POW/MIA Vigil, June 13^, 2008, West Haven, CT

I would like to thank Pattie for inviting me to share the story of my father, Carl L. Potter Sr.’s time as a POW during WWII.

My brother was 6 and a half years when old our father departed the United States for England.  He didn’t get to see our father again until a month and a half before his 8^th birthday.  I dedicate this to my brother Carl Lewis Potter, Jr.

April 24, 1944 shot down

May 3, 1945 LIBERATED!

Carl Lewis Potter, Sr.  Army Serial #31 179 610

POW #106404, Stalag XVII B, barracks 29A

On August 31, 1942 my father was inducted into the United States Army Air Forces.  He was a Staff Sergeant in the 306^th Bomb Group (H), 369^th squadron, the Fightn’ Bitin’.  He flew in a B-17, Flying Fortress.  One plane he flew in was DAMNEDIFIKNOW.

On March 1, 1944 he left for Thurleigh, England arriving on March 14, 1944.  That would be his home airfield for the 5 flights he flew before being shot down.  He became part of the crew for 2Lt David B. Ramsey in a B-17 #42-30730 named "Dearly Beloved" as one of two waist gunners, the unofficial armorer, fixing machines that broke down and the unofficial medic providing first aid on flights.

On April 24, 1944 their mission was to fly to Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany and bomb the Dornier aircraft factory.  Had he completed this mission he would have been awarded the Air Medal.

There were 36 planes in the formation that day flying at about 25 or 26,000 feet when they encountered flak.  After leaving the flak field the German fighters came in at the formation from all different directions.  This attack on the formation lasted about half an hour.

When my father’s plane was first hit in an engine there was gas streaming in.  Another gunner continued firing and my father kept calling over to the other gunner telling him to stop shooting.  The other gunner finally caught on and realized that if he kept it up they’d all go up in a ball of flames.  He stopped shooting.  The pilot asked the navigator to plot a course to Switzerland, they never made it.  They were hit in another engine and the pilot rang the bail out bell.  They had fires in both wings.

This is the account from the MACR (Missing Air Crew Report) # 4278:

"At approximately 1355 hrs., near Augsburg, Germany Lt. Ramsey was hit by Fighters; No 3 and No 4 engines were out when he peeled out of formation. No chutes were observed.”

After they parachuted down, they landed on a farm.  They stopped and picked potatoes to eat on their 11 mile hike to Switzerland and safety.  Unfortunately because of the large air battle, the German authorities would have seen them jump and land in the farm.  Because of that, the farmer had to call the police and report the Americans in his field or he and his family would have been killed.  My father told me they weren’t mad at the farmer, they understood it was them, or the farmer and his family.  My father and the other men were turned over to the local police and eventually handed over to the German Air Force.  A German Air Force doctor dug embedded shrapnel out of my father’s leg.

He was sent to Stalag XVII B, barracks 29A.

Roll call was done at a minimum of every morning and evening, sometimes more often during the day.  It lasted from 1 to 3 hours.  Tunnelers planned their work around the roll calls.  To throw the Germans off the POWs would make fake tunnels.  My father did not participate in tunnel digging.  Surprise head counts were done on barracks that were suspected of having tunnels.

Barracks were built to accommodate about 240 men in each.  In reality about 400 were crowded into each barrack.  The beds were triple-decked.  To stay warm in the winter the men doubled up in the beds.  They sometimes had cold running water from 7 to 8 in the morning, 11:30 to noon, on again for a little while at 5 and then again from 9:30 to 10 at night.  There was no hot water.  For a punishment, it wouldn’t get turned on at all.  They were allowed to shower once every 6 months.  When the fleas and lice got really bad they were fumigated.  They were not always sure they would make it out of the fumigation alive.

Lower ranking Americans worked outside the camp, mostly on farms, which was an advantage as they could smuggle in extra food.  My father didn’t have to work on the farms.

The younger American POWs, still in their teens, didn’t have the stamina to eat the same food day after day after day, which mainly consisted of mashed turnips, rotten rutabaga soup, some type of black bread that seemed to be made of saw dust and something like tea.  They had to use 1 tea bag for 4 individual cups of this tea like substance.  I’ve read accounts of what was in the soup; it’s too upsetting to talk about.  My father never discussed that with me and I never asked.  Some of the younger men couldn’t physically swallow the mashed turnips and rotten soup day after day.  My father was in his 30’s and had a young son back home.  He told me he was determined to survive to get back to my brother, so he ate everything he was given and anything he could get his hands on.  I recall growing up that on Thanksgiving he never, ever ate the turnips.  He also ate very fast.  He told me that was because when he was a POW he had to eat fast or risk the chance of not eating anything at all.

