Chapter 26 When the Nazis came to Virgil

8/22/2004

Geburtstag unt ord

To hold in my hands Uncle Nelson Warren's German POW diary was inspirational. To feel the metal and paper made his POW experiences come to life as if it were speaking to me. You could almost see him taking apart the popular Red Cross parcel # 10 can of Corned Beef Hash and hand forming it into the custom hinged and rolled edge protective covering for the log book. Inside were the sheets of note paper fashioned from the Chesterfield, Lucky Strike and Raleigh cigarette packs. Meticulous penciled notes were made as events had happened. Dates, facts, fellow POW names and addresses were there. Oct 7, 1944 Shot down near Leipzig, Oct 17, 1944 Captured near Paderborn...

Imagine the care to preserve this record throughout the ordeal when simple survival not note keeping was foremost in their minds. He and 10,000 other kriegies (kriegesgefangenen) had to take a 52 mile forced march/ 300 mile railroad car trek through near zero blizzard conditions toward the end of the War when they were pushed out of Stalag Luft III Sagan (Zagan), Poland to Moosberg - Munich Stalag Luft VII in advance of the long awaited Russian push from the Eastern front. http://www.b24.net/pow/stalag3.htm

Feel the forced march here http://www.littlestar.com/brock/burda/burda2.htm then see Brock's index for his well laid out and poignant experiences.

To see his actual prison camp personnel record with the haunting photo of this obviously disgruntled officer whose image was nothing like the quiet, easy going, affable ole Uncle Nelson we all knew was striking. In contrast, the neatly hand printed entry for place of birth, "Virgil" made it seem very personal and almost civilized. While conditions were deplorable some of the staff were decent in this Luftwaffe (better than Nazi) run camp. Record also indicates that it was the Focke Wulf FW 190 highly effective fighter bombers that shot him down. One of my drive companies, BMW seems to have made most of the engines for those planes (the 14 cylinder radial air cooled 801 engine). http://www.aviation-history.com/focke-wulf/fw190.html

Nelson flew to England as first pilot of "Day's Pay" aircraft. http://richlandbombers.com/allbombers/dayspay.html Assigned 8th Air Force, 94th Bomb Group, 331st Squadron.

damn broken links - they keep changing web sites :

http://richlandbombers.com/dayspay.html https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMTGT

http://www.dogberrypatch.com/archives/world-war-ii-artifacts-from-the-days-pay-b-17-bomber-stolen-from-richland-high-school/

http://america.aljazeera.com/multimedia/2015/7/richland-washingtons-atomic-legacy.html

https://www.historylink.org/File/7491

https://tricities.wsu.edu/sept-28-29-son-of-days-pay-bomber-pilot-to-present-airplane-history-turn-over-artifacts-to-wsu-tri-cities/

https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article234862912.html

https://b17flyingfortress.de/en/b17/43-38223-days-pay/

http://www.americanairmuseum.com/aircraft/12228

Shot down in B-17-G "Tommy" 42-97316 named for airman killed during gun testing. All crew survived as POWs http://www.94thbombgroup.com/94thB-17.htm listed under name and A/C number. Tommy info. Tommy info 2

http://home.hccnet.nl/p.w.riool/ Boeing production #

Yes, I feel like I'm a better person to have known him, than had I not. His family visited us often from Geneva where he retired from the telephone company and fire department.

I took these pictures on break from my hum drum life trundling a Honda to Auburn, NY. Just so happens that on that day the Warren's invited me to their family reunion in the next town over. Enjoyed reading one of Aunt Carols POW books and pausing to consider some things that are easily taken for granted.

Beginning a career as archivist, museum curator, researcher, historian and have signed up as volunteer for the Saratoga Automobile Museum. Could lead to some new chapters. http://www.saratogaautomuseum.com/

If you think this is too much info, do not ask Aunt Carol to see her 3 volumes of stuff. 8 Jan 45 Carol got letter from Nelson from POW camp according to Don (Leon) and Maggie (Lear) Terrell's WW2 letters. And Hayden fell out the silo and hurt his back- fell earlier and broke wrist.