Recipes for Living Robert Tucker

Bob Tucker, one of my mother's older brothers, was the epitome of a "Gentle Giant." He was well over six feet tall, a big man with a wonderful sense of humor and whose strongest expletive was a heartfelt, "Oh, my!" He was well educated and loved to read. He taught junior high social studies, spending a few years in northern Iowa and then teaching in Des Moines until he retired. He and his wife, Marj, raised their three children on the south side of Des Moines in a house he lived in for nearly 50 years until his death. My mom's family would gather at their home for Thanksgiving dinners, often taking trips to the airport to watch the planes land, or running outside into the front yard to watch them fly directly over the house as they took off

After I was married and had children of my own, Uncle Bob and his older brother, Bruce, became frequent visitors to our home while my grandmother lived with us. We had fun listening to them argue back and forth about everything, each trying to stump the other with questions about history or politics or what kind of car they had driven in '41. Even though both my uncles had served in the Army during WWII, neither of them spoke of it to us, and we knew very little about what they had experienced. In the early 1980s, Uncle Bob found his handwritten account of his time as a German POW and the liberation of his camp by the Russians. He offered to make copies of the account for anyone in the family who was interested. All of us asked for copies, of course, but I don't think any of were truly ready for the story we found there.

The following is Uncle Bob's story as he wrote it in May of 1945 as a 19 year old private in the US Army. The story is harrowing, and the feelings of fury that come through are nothing I would ever have associated with my quiet, gentle uncle. When he first rediscovered this manuscript, he wrote postscripts giving more information about the incidents in his original writings. I have included these in the original manuscript, using parentheses and italics to set them apart. At the end I have included a short commentary Uncle Bob wrote in the 1980s that made me realize he had come to terms with his experience long ago and made peace with what had happened. Uncle Bob died in 2004.

(The town was Hosingen, Luxembourg. I was a Medical Technician attached to the 3rd Battalion, 11th Infantry, 28th Division. It had been a very quiet front. I had just come back from a week as a volunteer aid man at the forward post. The Battle of the Bulge was just getting underway.)

I awoke with a start. I thought I had been sleeping, but just then another shell exploded. Yes, this was it. The Jerrys had brought up some heavy artillery and were shelling the town. It was 5:30 A.M. I had dived under a convenient table, only Homer Tonsing, a fellow recruit, had beat me to the draw and was already huddled under it. Sgt. McKnight came rushing into the room and gave us orders to head for the basement. We made our way down and stood there trembling. The shells were coming in pretty fast. One lit just outside the building with a terrific explosion. We could smell the fumes and feel the concussion. Later we were called upstairs to find the roof ablaze and the barn next door completely afire. Lt. McBryer, our officer, had come over from the C.P. (Command Post) and we were ordered to gather what articles we could and set up an aid station in the C.P. basement. Outside, the fast chatter of German "burp" guns could be heard. We, each in turn, ran across to the C.P.

The next few days found us in the basement or running across the street to the mess hall. (A sniper kept firing on us as we dashed from the former hotel that we used as our CP. across the street to the mess hall. One time a bullet smacked in the doorway as I ran through.) The shelling continued. (We were shelled for three days. One time an incoming shell screamed louder and louder, then the floor shook from the impact of its landing. Fortunately, it was a dud.)

I saw my first Jerrys on the second day. They were a couple of prisoners that our boys had captured. They seemed in pretty bad shape for front line troops.

Some tanks had fought their way up to us and we felt more secure. (When the five US tanks came in, we thought we were being reinforced. We found out later the tanks had no other way to go but forward. They had been cut off to the rear.) The kitchen, in the meantime, had been demolished by an "88," but most of us were too excited to eat anyway.

Early on the 17th, a Jerry crept upon us with a bazooka and fired at a tank sitting in front of our building. The first shell missed and entered the hallway, killing a tanker and wounding an infantry man. This was the first case I ever worked on. He was hurt bad, but I met him later at prison camp, and he was OK. (I thought the bazooka shells that had been fired at our tanks but came into the hotel were hand grenades. All the time I was working on the injured man, I kept thinking another one would come sailing in. It didn't.)

