Sebastian P. Breit's Blog, page 17

Every once in a while my googling lands some very 'special' stories in my lap. Not necessarily bad, but obviously slanted into one direction. If it's coming from a public broadcaster, that's all the more jarring. As such, I wish I could have started my recognition of my Russian readership with something more uplifting and recognizing of the great sacrifices their country and forefathers made in WW2. The way it is, I'm left with nitpicking instead.



From the Voice of Russia webpage (Voice of Russia is the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service owned by the All-Russia State Television and Radio Company).

The Battle of Moscow marked a turning point in the course of the Second World War.

True enough.

The Nazi army sustained irreparable damage.

Wrong. Stalingrad and the 6th Army, that was irreparable because it was total loss. This? Not so much.

Never had it suffered such losses before, in Western Europe or on the Eastern front.

Hardly a groundbreaking observation. Of course a campaign across half a continent and taking half a year incurs greater losses by far than three limited campaigns between 5 and 6 weeks with ample time to regroup between them.

A number of top Nazi generals said after the Battle of Moscow that a defeat of the Soviet Union was beyond their means and the military conflict had to be settled through negotiations.

Imminently possible. Still, "citatition need". Names, ranks, occasions.

Enraged Hitler sacked many of his generals following the battle, which put an end to a string of spectacular Nazi victories in Europe. The advance of the Nazis came to an abrupt halt and the Nazi army had to turn back.

Uhm, cause and effect. The advance of the Wehrmacht came to a halt because of the counterattack (and because of way overstretched supply lines). Several army commanders argued for a withdrawal, Hitler argued against it, which ultimately seems to have saved the front, but planted the idea in Hitler's head that every counterattack could be dealt with simply by denying the option of even a tactical retreat. Also, as far as my knowledge goes, Hitler sacked Guderian, von Brauchitsch, and others because of their opposition to his "Hold the line" orders while the operations were still going on.

During their counteroffensive on December 5th and 6th the Soviet troops commanded by General Georgy Zhukov liberated more than 11,000 towns and villages. The Nazis lost about 500,000 men, 1,300 tanks, 2,500 guns and over 15,000 vehicles and other pieces of military hardware.

Yeah, about that. You see, that's a bit of a blatant lie. Even the high end estimates for the whole Battle of Moscow, that is, until early January 1942, place German casualties between 248,000 and 400,000. And that includes the battle to reach Moscow, which began already on November 1st, 1941. That's a wee bit different from claiming the counteroffensive on two days cost the Germans half a million men!



By the way, do you know the similarly high-end casualty estimate for the Red Army for the same phase of operations? It's 1,280,000. Yeah, almost 1.3 million killed, wounded or missing. For a front the Germans would ultimately be able to hold on to for the better part of the next year. That tidbit of info is kinda missing.



Objective reporting looks different. I just don't see why you guys need resort to such cheap tactics. You fought a damn good war; you were tenacious and intelligent. Operation Bagration pretty much makes that obvious to even the deaf and blind!

I've gone through the Blogger statistics for The War Blog and realized that I get a sizeable amount of visitors from Russia! In light of that fact I'll try to feature topics related to Russia (the USSR) and WW2 more often. Thanks for your interest, guys, I appreciate it. And yes: Добро пожаловать!

Well, this seems only appropriate:

Today I've got some very nice takes of a Panzerjäger Tiger Ausf. B, better known as the Jagdtiger. Hardly maneuverable and prone to mechanical failures, the Jagdtiger was introduced during the last months of the war, receiving only a small production run. His thick armor and powerful 127mm (!!) gun made it nearly impossible to survive a frontal assault against the "moving pillbox". Just look at how huge that thing was!

The third installment of the little series originally published in the New Bern Sun Journal. Today's account is by Mr. Jim Glatthaar.

I have nothing to boast of because what was requested of me. Why I am still here … God only knows.I went into the Navy in 1944 and was in boot camp for about 10 weeks. Previous to that, I had never been away from home overnight. I wasn't sure of what kind of man I was, but was eager to find out. Even in boot, I always volunteered for everything. Sometimes it was carting large rocks to another place with a wheelbarrow then carting them back. There were other stupid things that I volunteered for too and I was called "Captain Midnight" by the members of my company because I was always on 12 to 4 a.m. watch for giving the master-at-arms a hard time.