One of the men in camp was able to build a crystal set radio.  This man bribed the guards for the radio makings.  Once you bribed a guard you had him.  With the radio they were able to know who was winning the war.  My father told me that my brother was the reason he never tried to escape.  He had seen men shot in the back and killed for trying to escape.  He wouldn’t risk being killed and not making it back home to my brother when he could hear on the radio that the war was expected to end soon.

To help keep moral up and try and keep some sense of normalcy they held bridge tournaments.  The entry fee for a team of 2 varied from 4 cigarettes to 1 candy bar.  My father and his partner came in 2^nd in their first tournament.  The winners got to keep most of the entrance fees, the 2^nd place team got the rest.  Another way he helped keep their minds occupied was by teaching first aid classes to other POWs.  In his real life back home he was a volunteer member of the National Ski Patrol.  My father developed a mean underhand throw.  He would tie something heavy on to a pack of cigarettes and throw them underhand over the fences.  German civilians would then throw back fresh vegetables, mainly turnips and potatoes.  American cigarettes were converted by the Germans.  Back in the states he put his highly developed underhand throw to good use after he got home.  He coached the women’s softball team where he worked, AMICA Insurance in Providence, RI.

The POWs would get packages from home, but the German guards would open them and take all the good stuff out before the POWs were given them.

The only way to get American cigarettes was from the Red Cross as the guards would take any that family members would mail over.

My brother, who was almost 7 when our father was shot down, recalls that they received 2 War Department announcements, the first was the MIA telegram, the 2^nd would have been the POW telegram and 1 letter from my father.  He can still remember the night the MIA telegram was received.

The Russian POWs were treated much worse than the Americans were.  From what I’ve read the Germans held the American air men in high regard.  I recall my father talking about POWs from other countries and how they had been reduced to behaving like animals.  Not the Americans, they had been taken prisoners, but they never surrendered.

They could hear on the radio that Russians troops were advancing from the East.  The Germans didn’t want the Russians to get the American flyers, so as the Russians approached the camp the Germans made the POWs evacuate.  The POWs were given overcoats.  My father picked the largest size he could find so that he could stuff material inside it to insulate it.  On April 8, 1945 4,000 of the POWs began an 18 day, 281 mile forced march to Braunau, Austria.  Each night they had to dig latrines when they stopped to sleep.  They slept on the hard ground with nothing but their overcoats.  They were given next to no food during the 18 days, many days they had nothing to eat.  They ended the forced march on a hilltop with no camp.  The Germans gave the POWs axes to chop down trees to build a new camp.

On May 3, 1945 a Captain and four infantry men in a jeep from Patton’s 3^rd Army arrived to liberate them.  After the American POWs wildly greeted the Captain they turned around there was not a German to be found.  The Germans had all run into the woods and taken off.  The Captain instructed the now former POWs to stay put that medical help was on the way.  He explained that if they took off into the woods the help coming would never be able to find them and get them back home.  I was surprised to learn that my father, a stickler for obeying orders and rules, took off.  He found a farm house and communicated via hand signals and got some bread to eat.  My brother told me that when Daddy told the next part he re-enacted it, I won’t act it out.  My father then squatted down, grunted and then clucked and flapped his arms like wings.  The farmer’s wife nodded her head and got him an egg.  He left, somehow cooked the egg and then returned back to the rest of the former POWs.

The next day a group with medics arrived.  They fed the Airmen some type of a milkshake, but no solid food.

May 9, 1945 the former POWs were evacuated to France.

The majority of them came home on ships.  From what I’ve read none of them wanted to go back into a plane.  I can recall my parents making plans to go to a reunion of his Bomb Group.  My father called the airline and asked if they gave out parachutes.  They drove to the reunion.  On June 2, 1945 he left Europe for the USA.  He arrived back in the USA on June 11, 1945.

My father returned to my Grandmother and brother on June 12 1945, 63 years ago yesterday.