World War II POW and Eighth Air Force expert Marilyn Walton leaders a panel of colleagues who will talk about the experiences of prisoners in Germany with Glenn Flickinger. The panel will comment fact and fiction in the depiction of POW camps in the Apple TV mini-series “Masters of the Air”
Marilyn’s Panel of Experts includes:
Carolyn Clark Miller – Daughter of Lt. Gen. Albert P. Clark, Jr. depicted in MOTA. Carolyn’s father flew with the British in order to get into the war early. He had 3 children at the time. He was already a Lt. Col. West Point graduate, considered an “old man” in the camp. He flew Spitfires with the RAF, but he was not in the Eagle Squadrons with them. He was shot down on his first mission in 1942, and lived with the British in North Compound as one of the “early birds.” He was Senior American Officer before a full colonel eventually came in and outranked him. He later became Superintendent of the Air Force Academy.
Lt. Col. Clark worked on Tunnel Harry at Stalag Luft II in security with 600 men under him, including Lt. Sconiers. Clark’s father was a doctor who told him how to tell the Germans at SL3 how to change the latrines outside to make them sanitary. He was one of the last ones to leave Stalag VIIA in Moosburg after liberation as he wanted to make sure all “his boys” were safely gone. He told me once that he remembered seeing the Russians come in and roll up all the barbed wire to take back to Russia.
At SL3, Clark made a secret ledger, now called Behind the Wire, that listed the names and information on all the men in South Compound. Injuries mentioned by downed airmen were listed as well. Clark appointed another POW to interview all the men coming into South Compound. Notation of injuries in that ledger was acceptable evidence to receive Purpose Hearts after the war. Alex Jefferson got his Purple Heart this way after 47 years. Many others did as well. The men told their stories in their own word in short entries. This document in now in the Library of Congress.
Carol Godwin – Niece of Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets. Her father was 1st Lt. William “Bill” Carey, living in Center Compound, who had been co-piloting an experimental YB40 [reconfigured B-17] on a run to bomb the Hüls synthetic rubber plant Recklinghausen in northern Germany when he was shot down in June 1943.
After arriving at Stalag Luft III, he continued the war effort by utilizing his previous training as an OSS [Office of Strategic Services] agent to become a covert code writer for MIS-X in Ft. Hunt, VA. She knows a lot about MIS-X and how it operated. Her father was head of the intelligence operation communicating with MIS-X from SL3. MIS-X sent and received coded letters with POWs. He taught other POWs how to code. I believe he was made head of a committee at SL3 to oversee coordination of athletic activities. This allowed him to visit all the compounds and while there, he actually was teaching POWs how to code. He also participated in plays in the compound’s camp theatres, keeping him associated with many POWs while conducting intelligence. Her father thought he was corresponding with a woman in the U.S. He finally met “the woman” when he returned home.
There is a wonderful story regarding the British intelligence service MI9, that was doing these same things from London, and it shows how the POWs could still participate in the war effort. A German guard in the camp bragged he was going home to Peenemunde where there was a big VII rocket factory, and he said that rocket would win the war for the Germans. The RAF coders immediately reported that news to MI9 in London, and they passed the info on to the RAF who then immediately set up a bombing raid on Peenemunde destroying that facility. The guard returned to the camp and was dismayed to tell the POWs that the facility had been bombed, and he couldn’t understand how the RAF knew it was there.
The United States Department of War operated MIS-X. Secret equipment, such as small compasses, maps, and radios were smuggled into the camp to aid with escapes and intelligence operations.
Between MI9 and MIS-X, an abundance of contraband made its way into the camp. Each packer of special illegal parcels had a unique mark that the prisoners at Sagan were alerted to look for. As the tunnels advanced in the spring and summer of 1943, the steady delivery of illegal parcels flooded the camp, and shipments were quite sizable.
Monopoly games with real German money, brushes that came apart to reveal contraband, including inks for forging documents, sports equipment that hid the same, and compasses hidden in uniform buttons were gratefully received. There were blankets that when washed revealed pattern marks to cut along to turn into civilian jackets.
At one point, MI9 delivered a full German uniform. Ten days after the Japanese surrendered, ending the war, MIS-X was shut down. It was not until 1986 that any information about the covert operation was revealed. Exactly what they communicated and their methods for doing so are still somewhat classified today.
