Valor

By John L. Frisbee, Contributing Editor Lest We Forget

During the winter of west. On Feb. 6, with little notice, more ited. Those with medical experience than 6,000 US and British airmen helped the doctors. Others proved 1944–45, 6,000 Air Force began a forced march to the west in to be talented traders, swapping the noncoms took part in an subzero weather for which they were contents of Red Cross parcels with event of mass heroism not adequately clothed or shod. local civilians for eggs and other food. that has been neglected Conditions on the march were The price for being caught at this was shock­­­ing. There was a total lack of instant death on both sides of the deal. by history. sanitary facilities. Coupled with that A few less Nazified guards could be ost Americans know in at least was a completely inadequate diet of bribed with cigarettes to round up M a general way about the Bataan about 700 calories per day, contrasted small amounts of local food. Death March that took place in the to the 3,500 provided by the US mili- In a few instances, when Allied Philippines during April 1942. Few tary services. air attacks killed a cow or horse in have even heard of an equally grim Red Cross food parcels added the fields, the animal was butchered march of Allied POWs in northern additional calories when and if the expertly to supplement the meager Germany during the winter of 1945, Germans decided to distribute them. rations. In every way possible, the the most severe winter Europe had As a result of the unsanitary condi- men took care of each other in an suffered in many years. The march tions and a near starvation diet, almost universal display of compas- started at Stalag Luft IV in German disease became rampant—typhus sion. Accounts of personal heroism Pomerania (now part of Poland), a fever spread by body lice, dysentery are legion. POW camp for US and British aircrew that was suffered in some degree by Because of war damage, the inad- men, most of them captured aerial everyone, pneumonia, diph­theria, equacy of the roads, and the flow of gunners. pellagra, and other diseases. A major battle, not all the POWs followed the A prelude to that tragedy took place problem was frostbite that in many same route west. It became a me- earlier and set the tone for what was to cases resulted in the amputation of andering passage over the northern follow. In mid-July 1944, about 2,500 extremities. At night the men slept on part of Germany. As winter drew to a POWs from a camp near Memel, frozen ground or, where available, in close, suffering from the cold abated. Lithuania, were jammed into the holds barns or any other shelter that could When the sound of Allied artillery grew of two dilapidated coastal coal tramp be found. closer, the German guards were less steamers and spent five days en route The five Allied doctors on the march harsh in their treatment of POWs. to the German port of Swinemünde, were provided almost no medicines or The march finally came to an end thence by cattle car to a rail station help by the Germans. Those doctors, when the main element of the column near Stalag Luft IV. and a British chaplain, stood high in encountered Allied forces east of The POWs’ shoes were taken from the ranks of the many heroes of the Hamburg on May 2, 1945. They had them, they were chained in pairs— march. After walking all day with fre- covered more than 600 miles in 87 many of them ill and wounded—then quent pauses to care for stragglers, never-to-be-forgotten days. Of those double-timed three kilometers through they spent the night caring for the who started on the march, about 1,500 a cordon of guards who used bayo- ill, then marched again the next day. perished from disease, starvation, or nets, rifle butts, and dogs to keep When no medication was available, at the hands of German guards while them moving. Some were seriously their encouragement and good humor attempting to escape. In terms of injured. (German doctors later testi- helped many a man who was on the percentage of mortality, it came very fied that the injured suffered only verge of giving up. close to the Bataan Death March. from sunburn.) They had had neither Acts of heroism were virtually uni­ The heroism of these men stands as food nor water for five days. The next versal. The stronger helped the weaker. a legacy to Air Force crewmen and day they were given water and driven Those fortunate enough to have a coat deserves to be recognized. through a gauntlet of armed guards shared it with others. Sometimes the In 1992, the American survivors of and guard dogs, then strip-searched Germans provided farm wagons for the march funded and dedicated a and had most of their clothing and those unable to walk. There seldom memorial at the former site of Stalag possessions taken from them. were horses available, so teams of Luft IV in Poland, the starting place Early in 1945, as the Soviet forc- POWs pulled the wagons through of a march that is an important part of es continued to advance after their the snow. Captain (Dr.) Caplan, in his Air Force history. It should be widely break­­out at Leningrad, the Germans testimony to the War Crimes Com- recognized and its many heroes hon- decided to evacuate Stalag Luft IV. mission, described it as “a domain ored for their valor. ■ Some 3,000 of the POWs who were of heroes.” not physically able to walk were sent The range of talents and experience Thanks to George W. Guderley, a sur- by train to Stalag Luft I, a camp farther among the men was almost unlim- vivor of the march.

130 AIR FORCE Magazine / September 1997