December 18, 1944: The White Flag Goes Up

This morning our officer asked us our choice; whether to stay and surrender or try to make a break for it. We were completely surrounded and cut off. The captain came down later and told of his order to surrender. (At last radio contact, our division headquarters were 45 miles to our rear and they were fighting. We were told we had little hope of survival.) We waited for a half hour, and finally a German officer came down, Luger drawn. He asked our prisoners how they had been treated, and they answered in our favor.

We had two litter cases (wounded men) and we hauled them out first. We marched to a small farm house, and all the medics and wounded were put in a room. The rest were left outside. We saw a few of them later at camp.

That afternoon we talked with a few Jerrys who could speak English. One non-com told us all the main German cities were gone except two. Another declared they were going to push on to Brussels and be in London for Christmas.

That night we had our first taste of Jerry bread. We could hardly go to it even though we had eaten nothing for three days. During the night, ambulances took away our wounded. Now our party consisted of myself and: 1st Lt. Robert McBryer, a medical administrative officer from Hartford, Connecticut, Sgts. Wayne Erickson from Cumberland, Wisconsin, and McKnight from Amsterdam, New York, Pfc. William Reynolds from Admanson, Oklahoma, and Pvts. Jack E. Levine, a lawyer who later ran for District Attorney of New York City, Charles Ogden from a town that began with Water-, New York, Homer Tonsing from Syracuse, Nebraska, and Vanderhoop from Boston, Massachusetts. We called ourselves "The Dirty Nine." We woke in the morning to find two guards sound asleep. One was lying right beside me. His submachine gun was leaning against the door.

Soon some other Jerrys came and made us haul their dead to a burying place. (This was an open field in front of the farm house where the US had a forward outpost. There were machine-gun nests in each corner. The dead we found had evidently been crawling toward the post.) We spent the rest of the afternoon digging a narrow grave. All of us were tired and hungry. Our planes had a dogfight with the Luftwaffe overhead. Five were shot down. Whose they were, I don't know. Anyway, by the time our day's work was over, we had buried 27 Jerrys and only one Yank. We learned later that he had been unidentified and had been shot by our own forces.

December 20, 1944 The Church

We were taken to a town on the German border that night. Here about 200 Yanks were assembled. We joined them and were promptly driven into an old church. Inside was a stove which was fired up, but the heat didn't circulate because all the windows were blasted out. There was no room to lie down; it was too cold to sleep anyway. The Jerrys gave us some bread and oleo. We threw the bread out and burned the oleo figuring on being better fed the next day. If we had only known this would be our best meal for weeks.

Officers were herded right along with enlisted men. We even had a full Colonel with us. The next day we started our march into Germany.

December 21, 1944 to January 7, 1945 The Death March

We were kept marching with little food, often none at all, not even drinking water. The first day we walked to a small, abandoned village where we were put up in an old schoolhouse, packed like sardines. It was so crowded that we couldn't lie down to sleep.

We walked to the village of Waxweiler the next day. The countryside was beautiful, all snow-covered valleys and hills and evergreen trees growing everywhere. We were too weary to enjoy it, though. It got so we just put our heads down and walked mechanically.

None of us had sufficient clothing. I did not have a field jacket nor suitable underwear. Some of the fellows did not even have overcoats.

At Waxweiler, we were put up in a chicken house. While waiting, a Tiger tank suddenly came around the comer, and if it had not been for Bill Reynolds shoving me out of the way, I'm sure I would have been run over.

The next morning, we were given some Jerry coffee, which had a bitter, sour taste. No food and 50 kilos (about 30 miles) to walk that day. It was the hardest day of my life. How we made it, I don't know. We knew we would be shot if we straggled.

We were told we would be taken by train to a camp, and every rumor had it that the next town would be it. This kept up for two weeks. We did follow an abandoned railroad for some time, but our bombers had made short work of it and no trains were running.

