Stalag Luft I

or Vacation With Pay

Alan Harrison Newcomb

• Publisher: Eumenes Publishing
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781839741395
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Stalag Luft One, was first published in 1947 as Vacation with Pay (and with the wonderfully tongue-in cheek subtitle: Being an account of my stay at the German rest camp for tired allied airmen at beautiful Barth-on-the-Baltic. Author Alan Newcomb, while on his seventh combat mission as a B-17 co-pilot, when in fall of 1944, he and his crew were forced to bail-out over Germany's Ruhr Valley after their plane was damaged by anti-aircraft flak and on fire. The book, largely written on prison camp toilet paper, is Newcomb's account of his time as a POW in Stalag Luft One, one of Germany's camps for captured Allied aviators. Daily life in the prison is described; especially notable is the high degree of organization of the prisoners and their activities (including digging escape tunnels) by the ranking officers. The prisoners were freed by advancing Russian forces in May 1945. This kindle edition includes the numerous photographs and line-drawings found in the original book.

Part One

PRELUDE TO PRISON

CHAPTER ONE

“Pappy” Mohler rolled over in bed and cocked a reproachful eye at me.

“Ten dollars?” he protested. “Now, Newk, for why would you want ten bucks in this Newfoundland wilderness? From what I’ve seen of it, it’s the one place where you couldn’t spend a nickel if you had one.”

“Experimental research, Pappy,” I explained. “Mathematical probabilities—some of the boys are investigating the law of diminishing returns—”

“Or in words of one syllable,” said Pappy, “you crave to sit in on a crap game. Newk, you oughta stay out of such. They get you nowhere—I should know.”

Just a little late, I realized that waking your prospect for a quick touch out of a sound slumber on a frosty, cloudy day wasn’t the best way to float a loan.

Lieutenant Mohler was my first pilot in the shiny new B-17 we were flying from Nebraska to England, by way of Newfoundland. I hadn’t known him or the rest of the crew very long; as a matter of fact, I had been with them only a week as a replacement co-pilot. But Herb Corwin, our navigator, had assured me that Pappy was a soft-hearted hombre who was ready to part with ten-dollar bills on occasion, even to a new acquaintance like me.

Pappy was an interesting and colorful character. He had been, at various times, a policeman, a restaurant owner, a numbers racket man, a taxi-cab driver, and only he knows what else. He hailed from Salt Lake City, but had seen, in a somewhat checkered career, many men and many cities. Since he was twenty-nine, much older than the other fellows on our crew, he assumed a fatherly air toward us all and gave out with a great deal of free advice, some of it, I must admit, very good advice.

“How about Henry and Herbie?” he queried, “They got money.”

“Herb did have, but those burglars he’s playing with took him to the cleaners. Henry, I think, is doing all right.”

Henry Kaczorowski was the bombardier on our crew. Pappy grunted: “Oh, so they’re in it too—.”

“Yeah. Tell you what, Pappy, let me have the ten and I’ll split my winnings with you,” I offered generously, hoping against hope that there might be winnings.

“Oh, skip it,” said Pappy. “Here’s your ten. And good luck!”

The financial transaction completed, he rolled his rotund body over to the wall to shield his eyes from the semi-pseudo-sunlight that foggy Newfoundland supplies to tourists during the month of July. Clutching the ten-dollar bill in my presumably lucky left hand, I hurried across the sandy parade-ground to the barracks where the crap game was noisily progressing, providing a release from the monotonous tension of the camp.

Perhaps I should mention that the date on the calendar in the mess hall, as I had observed it that morning, was July 22nd in the warlike year of 1944. Only the week before I had been waiting around in Kearney, Nebraska, as a replacement co-pilot. For some reason, Mohler’s crew had lost their co-pilot and I was introduced to the men with whom I was going to combat just three hours before we took off from Kearney. It was a good crew and I considered myself fortunate to be one of their number. In the quick way that men who fly together automatically become fast friends, I was already “Newk” to them, and already I had a line of their varied characteristics. Pappy was easy-going, Herb downright lazy, and Henry nervously active, but they all worked together well in the plane, and I seemed to be fitting into their routine.

As I opened the door of the barracks, Herb Corwin, who was slouching against the wall observing the game, caught sight of me, and his ever-sleepy eyes brightened a little.

“Did Pappy come across?” he inquired. It was Herb who had suggested I make the touch. I nodded. Herb gestured toward the game—

“Look at Henry!” he exclaimed, “he’s hot!”

Sure enough, Henry was going strong. On the blanket in front of his tense, wiry body was a pile of American and Canadian currency, and the hand that rattled the dice was going like a piston. His Flushing, New York accent rose above the hum of voices, imploring the dice to “see things his way.”

“C’mon, babies,” he invoked. “Everybody on? Is it taken? Hi, Newk, get on me—I’m away! C’mon babies, let’s make it NATURAL!”

Silence greeted the first roll. Then with a quick jerk of his hand, a staccato clicking of the dice, and a roar from the undershirt-clad multitude, Henry crapped out. But he bounded out of the crowd with as much cheerfulness as ever, grinning from ear to ear and still holding a fistful of bills.

