Naturally I played baseball and as a shortstop most of the time. We had some good games as the talent in camp was exceptional. One of the pitchers had been the national softball champion of the U.S. and he threw the ball so fast that you could hardly see it. I just took a chance and started swinging the bat when he started his windings. I didn't get many hits as they were too good for me! There was one pitcher by the name of Brown who acted nervous all the time and wou1d fidget on the mound, shake his arms and keep leaning down to pick up pebbles while getting ready to pitch. There were usually several hundred of us standing watching the game and just as he would get ready to pitch someone in the crowd would yell "What's the color of a horse?" and everyone would yell 'Brown!' We did this several times each game and it really got him rattled!
That summer was hot and the summer clothes were a sight to see. Paul Duncan from my room pitched on a softball team and all he were was a small piece of cloth in front tied around the waist with a shoestring. We used to play catch a lot for exercise And to keep busy. Sometimes we played a different game of softball which was probably thought up by someone in camp as I had never heard of it before. When you got a hit you could run either way, to first or third base, but you had to continue in that direction all the way around. Sometimes there would be six men on base and it made for a lot of activity when there was a hit!
One day I leaned across the table to lift a pitcher of water and that was the first time my back went out. The pain was so severe and I didn't know what had happened. I didn't go outside to the hospital but saw the two pilots who had had two years of chiropractor schooling before being drafted. They were our medical team. There were no supplies, other than aspirin and band aids. They did help me with massage and they decided it was caused by the jolt when my parachute had opened. When this happened, several times while in prison camp, I would lay on my stomach on a bench with my arms around under the bench and sweat. After a couple of hours this way I could get up and move around some. A couple of times I could not get out for morning roll call count and a guard was sent in to check on me. This is the only medical problem I had in camp, except for hunger and, later, dysentery.
We fixed a place between the barracks to play volleyball and played occasionally. We also made a boxing ring and got the padded gloves from the Red Cross. We didn't allow any fighting in camp so when there was an argument, those involved were scheduled for three one minute rounds in the ring. We would gather around for these events and usually no one got hurt, but this was the way to settle arguments. Neil Ullo was a very serious type and did a lot of studying. Being in another room he made friends with a different group and spent less time with Bruce and I. We did everything together and I did learn a little from Ullo about the stars. We would go outside after dark and he would point out the primary stars. I remember learning about Orion a formation of Seven stars and I still look for it in the night sky today. I always think of Ullo and that time in our lives when I see it.
We had one Black pilot in camp and one day we were at the main gate watching another group of now prisoners being brought into camp and he saw another Black pilot he had flown with. They were only about 100 feet away so we could talk to them as they went by. The fellow was so excited to see his friend he yelled "What did you do with my clothes?" and the new man replied "I sold them!" To this day I can still hear them saying that in their deep southern drawl.
The best Joke of all was the one that I played on Bruce. Every time that my back hurt or I didn't feel well I would ask Bruce to do my work for me like getting meals, washing dishes, peeling potatoes or carrying the hot water. I was very generous in paying him back with packs of cigarettes, which I had because I didn't smoke. I even got so I would try to convince him I was sick when there was a dirty job to do and he would do it. The important thing (to me at least) was that I was paying him with packs of cigarettes I was taking out of his locker. This went on for about five months and all the guys in the room knew it and were really enjoying it. One day he noticed everyone laughing and you could see the wheels turning in his head as he finally figured it out. He started for me and I went out the window with him right behind. He chased me around the camp for hours before he finally gave up and forgave me.
Bruce's bunk was just inside the door and he was in the middle bunk with his head next to the door. I used to get up first in the morning, go across the hall and hold my hand under that cold ice water till it was numb. I would throw open the door and stick my cold hand down his back and wake him up. My hand was so cold he would lay stiff as a board and couldn't even move, which was better than jumping up and hitting his head on the bunk above. It was a wonder that we remained such good buddies.
There was a Catholic priest in camp and I believe he came by way of the Red Cross from Switzerland. We had church services every Sunday outside the cookhouse. We had one tenor with a beautiful voice and he would sing "Danny Boy" after church. That is the song I remember him best for. Some of the guys tried to have a small garden, but the soil was just sand and pine needles and wouldn't grow anything. It was possible to get seeds and some other items by bribing the guards with cigarettes. The guards were usually older men, to old to fight, and they were glad to get food or cigarettes.
The guards lived in a building just outside the main gate and they raised chickens. Sometimes the birds would wander into the area we could see but not go into. One of the guys got a few kernels of corn and tied them at the end of a long string. He would throw it out near the chickens and slowly pull it back trying to got a chicken to follow. He did this for hours and finally caught one. We heard all the commotion and ran down to see what was going on. He had the chicken tucked under his arm, it was squawking like crazy and he was running in one end of each barracks and out the other with a German guard chasing him. After going through five or six barracks, the chicken was silent and the guard lost them. The guard searched awhile then gave up. Somewhere along the way the chicken had been hidden and some POWs had a chicken dinner that night.
Many of us tried to catch birds, mostly sparrows, which we intended to eat if we could catch them. We put out a cardboard box with one end propped up with a stick and attached was a string that led in the window. We put bread crumbs under the box and took, turns watching from the window. The birds were so fast that they always got away before the box fell. We never got any but we never gave up trying. Another way we passed the time was by laying on our bunks and watching flies light on the ceiling. How do they get their feet on the ceiling? Do they do a loop the loop, half roll or flip? We spent hours arguing about this but we never solved the puzzle.
Another interesting story was about Paul Duncan, a guy in our room who was from Kentucky, where he had been studying to become a physical education teacher. He had been shot down over the Mediterranean Sea and had floated for several days in his life raft near the coast of Italy. When he got to camp with us he was very skinny and shriveled up from being so long in the salt water. He and another boy from the next room got some cement from the guards and a metal pole and built weight lifting equipment. The weights on the ends were tin cans filled with cement. They would exercise for hours each day and it was amazing how he built up his body. He could squat down with his hands an his hips and hop like a frog. The two of them were a sight, hopping around the perimeter of the camp this way. By late summer they could go 3/4 of a mile around the compound in that position. He would do 100 pushups at a time and would lay on a bench with his ankles tied to the end of thebench raised up then touch his elbows to his knees. At one time he did several hundred of those before we made him stop. He was the one who wore just the loin cloth all summer and he would shave all the hair off his legs and body so he could tan all over. He was not in the cooking group that I was, but when I was sick and couldn't eat my share I would give it to him as he was exercising and needed the extra food.
Supplies were brought into camp by a big old wood burning truck. It didn't go very fast and after unloading the two Germans would try to get it going again. Several hundred of us would watch them and give advice. The boiler was on one side of the truck and they had to keep throwing wood in it to get a good fire going. When they finally got it started we would all cheer add clap our hands as the truck slowly chugged its way out of camp.
We had many styles of haircuts and some shaved their heads or wore a Mohawk. A lot of the men grew mustaches and we even had a contest for the longest one measured tip to tip, with a prize for the winner. When the mustache got long enough they would melt the wax off waxed paper from the Red Cross parcel and make the hair pointed or curled. A man named Irons won the contest with a mustache nearly a foot wide.