We had to sweat out our air force. We were told to wave our helmets if any planes came close. Bombers came over in the thousands every day. We were left unmolested, though.

We all thought Pima was to be our destination, but upon reaching it, we found it to be in ruins. The railroad station was a solid mass of ruin. We kept on marching. We went slowly onward for many tedious miles. Levine started to stumble, and McKnight helped him along. I was about as bad. I decided that at the next town, I would make a break for it and hide until morning, then give myself up. Just then I heard a train whistle. Maybe this was to be the place where we were to get transportation. We marched to a large warehouse. When we stopped, I could hardly stand still. I had to either lie down or keep moving.

That night we were each given a fifth of a loaf of bread and a cup of coffee. We used our helmets as containers, the rust and dirt making no difference to us. The town was Geralstein. The warehouse was some protection against the wind, but all the windows were blasted out and it was pretty cold inside. We huddled up the best we could and went to sleep. The next morning we were so stiff we could hardly move. We stayed there till Christmas night.

Christmas Eve, 1944-I'll never forget it. That afternoon, Reynolds and I were blown completely out of a window by the concussion of a bomb dropped nearby. That night, 40 Yanks were brought in from the railroad yards where they had been strafed. All were seriously wounded, and twenty of their party had been killed. The yards had been bombed and strafed, and they were in the center of it, locked in boxcars. The railroad had been put out of use and so we would have to walk again. The wounded men had to lie on the filthy floor with rags as blankets. We had just the medical equipment that we had in our kits, and this proved very insufficient. I believed most of them would die if they were left in that condition. We could do next to nothing for them.

I lay on the floor that night, chewing on a crust of bread, wondering how the people back home were enjoying the Christmas season. Some of the boys tried singing Christmas carols, but the words stuck in their throats.

On Christmas Day, we moved out and walked far into the night. Early on the next day, after spending the night in some shacks, we started on a cross country stretch. We ate snow to slake our thirst and picked up bits of acorns and frozen crab apples to eat. One place we found some frozen cabbage tops. What hurt us the worst was to see our guard halt us, then take out his lunch and eat with great gusto.

That night we stayed in a schoolhouse, and in the morning we found some German kids to barter with. Levine could speak a little German. We traded pens and pencils. Reynolds and Vanderhoop traded their watches for apples and bread. As we started off, an old woman threw us some bread. She cried like a baby to see grown men scrambling on the ground, fighting for a crust of bread. We also managed to get some raw rutabagas here. It was our meal for the day.

Just after this, my new fifty dollar watch went for a loaf of bread. I'm proud to say it was split among eight of us.

The majority of the civilians paid little attention to us. A few gave us bread when the guard had his back turned. The guard wouldn't let us have anything from the civilians. The old rifle butt cracked down on more than one Yank's head during that march.

One day we suddenly came to a halt. We were told that we would stay in an abandoned factory till they could get enough boxcars to take us to camp. We had originally been scheduled to go to a camp at Lindenberg, but that camp was now "kaput" (destroyed). The factory turned out to be a barn without doors, windows, or roof. It snowed nearly every day, and the snow came in on top of us. It was wet, damp, and cold, yet we were forbidden to build fires. (After a group built a small fire, the guards told us we were all to be shot the next morning. We were lined up the following day, but only to be counted.) Eighteen hundred men were crowded into this place. Many had diarrhea and the conditions were terrible. We were here five days, and each day we were issued a fifth of a loaf of bread and piece of cheese.

Most of us had gotten frozen feet or hands there. I froze both, and they bothered me for months afterward. My fingers are normal again, but my toes are still numb. We spent New Years Day in these conditions. We did manage to get some Red Cross boxes from Jerry. We shared them ten to the box, giving each of us just a taste, but it was something, anyway. Finally, enough cars were congregated to take us out. We were a happy bunch, believe me, but the worst was yet to come. There was still a long journey in locked boxcars.