When we left boot camp, we were given a choice of ships, an aircraft carrier or a cargo ship. I saw too many guys "goofing off" on carriers, so I chose the cargo ship. The cargo ship, the USS Hydrus AKA28, was being commissioned the end of the week I left boot. The aircraft carrier, the USS Antietam had the keel laid that week also.

We loaded supplies, etc., aboard the Hydrus and set sail. Most of the crew got seasick between Virginia and the Canal. We got to Pearl and loaded only cargo nets and set sail for the Solomon Islands. We traveled alone and about, I guess three days out of the Solomons.
When we saw a periscope, the Japanese were not stupid. They could see our waterline high above the ocean so they followed us. We went dead south for two days then they left us. We went back on course and went to Guadalcanal.



We got there and were told the fleet left the day before for Iwo Jima. We were sick because we wanted to get in the fight. Well, we loaded up with hospital trucks (Red Cross) and supplies to put ashore and were sent around the Solomons for battery practice. We pounded caves and other suspected places because the Marines told us there were still a few scattered Japanese in the hills.

We were ordered back to the Canal and to cease fire immediately. It seems a British cargo ship had the same cargo as we had aboard and half way there burst into flames. It seems in with all the medical equipment there were cigarettes with matches. Someone had put emery dust in with the matches and from steadily rocking and rolling the matches went aflame and destroyed the cargo.

We took over the unloading and reloading and in about two days we were ready to go again. We tested our 30-ton boom when we were finished. They tested it with 80 tons. Raised it, held it in for about three minutes, put it down and we secured the boom aboard. Troops came aboard and we left the Solomons.

We went north again (still alone) to the Caroline Islands. We anchored and when we woke up in the morning there must have been 1,000 ships all around us. You could not see the horizon; there were so many. We were at general quarters all the time we were there. At night, the Japanese sent two or three reconnaissance planes over to keep us awake. Then one night a kamikaze came over and crash dove into an aircraft carrier and just hit the end of the flight deck. It was the aft magazine that it hit. The fireworks that night were a horror. I think that ship was the Benjamin Franklin.

We got our orders. We would leave with the convoy about 0200. Our skipper asked for one more mail pickup. Permission was granted and all the booms were secured but the 30-ton boom was the easiest to free, so we used that. We lifted about a 1,600-pound LCVP and halfway over the side it twisted and buckled. The two men in the boat dove overboard. It was investigated and we were told we would have to go back to Pearl for a replacement. But some admiral remembered there was a British ship that was abandoned during a previous engagement and the boom might fit ours. So, they sent for it and took our boom out, dropped it in the ocean and set the British boom in to place. We tried it and it was slower than ours, but it worked. In 24 hours, they did what would have been weeks worth of work had we gone back to Pearl.

The fleet, by this time, was slowly getting underway. We left with it and were in a zigzag course for about 24 hours, when all of a sudden our ship could not steer back on course. We went in a large circle. We had to keep circling for fear of Japanese subs. The fleet left us behind, but an engineer discovered the steering fluid had water in it. They quickly drained it and replaced the fluid. We then went at top speed to catch up with the fleet. Our place in the convoy had been filled, so we were now on the outside.

We reached Okinawa, but on our way in, it was a clear sunny day except for one cloud. It was abreast of us. I was a gunner and trained my gun on that cloud for at least 10 minutes. Then I returned to looking for subs and planes. All of a sudden, from out of that cloud came a Japanese Kamikaze. It should have hit us broadside, but he banked and crashed about 50 feet off our starboard bow. With all those ships, not a shot was fired at it. We think he turned chicken (thank God).

The skipper told us, "You think you are tired? How do you feel now?"

The Japanese plane went down right away. We put our troops ashore in the fifth wave and our hospital stuff about the eighth wave. We were so close to shore, we had men with Springfield rifles looking for swimmers from the beach with dynamite in their belts.

We heard from radio that the Japanese were sending their largest fleet to Okinawa to handle the American fleet. Then we saw the battleships, aircraft carriers, and cruisers with the destroyers pulling out, so we knew Tokyo Rose was telling the truth. We dropped our troops and cargo and now we headed out without any escorts.

It seems the largest battleships in the world were almost ready to meet our ships and planes, therefore they were sunk before our battleships, etc., go to her. The other ships with her were sunk or ran. So what happened was, we went through three typhoons, were sabotaged three times, were reported missing for about three weeks and were in on the Chinese Liberation, Philippine Liberation, and in two typhoons. In one typhoon, we saw a destroyer go in between two huge waves and when it came up, all that we saw was the hull. No survivors. Most of us were sick over that, almost in tears, but we had to hang on for dear life. To this day, I recall it like yesterday.