There was an in ground cement swimming pool in the center of camp but we couldn't swim in it as it was to save water in case of a fire. Several guys built boats out of the metal cans using only a knife and fork for tools. We were told that someone in the English camp had built a grandfather's clock that way and it really worked. These boats were as much as a foot long and waterproofed. A boiler was made out of a tin can with a metal tube to throw the steam against a paddlewheel. The can was filled with water and the rancid butter that came in the Canadian parcels burned in a tray under the can of water to make steam. Everything we received was used for something. If the butter burned well the boat would go about 30 feet across the pool. Some of these boats were masterpieces with a rudder for steering and a cabin on the deck. I remember having a big race an the Fourth of July with betting on the boat of your choice. If you were wealthy, you could bet a D-bar. It took a lot of patience to build anything this good with the material and tools we had, but it kept us occupied.
One of the barracks down by the main gate had two young cats that had wandered into the compound and been kept as pets. They talked about eating them if they got hungry enough. Later in the summer one of the cats died and they decided to have a military funeral for it. It took several days to make preparations for this big event. The grave was dug and a small wooden casket was built. In the English compound next to us was a British, naval officer who happened to be in Europe when the Germans first started war activities it 1939. He was the first one captured and had been in prison camps for six years. During all that time he had received many packages from home and had a complete English Naval uniform with al1 the ribbons and insignia on a white uniform. He wore it every Sunday while walking around his compound. The German guards allowed him to bring a delegation to the funeral and he led the procession in full uniform. It was a half day event with the Catholic priest giving the eulogy. There were even pall bearers. Several days later some of the men killed the remaining cat and ate it. Probably it was not from hunger, but just to say they had eaten a cat in prison camp.
We had a room in the theatre building for a news room where we had maps of Germany and two German newspapers were posted which gave some information (even if you didn't understand German). I remember seeing a copy of the paper on the day the Allied invasion began. It said 'Die invasion is begun'. If I could have gotten a copy I would have liked to bring it home. The maps in the news room had to have the front marked according to the German news… we got the correct version from the BBC.
The British in the next compound had a radio which they took apart And different men carried the parts. They put it back together Just for the broadcasts. The news was written down and passed to the other compounds by way of the hospital building. Usually someone had to make a trip there each day and It was read to us in the newsroom after making certain that there were no guards in or around the barracks. The one who read the news was Abe (I forget his last name) who was Jewish and always afraid of what the Germans might do to him. Ht would break out in a sweat while reading, but refused to give up the job to anyone else. He never lost the fear that the guards would find out what he was reading and how he got it. This news was the way I kept the map by my bunk up to date. We had a camp newsletter each week that was posted in the newsroom and contained news from home which came from prisoner's letters from home. We also had a wonderful cartoonist in camp and he had a comic strip posted every week. The heroine's name was "Needa Leigh" so you can guess what the cartoon was about. The newsroom posted this cartoon each Sunday and It was the highlight of the day. Guys would come by the hundreds to see the new episode. The age group represented was of college men and there was no end of talent.
The theatre had been built with a stage and a large auditorium. There were no seats so we built two hundred seats out of the wooden boxes the Red Cross parcels came in. They were like orange crates and by cutting part of it out it made a seat with a back. As the theatre only held two hundred, each program had to play several times. Some guys had theatrical experience and several plays were done. The German camp officers and some guards came to the shows and sat in the front row. Some of the entertainers made jokes about them, but they laughed right along with the rest of us. We soon received musical instruments through Switzerland and an orchestra was formed. Again, the exceptional talent of so many gave us good musicals. The Germans always came to the musical performances. I remember one fellow had a baseball uniform and a bat and he would recite "Casey at the Bat" with all the appropriate motions. It was great entertainment.
Fall weather arrived and we were not looking forward to the cold weather as we only got enough coal to use while cooking. All the sports ended and we had to find things to do indoors. Some of the musicians formed small groups of four or five with banjos or guitars and provided entertainment to the rooms. You would ask them to come to the room in the evening and they would play sing and tell Jokes. After an hour and a half we would pay them by feeding them our late evening snack. We would try to have some special dessert for them. It gave us entertainment and them food.
Two or three guys had been out to the hospital and were suspected of having TB. They were taken out of camp and we had no idea what became of them. We were told that there was no TB in Germany and they were anxious to get rid of them. We also had a few guy's who couldn't stand the captivity and began to act very strange. As we said in the service: they went "round the bend". I know of a couple like this and they disappeared. They were perhaps sent home through the Red Cross in Switzerland.
One day the Germans told us they were going to give us a horse to eat and we were all looking forward to having some meat. We saw the wagon coming and all rushed down to the cookhouse to climb up and look in the wagon. It was a horse alright, the head, four feet and the tail. Wt all went back to our barracks and forgot about meat and German promises.
The German pilots knew our location and would fly over our camp often and very low. One day we saw a large bomber go over with a smaller plane sitting on top of it. They were probably testing something new as none of us had ever seen anything like that. Another day a plane flew very low over us at very high speed and it mystified us. After the war we learned that the Germans were testing Jet planes and these were the early ones undergoing testing. One day one flew very low over us and just after it disappeared over the treetops there was a loud explosion, a ball of fire and smoke going up. We knew it had crashed and we yelled and clapped... just trying to let the German guards know how we still felt about it.It was getting to be colder weather and the Red Cross sent us warmer clothing. I got a GI overcoat which was very heavy and came down to my ankles. I also got two blankets, one a beautiful British Royal Air Force blanket. It was dark blue and very thick, With the air force insignia in the center. There was snow and that part of Germany had weather about the same as upstate New York. We were cold most of the time. I put my flannel pajamas on under my clothes and didn't take them off for several months. It was too cold to bathe very often and our clothes were getting quite dirty. I was still wearing the logging boots I had bought in California and my feet were always cold. I was again wearing the orange sweater that came down to my knees so I must have been a sight. I took some cloth, perhaps from one of my shirts, and made a pair of booties the size of my feet and another larger pair. I cut a German newspaper in narrow strips and packed it about three inches thick between the cloth booties and sowed them up. They were big and bulky, but I wore them in the barracks and they kept my feet warm. The Red Cross sent us some hockey sticks and skates so we decided to build a hockey rink. In an open space where the ground was level we smoothed a large area with the bed slats and piled up dirt about four inches high around the sides. We carried cold water in our water pitchers and poured it on the rink. Each night it would freeze and we'd put more on the next day. After a few days and thousands of trips with the water, we had a real nice rink. We made a puck out of a piece of tree root and teams were formed. The Canadians in the next compound had a very good team and we challenged them to a game. The big day arrived and our team was ready. The goalie was a tall red headed guy from our room and he slept in the bunk above me. The day before the game we all gave him some of our food so that he could build up his strength enough to play the entire game. I think the Canadians won but we had a lot of fun watching the game. The guards in the towers also watched the game of course. After a couple of months of hockey playing the sticks were broken off at the end and we had to play with them that way.
Soon it was Christmas and my third away from home. Under such bad conditions it was very hard to be cheerful. We did the best we could with decorations. Even though we were in a forest of pine trees, we couldn't get any inside the compound. We mixed the gritty powder that the Germans gave us for toothpaste with water and pasted it in the corner of the windows like snow. We also saved up a little extra food so we could have one good meal. The Germans had promised us each a bottle of beer for Christmas and we were eagerly looking forward to that. We each got a bottle, to our surprise, but when we got back to the barracks and opened it we found it was only a bottle of charged water, not beer. The only thing we could do was dump it out and save the bottle. Our spirits were low and this didn't help any. We spent the rest of the day thanking of our loved ones at home and wishing we were with them.
