless if our train were attacked.

We could look out of the slats of the car and saw open freight cars carrying civilians in the rain.  We even saw civilians stealing food, we thought, from an open freight car.  All of these people out in the rain were evidently being moved from the approaching Russian armies.

Very few of us slept during that night.  It was too cold, and we really worried that our train would be attacked by the hungry people all around us.  But, I guess our guards kept them away.  I couldn’t see much of the guards, but they were always around.

Morning came and it had stopped raining.  We weren’t wet, but we were cold although the number of bodies did help, to some extent, in supplying some heat.  Although I tried to eat something from the case, I couldn’t.  I didn’t feel like it.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999

One Year

December first was an anniversary.  It was now one year, and one day since I had landed after my successful parachute jump.  We had prisoners here who weren’t even in the army a year ago.  There were several guys from a crew who had landed by mistake at a Belgium airport.  They weren’t even aware of this error in navigation when they saw soldiers running up to their plane and realized they were the enemy and they were prisoners.  They were the only guys in the camp who brought their own personal things with them.  They had literally flown into prison camp, never to see anything but this life of ours until everything would come to an end.

Christmas, 1944, was wonderful.  We each received a Red Cross parcel, a whole parcel for each man.  Of course, as usual they were all opened so we couldn’t save anything too long.

Almost everyone received mail, and we shared with anyone who didn’t get a letter.  Sharing meant that we let them read the letters.  We got a group of new prisoners just a day or two before Christmas.  They were all amputees, some with missing arms and some missing legs.  All were able to move around on their own and only recently released from German military hospitals.

New people and so much food made life sort of exciting.  Every room was having banquets on Christmas, and the next day was misery for a lot of the fellows who had eaten too much.  Many of us ate well but sparingly.  We wanted to spread this abundance until the next parcel.  We had been through too many times now when food was very scarce and we had only the bread and stew from the cook house to satisfy our hunger.

There were some men who had nothing left from their parcel because they wasted their supplies or even sold things to get a big supply of cigarettes.  As usual, I had used my cigarettes for D bars; prices were down so I got a few bars.  I believe I now had about eight or nine D bars hidden out of sight from everyone.  No one, not even my close friends, knew of my wealth.

January was very cold and we all stayed in our rooms a lot.  The rooms were crowded and cold, and tempers were short.  Some guys played poker or bridge all day long and only stopped at night when the lights went out.  Then they stopped while cussing and swearing at the Germans for turning off the lights.

A few days after Christmas as secretary of the camp I was present at the departure of our amputees who were going home.  I wished so desperately that I had lost an arm or leg so that I could go with them.  I stood and watched them march out of the camp.  The gate closed behind them and tears came but just for a moment.  I didn’t want the guards to see that I was really depressed.  I went back to my barracks and into my room and tried to forget those lucky amputees.

I now wore my coat all the time.  The stoves could only keep us above freezing.  In the mornings we always had frost inside the room.

Our BBC radio news gave us news of the Germans being beset with many problems.  Their advance into Russia was a disaster.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999

The Blessing of Routine

Life in this camp started to return to so-called normal.  We had established a sort of church service, and I think everyone attended.  We mostly sang hymns that we all knew.  We had no books.  “We Gather Together To Ask the Lord’s Blessing” was a favorite as it had been when I was in jail in Lille.  I had a Bible from Grace in my last parcel, and I was reading it in the evenings after lockup, actually from cover to cover before we left this camp.  The bible disappeared, though, I think during a room search.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
So from the beginning the fight we were winning;
Thou, Lord, were at our side, all glory be Thine!

Another incident I feel I can connect to the guard dying at the top of the pole was even more violent.  As secretary I got around to all the barracks, even the cook house.  I never got anything as a handout, but I liked looking at the food.  This particular day I saw a red-headed officer through the window coming into the camp.  I was sure he was up to no good as he had a reputation for excessive sternness and was given to displays of hatred toward us.  We wondered if someone dear to him had been killed in the bombing raids.

He drew his revolvers and started shouting.  I never knew what he shouted.  He was outside the cook house so my interest was in avoiding him.  I got behind the brick chimney and kept behind it.  As he moved, I moved and kept the chimney between us.  He didn’t run around the camp, but he did clear it out.  Everyone had run for cover into the barracks.