On the morning of the 4th, we were forced to stand out in the snow and cold for two hours while we were counted and guards were changed. Afterward we were marched to a line of boxcars. We noted no sign of red crosses on them and therefore were afraid of being strafed. Fifty men were then crammed into each car, and the car was then locked, never to be opened again until our journey was over, four days later. The floors were damp with melted snow. There was insufficient straw there to serve all of us. The light was so poor you could barely see the man next to you.

The train pulled out and we were on our way across Germany. We stopped at one place for quite a while, and through a crack in the door we could see a sign stating that this was Frankfort, a place that was being bombed daily at the time. We were certainly glad to pull out of there.

The morning of the 7th, the train stopped. The doors were suddenly thrown open and the strong light blinded us. We got out the best we could and tried to walk. My shoestring had come untied and I tried to tie it, but my fingers were too stiff to manipulate it. We started up the road and in the distance we could make out some long wooden structures surrounded by wire. We knew then that we had finally reached the prison camp. Three men had died on the way.

The weather was bitter cold, and we sure welcomed the hot coffee served when we arrived. We waited all day to be registered. In the late afternoon, we were served "skilly'' (soup). This was our first hot food since our capture. That night, we were taken to get showers and delousing. We were all filthy dirty. The hot water was bad on our frozen feet, though. They also gave us each a typhus shot. (We saw some Russians in the showers. They were skin and bones, the same living skeletons we were to see pictures of later, after the war, of the Jewish prisoners in the concentration camps.)

Afterwards, we were taken to a building where we had our pictures taken and were issued identification cards. My ID (identification) number was 317355. In another place, we were searched. We had our pay books and medical cards taken from us. They also took all the money, but we had burned ours just before we gave up. Late that night, we were finally given our quarters.

Stalag LV-B was an English non-com (non-commissioned officers) camp. We were the first Americans there. The normal Anglo-American strength was 10,000. It also contained a small number of other nationals. The camp was located near Muhlberg-on-Oder. It was 60 miles south of Berlin, between Leipzig and Dresden.

Hut 85: Our hut had straw on the floor. This served as our beds. There was a small heater in the center of the room, but there was little coal to burn. When fuel was obtainable, the ones near the stove scorched while the rest froze. I never got really warm once in the month we were living there.

We had roll call every morning at seven. After that we went back in and huddled together for warmth till skilly came up. Then we went back to lie down till dry rations came.

During this month, the ones who could prove they were non-coms were sent to a regular American camp. Also, a lot of working parties were sent out. These groups, called Komandoes, were sent to different cities to work in factories, mills, mines, and on the railroads. Medics were not sent out except as aid men. It was a difficult matter to get recognized by the Jerrys. It wasn't till April that my recognition papers came through. The first of February showed a great improvement. We were moved into regular barracks.

56A: The English barracks were fixed up pretty good compared to what we had been used to. They had one side of their barracks lined with triple deck bunks, and their tables took up the other side. In the center of the room stood two long brick stoves. These were fired up every noon that fuel could be obtained.

The "Limeys" resented our intrusion from the very beginning and soon let us know it. I have no use for them. They blamed everything that ever happened on the Yanks. They tried to tell us how to live and even what to eat. We soon learned to ignore them.

All the barracks in camp were wooden frame structures and all were built the same. The camp was divided into a number of compounds. There were English, R.A.F. (Royal Air Force), Russian, Danish, Polish, French, Dutch, and Italian compounds. Each was separated from the others by wire.

I was in 56-A until we were liberated. We had few details about what was going on outside the camp and had most of the time to ourselves. All winter I read to pass away the time. We spent a great part of our time in bed. I usually went to bed at six. The beds were wooden affairs with a few bed boards as a mattress. It was far from comfortable, but we managed to get some rest.

The Camp Market

This was the meeting place for the whole camp. All the nationalities brought their unwanted articles here to be swapped or sold for cigarettes. Cigarettes were the medium of exchange and were just as precious as gold. If you had the fags, you could buy almost anything on the market, from razor blades to a tin of grape jelly. The big trading day was the day after Red Cross parcels came in, and there were plenty of cigarettes and food to barter with.