When Japan was offered a "surrender" we were once again in the Caroline Islands loaded with a half million gallons of aviation gasoline. We were told we would weigh anchor at 0200. We knew that this time we would not come back. They gave us no work day except for watches to write letters. They told us we might not get another chance. 0200 came and went. 0500 was the new time. We knew nothing about the atomic bombs at this time. We were there till the official surrender.

By the way, I've seen so many articles about the invasion of Okinawa and they all said it was April Fool's Day. Well it was a lot more than that. It was April 1st, 1945 … Easter Sunday. Just to set the records straight.I personally had a couple of near misses with death, but I won't go into that.

Jim Glatthaar lives in New Bern.

It's stories like this that bring a little tear to my eye. Good you were there for these men, Madame Chiwy.



* * *



Congolese-born Augusta Chiwy, now 93, received the Civilian Award for Humanitarian Service medal from U.S. Ambassador Howard Gutman at a ceremony in the military museum in Brussels.

"She helped, she helped, and she helped," Gutman said at the ceremony. He said the long delay in presenting the award was because it was assumed that Chiwy had been killed when a bomb destroyed her hospital.



The Battle of the Bulge was a ferocious encounter in the final stages of World War II. In desperation, Adolf Hitler ordered a massive attack on allied forces in the Ardennes, in southern Belgium. More than 80,000 American soldiers were killed, captured or wounded.



Chiwy had volunteered to assist in an aid station in the town of Bastogne, where wounded and dying U.S. soldiers in their thousands were being treated by a single doctor in December 1944 and January 1945. Chiwy braved the gunfire, helping whoever she could, and saving the lives of hundreds of American GIs.



The Nazis hoped the surprise attack would reach the sea at the Belgian port of Antwerp and cut off the advancing allied armies. Bastogne, a market town that was also a critical road junction, was quickly besieged.



The U.S. troops – led by paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division – found themselves surrounded. But they resisted fiercely, and the key crossroads was never taken. In the ensuing siege, Bastogne was heavily shelled and quickly reduced to ruins. Another Belgian nurse – Chiwy's friend Renee Lemaire – was killed along with about 30 patients when a bomb penetrated a cellar where she was tending to the wounded. 



Mrs. Chiwy, receiving the medal.


Gutman said the diminutive Chiwy combed battlefields during the battle, often coming under enemy fire, to collect the wounded in the deep snow.



"What I did was very normal," Chiwy said during the ceremony. "I would have done it for anyone. We are all children of God."



But Col. J.P. McGee, who commands a brigade of the 101st Airborne Division based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, said that to the wounded soldiers Chiwy was "a goddess."

"Men lived and families were reunited due to your efforts," he said.

McGee said the army's doctor in Bastogne, John Prior, had joked that the German snipers couldn't hit Chiwy because she was so tiny. But Chiwy, who moved to Belgium from the colony of Congo before the war, responded that they were just bad shots.



Historian Alexander Omhof, who has dealt extensively with the history of the allied advance, also praised Chiwy's deeds during the month-long battle.



Chiwy then received a letter of appreciation from Gen. David Petraeus, himself a former commander of the 101st Airborne.



After the battle, Chiwy slipped into obscurity, working as a hospital nurse treating spinal injuries. She married a Belgian soldier and had two children.



She was finally located several years ago by a British author and historian, Martin King, who had heard stories about a black nurse at Bastogne. Chiwy was knighted by the Belgian king in June.

One more from the New Bern Sun Journal, a small treasure trove. Thank you, Mr. Gould!



I think my experience in that war, which really was a war, is a little bit unique. My father, a career submarine sailor, was attacked by the Japanese on the first day of the war at Cavite in the Philippines, where his boat had recently arrived from Pearl Harbor. Both places were simultaneously bombed and strafed on Dec. 7. Various speculations exist to this day on whether the Japanese sneak attack was actually unexpected. It has never been a mystery in my family.