In January 1945 we began to hear the big guns from the east and we knew the Russians were advancing from that direction. On January 23 we were notified by the camp commander that the Germans had told him to prepare to leave this camp before the Russians came. They didn't want any of the highly trained airman to be liberated and have the chance to fight against them again. We were instructed to walk 10 laps around the perimeter each day for a total of 7 and 1/2 miles. This was not easy due to the weather and our weakened conditions, but we knew it was necessary to build up our bodies for long marches. We discussed different ways in which to carry our belongings and food. We had large safety pins and a shirt could be pinned up at the bottom with the arms tied around the neck, thus forming a sack. Another carrying device was to pin up the bottom of our heavy army coat and put everything inside. This was the method which I chose.
Our biggest problem was to eat more food and try to build up our strength for what lay ahead, while saving some food to take with us. On the evening of January 28 we were told to get ready to leave. We put on all the clothes we had and I put on the flannel pajamas over my underwear, not knowing that it would be two Months before I took them off again. We divided our remaining food as equally as possible and sat around waiting for the order to march At the last minute they gave each of us a full Red Cross parcel and we were sorry we had not eaten more during the last few days. Just after midnight, at approximately 12:30 am on January 29 we were ordered to leave. I put on my overcoat carried the heavy Royal Air Force blanket and suddenly realized what a heavy load I was carrying, the miserable conditions, and that it had only begun.
Chapter 9First MarchThere were about lO,OOO British and American POW's who gradually left the compound. We formed a line down the road to the southwest through the pine forest, in the cold, as the snow fell gently. We looked back, Bruce and I, at our home for the past eight months. There was a red glow in the sky above our compound as someone, in a last act of defiance, had set fire to his barracks before leaving. This march was to last for six days and we were to walk sixty two miles. There was about four inches of snow on the ground. and during the first mile we began to realize that we were too weak to carry everything. I took the heaviest cans of food out of my coat and threw them in the snow. I kept the powdered milk as it was the lightest and most nourishing food. Soon the road was littered with food and extra clothing. We knew that we would need the food later, but it was a choice between that or falling behind and possibly losing our friends. About a mile down the road we could hear the Russian guns getting much louder (they were thirty miles away). Suddenly there were some rifle shots and we all scattered off the road, diving head first into the snowy brush. It turned out to be a false alarm so we stopped praying and got back onto the road. At daylight the wind began to blow and for the next two days we marched in a blizzard. We stopped at intervals for ten minute rest periods, dropped into the snow and just dreaded getting up again. We marched this way until noon the following day when we reached Freiwaldu, a distance of eighteen miles in eleven hours. We stopped at a farm house and the barn was full so Bruce and I laid down in the snow against the back of the barn out of the wind. During the afternoon we took turns going to the farmhouse to get warm. Bruce and I got into the kitchen and the farmer and his wife were there just looking bewildered. The German soldiers were noted for taking everything from the people in the countryside in the places they occupied and the Americans were just the opposite. After our time was up and we were warm, Bruce and I took some cans of food out of our packs and gave them to the woman. It was our way of saying thanks to them for allowing us to get warm and we received a smile from her as thanks. Then we returned to the blizzard. Later on during the march we did pick up some things around the farms and it must have been hard for the farm people. Having thousands of Americans crowding into every space must have been traumatic for them. The British prisoners were soon mixed in with us, as all became scattered in line. They were the most amazing people I have ever known. They were always happy and singing, innovative in finding ways to carry their packs. After a few stops at farms they would come down the road with baby buggies, carts and makeshift hand carts created from old wheels they found. I recall one group with packs piled high in a buggy. They also found sleds which worked until the snow melted. Under the miserable conditions no one gave thought to trying to escape. The American colonel who was in charge of us recommended that we stick together for reasons of safety. We had few guards with us and they were mostly old men. The old man with our group rode a bicycle and carried a rifle. It wasn't long before he was walking too and when we had rest stops we immediately fell to working on the blisters we had developed on our feet. We even patched up the guard's feet and it wasn't long before we took turns carrying his rifle and pack. This was the only way that he could keep up and we felt sorry for him. We began again at 6 PM and marched all night in the blizzard. The next day we arrived at a little village named Muskau. Thus far all we had to eat was cold food that we were carrying and some bread the Germans had given us. We were so cold and hungry as we looked for a place to get inside. Bruce and I found a place inside a small stone church in the center of town. We were crowded in so tightly that the only spot Bruce and I could find to sleep was next to the altar. On each side of the altar was a section filled with dirt, with many small white crosses stuck in the dirt. We removed enough crosses to make a place to lie down and when we left we smoothed the ground and replaced the crosses. This was Monday and the first sleep we had since the Friday before. We were very weak and desperately needed it. It was also a relief to get inside away from the cold and snow. We were sti11 eating cold food and more bread from the Germans. With so many men on the move, they had no way to feed us and by this time in the war they barely had enough for themselves anyway. I know our guards had even less than we did. When we started marching again we were really in bad shape. We were so weak with aching muscles and blistered feet that we began to worry about whether or not we could keep going. The boys from our barracks were still together and wanted to keep it that way. The only good thing was that the blizzard had stopped and it was beginning to thaw a little. Many of the guys were falling out now and laying along side the road. Bruce and I were having trouble and soon our knees began to buckle and we would fall down. Our legs were so weak that they wouldn't hold us up any longer. We would help each other up and go a little further. After several falls we crawled to the side of the road to rest awhile. We were worried about being separated from our group so struggled on as long as we could. Finally, so far behind our group, we gave up. After many falls we decided to lay there on the ground with the others who had dropped out. Then we began to worry about what the, Germans might do to us and concluded that we might be shot. That thought was enough to make us get up and keep going no matter what. We made it to Sremburg where we were going to spend the night. When we later arrived at Nuremburg we discovered that those guys who had fallen out along the road had been picked up by trucks at the end of the line and sent by train to the camps to which we eventually marched. They got there a week ahead of us. Ironic things like this seemed to happen to me all through these years. I stayed that night in a very large building 1ike a gym or a warehouse and we were packed in so tightly that there was barely room to lay down. There was only one small light bulb hanging about forty feet up on the ceiling. You couldn't see anything once it got dark. In the night when someone had to go to the bathroom there was no light to see by or room to keep from stepping on someone. We just ran as fast as we could, with our shoes off, over the top of everyone. There was only one small door at the far end of the building and everyone that was stepped on would yell, swear and wake up the rest of us. At least it was dark so they didn't know who did it to them. When we got up the next morning they were passing out watery barley soup from a big drum outside the building. This was the first hot food we had had in four days and we were very hungry. I got a cup full and took a big drink of it. The broth was so hot I burned my tongue and mouth so I couldn't taste the rest of it. I downed it all and was warmed inside. I was lucky not to have any back problems on this march as the weight of all my belongings in the bottom of the coat really pulled on my shoulders. When we left this place we walked a few miles to the railroad yards where we were to make the two day trip by train to Nuremburg and Camp X-111D. By this time we were all getting diarrhea from drinking the water we got along the march. It was not the same as the spring water we had in Sagan. With all the cloths we were wearing it was not easy to suffer from diarrhea. At this time we thought the worst of the march was over as at last we were getting a ride, but it was nearly a disaster. We were put into box cars, fifty men to a car with out guard. We were packed in so tightly we could not sit down and there was very little air. In order to sleep, we sat down all wound around each other and tried to Keep our heads out at best. A couple of the guys fastened their blankets across the corners on nails and made a hammock in order to make more room. It didn't help much because they were always getting in and out due to the diarrhea. There was always someone at the door in a bit of a rush waiting for the guard to unlock and open the door. Two guys would hold the victim by the arms while he let his rear hang out the door. When the train made stops we were all outside immediately with the same problem. One time the train stopped at a