The Russians had no Red Cross issue, and therefore could be seen trading off their day's rations of bread and margarine for a few fags. They were great smokers and would trade most anything they had for cigarettes. They lived mostly on potato peels thrown to them by the British. (One instance I recall at the camp market was when a wagon load of rutabagas was being brought in. A Russian reached up to grab a rutabaga off the cart and the guard instantly shot him dead. Few in the market paid much attention. It seemed to be a common occurrence.)

The Poles were the real traders. They had a chance to bring stuff in from the civilians while on Komando. They always had civilian bread to sell.

The Danes had the finest materials to trade. Their parcels contained pure butter, cheese, meats, and excellent sweet cookies. The Danes were great for buying clothes, and some Yanks traded nearly everything they had on.

I was no dealer at the market. I always let my "mucker" (buddy) Reynolds do the trading. He always seemed to get the best deals. In fact, I've known him to trade a tin of Bully Beef for a can of jam, sell the jam, buy back the Bully, and still have cigarettes to boot.

Some of the more industrious men made small cakes out of sugar and chocolate and sold them for a fag apiece. Of course, I always had to sample these, but they were a waste of fags. We always tried to buy what we thought would last us the longest.

The last few months showed a lot of corruption at the market, and one had to be watchful when he bought anything. We once bought a tin of coffee and paid a good price, only to find we had bought an inferior grade which should have cost next to nothing. One practice was to take two cans, remove the contents, and then mix them together as the original product. More than one can of meat was found to contain sand, peelings, or yam. One enterprising Ruskie mixed tooth power with oatmeal and sold a number of tins before he was caught.

I could never stop at the market without buying something. I never spent over four cigarettes for any one article. I always bought food, especially cookies, when I could strike a good bargain.

Food: Food was the most important thing in the life of a "kriegie" (prisoner). The Jerrys fed us a starvation diet, and if it had not been for the Red Cross parcels, we would probably have starved. Since the parcels were few and far between, we went hungry all the time. I never once was filled up all the time I was a prisoner.

The Jerry's issue consisted of a cup of coffee in the morning, a cup of soup at noon, a small piece of bread, a minute portion of margarine, and sometimes cheese or meat in the afternoon.

The Jerry's coffee was made of some kind of grain and had a very unpleasant taste. I never touched it. The skilly consisted of pea, dried vegetable, bean, or turnip soup. (I sometimes found small teeth in my soup. Maybe I'm fortunate in not finding out what kind of animal they belonged to.) Once in a long while we got oats, millet, or sauerkraut. We liked the oats the best, but none was appetizing. In civilian life, none of us would have touched the stuff. The Jerrys also gave us mint tea, at least that's what they called it. All it was really was hot water with leaves in it.

We had many different ways of preparing our meals. If we had soup, we would cut our spuds up in it. I forgot to mention we were issued about six pieces of potato per man per day. If the fires happened to be on that day, we would re-cook them. If the fires were not on, we would use our blower. This was the pride and joy of our self-made mechanic, Reynolds. It had a large wheel to turn which would force air onto the coals over which we heated our food. Sometimes we would eat our soup as it was and bake or even fry our spuds. We got so little that it seemed foolish to spend all that time fixing it up, but what little we did get tasted good.

Often we toasted our bread, but more often we ate it the way it was because we were too hungry to wait. We always tried to save the bread crusts for a pudding but usually we had them eaten before we had enough to make a pudding. To make pudding, we would soak the crusts in water; then boil them. After it cooled, we would put sugar or saccharine in it and have a regular dessert.

Our eating utensils consisted of tin cans onto which we had fastened candles. There were also many canteens or containers which we called "dixies."

There were always rumors of parcels coming in, but most of the time they turned out to be just rumors. When any came in, they would be sidetracked at Muhlburg, and we would have to walk down to get them. The station was three miles away and it was a really hard task to even get down there. To bring all of them back, each man had to carry two parcels.

