"Well, when our bomber was shot down in December of '44, we were flying a B-17 Flying Fortress. I and Stienmann were still used to the B-25 which is a completely different bomber. Well we were on a night raid when the flak started exploding around us, because the B-17 is a heavy bomber and the B-25 is a medium bomber, so when we tried to fly higher it took longer, that's when we took a flak shell to the right underbelly by the cockpit. Everyone but Stienmann and I jumped because a fire sealed the cockpit off. We put her into a dive to try and extingush the fire and save our selves but instead we had to pull up before it went out and crashed in a field and I was knocked out. The next thing I knew I was being dragged from the cockpit with Stienmann by German soldiers. We were taken to a camp and checked out, they threw him into a filthy part of the camp with what I thought were skeletons walking around. Stienmann and I had something in common, we were both first generation Germans, pure bred with our parents being born in Germany and in his case being born there. He was Jewish though, and I was Catholic so I was sent to a different part of the camp. The interrogation, was brutal, beatings with rifles were childs play, they put any POW who was even remotely German through what they called, the Traitors Punishment, they'd throw 3 or 4 of us in a cage, then push the cage into a ditch filled with mud, water, blood, bodies and shit. Then leave us there in the cold for days, then they'd take us out and start asking about troop movements, bombing runs, andything. More than once I tried to kill myself there and more than once I tried to kill myself here. What Stienmann went through though, he wouldn't tell me. We escaped though, in February. The Germans were given orders to fall back, and erase all traces of the camp before the Allies bombed it, making sure nothing was left. All German POWs were lined up by the SS including German soldiers who would execute us against a wall, we heard shooting all over camp as fires burned down buildings. Then the bombing started, the SS were knocked off guard, so we rushed them, took their rifles and shot them, everyone just started running for the tree line, but I ran to another part of the camp, the bombs were making swiss cheese of the camp just as planned so I jumped down a flight of stairs, there was a pile of bodies and a few chained to the wall including Stienmann. He was the only one alive. I shot the chains loose and his arms fell, he'd been like that for days so his arms were limp, but his legs were still good so I pulled him up, arm over my shoulder and we headed topside. The bombs were worse now, exploding everywhere, no pattern, so we just ran. We ran straight through it, and we didn't stop until we couldn't hear it anymore. It was 4 days before we were found by an aillied patrol, Americans in a jeep. We were sent back, to a camp in France, we saw the rest of our crew getting off a bomber, they saw us, we were half frozen, blood covered, wearing tattered uniforms, we looked dead. People saw us moving through the camp and it was shock, these fresh recruits thought a concentration camp was a place to study. So yes, he was suicidal, but again, after that, who wouldn't be?" My eyes looked across the room, but I wasn't there, I was back in Germany, running from there, still running. "Do I believe that he killed himself on the Golden Gate, no."
Subject: Re: Los Angeles: 1947 
Sun Jan 08, 2012 12:15 pm