station in the middle of a city and we all jumped out onto the platform between the trains with the same problem. We all went right there on the platform with the German civilians walking around us. We didn't have time to be embarrassed as we couldn't wait any longer. We were so miserable we didn't care any more and everyone was in the same condition. After two days of this we arrived at Nuremburg. It was approximately February 4. We were farther south now and the weather was a little warmer. We were relieved to have made the trip without being strafed or bombed by our own comrades as we knew the Allies were aiming at all the trains they could find. It just gave us out more thing to worry about. We walked three miles to the new camp outside Nuremburg. The conditions at this camp were much worse than those at Sagan. The camp had been used by Italian officers who were prisoners and it was filthy, dirty and muddy. Bruce and I managed to stay together and get into the same barracks but we had lost Ullo and the others from the barracks at Sagan. The barracks were in sections with bunks for twelve men on one side of each section. A cooking area with a table was on the opposite side with an aisle down the middle. Each man did his own cooking on a stove which we turned on its side to make more of a cooking surface. When we found something to burn, we cooked on the stove. The remainder of the time we ate cold food. It was becoming more difficult for the Red Cross to deliver food parcels to us and some weeks we got half a parcel, other weeks none. We were hungry all the time and gradually getting weaker. The water, however, must have been good here as we were finally getting over the diarrhea. I should mention one of the observations I made about men at this time and know I'll always remember. The prison experience really separated the men from the boys, as the saying goes. I suppose it was because of their background that some of the biggest and strongest men were the ones that could not take this situation. They couldn't carry packs, cook, even light a fire and needed the most help during the toughest parts. The men you least expected to would become a tower of strength. It made me realize that I was a better man than many of the men I would normally have looked up to. There was a dirt road through the center of camp and we used this for walking for exercise. We didn't get enough food to exercise much and there was no room for sports. One of the guard towers was close to our barracks and it had a searchlight which rotated back and forth at night to keep us in our buildings after dark. They threatened to shoot anyone outside after dark as there was no wide open space between our barrack and the barbed wire fence with the pine woods beyond. They also didn't have the large guard dogs loose in this camp. We didn't have any hot water here so we did not take any baths or wash our clothes for two months. Our mattresses were burlap filled with shredded paper and so filthy that every day that the sun shone we would take them outdoors to air with our blankets. We soon discovered we were infested with bedbugs lice and fleas. Don't ask me why but they never bothered me at all. I would lay on my bunk and they were so thick that I could see them jump from the guy on my right to me then on to Bruce on the next bunk. Some guys were scarred all over their bodies from the bites, but I can't remember having a single bite. A boy named Lindstom was in the bottom corner bunk and he was so sick he didn't move the last three weeks we were there. His skin was Just raw from the fleas. One of his buddies was feeding him and I wondered what happened to him when we moved out of this camp as he couldn't walk. When I was in Atlantic City for discharge I met him on a street corner and had a visit with him so I knew he made it. About a week before we left this camp, the Red Cross sent in some insecticide and we put it all over ourselves and our clothes and blankets. By the time we moved out a week later we had rid ourselves of most of the insects. Next to our barracks was a large one room building used for a wash house. It contained only some old sinks and two cold water faucets so we seldom used it. The old boards ran up and down on the sides and we were gradually taking them off the building to use for fire wood for cooking. The Germans forbade it so we had to sneak around when they were not looking. The nails would make a terrible noise when you pulled the boards off so we would loosen them very carefully during the daytime when the guards were not looking and at night we would time the sweep of the searchlight to dash out and rip one off, then run for the barracks before they turned the searchlight back and shot us. The noise of the nails was awfully loud in the night and would alert the guards. By the time we left this camp, all that was left of the wash house was the roof. We had outside toilet buildings for daytime use but no inside toilets for nights although we weren't allowed out at night. At the and of the barracks was a small room with a twenty gallon garbage can for use at night. It had to be carried out by two men in the morning and emptied into the outdoor toilet. It was almost always full and running over when you carried it. We drew cards every morning and the two low cards got that dirty Job. Bruce had terrible luck and got the low card about twice a week whereas I only did it once or twice. We didn't have any toilet paper, but. found that a cigarette pack contained four sheets of thin paper if you separated it carefully. I cut the tail off one of my shirts and used that then washed it out in the wash house. One day there was a rumor going around that a shipment of toilet paper was coming in and we all lined us to get it. By the time it was divided up each man received three sheets. Big deal! We finally got a chance to take a shower at the other end of the camp, about a mile down the road that ran through the camp. Every so far in that wash building there was a one inch pipe hanging from the ceiling. They only turned the hot water on for a few minutes for each group so you had to work very fast. About five guys would get under a pipe and we would Jostle to all get wet as it was only a small stream of water coming out. We soaped ourselves then crowded under again to wash the soap off before the water was turned off. In our group were four or five white men and one black man. We must have made a beautiful sight all trying to get under the water at once. As I look back on it this is what was meant by true integration! On the walk back to our barracks some of the guys were too weak to make the trip and fell down. We didn't realize that in our weakened Condition the hot water was too much for our systems. The stronger men carried the weaker ones between them back to the barracks. This was the only good bath I had during the final two months as a prisoner. Each morning we had to line up outside for roll call which was the way they kept track of the number in each barracks to determine that no one had escaped. We had a bugle player who played revile when the German Camp Commander and his group came in every morning. As soon as they arrived Inside the wire he would start playing a swinging revile. He really played some hot music and we would clap and cheer which made the Germans angry. We stood there while they counted us and once in awhile someone too weak to stand would fall and lay there on the ground. After roll call we would carry them back to the barracks. Most of the weakness was caused by inactivity and having only barely enough food to survive. Once a day they gave each of us a cup of soup which was all that they prepared in the cookhouse at this camp. One soup was barley and water (mostly water) and a dirty gray color. The other was a green soup made with dehydrated vegetables. This soup had black bugs, about the size of ladybugs, floating on top of it. Some of the guys could never eat this soup but I was so hungry that I did. At first I took my spoon and skimmed all the bugs off the top and ate the rest. I wondered why it was so crunchy until I discovered that there was a beetle inside all the dehydrated peas in the soup. After that I just stirred the soup up and ate it as fast as I could. These two months were very nerve wracking due to the continual bombing of Nuremburg which was only three miles away. The Americans bombed it almost every day and the British at night. Nuremburg had a large railroad terminal and was a favorite target. When the bombs fell, the ground and barracks would shake and everything fell off the shelves as the windows broke. During one raid the bombs were so close that one wall of our barracks moved Six inches. At night we crawled under the lower bunk together for safety as we couldn't leave the building. In the daytime we look two bed slats with the blanket folded on top and held it over our heads to go outside and watch the bombing. This was to protect our heads from all the shrapnel that was falling on the camp. The camp was right in the middle of the ring of big German anti aircraft guns that circled Nuremburg. One of these guns was in the woods just over the fence from our barracks and the noise was terrific. We watched the smoke rising from the city of Nuremburg those days and nights. When the British bombed at night they dropped flares which lit up the entire area and the searchlights that were probing the sky. We watched from our windows and worried that a bomb meant for the railroad yards so near us would fall on our camp. We had begun to dig trenches, but they were only a couple of feel deep so we never used them. We were more interested in just standing around and watching the planes go over. We began to see more of our fighter planes flying down low and one day a P-51 flew very slow1y over the middle of our camp, only a hundred feet up. We could see the pilot and we all ran around waving our arms and yelling at him to get out of here before he was shot down. We began to hear rumors and sounds of battle again and were told we would be moved. We didn't know where, but after the poor food monotony and misery we had had for two months, we were glad to be leaving this place. We didn't need to prepare for this march because we had nothing but the clothes on our backs and blankets so were ready to go any time.