The Jerrys used their railroads for other things, of course, and we were seldom given parcels. When they did come in; we were issued just a fraction of them. We were supposed to get a parcel per man every week. The most I ever got was half that and that just a few times. We went for weeks at a time on just the food that was issued. (I was waiting for the grass to grow. I knew greens could be made out of dandelions, and I was thinking of ways to increase the dwindling food supply.)

There was little entertainment in camp, but what little there was we heartily welcomed. The camp had a small theater known as The Empire. Church was held there on Sundays but week nights usually found an exhibition of some kind being staged. Many plays were staged here with a full cast, some men acting as women. It was ham acting without a doubt, but enjoyable just the same.

The camp also had numerous orchestras and bands. The best to my notion was the American swing band which toured the huts each night. Nearly every nationality had its own orchestra.

From time to time we would have someone get up and give a speech on some topic of interest. Reynolds and I had our own special brand of entertaining. We would lie for hours at a time on our beds, discussing food! He would tell me all his favorite foods and I would tell him of mine. We would be too hungry to sleep sometimes, and even the mention of food seemed to soothe us.

The camp had built an underground radio, and thereafter, we received the latest news every day. The Jerrys were forever searching our barrack for it, but to no avail. The German news bulletin was also read to us each night. It really didn't give us much information, though.

When we first reached camp, we heard of the great Russian push and all through January kept up hope of liberation. By February, our hopes had dwindled. When the Anglo-American push started, our morale hit a new high. The weeks rolled on, and we got more impatient all the time. It seemed they were so close, yet so far away.

On April 13, news suddenly came through that Allied troops were in the area. The English officer was given control of the camp. Of course, we all thought they were just up the road, and you can imagine the excitement. You can bet no one slept that night. We waited but not a thing happened. After a few days, we realized we weren't as near liberation as we had thought. We knew American troops were advancing on Leipzig, and everyone was kept busy speculating as to when they would reach us.

Our planes came over in droves and could be both seen and heard strafing areas nearby. One afternoon they strafed a line of boxcars about a mile from camp and set them ablaze. The cars were filled with explosives, and the explosions kept us up all night long.

Sometime before this, two Mustangs got on the tail of a Jerry plane. The German plane swooped over camp just as our boys got a bead on it. I was outside at the time and everyone out there hit the ground at the same time while bullets whined around us. One man lying in bed was killed by a stray bullet. The Jerry plane was shot down.

Later on, two Allied planes came down and strafed a group of prisoners who had been outside of camp to get wood. The pilots must have thought they were carrying guns. Five were killed and quite a number injured. After that, white "POW" (prisoner of war) signs were painted on the roofs of our barracks.

(One night we heard bombers fly over by the hundreds, and later we heard the dull sounds of distant "thunder. " The sky to the southeast was a pinkish color. We later learned this was the infamous bombing of Dresden.)

On April 18th, we began to hear faint artillery fire. Soon news came of the fall of Leipzig. The artillery fire got closer every day. Smoke could be seen in the distance all around us. We imagined the Yanks would pull in any day now.

On the morning of April 23rd, we were awakened by the announcement, "The Jerrys left during the night and the Russians are here!" You would think we would be very excited, but it was really a disappointment that the Yanks hadn't gotten there first.

On the morning of April 23rd, a company of Russian Cavalry swooped into camp and Stalag LV-B was liberated. The Russian flag was immediately hoisted. The Russian prisoners were wild with joy. They ran in every direction. The first thing they did was tear down the wire. (The Germans left butterfly bombs around the camp as they departed, and some prisoners were injured and killed by them. Russian tanks were used to tear down the guard posts and barbed wire.) The next thing they did was to get out and start looting. They brought back pigs, sheep, and all the chickens they could carry. They were packed up and had left for home by 10:00 that same morning.