Early in November 1941 my father telephoned my mother and I in California to tell us we were going to go to war with Japan and that his boat was leaving Pearl Harbor for an as-yet undeclared destination. He said they were ridding the boat of all unnecessary gear to make room for equipment more suited to wartime patrols and that he was sending all of his valued personal property, including his ring, home. He explained his statement that we were going to war with Japan by describing an incident that had recently taken place while his sub was patrolling on the surface off of Wake Island. He said another sub had fired a couple torpedoes at them and that they had tracked the attacker for several days before giving up the effort to return the favor. I don't know how they knew it was Japanese, or why it had tried to sink them, but from subsequent events it turned out to be an accurate conclusion.
My father's boat was tied up behind the Sea Lion at the dock in Cavite on Dec. 7. The Sea Lion was sunk by a direct hit from a bomb that went straight down an open hatch. My father's boat made it out to sea as the dock was on fire and blowing up. It and a few other submarines became the most effective American instruments of war directed in retaliation against the Japanese during the early months of the war. All told we lost 55 submarines in the war. I was born and raised among submariners. Many of the men I grew up around went down in a number of the lost subs. The seasoned submariners who were serving at the beginning of the war were spread among the crews of the new boats being rapidly built to supply the wartime need. Because of this spreading of experience throughout the increasing size of the fleet friends of my family were lost with many of the boats that went down. It has always given me a sense of special privilege that my early years were spent among such courageous men. Other kids had family friends who worked with their fathers at ordinary jobs.



My family friends had an sort of aura about them others almost always seem to recognize as special. A nation that knows little or nothing of the devotion to their country of these brave and largely anonymous men owes them a great deal.



What I think was sort of unique to my wartime experience was that at the age of 17, I joined the Navy, over the violent objections of my father, who knew that war was not a John Wayne movie, and while he was there on the first day of the war I was there on the last day at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2. It would take too much space to describe the unbelievable events of the surrender activities, but I have to comment on the incredible fact that I actually fell into step next to MacArthur as he was pacing about less than an hour before he signed the surrender papers. My walk next to him was brief and he took no notice of me, but it doesn't stop me from telling people I went for a walk with "Mac" just before the surrender. Honest to God, I did.



W.J. Gould lives in Oriental.

The following is wartime and POW account taken from the New Bern Sun Journal. I'm republishing it in its entirity because it is my belief that we need to hold tight to personal accounts like the one of Mr. Leech presented below. The generation who fought the war - be it soldiers of the Allies, the Axis, or the USSR - is getting fewer and fewer in numbers with every passing day. Both my own grandfathers have already perished, the first one five years ago, the second only last month. Soon, there will be no eyewitnesses left. We should preserve their experiences as good as we can. Thank you for your account, Mr. Leech.WWII: A former POW tells his World War II storyI have a 43-page record of my days in the military, but I'm sure you are not looking for anything like that, so I will try to condense it into a few pages.

During the winter of 1942 I volunteered for the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program. I was called up in March of 1943 and sent to the Nashville Classification Center. I requested Navigation School and was sent to Monroe, La. for pre-flight Navigation School. During the summer of 1943 we were sent to Aerial Gunnery School at Ft. Meyers, Fla. We then returned to Monroe for Advanced Navigation School. I was commissioned a second lieutenant in January 1944. We were sent to Drew Field in Tampa, Fla. for crew training. After the original crew was "broken up," I was assigned to another crew and very shortly afterwards we left to fly across the North Atlantic Ocean to England. We were assigned to the 100th Bomb Group, known as "The bloody Hundredth" due to the high losses this group had incurred.
On my first mission, I was yanked out of bed around 5 a.m. and told I would have to go on my first mission that day. The other crews were already briefed and on their way to the planes. One crew was missing a navigator, and I was to take his place. I had no briefing and was just taken to the plane without decent maps and told we were going to Leipzig. So, my first mission was in an unprepared state with a strange crew. When we got to Leipzig, the sky was black with "flak" (anti-aircraft fire). I didn't see how we could possibly get through, but on we flew, and got home again with no damage.



I had several interesting missions including being overhead on D-Day bombing a rail junction or bridge. As we started home, the clouds broke, and we could see the English Channel loaded with ships for the invasion. On another mission we climbed to 26,000 feet before breaking out of the clouds, and just as we broke out, another plane was coming straight at us. Both pilots banked sharply and we avoided a mid-air collision.