Chapter 10Second MarchOn April 4 we began marching to the southeast away from the advancing Americans. It would have been nice to wait there for liberation, but the Germans had different ideas. At least now we knew it would not be long before we would be free. The Germans did not guard us much this time and we were nearly on our own as we marched. Our ranking officers made the decisions to march mostly at night to avoid mistaken attack by American fighters. We also had ten minute rest breaks every hour and the Germans gave us enough bread and soup to keep us alive. We went through the railroad yards at Nuremburg and saw the bomb damage. We were glad to get out of there before another raid came. Our line was soon spread over seven miles and we made the decision to stay with the group instead of trying to escape into the woods and head for the American front. Probably some of the crazier ones did try it.
We spent the first night in barns and any building we could find. The weather was much warmer and we enjoyed the nice spring days. I pinned a sock to my pant leg, found a pop bottle in a trash pile. and carried it full of drinking water. When we went by houses the Germans stood along the road watching us and very often they would fill my bottle with fresh water. The Germans in the areas that had not been bombed were friendly, but those in the cities were more hostile. The American fighter planes were flying over us every day and we could see the smoke from the bombed cities all around us.
The second day I was on a blacktop road and just coming out of a wooded stretch where I could see the line up the straight open road ahead. Some P-51s came over and started shooting at the line of men about a quarter mile ahead of me. The men dove to the side of the road and spread out a POW sign we had made from strips of white cloth to be used on just such an occasion. The planes stopped shooting, but not before two were killed and several wounded. I was lucky to have been still in the woods where we could dive for cover in the trees. After that we marched at night when we could but that too presented problems. It was so dark at night that we suffered from vertigo and had trouble walking. We finally pinned small pieces of white cloth on the back of the one in front of us in order to have something to follow. Sometimes we walked with a hand on the shoulder of the one in front too for orientation.
When we came to the village of Neumarket, the first thing we saw was a long section of railroad track balanced on the roof peak of a two story house as the result of a bombing. The next two days of rainy weather left everything in mud and we were miserable. We were caught along the open road with no buildings so we spent the night in the open in the cold rain. 1 just stepped off the road and lay down under a pine tree, covered up with my overcoat and tried to sleep. In the morning my overcoat and blankets were soaked and weighed a ton, but I had to wear them because I would need them again. I never even got a cold and was thankful for all the shots we got in the service, thinking they must have helped.
One sunny day after a night's march we stopped at a farm house to spend the day and rest. Bruce and I were in an apple orchard just behind the barns. Within minutes there were little fires going everywhere and we could smell strange odors of food. Eggs and chicken, and whatever else could be found around the barns, were cooking. Bruce got some eggs and potatoes while I got a little fire started. We cooked in rusty old tin cans we found in junk piles as we had no other utensils. We must have cleaned out some of these farms but it was either that or starve. Sometimes along the march the Red Cross trucks would catch up with us with some parcels that we divided among us. We also discovered that the mounds of dirt in fields near the road covered stacks of potatoes or rutabagas to keep them from freezing. We would dig out the rutabagas and eat them raw.
When we stopped in the small villages we took over all the empty churches and buildings for sleeping and guys would immediately start out to trade cigarettes and anything else we had for food. I was never any good at this so Bruce used to scrounge for us. In friendly places we did quite well at this as the people were desperate for American cigarettes. This type of marching and spreading out in farms and villages kept us mixed up with different guys all the time. We were all in the same situation so it didn't matter, but Bruce and I were still together. I don't know where Ullo was by this time.
One day we crossed the Danube River and there was a large unexploded bomb sticking up out of the pavement in the center of the bridge. We walked a little faster until we were by it. Towards the end of this march I remember being in a large open area near some buildings when a heavy rainstorm started and we all ran for cover inside them. One lone figure was laying out there under his coat in the rain and nobody helped him inside. He must have been separated from the friends who had been helping him. I found out later that he was John Bradey from Victor, N.Y. and when I got back to Camp Kilmer in New Jersey he was there and still sick. We became acquainted and he borrowed a clean shirt from me to wear home. He promised to return the shirt and about four weeks after getting home his wife sent it to me. There was enclosed a letter telling me that he was it the Buffalo VA hospital very ill from having a ruptured appendix. It had happened when we left the first prison camp, so he had suffered with that through two marches, two camps and all the way home. The will to survive was so great that it had kept him going all that way.
All the pilots in England must have been briefed on our location because during the remainder of the last march and at the last camp we were never again bombed or strafed while cities all around us were bombed. Our fighter Planes were flying over in increasing numbers as the time went on. We were fortunate to have been shot at only the one time when marching in open country. After ten days and marching 91 miles we arrived at the last camp in fairly good condition due to the frequent rest stops and warmer weather.
Chapter 11Stallag VII-A at MoosburgStallag VII-A at Moosburg was a very large camp as prisoners were moved here from al1 the other prison camps to keep them from being liberated. We found some of the men here who had dropped out from that first march from Sagan. All the barracks were full, and large tents were put up between the buildings and that is where Bruce and I found ourselves a place. They were large tents and we slept in rows down each side on the ground. We were on an incline and when it rained the water ran right through the tent sometimes in a real river when the rain was heavy. We finally gathered rocks and piled them up about three inches high and slept on top of them. One night I woke up during a downpour and found that my shoes were floating away down the small trench we had dug around our beds. I decided that between that and the water coming through the bullet holes in the tent I had better find a dry place for the rest of the night. I felt my way around in the darkness until I found a barracks building, then crawled around on my hands and knees in the pitch black among the bodies on the floor. I found a place and squeezed in between two bodies and fell asleep. When woke up I was back to back with someone and we both sat up at the same time. He was a big guy from India with all the robes and turban on his head, a big black beard on his face. He smiled (half his teeth were missing), I smiled, said "good morning" and got out as fast as I could.
There were prisoners of all nationalities here: Scots, Turks and Indians as well as English and American. There were about 27,000 of us so it was a large camp. Some of the Scots had their kilts and bagpipes and they would march around the open area we had for a softball diamond, playing the bagpipes. We played softball again here and I got a baseball uniform which I carried all the way home with me for a souvenir. I played third base because it was next to the latrine, which I needed again as I was once again suffering from diarrhea and dysentery. When I wasn't batting or playing third, I sat in the latrine and came out only when they needed me. My problems were probably caused by the bad water gotten on the last march and it was so bad that I had to run for the latrine every time I started to eat. During the worst times I gave my food away to Bruce or someone else who needed it.
