chapter 26-2

10/20/2014

POW Diary Stalag Luft III

shed some light

Don't hide your light under a bushel, it is said. Let some light shine on those dark shadows of your inner thoughts.

Mandatory before proceeding: watch this other B-17 pilot Robert M. Polich video to get the feel from someone who travelled a similar path to my Uncle Nelson Warren and had the opportunity to shed some light on the experience.

Have wanted to explore Uncle Lt. Nelson Warren's WW2 diary further ever since knowing of it's existence a decade ago. He was a succinct precise guy, so you know what he wrote had accurate and significant meaning. Only wish he had made it available while he was still alive. Sort of the point to all these chapters.

I did some photo editing to a picture of his Stalag goon tower to represent what I remember of my nighttime shift as a goon in the guard tower at Fort Gordon. Ours was octagon shaped, had forgotten that. Nelson's fellow prisoner Bob Neary drew tower #29 on 13Sep44, carried his art work throughout the ordeal and printed a book just after the war (that we have). The exterior fencing at Nelson's prison was double walled barbed wire with an inner perimeter wall that was as far as the prisoners were allowed to approach. In fact they had to practice marching around the inner perimeter for 7 miles each day, the week before the expected force march took place 27Jan45 to flee the approaching Russian troops.

The adjacent North Compound was the site of the "Great Escape" after which 50 prisoners were shot dead. The guards (goons or ferrets) had their own tunnels under the barracks so they could detect secret POW activities. There were apparently numerous tunnel attempts throughout the compounds.

There are so many areas of interest to investigate but it can become tedious. The diary primarily just shows a brief timeline of events along with a listing of names and addresses. I am documenting them here for the sake of posterity and possible future interconnections. He didn't describe day to day POW life but only verbally told me bits like the meals of slices of green moldy German black bread with maggots. The unsavory elements are covered on numerous other sites. Yet overall he said he was treated fairly. The German soldiers and civilians were also not eating all that well at that time. I've taken a bunch of photographs of the pages to at least get a digital baseline documentation.

It all started from a secure location, the Quonset hut living quarters at air base Bury St Edmunds, England. Pilot Nelson on the right and probably co-pilot Debus on the left. Quonset huts and other "temporary" WW2 buildings were used as housing units for the flood of GI's after the war at Syracuse University. Some students lived in them when I was there. It's just too funny that I had some classes in them and as late as 1972 took a sewage treatment plant operators course in them.

The flyers on his crew that went down near Leipzig in Eastern Germany on that bomb run to Bohlen Fuerstenberg on 7Oct44. Focke-Wulf 190 fighter planes hit his B-17 forcing Nelson to give the bail out command. Believe he said he put the plane on "auto pilot" = removing his belt and tying it to the control yoke to keep the plane level enough so he could climb back through the fuselage. Exited a hatch and used his parachute for the first and only time.

Evaded capture walking on foot 200 miles during 10 nights (hiding during days) toward France then awakening to pitchfork.

POW 6 months. Most, if not all of these guys listed in the diary made it through the ordeal. From Luft 3 they could hear the bombing of Berlin 60 miles away and the sound of artillery by advancing Russians. Began the 62 mile forced march through the blizzard to Spremberg then being stuffed in train boxcars so tight they had to take shifts to sit down. The train was a two day ride to Moosberg, staying at Stalag VIIA tents till General Patton liberated them 30Apr45 on the day of Hitler's suicide. Force march. map route

I have to show some of the diary detail to illustrate the care that went into Nelson's piece of history. The top front of the binder has a very secure set of flaps to hold the cigarette papers firmly inside. Notice the stitched binding, lapped edge work and rounded hinge all made with just German kitchen knife (on POW camp registration) as the only tool to cut up the Red Cross food tin cans. Perhaps marked H.G.Z 41 hergestellt (manufactured) 1941? Still hard to imagine these artifacts making it all the way back home. I just noticed the round circular tool marks on his POW dog tags (kriegsgefangenen lager 3 luftwaffe). I think he may have used them to pound on while driving a rod thru the rounded hinge.

40 NAMES & AND ADDRESSES LINKED HERE from Nelson's diary.