Two other missions are memorable for me. One day in June 1944 there was a 1,000-plane mission to Berlin. However, 125 planes did not turn to bomb Berlin, but rather flew on eastward bombing an oil refinery, and flying past Warsaw, and on to Russia. I guess this was "diplomatic" to show the Germans we could fly all the way across Germany. Seventy-five of the planes flew to Poltava, Russia, but the German reconnaissance followed them and bombed most of their planes that night. Our group of 50 flew to Mirgorod and was not followed. The next day flew to an airfield 100 miles away at sunset, where we stayed a few days. Then we flew back at sunset again and then flew to Foggia, Italy, the following day. After a few days in Italy, we flew back to England, bombing some target in southern France.

Perhaps the most memorable mission was my 20th when we flew to Merseburg, Germany, to bomb the oil refinery and chemical plant. We were knocked out of formation on the bombing run by "flak," and then later picked off by a German fighter plane, as our fighter cover never arrived to escort us home. We bailed out at about 18,000 feet, and suddenly everything seemed to be silent and we seemed to be suspended in mid-air. I would have enjoyed the parachute ride, except that I knew it wouldn't be fun when I got down. I was captured immediately when I landed, and was told "For you, the war is over." After about a week in solitary confinement at the interrogation center, we were taken by train to Stalag Luft III at Sagan, Germany. We were sent to the British compound because the American compound was filled up. It was an interesting experience to live with English, Scots, Canadians, South Africans and New Zealanders for about five months. All the captives at this camp were flying officers, and as such were not permitted to work outside the camp. The Luftwaffe (German air force) was the elite group of German armed forces, and being their prisoners, we were not maltreated. We did get Red Cross parcels, which kept us alive, for the Germans did not give us enough food (the German population must have been suffering from too little food by this time). Since we didn't work, one of our biggest problems was boredom, and the constant conversations were about food, and "The first thing I want to eat when I get home is …" As time went on, we could tell that we were getting weaker, and sports like volleyball and soccer played when we first got there were replaced by just walking around the camp. Winter came early with snow before Thanksgiving, and we used stumps and boards from the wash hut to bum for fuel to keep us "warm" (still cold).

Finally, in late January 1945, the Russians were approaching the area, so they marched us out for two days in a terrible blizzard to another town where we were jammed into boxcars and taken to a camp at Nuremburg. This march in the blizzard was the low point of the whole prisoner-of-war experience. We got a five-minute break each hour and we fell back into a snow bank along the side of the road. We were so weak and tired that it was almost impossible to get up and march again. We were at the camp in Nuremburg from early February until early April. This was crowded, cold, with even less food than before. We called the soup they gave us "Green Death" for it looked like it was made from weeds of the field. Only the march in the blizzard was worse than the period spent at Nuremburg. Finally, as the Americans were approaching the area we were marched out again for about a dozen days to Moosburg (near Munich), where we were liberated by Patton's troops on April 29, 1945 (nine months as a POW to the day). A few days later we were flown out to Lellarve to camp "Lucky Strike." We had to land on the way to LeHarve for fuel, and we got white bread sandwiches at the mess hall … it tasted like Angel Food cake to us after the dark, moist, dense German bread. At Camp Lucky Strike we couldn't finish even small portions at the mess hall initially, but soon ate like pigs to put on weight again. They had GI garbage cans of eggnog spiked with a pint of liquor to encourage us to drink it to help fatten us up. We were at Camp Lucky Strike for about two weeks before getting a ship back to America. We went in convoy because all the U- boats had not yet been accounted for. In about two weeks we entered New York City harbor, and delighted in cruising past the Statue of Liberty. I was back home in another day or two, and was given a 60-day leave. I then went to a re-classification center in Miami Beach, and was sent to Ellington Field in Houston. V-J Day arrived shortly afterward, and former POWs were discharged as soon as possible.

Howard. J. 'Bill' Leech lives in New Bern.