“Gosh, Al, you should’ve been here earlier! Youse coulda made a mint while I was hot! Boy, did ya see me? I was going!”

The object lesson was before me!

“Gentlemen,” I put in, “I have just come to a decision. What say we take this ten dollars so kindly provided by Brother Mohler, go over to the PX, and have a milkshake on me? If we stay here, I’ll only be handing it over to these wolves with dirty knees, but if we leave now I can give most of it back to Pappy.”

Henry was ready to quit—he was ahead of the game; Herb was ready to quit—he was broke; so we walked down the street to the big Post Exchange, which was crowded as usual with American and British officers and enlisted men, WAC’s and WAAF’s, all milling around trying to get an order in to the countergirls.

While we were waiting for Henry, our go-getter, to worm his way in to the counter, several of the enlisted men on our crew came in the door and hailed us boisterously. There were Wally Littrell, the Texan gunner-engineer; Pete Keryan, the ball turret gunner, a Pennsylvanian; Don Cloutier, our tail-gunner from Illinois; and Max Stedman, a New York State man who filled the position of radio operator on the ship. Hank Smith and Pat Dunne, the two waist gunners were, so Wally said, spending the afternoon as Pappy was, “in the sack.” “Well, gosh, do youse guys want these milkshakes, or shall I throw ‘em out?” Henry was back from the counter in record time with our ‘shakes, and we managed to find an empty booth in which to sit down. Wally joined us.

“Ah don’t think it’s even wuthwhile to dive in theah for one of those milkshakes,” he said as we sat down. “Have y’all heard th’ latest?”

“No, what’s happened? What is it? Are we leaving?” Immediately we showered him with questions. Not only had we already spent three days waiting for the weather to clear, but the prospect of our 2,000 mile flight across the Atlantic was a priority subject in everyone’s mind.

“We brief at fahve o’clock ‘n take off sometime tonight or tomorrow mo’ning!”

That was enough. We gulped down our milkshakes and hurried back to the barracks to wake Pappy and to pack our flight bags before the scheduled briefing time. Rudely awakened, the “Old Man” heaved himself, grunting and groaning, out of his bed and joined us in the flurry of activity that went on. A babble of voices arose.

“Gosh, they don’t give you much time around here!”

“Whereinhell’s my A-2 jacket?”

“If Corwin can steer us across all that water, he’s a better navigator than I give him credit for.”

“Hey, Pappy, don’t let Newk get at that wheel—he’ll drown us all!” “

The barracks CQ put his head in the door—“Briefing at five o’clock sharp.”

“Yes, yes, yes. Don’t rush us.”

“Newk, we’ll take turns flying and it won’t be so bad.”

“I’ll bet those Germans are scared stiff—yeah.”

“Hey, Hoibie, how far is it to you-know-where?”

“How should I know? I ain’t been briefed yet.”

“My gosh, what a navigator—don’t you have any interest in this thing?”

“Not much. Who’s got my hat?”

The CQ again; “Briefing is in ten minutes at the Operations building. You go...”

“We know, we know where it is.”

“All right, fellows, let’s go! Come on, come on! Leave your bags here and pick ‘em up after briefing. They’ll probably give out with a meal before we leave, anyway.”

“You’re darn right they’ll give us chow. Do you think I want to starve in the middle of the ocean?”

We streamed out the door and joined the rest of the two or three hundred men going down to the briefing. On Newfoundland, five o’clock means that the dusky, half-dark night has already started. The wind was rising a little, pushing at our backs and urging us toward the big gray-green Operations building. Pilots, bombardiers, and navigators crowded and jostled up the narrow staircase, wise-cracking about the flight ahead, but we all quieted down quickly as the briefing officers mounted a platform at the end of the long, drafty room.

There followed two hours of highly detailed, all-inclusive lectures and films on the best and safest way to fly an ocean, even including motion pictures of the terrain a pilot sees when approaching the Irish coast. Each pilot was issued a 200-page notebook of maps, instructions, call-letters, identification signals, everything that might possibly be needed during the trip.

Herbie’s fears that he might starve in the air were considerably allayed by a hearty meal served at the officer’s mess, after which we lugged our bags down to the flight line to meet the enlisted men, who also had been briefed and fed. The night was chilly and we were thankful for the warmth of the Flight Room, where hundreds of men lay sprawled among the piles of baggage, waiting to go to their ships.

During the four days our new B-17’s had been here, both our crewmen and the permanently-stationed line crews had gone over them, checking every detail and seeing that the engines were running smoothly for the long hop ahead. Now all that remained was to stow the baggage in the bomb bays, run through the final flight check and we’d be ready to go.

The loudspeakers shouted out crew numbers as the ships took off at ten-minute intervals, providing a deep undertone of roaring motors to the hum of idle conversation in the room...ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, I, reading a Pocketbook mystery, Pappy and Herb asleep, and Henry in a voluble and seemingly senseless argument with Wally. Then our number, 999...