I can't remember who was still with Bruce and I from our squadron in England or the camp at Sagan. It is possible that Ullo and Barlow were there with us, but it is only Bruce that I remember clearly. At the corner of the camp by our location the guard was a red headed German from Brooklyn who spoke with the Brooklyn accent. He was brought up in Brooklyn and had been drafted into the German army while visiting Germany. There was only one fence around this camp so we could go over and talk to him, sometimes giving him one of our chocolate bars as he had little to eat. One of the guys traded with him for a camera and film which he used to take pictures. I signed up for copies and received them several months after returning home. Those pictures are included in this chapter.
Moosburg had been a center for Red Cross parcel distribution and therefore food parcels were issued again one per week to each of us, thus providing adequate food again. We had no provisions for cooking so the art of making stoves from tin cans began In earnest. Some were simple and others very elaborate with wheels that turned by a handle to force air through the fire to increase the heat and help when burning green or wet wood. Bruce and made a simple one with two tin cans with the fire in the bottom one. It was a good enough setup for the little we cooked. The open areas between the barracks were filled with those little stoves at mealtimes. We were getting German ersatz coffee which was bitter and resembled coffee only by its color. We drank it because we needed something hot. There were also all kinds of cigarettes in camp when American cigarettes were not available. I tried some of the Turkish cigarettes and they were so strong it would knock your socks off. British and Italian cigarettes were also quite plentiful so I had plenty as I didn't smoke much.
We were only thirty miles from the concentration camp at Dachau, but we knew nothing about it at this time. After we had been here two weeks we began to hear the big guns to the west of us and knew that the American front was-getting closer and that we would soon be free. The rumors began again that we might be moved again to the east, but the Germans must have realized that there were too many of us to move and that the war would soon be over anyway. To the west of us was a hill with trees on the top and open fields on the slopes facing us. We began watching those fields waiting for the American troops to come. On Sunday morning April 29 the guns were a lot closer and we were very excited. The German guards had about all disappeared so we knew it wouldn't be long.
We were watching the top of the hill and saw the little L4 spotter planes flying low and directing the artillery fire. Bullets from rifle fire began hitting the camp and next to my bunk one guy was sitting against the center tent pole writing a letter when a bullet hit the tent pole and dropped into his lap. He put the bullet in his pocket and we headed for the trenches which were about six feet deep and ran throughout the camp. We looked up at the hill and the tanks were just coming out of the woods toward us. In my trench there were several British prisoners and of all things, at a time like this they had their 1ittle stove and were making their morning tea. Nothing could stop them from doing that.
Someone came running across the open space and jumped in the trench yelling 'Mail Call". I had a letter and when I opened it, there in the trench, I found it was from Eastman Kodak Company telling me that a Job was waiting for me although not the job I had 1eft. They sent greetings and hoped I would soon return. I can't imagine how they knew where I was and what an odd time to receive that letter, with the bullets flying all around.
chapter 12
LiberatedThe rifle fire soon ceased and we were all running around the camp excited and yelling. It was just eight days less than a year that I had been held prisoner and, as happy as I was, you can imagine the feelings of the men who had been held for two or three years. We saw a tank coming down the road into camp, ran to the main gate, broke it down and rushed out to meet them. So many of us climbed all over the tank that you couldn't even see the metal. The soldiers in the tank threw out whatever food and cigarettes they had to us. The second tank rolled into camp and General George Patton, with his two pearl handled revolvers, was riding on the top of it. He was one general who was right at the front with his men. Our cheers of celebration were just deafening as hundreds of us poured out of camp and ran around the countryside, thrilled to be free. Before long guys returned to camp with horses and wagons, buggies and anything else they could find.
I understood that some men packed up their belongings and started west toward France as they couldn't wait any longer. They traveled west by catching rides on the supply line vehicles. Most of us, however, stayed in camp as we had been told we would be transported out in a couple of days. When the day came to depart I left the heavy overcoat and took only what I needed. I took the baseball suit and the Royal Air Force blanket along with me, but somewhere near this time I must have discarded the long orange sweater that had served me so well during the cold of winter. We marched out of camp a couple of miles to a large flat grassy field where DC-6 planes were going to fly us to France. It was a nice warm spring day and we had to wait a couple of hours for the planes so we spread out our blankets on the grass and sat down to chat. It was a special time because we were just beginning to realize that all the friends we had made would soon be separated from us, never to be seen again.
The planes finally came and when it was time for me to board I had to make a big decision. I stood there looking at that nice blue air force blanket laying on the ground. It was so heavy and I didn't know whether or not I could carry it all the way home or not. At the last minute I decided to leave it there on the grass. I have always regretted leaving it and bringing the baseball suit instead. Bruce and I got onto the same plane and flew to a place along the French coast. Along the way we flew over Paris and I at least had a chance to see it from the air. We were put in an area with barracks known as Stage 1 and were told to stay in that area only. Bruce and I found beds together, left our gear and walked down to the mess hall. We each got one of the cheese sandwiches they were passing out and they were really something. They were two slices of white bread each two Inches thick with a one inch inch thick slice of cheese in between.
The bread tasted like angel food cake to us after all that hard black German bread; it was unbelievable how much flavor there was in white bread. We were to eat in this area only for the first day, as, due to our weakened condition, our diet and amount was to be limited. The second day, in Stage 2, we went to a different, mess hall and on the third day to Stage 3. Each day we received more food. As there were no fences between these areas some guys would go to all three mess halls for the same meal. The man named Irons (who had won the mustache contest back in Sagan and still wore the mustache here in France) was in the bunk next to me and at night we heard him moving around at all hours. We later discovered that he had a helmet full of food and was eating all night. Some of the guys got sick from eating too much and there was a rumor of one man dying from eating too many candy bars.
It was almost Mother's Day and each man was allowed to send a Mother's Day greeting telegram home. I sent one to my stepmother so everyone at home would know that I was okay and heading home. After three days here we were taken by truck through the city of LeHarve, France through narrow streets with the French people waving along the way. When we arrived at the harbor a liberty ship was waiting for us. After coming over on such a huge ship, this one looked like a rowboat and we weren't too excited about crossing the Atlantic on anything so small. We got on board and were surprised that there were so few of us, about 200, and that we were not at all crowded. the bunks were hammocks put up below decks and I was in the bow. We sailed across the English Channel on water as smooth as could be and enjoyed this part of the trip. When I was out on deck I stayed in the middle as the ship was so narrow you could stand in the middle and see over both sides. We sailed to Southampton, England where we joined a large convoy heading home.
Being an American ship, the food was wonderful and I had no seasickness to spoil my appetite. The meal just alternated between steak, chicken and turkey. After each meal we took oranges, apples, or bananas up on deck and ate them while laying in the sunshine. Although there were only about 200 of us, one meal we ate 75 jars of peanut butter. The seas were quite calm the first few days out, so we spent most of the time on deck to avoid the dark and unpleasant below decks area. There were ships all around us and I could count twenty plus destroyers for escort as there were still German subs operating.
At about the middle of the Atlantic we ran into very stormy weather with high seas. When you were an deck it sometimes looked as though our ship was alone and the other ships would come up from behind the swells only to disappear again. While laying in the hammocks trying to sleep at night we would hang on to keep from falling out. The bow, where I was, would come way up out of the water, shudder quite violently, then fall to hit the water hard. The force was so hard that it gradually broke all the light bulbs in the ceiling. This weather was probably normal for the Navy, but airmen were not used to it and worried about what might happen. After a few days like this the weather improved for the remainder of the trip home.