We soon learned to follow the "Ruskies"' example to get food. We were out every day hunting around the countryside for food. Every house for miles around us was looted. The camp chaplain gave us a blistering speech on the evils of this.

The German civilians had been moving toward the west for days to escape the Russians. They had cause for worry. They knew our troops would treat them much better than the Russians would. The mayor of a small town nearby hung himself, as did his wife and daughter. A camp guard murdered his wife and three children and then shot himself. One guard, known as "The Killer," was found by some liberated prisoners and immediately murdered. From what I heard about him, he deserved it. Another guard met the same fate.

On May 2nd, we were marched out of camp to Russian-held Riesa, Germany where I am right now, awaiting transportation to our own troops and then to the U.S.

May 2, 1945 Conclusions

I spent five months and five days as a prisoner of war in Germany. It was certainly an experience I'll never forget.

I'm not writing this to obtain pity. I'm not writing it as a diary. I want to forget it, not remember it. What I really wrote it for is to show how ruthless and inhumane and even brutal the Germans are. I'll always bear hatred for anything connected with Germany. Don't feel sorry for the poor German people after this war. They brought all their suffering onto themselves. Let them live on spuds and turnips. They made us.

When I went into combat, I weighed 180 pounds. At Riesa, after gorging myself for two weeks, I weigh just 154 pounds. Yes, let the Jerrys starve for awhile.

January, 1980 Des Moines, Iowa

I wrote this original account of my life as a prisoner of war in Germany while being detained in Riesa, Germany by the Russians. I was 19 years old at the time.

I ended the original as I waited for transportation to the American lines. This never came about. My friend, Bill Reynolds, left to make his own way back, but I decided to wait.

We had been treated very well by the Russians. We had comfortable quarters in a former military school and were fed well. We had the run of the city. This is how I managed to get a typewriter and some souvenirs.

A few days after Bill left, a friend and I started out the main gate but found it locked and guarded by Russian soldiers. We went back inside and climbed out our ground floor window onto the sidewalk. A Russian soldier shouted at us, but we paid no attention until he shot over our heads and waved us back in. We found we were prisoners again, this time of the Russians. No doubt this was for our protection, but we felt otherwise. So we rounded up our meager possessions and tried to find a way out.

There was a wall along a side street, so we climbed up a fire escape, climbed over the wall, and rolled into a ditch. Luckily, only the gates were guarded, and we were free to head out of town to the west, in search of American troops. We knew they had stopped at the Moulda River.

We walked all morning, passing through some small villages but seeing very few people. About noon, a convoy of Russian trucks came by and the driver of one stopped. We explained that we were "Amerikanski." He understood and motioned for us to get in the back of the truck. We noticed that all these trucks were Studebakers, lend-lease from the U.S.

After an hour or so, the driver stopped, motioned us out, and pointed in a certain direction. We made our way to a bombed out railroad bridge, climbed across, and on the other side stood an American M.P. We were back in American lines! Jack Levine and Sammy had made the trip with me. I was wearing a British battle blouse; the other two were mostly in civilian clothes. Sammy had on a pair of wooden shoes.

From this point we were taken by truck right through the middle of Leipzig to Halle, Germany. Here we were cleaned up and flown across Europe to Paris, then on to Camp Lucky Strike at LeHavre, France. I made the trip to Europe on the ocean liner Queen Mary and came home on a Liberty ship.

My feelings changed after a few years. I no longer feel any animosity towards Germany or the German people. It was war.

As I said, my uncle never spoke to us about his time as a POW, and this account and his later additions to it are our only record of his experience. I am afraid a few of the town names may be misspelled or wrong, but I have no one now to ask who could give me clarification.

A very interesting coincidence occurred this year. Our daughters have never read this account. When we received it from Uncle Bob, they were much too young to understand it, and it was soon filed away and forgotten until just recently. Our oldest daughter, Erin, gave birth to our first grandchild on January 20, 2005. The name she and her husband Niels chose for their daughter: Riesa, a word with Latin roots that means "laughter."