Jim Keeffe – One our “Kriegie Kids” who re-enacted the 52-mile march route with me in 2009 from SL3 to the train station at Spremberg, Germany, when we were all in our 50s and 60s. This is the same march route seen in Masters of the Air. He has written his father’s story as an evader in Holland, later turned in by a spy and sent to SL3. As an evader, his helpers forged documents identifying him as a deaf mute. His father evaded for a long time before being turned in by a spy. His father was in Center Compound at SL3.
Andrea Hatfield – daughter of SL3 mail censor, Lisa Knuppel.Her mother eventually met and married an American officer she met in Germany. There is a wonderful story of Lisa while in the camp when she helped a RAF POW arriving with a dog that the Germans did not want him to keep. Lisa had another dog she kept with her at the time also.
Pam Whitelock – niece of Lt. Sconiers, a SL3 POW and was buried in 1944, the only POW never brought home as no one could find him. This is subject of the documentary Finding Sconiers. There are 78,000 American MIAs from WWII in Europe and about 35,000 are still considered to be recoverable. We finally brought Sconiers home to be buried next to his mother in DeFuniak Springs, FL. Germans attended and permitted that burial in 1944. Pam worked a lot with DPAA which still searches for our MIAs.
Ric Martini – His SL3 father had been held at Buchenwald until a German Luftwaffe pilot discovered the men at Buchenwald and made arrangements to get them out of there and to SL3. The men, shot down over France were all betrayed by a spy who turned them in for money. They were taken to the horrid Fresnes prison outside France before enduring the box cars taking them to Buchenwald. There were 168 Allied airmen held there. The British ones were shot or hanged. All his extensive research records are online allowing others to use them free. Few people knew we had downed airmen at Buchenwald. No one believed their stories when they got home from the war.
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During World War II, United States Army Air Forces personnel faced the harrowing experience of becoming prisoners of war (POWs) after being captured by German forces. These airmen were detained in various camps known as Stalag Lufts, where they endured challenging conditions and organized themselves for survival amidst enemy captivity.
The German system segregated officers from enlisted men upon capture and sent them to different camps, each administered by the German Luftwaffe and Abwehr. Once inside the confines of these camps, the captured airmen, affectionately referred to as “Kriegies,” found themselves among their comrades. Leadership roles varied among the camps, with senior American officers or elected representatives assuming authority in different compounds.
Life within the POW camps was marked by the segmentation of living quarters into compounds, each containing barracks that housed dozens of men in cramped conditions. As the number of captives increased, overcrowding became a significant issue, forcing many to sleep on floors. The harsh realities of captivity were exacerbated when, in early February 1944, camps faced evacuation due to the advancing Russian forces, leaving tens of thousands of prisoners “On the Road” for extended periods, enduring immense hardships until liberation.
One crucial aspect of the POW experience was the interrogation process at facilities like Dulag Luft. Located in Oberursel, this complex consisted of interrogation centers, hospitals, and transit camps, where captured airmen underwent questioning and evaluation before being transferred to permanent POW camps. Despite being designed to accommodate a limited number of prisoners, overcrowding was common during peak periods, with solitary confinement often enforced.
Stalag Luft I, situated near Barth, Germany, housed Allied prisoners, including American and British officers and enlisted men. The camp, located on the Baltic Sea, saw its first prisoners in July 1940 and was evacuated by 8th Air Force B-17s in May 1945. Similarly, Stalag Luft III, located southeast of Berlin, housed American airmen and became the largest American officers’ camp in Germany by January 1945.
Stalag Luft IV, located in Gross Tychow, Pomerania, witnessed a significant influx of prisoners, swelling its ranks from 1,500 to nearly 10,000 airmen by January 1945. Stalag Luft VI, situated outside Hedekrug, Lithuania, initially held prisoners from Belgium and France before receiving British, Canadian, and American airmen, reflecting the diverse nationalities of POWs held by the Germans.
As Germany’s collapse neared, camps like Stalag VIIA in Moosburg became final gathering points for thousands of Air Corps officers and enlisted men from other camps. The overcrowded conditions and constant influx of prisoners posed challenges for camp administrators, with protests against overcrowding falling on deaf ears.
Despite the adversity, the resilience and resourcefulness of Allied airmen in German POW camps underscored one of the most overlooked chapters in American history.
Thank you to Tobacco Free Adagio Health and UPMC for Life for sponsoring this event!