The following is wartime and POW account taken from the New Bern Sun Journal. I'm republishing it in its entirity because it is my belief that we need to hold tight to personal accounts like the one of Mr. Leech presented below. The generation who fought the war - be it soldiers of the Allies, the Axis, or the USSR - is getting fewer and fewer in numbers with every passing day. Both my own grandfathers have already perished, the first one five years ago, the second only last month. Soon, there will be no eyewitnesses left. We should preserve their experiences as good as we can. Thank you for your account, Mr. Leech.WWII: A former POW tells his World War II storyI have a 43-page record of my days in the military, but I'm sure you are not looking for anything like that, so I will try to condense it into a few pages.
During the winter of 1942 I volunteered for the Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet Program. I was called up in March of 1943 and sent to the Nashville Classification Center. I requested Navigation School and was sent to Monroe, La. for pre-flight Navigation School. During the summer of 1943 we were sent to Aerial Gunnery School at Ft. Meyers, Fla. We then returned to Monroe for Advanced Navigation School. I was commissioned a second lieutenant in January 1944. We were sent to Drew Field in Tampa, Fla. for crew training. After the original crew was "broken up," I was assigned to another crew and very shortly afterwards we left to fly across the North Atlantic Ocean to England. We were assigned to the 100th Bomb Group, known as "The bloody Hundredth" due to the high losses this group had incurred. On my first mission, I was yanked out of bed around 5 a.m. and told I would have to go on my first mission that day. The other crews were already briefed and on their way to the planes. One crew was missing a navigator, and I was to take his place. I had no briefing and was just taken to the plane without decent maps and told we were going to Leipzig. So, my first mission was in an unprepared state with a strange crew. When we got to Leipzig, the sky was black with "flak" (anti-aircraft fire). I didn't see how we could possibly get through, but on we flew, and got home again with no damage.

I had several interesting missions including being overhead on D-Day bombing a rail junction or bridge. As we started home, the clouds broke, and we could see the English Channel loaded with ships for the invasion. On another mission we climbed to 26,000 feet before breaking out of the clouds, and just as we broke out, another plane was coming straight at us. Both pilots banked sharply and we avoided a mid-air collision.
Two other missions are memorable for me. One day in June 1944 there was a 1,000-plane mission to Berlin. However, 125 planes did not turn to bomb Berlin, but rather flew on eastward bombing an oil refinery, and flying past Warsaw, and on to Russia. I guess this was "diplomatic" to show the Germans we could fly all the way across Germany. Seventy-five of the planes flew to Poltava, Russia, but the German reconnaissance followed them and bombed most of their planes that night. Our group of 50 flew to Mirgorod and was not followed. The next day flew to an airfield 100 miles away at sunset, where we stayed a few days. Then we flew back at sunset again and then flew to Foggia, Italy, the following day. After a few days in Italy, we flew back to England, bombing some target in southern France.
Perhaps the most memorable mission was my 20th when we flew to Merseburg, Germany, to bomb the oil refinery and chemical plant. We were knocked out of formation on the bombing run by "flak," and then later picked off by a German fighter plane, as our fighter cover never arrived to escort us home. We bailed out at about 18,000 feet, and suddenly everything seemed to be silent and we seemed to be suspended in mid-air. I would have enjoyed the parachute ride, except that I knew it wouldn't be fun when I got down. I was captured immediately when I landed, and was told "For you, the war is over." After about a week in solitary confinement at the interrogation center, we were taken by train to Stalag Luft III at Sagan, Germany. We were sent to the British compound because the American compound was filled up. It was an interesting experience to live with English, Scots, Canadians, South Africans and New Zealanders for about five months. All the captives at this camp were flying officers, and as such were not permitted to work outside the camp. The Luftwaffe (German air force) was the elite group of German armed forces, and being their prisoners, we were not maltreated. We did get Red Cross parcels, which kept us alive, for the Germans did not give us enough food (the German population must have been suffering from too little food by this time). Since we didn't work, one of our biggest problems was boredom, and the constant conversations were about food, and "The first thing I want to eat when I get home is …" As time went on, we could tell that we were getting weaker, and sports like volleyball and soccer played when we first got there were replaced by just walking around the camp. Winter came early with snow before Thanksgiving, and we used stumps and boards from the wash hut to bum for fuel to keep us "warm" (still cold).
Finally, in late January 1945, the Russians were approaching the area, so they marched us out for two days in a terrible blizzard to another town where we were jammed into boxcars and taken to a camp at Nuremburg. This march in the blizzard was the low point of the whole prisoner-of-war experience. We got a five-minute break each hour and we fell back into a snow bank along the side of the road. We were so weak and tired that it was almost impossible to get up and march again. We were at the camp in Nuremburg from early February until early April. This was crowded, cold, with even less food than before. We called the soup they gave us "Green Death" for it looked like it was made from weeds of the field. Only the march in the blizzard was worse than the period spent at Nuremburg. Finally, as the Americans were approaching the area we were marched out again for about a dozen days to Moosburg (near Munich), where we were liberated by Patton's troops on April 29, 1945 (nine months as a POW to the day). A few days later we were flown out to Lellarve to camp "Lucky Strike." We had to land on the way to LeHarve for fuel, and we got white bread sandwiches at the mess hall … it tasted like Angel Food cake to us after the dark, moist, dense German bread. At Camp Lucky Strike we couldn't finish even small portions at the mess hall initially, but soon ate like pigs to put on weight again. They had GI garbage cans of eggnog spiked with a pint of liquor to encourage us to drink it to help fatten us up. We were at Camp Lucky Strike for about two weeks before getting a ship back to America. We went in convoy because all the U- boats had not yet been accounted for. In about two weeks we entered New York City harbor, and delighted in cruising past the Statue of Liberty. I was back home in another day or two, and was given a 60-day leave. I then went to a re-classification center in Miami Beach, and was sent to Ellington Field in Houston. V-J Day arrived shortly afterward, and former POWs were discharged as soon as possible.
Howard. J. 'Bill' Leech lives in New Bern.