He left as suddenly as he had come into the camp.  I never saw him again, but I never forgot him.  I had had guns pointed at me, been threatened even with death, but never before been in range of someone who was shooting in every direction.  It was an event to remember.

It was in this camp that we saw the buzz-bomb, or V bomb.  We had no idea what it was.  All we knew was it was too small for a plane.  It was high up and going at a tremendous speed.  We did hear from our radio source, the good old BBC, of the destruction caused by these unmanned bombs aimed at London and their indiscriminate bombing of the city, the death and terror they caused.  It was horrible, we heard, and we also were told by BBC about the Royal Air Force’s attempt to shoot them down before they hit London.  I thought back to the time we threw our toilet paper over the fences to celebrate the Allies’ crossing of the English Channel, and here we were still prisoners and the Allies still weren’t on the continent.

Cold weather was coming on us.  It was October, and I had been on the continent now over ten months.  The Germans we knew were having a bad time with a war on two fronts.  I was still healthy, hungry but healthy, and I did get letters in almost every mail call.  I wore my coat most of the time.  Although we got enough briquettes to burn in our stove during the day, the stove did not heat the room completely, and we had to huddle around the stove.  I scorched my coat one night standing too close to the stove.  I had a hole in the front of the skirt from then on, but I didn’t care how it looked, I was lucky to have the coat.

Even the stove in our little office didn’t give us much heat.  Every time someone came in they brought in cold air, and some of them held or left the door open.  I spent a lot of time yelling “close the door.”

One day a guy came in angry and emotional, having all the signs of having reached his limit.  He stood at the door looking around in anger.  He held the door wide open.  I yelled at him “close the door.”  He didn’t do it and instead he ran at me and started to pound me, I stood up to defend myself and soon we were in a fist fight, which was stopped by the other guys.  I never had any more trouble with him.  He was a new prisoner.  Maybe this fight and a little time calmed him down.

November was coming to an end.  Thanksgiving had been just another day.  No one really took much notice.  We had much to be thankful for.  Although we had short supplies, we were getting along.  No one was sick.  Sometimes we were reduced to eight guys sharing one Red Cross box.

I got a hold of a large cardboard box.  I took it back to my room where I made a partition at the head of my bed and at the foot of the bed pressed up against mine.  I also made a shelf at the head of my bed above my head for my things.  I almost had a private room.  I looked on this arrangement with much pleasure.  It was really the only way of being almost alone.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999

The Folly of Revenge

We were always ready to watch anything out of the ordinary.  One day we all stopped our walk to watch one of our guards climb the pole from where the electric current was wired into our camp.  This pole had a large current box at its top, and the man started to work on it.  We saw him open the box.  That was when we heard him yell and slump in his straps.  He wore equipment, of course to climb and work on this pole, and that held him from falling.  Many of the POW’s, especially the new ones, started to cheer and shout vulgar suggestions to him and to the guards climbing the pole to help.

 We who had been prisoners for a long time knew we would suffer for this, and it would be all of us who would pay, and it would be soon.  We were right; the punishment started that afternoon.

The guard was dead when they got him down from the pole.  In the afternoon we were ordered out of our barracks and stood for hours on what was called parade.  We were counted several times, yelled at and counted again.  Most of the guys who had some experience as POW’s had taken their valuables out with them.  I had my coat and my letters and pictures in my pockets.  We could see the barracks being searched and searched well because all the time we stood there we could see the search activity as the guards went in and out of the barracks.

Towards evening we were allowed back into the barracks.  It was a shamble as was our room.  All our stuff lay on the floor where it had been thrown.  Our suitcases were empty, and some guys had lost things.  I didn’t lose anything but my food.  We didn’t have much because we were anxiously waiting for the next Red Cross parcel.  The guard had used my bowl and poured my instant coffee, dried milk, jam and other things into the bowl as they did to all the others.  The stuff tasted awful, but I ate it for the next few days.  When you are hungry, you’ll eat almost everything, and I say almost anything.  I say this because in the next camp I came close to that.  The bread and stew that we got from the cook house tasted even better now.  They were the only things not all mixed up.