When we emerged from the storm there were only about one third of the ships left in the convoy and we wondered what had happened to all the rest. We later learned that they had turned off for other ports. The guys from the South were heading for southern ports and those of us from the Northeast were going to New Jersey ports. As we neared the U.S. the seas were much calmer and for a couple of days we enjoyed sitting on deck and watching the porpoises swim around the ship. We landed in New Jersey and were taken to Camp Dix from which we had departed a year and a half before. It was late May and we were looking forward to being home by Memorial Day.
Chapter 13
Home AgainWhen we arrived at Camp Dix the first thing we did was go single file through a room for a medical checkup. A doctor was standing there and asked "how do you feel?" I said 'Okay' and he said "Next". That was the extent of the medical checkup we got and of course no one complained about anything because all they wanted to do was to get home again. We were afraid that if we told of any problems they would put us in the hospital and keep us for weeks. We didn't want that to happen......even John Brady with the ruptured appendix went through the line quickly.
The next step was to go into a room where a sergeant made out our income tax and gave us some of our back pay so we had money to get home. They took out 188.00 to pay the income tax on my salary for the year I was in prison camp. I don't know how they had the nerve to do that after what we had been through. They talk about how badly the Vietnam veterans were treated when they came back, but I think what happened to us was just as bad. We didn't have any crowds to meet our ship or parades to welcome us back either. We later discovered that we should have insisted on more medical help and reported our health problems so they would have been in our medical records. A few years later when I needed treatment for my back, there was no way to prove that it was service connected. When I did try a few years later to get some compensation at Buffalo and Rochester VA centers for stomach and back problems all I got was a runaround.
I sent a telegram to my wife and told her I would let her know when to come to Rochester, then I sent a message to my father to tell him of my return to the country. I went to the PX one day and drank a half glass of beer. I discovered I wasn't in very good shape yet and had to go back to my bunk to lie down for several hours to recuperate from the drink. After all I had been through I weighed 124 lbs. only two pounds less than when I entered the service, however. I had at least a half dozen Army blankets and I mailed two of them home and later wished I had mailed a lot more as they were nice blankets and I sti11 have one.
When it came time to find out where we were going next we lined up in front, of the desk of an officer who was giving out papers to report to a large recreation club in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. It was one of those fancy places with tennis, golf, swimming and horseback riding for two weeks of rest and relaxation. The line got shorter and the man ahead of me got his papers. It was my turn at last. The officer stood up, announced that the resort was filled up and the rest of us were to go home for two weeks then report to Atlantic City for reassignment or discharge. I was so disappointed as this would have been such a nice honeymoon for Lettie and I. Another example of how things worked for me in the service.
We made preparations to go home and soon it was time to say good-by to Bruce. It was a very hard thing to do after the two years we had spent together and all that we had been through. We agreed to write often and get together when we could.
I met another man, Jim Smith, the nephew of Ray Smith who worked in the Canandaigua post office and we decided to come home together. He lived in Newark and I decided to take the train there with him. We were none too neat traveling on the train as we were still wearing our old dirty uniforms from prison camp. At Newark I took a bus to Canandaigua as I had not notified anyone that I was coming. I wanted to make it a surprise so I got off the bus at Main Street and didn't even take a taxi home. I had all, my belongings in a bag which I threw over my shoulder as I walked home up Chapin Street. I didn't even see anyone I knew along way home. When my father got home from work I was in the bathroom shaving and I walked out and said 'hello'.
Two days later Lettie arrived in Rochester and I borrowed my father's car to go pick her up. We stayed with my father several days and then decided we would leave as it was difficult to get along with my stepmother. We rented a room at Lowes Tavern on South Main Street which was a combination tourist home with room and board. We spent the next two months at different places like Niagara Falls, Hill Cumorah and around the lake. We were entertained at dinner parties by all the friends I had before entering the service. I bought a used Chevrolet coupe with the back pay that I received so we had transportation.
During these first few weeks at home I began to realize what three and a half years in service had cost me in terms of my position in life. Here I was at 29 with no job, a little money and a car. All the friends who had escaped being drafted, some legally and some not, had really prospered. Most had made a lot of money working in defense jobs, had new cars and homes of their own. After giving up three and a half years of your life for your country, the reasons others didn't go and their prosperity was always on one's mind. I wouldn't have done it any other way, however, as the good times had in the service far outweighed the bad and those memories will always be with me. I was lucky to have had the chance to fly those airplanes and make so many wonderful friends not to mention the exciting experiences.
In August 1945 we drove to Atlantic City where we stayed in a large hotel taken over by the Air Force. It was right on the boardwalk and included the Atlantic City Convention Hall. I'd never seen a room so large, approximately the size of a football field, on the first floor of the hotel. The beauty pageant was held there the first week we were at the hotel. We watched the parades on the boardwalk in front of the hotel and saw all the contestants. They asked all of the ex-prisoners who were there for fifty volunteers for one evening and, as we had always known that you never volunteer for anything in the army they had quite a time coming up with fifty guys. As it turned out, they were the lucky ones who each escorted a beauty contestant to a large banquet one evening and the rest of the men were envious.
We attended meetings all week to help decide whether to stay in the service or get a discharge. I had already made up my mind to get out so gradually got all the necessary papers signed and got ready to 1eave for home. The parking there was limited and our car was in so tight we couldn't get it out to use while there. My car was in the back row with two rows in front of me. The cars were so close together that they touched and I had to get the license plate numbers of those in front and around me and hunt them up to move the cars. The cars were so close together that the paint was scraped off both sides of the car when we finally got it out. When we returned to Canandaigua, we rented an apartment on North Main Street and became friends with Len and Marcia Bobbins in the next apartment. They built and lived in the house that I now own. I had to find a job, so went back to Eastman Kodak, but the pay they could offer was about half of what I could earn working with my father and Clarence so I decided to paint.
I painted with my father and Clarence as Gordon had his own business and Leon was working at Brigham Hall. There was not much work that first winter, but I did get a chance to help Leon for a couple of months at Brigham Hall. The next spring we had the chance to rent the house on Mason Street where Sands and Millie Mullins had been living. I went to Rochester and had a good talk with the landlord whom I convinced to rent it to us. At that time the rent was only $25 a month and as soon as the Mullins moved out, we moved in. While living there our daughter Lynn was born on April 22, 1947.
During the summer of i946 we took a trip to Kirksville, Missouri to visit Bruce and his wife Marie. Paul Maxwell, one of the pilots I had flown with in England, lived in Tarre Haute, Indiana and I had his address so we stopped to see him. His wife was home and told me where he worked so I looked him up. It was some kind of a factory or office building and I was walking down a corridor when I saw him ahead of me so I caught up, tapped him on the shoulder and said 'hi'. He was very surprised and we spent the evening with dinner at their home. We stayed in a motel and drove to Missouri the next day. Bruce was just getting settled in and lived in a small older house off the main road. We stayed several days with them, talking, fishing and going on picnics. We arrived there on a Saturday and stayed up half the night talking and drinking. The next morning we awoke with terrific hangovers and Just barely made it through church services. In the afternoon Marie made a container of soup to take to Bruce's grandfather who was 90 years old and had just returned from the hospital after having a leg amputated. He was gone when we got there and we found him down at a pool hall telling all his buddies about the operation. They are tough old birds in that part of the country.