First found on ITPRO.



Bletchley Park's continuing battle to restore the condition of its historical buildings has received a welcome boost this week, thanks to Google. The work done on the estate during WWII was crucial in breaking the German Enigma codes.

It would be wonderful if other donors follow Google's example to help preserve our computing heritage. We could then proceed as soon as possible with restoration of the profoundly historically significant code breaking huts.

The tech giant has donated £550,000 to help the former site of WWII code breaking restore the huts where such great work took place. This donation builds on the £4.6 million in Heritage Lottery Fund monies awarded to Bletchley Park in October. The lottery funding was awarded on condition the park matched the figure.

With the money, in addition to restoring the state of the buildings, Bletchley Park is hoping to transform itself into a heritage and education centre, that will both encourage future generations as well as serving as a reminder of what previous generations achieved during wartime code-breaking efforts.

"We are tremendously grateful to Google for bringing us considerably closer to achieving our development aims. We have received other generous contributions towards the project but this is the largest single element of the partnership funding and absolutely vital in potentially getting the project underway much sooner than might otherwise have been the case," said Simon Greenish, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust.

"It would be wonderful if other donors follow Google's example to help preserve our computing heritage. We could then proceed as soon as possible with restoration of the profoundly historically significant code breaking huts."

This is not the first time Google has shown its support for Bletchley Park. Earlier this year, the tech giant tried to raise awareness of the need for funding to restore the park's buildings to their former glory.

"The Bletchley Park Trust has been doing great work to honour Alan Turing and the code breakers who helped shorten the second world war and to educate the next generation about the history of modern computing," said Peter Barron, Google's director of external relations. "We are delighted to make this charitable donation to help support the next phase of this important project."



* * *



I think this is great news. It's very important for our understanding of history and WWII in particular that these sites are preserved for future generations.

First found on ITPRO.

Bletchley Park's continuing battle to restore the condition of its historical buildings has received a welcome boost this week, thanks to Google. The work done on the estate during WWII was crucial in breaking the German Enigma codes.

It would be wonderful if other donors follow Google's example to help preserve our computing heritage. We could then proceed as soon as possible with restoration of the profoundly historically significant code breaking huts.

The tech giant has donated £550,000 to help the former site of WWII code breaking restore the huts where such great work took place. This donation builds on the £4.6 million in Heritage Lottery Fund monies awarded to Bletchley Park in October. The lottery funding was awarded on condition the park matched the figure.
With the money, in addition to restoring the state of the buildings, Bletchley Park is hoping to transform itself into a heritage and education centre, that will both encourage future generations as well as serving as a reminder of what previous generations achieved during wartime code-breaking efforts.
"We are tremendously grateful to Google for bringing us considerably closer to achieving our development aims. We have received other generous contributions towards the project but this is the largest single element of the partnership funding and absolutely vital in potentially getting the project underway much sooner than might otherwise have been the case," said Simon Greenish, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust.
"It would be wonderful if other donors follow Google's example to help preserve our computing heritage. We could then proceed as soon as possible with restoration of the profoundly historically significant code breaking huts."
This is not the first time Google has shown its support for Bletchley Park. Earlier this year, the tech giant tried to raise awareness of the need for funding to restore the park's buildings to their former glory.
"The Bletchley Park Trust has been doing great work to honour Alan Turing and the code breakers who helped shorten the second world war and to educate the next generation about the history of modern computing," said Peter Barron, Google's director of external relations. "We are delighted to make this charitable donation to help support the next phase of this important project."

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I think this is great news. It's very important for our understanding of history and WWII in particular that these sites are preserved for future generations.