The punishment did not stop there.  For a month or two we had regular room searches.  Now I kept my food mostly in the pockets and sleeves of my overcoat and took it with me at parade.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999

Beans

It was late summer, and I received the second package, a package from my mother and Grace.  I always got mail when we had mail call, but packages were a different thing.  This was only the third parcel I had received, the second in this camp, and it turned out to be the last one I’d receive before I’d be liberated.  I don’t remember Rudy ever getting parcels so he helped me open mine.  It was in perfect condition with a lot of things.

When opened, the first thing we saw was a bean bag in the shape of a frog with eyes.  I don’t remember all the things, but I know I wished that everything could have been just food and especially cookies, but there were no cookies.  This was a little disappointing, but not much.  I was happy with what I received.

Now our full attention turned to my bean bag.  It occurred to us that perhaps there was a message in the bag.  We very carefully pulled the threads out of the seams careful not to break them because I would sell the thread to the embroidery crowd.  No message was on any bean, and we knew this because we looked at every bean.  We decided we’d cook the beans on the stove in our room as soon as we could get some fuel to light a fire.  As it was getting colder at night, the Germans supplied each room with brickettes for fuel.  So eventually we ate the beans.  They weren’t very good, but they were filling.

It was September, and winter was coming.  I wondered how we would get through winter with only the clothes we had.  I wondered but didn’t let myself think of it too much.  I figured I’d just wear one of my ersatz blankets as a shawl.

Then, wonder of wonders, I received a coat, an army uniform coat from the Red Cross.  It was a little big but a blessing.  Everyone got something, some coats and some heavy jackets, but everyone had something for winter.

In the parcel I received from my mother and Grace was a green knitted warm cap so I was prepared for winter.   At this time we also received through the Red Cross thin light sweaters knitted by volunteers at Red Cross meetings. These sweaters would be nice as summer garments but were too thin and light for any practical use.  They came to be a great source of wool.  We had some guys who spent hours crocheting.  The crochet hook was made on the end of a toothbrush.  I had watched my mother crochet as had other fellows, and we figured out how to make warm heavy sweaters from the wool of those thin sweaters.  I didn’t go in for this, but two or three of the guys did and had a big business making sweaters and hats for customers.  I didn’t waste my cigarettes on this.  With my air force jacket and army coat I had enough and could concentrate on my D bars.

Every day I walked around the perimeter of the camp with my friends, in fact, several times a day.  We talked and exchanged rumors.  We watched the guards and noted any change. The younger guards were disappearing, and we were getting guards who were older men.  We had thought the older men would be easier on us, but they were much more stern.  It was really lucky that our radio group had been able to deal with younger men and get the parts they needed.  It would have been much harder with the guards we had now and maybe impossible.  We still had our news.  I wasn’t a reporter in this camp, but I didn’t mind, I still had my job as secretary.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999

The Comfort of Friends

Here I found Rudy and Russ looking for me.  They too had either dropped or thrown away their cases.  We couldn’t find Gotty.

We could see they would take a lot of time in the barracks, and we would be here for a long time waiting our turn.  The guards would come out to collect a number of POW’s and march them into the barracks, so there was nothing for us to do but wait patiently.  Rudy had some cards in his pocket, and we got one guy near us to join us.  We played bridge.  I felt calmer, and we four just sat on the ground and played cards for a long time.  We did hear that someone had been bayoneted and that several men had been bitten by the dogs.  I didn’t see this, and the men never appeared in our camp.  I don’t know if it was true or not.

As I remember, we didn’t keep score of our game, and I don’t remember it being pleasant, but it was a means of calming me.  By the time we were gathered up by the guard, most everyone else had been processed.  One of the guards we had known before told us we were so relaxed waiting that they would let us go right through.  They had been pretty rough on many of the men.

For once I was relieved to get into a camp.  Here we were relatively safe, safe as long as we obeyed the rules and, of course, safe as long as the Germans let us be safe.  We knew the rules, and they had been read to us.  They were the same.  We’d be shot instantly if we crossed the low wire fence towards the high fence.  We would be locked up at night and dogs and guards would patrol.