Bruce was a woodworking teacher at the high school and later he moved to Santa Rosa, California to teach there. On weekends he taught woodworking to prisoners at Alcatraz. We had a good time with Bruce and Marie and although we never got together again, we corresponded for years. The big Swede, Al Johnson, owned and operated a motel 'Shady Rest' on a lake in Minnesota and he wrote several times and invited us up for a free vacation, but we never got there.
Back home we looked forward to Lynn's birth and then her childhood years. When Lynn was about two years old we were visiting with our neighbors Ted and Gertrude Smith and several of their friends one evening. Lynn was sitting of the floor and everyone was sitting around her talking. Suddenly Lynn spoke up saying "Daddy looks different than Mommy in the bathtub". The room. was immediately enveloped in a deadly silence and my heart stopped beating. Then Lynn finished saying "Daddy has wrinkles on his belly" and everyone doubled over with laughter. That came close to being my most embarrassing moment.
From 1946 to 1950 the painting business was not very good and we had to save our summer wages to carry us through the winter when work was scarce. I remember one December when I only worked Two days and made $17. In 1953 we bought our first house, on Telyea St. next door to my sister Dorothy, at a cost of $731.10 it was financed on a GI loan through the local bank. We moved there December 3 and it was a warm sunny day at 63 degrees, a perfect day for the three of us and our cat "Betty" to move. In 1948 the three of us, known as R.G.Benson and Sons started working part-time during the winter doing all the painting at F.F. Thompson Hospital which made it easier to buy a house. I had had a garden on Mason Street and made quite a large one in the lot on Telyea Street. I have managed to have a garden every year since then although some of them were small. I also inherited a love for flowers from my mother and have always had flower gardens and plants.
During the late 1940's when Lynn was small we took a trip to Utah in the month of December and we only got as far as Lancaster, south, of Buffalo, when we ran into a terrible blizzard and the roads were closed. We got into the parking lot of a closed summer motel with a number of other travelers. They opened up the motel so we would have a place to spend the night in the lobby and some of the rooms. There was no heat and we were awake shivering all night. Lynn was in the bed between us and it was so cold her cheeks were frostbitten by morning. Early in the morning I put the chains on the car and we were able to get started. We decided to take the southern route and we had snow piled up on the car until we got to Oklahoma, where everyone wondered where we had come from.
We made another trip to Utah a few years later and went via the northern route. I am unable to remember exactly which events occurred on which trip so will relate them as I recall them, without much regard to the year.
The first trip during the winter was the year they had the hay lift for the farm animals due to the severe winter weather. One morning the temperature was 45 degrees below zero with so much frost in the air that you couldn't see the mountains to the east. One week it only got up to 14 below, but the cold was more bearable as the air is so dry. Mrs. Clark used to go out and hang up the washing in a short sleeved dress when it was down to 10 degrees above zero. The farmer who was a friend of Jimmy Clark's was a sheepherder and he was stuck with a flock of sheep way out an the prairie with no feed for the animals. We took a load of hay in Jimmy's truck and his friend had a big bulldozer which he used to make a trail through the snow from the road ending to where the herder was. He had a little clearing in the deep snow and about half of the sheep were laying around it frozen to death.
The little sheepherder's wagon was very interesting and as it was 10 degrees below zero we were glad to get inside. There was Just room for the four of us and the stove made it very warm. He insisted we stay for dinner and grabbed an axe, went outside and cut some chunks of meat off one of the dead sheep. He cooked it in the little stove and between the heat and the smell of that mutton cooking we would have been driven out if it hadn't been so cold. As it was, we lost our appetites. We did squeeze into the narrow aisle with a board an our laps for a table and had mutton with hot biscuits and honey. To this day I can't stand the smell of lamb cooking.
On one of the trips to Utah we left Lynn with her grandparent and went on to California by train to spend several days with Neil Ullo and his wife in Walnut Creek, California. He had started an electrical business and was selling and installing appliances in that area. I went with him one day and helped him install a washing machine. Neil remembered all his hungry days in prison camp and was very strict with his children at mealtime, making them eat everything on there plates. It was almost an obsession with him. We had a good visit and several years later they made a trip east and stayed with us when we lived an Telyea Street. We took the train back from California and were lucky to travel in one of the first Vista dome cars. The country was especially beautiful through the Snake River canyon.
Sometime during the 1950s we needed a new car and the Clarks in Utah could get a better deal. We had them purchase a new Chevrolet for us and Mrs. Clark and Jeanie drove it to New York for us. They got stuck in a big snowstorm in Ohio and I left by Greyhound to meet them. The bus got stuck in Erie, Pa. and we had to walk the last quarter mile to a train station. After a long wait I was able to get a train to Cincinnati, Ohio. They were about fifty miles to the west of there in a motel. I stayed in a hotel for two days and we talked back and forth by telephone. The parking lot outside my hotel room was full of cars with nothing showing but the aerials. Finally traffic started to move again and they were able to come ahead and pick me up. We got stuck again in Fredonia, N.Y. by a two foot snowfall and had to spend the night in a tourist home as all the roads were closed. The next morning we struggled for hours to got the car out of the parking lot and were able to get the rest of the way home. In those days there was very 1ittle snow removal equipment and these were hard trips to make.
In 1954 we were painting a house on North Main St. when my father complained about chest pain, but for more than an hour he kept going up and down the ladder holding his chest. Finally he said he couldn't work anymore and was going to drive to the drugstore for something to cure indigestion. After about fifteen minutes we heard the ambulance and feared it might be for him. The phone rang in the house and the lady came out to tell us my father had been taken to the hospital with a heart attack. He lived about a week and we all took turns sitting in the waiting room, but were never allowed to see him for more than a minute at a time. The doctor told us he had suffered a massive heart attack and knew he wouldn't live. I never forgave the doctor because if he knew he wasn't going to live I think we should have been allowed to spend more time with him.
This occurred in October when Dad was 74 years old. He was only a couple of weeks away from his 75th birthday in November and had planned on retiring and taking a trip to Florida. I made up my mind to retire before my health would prohibit me from enjoying a few years of retirement. I have always considered myself lucky to have had the chance to work with my father for so many years and get to know him. He once told me that it gave him great satisfaction to have raised nine children nobody getting into serious trouble even though none were a great success.
I continued working with Clarence until 1959 when I was offered a job as a painter in the maintenance department at the hospital. It took me almost a year to make up my mind because I didn't want to leave Clarence working alone. It was one of the hardest decisions to make, but I know the advantages of steady work even though I had to start with a cut in wages. The first few years I tried to help Clarence with some of his work on weekends when I could. I have never regretted the move because I would have ended up working alone when Clarence retired. I had only worked at the hospital a few months when I had my first serious illness. I entered the hospital acutely ill and the doctors decided to operate for appendicitis. They found an adhesion from the appendix to the intestine on the other side and I was suffering a bowel stoppage. I was back to work in two weeks, but had to take it easy awhile.
The only outside activities my father participated in were pitching horseshoes and bowling and he was good at both of them. He was especially good when bowling for money. He and four other bowlers would travel around the area to bowl in pot games and he always made a little money. He also bowled in one nationals tournament in Chicago. After his death I bowled for about ten years on a team with Leon, Clarence and, sometimes, Ken Montanye.