In February of 1995, I posted Capt. Caplan's story and testimony of
 this march to the conferences. Now Air Force magazine has finally
 written an article about it.  It is of interest to me as the 5
 surviving gunner of my B-17 crew came through this ordeal. Two of
 those five survive today.  Our march from Stalag Luft III was much
 shorter and the march from Nuremberg was not in winter. Jim Beatty
 and I departed the march as it left Nuremberg. We were in Paris at
 the end of hostilities.  Jim Sanders
                 Lest We forget - By John L. Frisbee
     During the winter of 1944-45, 6,000 Air Force noncoms took part
 in an event of mass heroism that has been neglected by history.
     Most Americans know in at least a general way about the Bataan
 Death March that took place in the Philippines during April 1942.
 Few have even heard of an equally grim march of Allied POWs in nor-
 thern Germany during the winter of 1945, the most severe winter
 Europe had suffered in many years. The march started at Stalag Luft
 IV in German Pomerania (now part of Poland), a POW camp for US and
 British aircrew men, most of them captured aerial gunners.
     A prelude to that tragedy took place earlier and set the tone
 for what was to follow. In mid-July 1944, about 2,500 POWs from a
 camp near Memel, Lithuania, were jammed into the holds of two di-
 lapidated coastal coal tramp steamers and spent five days en route
 to the German port of Swinemunde, thence by cattle car to a rail
 station near Stalag Luft IV.
     The POWs' shoes were taken from them, they were chained in pairs
 -- many of them ill and wounded--then double-timed three kilometers
 through a cordon of guards who used bayonets, rifle butts, and dogs
 to keep them moving. Some were seriously injured. (German doctors
 later testified that the injured suffered only from sunburn.) They
 had had neither food nor water for five days. The next day they were
 given water and driven through a gauntlet of armed guards and guard
 dogs, then strip-searched and had most of their clothing and posses-
 sions taken from them.
     Early in 1945, as the Soviet forces continued to advance after
 their breakout at Leningrad, the Germans decided to evacuate Stalag
 Luft IV.
     Some 3,000 of the POWs who were not physically able to walk were
 sent by train to Stalag Luft I, a camp farther west. On Feb. 6, with
 little notice, more than 6,000 US and British airmen began a forced
 march to the west in subzero weather for which they were not ade-
 quately clothed or shod.
     Conditions on the march were shocking. There was a total lack of
 sanitary facilities. Coupled with that was a completely inadequate
 diet of about 700 calories per day, contrasted to the 3,500 provided
 by the US military services.
     Red Cross food parcels added additional calories when and if the
 Germans decided to distribute them. As a result of the unsanitary
 conditions and a near starvation diet, disease became rampant--typhus
 fever spread by body lice, dysentery that was suffered in some degree
 by everyone, pneumonia, diphtheria, pellagra, and other diseases. A
 major problem was frostbite that in many cases resulted in the ampu-
 tation of extremities. At night the men slept on frozen ground or,
 where available, in barns or any other shelter that could be found.
     The five Allied doctors on the march were provided almost no
 medicines or help by the Germans. Those doctors, and a British chap-
 lain, stood high in the ranks of the many heroes of the march. After
 walking all day with frequent pauses to care for stragglers, they
 spent the night caring for the ill, then marched again the next day.
 When no medication was available, their encouragement and good humor
 helped many a man who was on the verge of giving up.
     Acts of heroism were virtually universal. The stronger helped
 the weaker. Those fortunate enough to have a coat shared it with
 others. Sometimes the Germans provided farm wagons for those unable
 to walk. There seldom were horses available, so teams of POWs pulled
 the wagons through the snow. Captain (Dr.) Caplan, in his testimony
 to the War Crimes Commission, described it as "a domain of heroes."
     The range of talents and experience among the men was almost un-
 limited. Those with medical experience helped the doctors.  Others
 proved to be talented traders, swapping the contents of Red Cross
 parcels with local civilians for eggs and other food. The price for
 being caught at this was instant death on both sides of the deal. A
 few less Nazified guards could be bribed with cigarettes to round up
 small amounts of local food.
     In a few instances, when Allied air attacks killed a cow or horse
 in the fields, the animal was butchered expertly to supplement the
 meager rations. In every way possible, the men took care of each
 other in an almost universal display of compassion. Accounts of per-
 sonal heroism are legion.
     Because of war damage, the inadequacy of the roads, and the flow
 of battle, not all the POWs followed the same route west.  It became
 a meandering passage over the northern part of Germany.  As winter
 drew to a close, suffering from the cold abated.  When the sound of
 Allied artillery grew closer, the German guards were less harsh in
 their treatment of POWs.
     The march finally came to an end when the main element of the
 column encountered Allied forces east of Hamburg on May 2, 1945.
 They had covered more than 600 miles in 87 never-to-be-forgotten
 days. Of those who started on the march, about 1,500 perished from
 disease, starvation, or at the hands of German guards while attemp-
 ting to escape. In terms of percentage of mortality, it came very
 close to the Bataan Death March. The heroism of these men stands as
 a legacy to Air Force crewmen and deserves to be recognized.
    In 1992, the American survivors of the march funded and dedicated
 a memorial at the former site of Stalag Luft IV in Poland, the
 starting place of a march that is an important part of Air Force
 history. It should be widely recognized and its many heroes honored
 for their valor.
 Thanks to George W. Guderley, a survivor of the march.
 AIR FORCE Magazine / September 1997
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