My friends and I didn’t get into the same barracks, but we did find Gotty, and he too had lost his case.  Now we wouldn’t get haircuts.  Gotty had been cutting our hair because he had some scissors, and he seemed to know how to do it.

The barracks had rooms along each side.  Each small room had five two-man bunks, one lower bunk and one upper bunk.  The room was crowded.  In the corner there was a small pot-belly stove.

It was summer, and although we didn’t have anything but the clothes we were wearing, we could get along.

The doors were locked; night had come, and although I was hungry, I was very tired.  I took my shoes off, tied them to my bed, and went to sleep.

 I had a lower bunk, and it was in a corner so that the bunk next to me was pressed up against my bunk in such a way that I had a sort of private area when I laid down.  I made it more private.  As time went on, I lined my little corner with the cardboard from our Red Cross boxes when I could get some.

Morning came all too soon, and we were called out to parade and counted.  It was easy, all I had to do to dress was put on my shoes.  I no longer had a toothbrush or a comb or a razor, and I wore everything I owned.

It was announced that the same four of us who had worked in the last camp as camp leaders would continue here in our jobs.  I was to continue being the secretary, which made me happy.  The job was easy, but it was a job, something to do and to think about.

We weren’t going to live in a little barracks as we had before, but we had a small barracks near the cook house where we were to work.  After the parade we received our morning bread, and it was very welcome although we had nothing but water to go with it.

There was a large pool in the middle of the camp, but there were strict orders of no bathing in the pool, and that was issued with the usual threat.

There were some POW’s who had been brought in just before us who had been prisoners for more than three years, fellows who had been captured in Africa.

We got our stew from the cook house.  Each room had a large container of it.  We took turns getting this.  We also received a bowl, a spoon, a cup, and two ersatz blankets.  We even received a Red Cross parcel to share with another fellow, all this the first day.  I again traded my cigarettes for a D bar so that I had an extra one for reserve.

It was summer so we could work at being clean, but it took planning.  You could only wash one or two things at a time so that you had something to wear while they dried.

Bathing had to be done outside where there was a faucet.  You had friends pour water over you to rinse the soap off your body, but it was cold, cold, cold.  This was a sort-of shower.

The Red Cross representative came the first week we were there, and they talked to us privately.  They told us that they had been told we had refused to carry our own cases and had either left them in the freight car or thrown them away as we had been marched under guard for our own protection from the civilians.  A couple of weeks later we each received a suitcase, cardboard of course, two sets of underwear, two pair of socks, and toilet articles.  I still wore the same shirt I had had on when I parachuted out of my plane on December 1st, 1942.  Of course, I washed it every week if I could.

This camp was very different from the first camp.  Although we still got a few new prisoners, most of us had been prisoners for many months and some for years, so there was no talk of escape.  We had sufficient bed boards in this camp for comfort.  In fact, we had enough so that we could use one if we wished to make a toy boat and sail it on the pool in the middle of the camp.

This was a man-made pool, we supposed for fire protection, and the pool was a great recreation spot for competition in sailing our toy boats.  The boats were crude as we didn’t have any tools.  I gave mine some shape by using stones to plane a sort of bow, even making a sort of sail.  It was a splendid way to spend a warm summer day, and many of us did that.

There was a bulletin board on the outside wall of the small barracks where I did my little work.  Sometimes notices were posted by our German guards.  There were a couple of guys who posted the daily currency value of cigarettes.  Cigarettes could buy anything, and I kept track of this notice.  I always bought D bars and needed to know what I’d have to pay.

About this time I received my first parcel in this camp, one from my father.  Most of it was a box of cigars.  This seemed strange to me, but I didn’t question my luck.  I did a lot of trading and had a wealth of D bars.  I kept my wealth hidden and ate them sparingly and as much as possible in secret.

We still had some guys in our camp who couldn’t adjust to this life and some who thought they could get more by acting as spies for the German guards.  Both types really suffered.  The fellows who couldn’t adjust had what seemed like nervous breakdowns.  One of them ran one day out of his barracks, jumped over the low wire fence and climbed to the top of the high wire fence, where he was shot dead by the German guards in the towers.  No one could help him as he hung on the wire, and no one could remove his body until the guards came along and did it.

There were a couple of spies that we found whom the Germans treated with contempt and abuse.  They were completely under the German guards’ control because the rest of us had nothing to do with them.  They had a bad time.

Most of us adjusted to our lives.  We established study groups.  There were fellows who could teach Spanish, French, or German and also mathematicians.  There were no books or paper but there was a fair amount of enthusiasm.

Some of the guys took to embroidery.  They made their own designs on scraps of cloth; handkerchiefs were the best if they could be found.  We each had a sewing kit, and the colored thread were threads pulled out of seams that were begged, borrowed, or purchased from anyone who had a garment with color.  Some of their work was really beautiful.

My sewing was mostly confined to my socks.  I had only three pairs, and I considered myself fortunate, but they had to be kept in repair.  The sewing kit I had from the Red Cross soon ran out of thread so to get thread I pulled threads from seams of my clothes.  Sometimes the hole in my sock was very large, and I’d have to use a weaving technique in order to make a completely new section in the sock.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999

Hate

The train stopped and the doors opened.  We were ordered out.  We stood on a platform, a platform at a regular passenger stop, actually the first I’d seen in this country.  We were made to line up.  Guards were everywhere and had their rifles drawn and ready with bayonets.  An officer was running up and down the platform shouting in German.  He looked wild, and his shouting was violent.  It took us a little time to understand him.  We had been prisoners long enough to begin to understand German.  He was yelling, “These are the men who have killed your women and children.”  And much more that we didn’t get, but he seemed to be making an effect on the guards.  They were rough getting us in a line they wanted.

Suddenly, without warning, guards came up behind us, and I was handcuffed to a fellow standing next to me, my right hand to his left.  I had been holding my case in my right hand and transferred it to my left.  We stood still.  I didn’t think, just watched and wondered.  We were all handcuffed in pairs.

With guns we were prodded off the platform and pushed to a country road with the officer still screaming his anger, shouting orders, evidently, between screams.  We were ordered to start up the road and with cries of “Rausch, Rausch” we were forced by the guards to start running.  Not only guards with guns and drawn bayonets were forcing us to run, but there were big dogs barking at our heels.

At first, I didn’t know, but I became aware there were people along the side of the road throwing things and screaming at us.  Now that I think of it, I never once looked at the guy I was handcuffed to, but I am thankful for his cooperation.  We ran well together.  We seemed equal in our efforts, but I never knew who he was, and I don’t think he ever looked at me.  At least no one ever told me who he was nor did anyone come to me later and tell me.

We couldn’t talk, it wasn’t allowed, and to tell the truth, I didn’t want to talk.  It was a long run; it seemed forever.  The things people were throwing at us seemed heavier and more deadly.  The run became a hurdle race as gradually more things were dropped by men reaching the limit of their endurance.  Cases were dropped and even the musical instruments that the Red Cross had sent us.  The run was harder and harder as I had to jump over things in the road, even a man lying on the road.

At about the same time my fellow runner on the other end of our handcuffs and I threw our cases away.  I could no longer run, jump over things, keep ahead of the dogs and bayonets and still carry my case.  With a great effort I threw it to the side of the road.  I wanted to hit someone on the side of the road.  I was angry, I hated them.

There went my food, and the only things I owned.  I still had my letters and my pictures in my pockets, but I didn’t think of that then.  All I thought of was to keep running.  I didn’t even think of where and what was at the end of this run.  I didn’t have time to think of that or even the energy for anything else but this run.  I hoped my suitcase broke when it hit someone so the stuff would be ruined.

When we had come to a point where I didn’t think I could run anymore, we stopped.  I was dizzy.  I threw up, but I didn’t sit down.  I stood there as did my partner.  Some guard came up behind us and took off the handcuffs.  I finally looked around and could see we were in a fenced enclosure with a barracks at the side.  A short distance away I could see the prison camp.  Prisoners were being taken into the barracks in small groups.  This was the vor lager just like the last camp, and like the last camp we had to be searched and checked before being passed into the comparative safety of the prison camp.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999