Before June 6, 1944

The five Kriegie Kids at the Gates of Freedom Memorial at Stalag Luft XI-B

Gates of Freedom Memorial at Stalag Luft XI-B

 On June 6, 1944, allied troops made the largest amphibious landing ever attempted, when the WWII military operation code named Neptune took place. It was America’s “boots on the ground” invasion of the Third Reich. 

This massive invasion was preceded by an intense air war that had been under way since April 18, 1942, when General Jimmy Doolittle led a group of twin engines Mitchell B-25 bombers, off the deck of the aircraft carrier, USS Hornet. His raid on Tokyo, supposedly outside the range of our air corp, let the Japanese people know their homeland was in grave danger, along with giving Americans the boost in morale so badly needed after enduring a surprise attack on our Hawaiian Islands at Pearl Harbor. 

A few months after the Doolittle raid, the European air war began on July 4, 1942, when Eighth Army Air Force bombers attacked German airfields in the Netherlands.

Airmen suffered an unfathomable number of casualties in the build up to the invasion, with historians quoting numbers as high as 20,000 killed and 18,000 injured, with most of the injured being captured and imprisoned until liberation in early May 1945. 

It was only by the high price paid in lives and lasting trauma of our brave air men and women that we can today celebrate the successful invasion we now know as D-Day. 

The D-Day invasion, while devastating for both sides, was carried out in almost the absence of enemy aircraft, as our air corps had gained not only air superiority but also air supremacy. 

The brave U.S. soldiers who stormed ashore on June 6, 1944, lost over 4,400 fighters with another 6,000 wounded, a high price and a stalwart example of the commitment our young men made for the freedom of others. 

On a recent visit to Germany and the site of one of the largest Stalags, XI-B, Fallingbostel, we attended a memorial for the prisoners of war held there. During the presentation by the mayors of Bad Fallingbostel and Oberke, the towns’ historian thanked our group of Kriegie Kids (sons and daughters of ex-POWs) “for giving us (Germany) the opportunity for becoming a Democratic country.”  

I guess his thanks summarizes our rationale for fighting WWII. 

Jim

Mayor of Bad Fallingbostel 

Memorial to Stagag Luft XI-B 

Home and Better for the Experience

My father’s embroidery while  POW 

We are very fortunate to have been included in the Kriegie Kids, Germany/Poland trip. We saw and experienced places and people we wouldn’t have seen or met as individual travelers. We were welcomed by town officials and folks who were just glad to show off their homelands. 

In the beginning of the trip we were a little anxious about the receptions that awaited us, after all our fathers bombed their cities and more likely than not, some of their family members died in the war. It didn’t take long to realize our guests, in so many ways, were also victims of the Nazi dictatorship. 

The most moving statement I heard during the entire trip was made by the Fallingbostel historian when he said, “we thank your country for making Democracy possible in our country.”  I am told that crisis is the time that the most significant advancements are made; maybe that can be said about war. Glad the advancements were positive. 

Just a few notes about our trip; 13 hotel stays in 29 days, (including the ten days in the U.K.) 2002 miles driven in Germany and Poland and we hit 110 miles per hour (178 kilometers per hour) several times on the autobahn. The film crew shot over 24 hours of digital film and the five Kriegie Kids became close friends. 

I hope that the work the television crew has accomplished will become a documentary that helps preserve the memories of our country’s sacrifice in WWII. When war is the only answer, I’m thankful our country’s mission is to freedom and not occupation. Our German friends are appreciative also 

I hope to return and visit Vic’s first Stalag, Stalag Luft VI in Heydekrug, East Prussia, now Silutes, Lithuania. It is a little too close to Russia at the moment to visit. 

It’s very good to be home. Jim and Pam

James V. (Vic)  Hemphill, Jr.

More than ever expected

It’s difficult to believe that we are starting the last day of our trip. We’ve covered a lot of territory and made many new friends. Standing in the places we’ve been reading about for several years now has brought new clarity to our study.  It has also made us understand how much more study we need to do 

Each day of our trip has brought new discoveries. Today we were taken to the delousing barn where I believe Dad took the only shower he had on the eighty-six day Death March. His clothes were baked in an oven to kill the lice and he was sprayed with DDT to kill any critters that may have survived the process. I remember him saying, “ had one shower in eighty-six days and that was without soap”. If my calculations are correct he had marched for approximately sixty-five days before this shower and delousing. The war was coming to an end at this time and the Germans were trying to lighten up on the prisoners as the tables were turning. 

Dad didn’t come to Stalag Luft 11-B, Fallingbostel on the train but many POWs did; it is also the tracks that went to Auschwitz, the killing concentration camp. There were work camps and killing camps, Auschwitz was the largest killing camp. 1.2 million people were exterminated at the camp and 1.1 million were Jews. I’m positive that the POWs were crammed into box cars in the same trains that carried box cars of Jews. Vic (Dad) was on the Death March when he got to Stalag Luft 11-B, Fallingbostel. He didn’t stay long because the camp was terribly overcrowded and ten men were dying each day from diseases. Their “man of confidence”, Francis Troy, who was also the top turret gunner on Vic’s plane, felt continuing the march, while bad, wasn’t as bad as exposure to the many maladies of staying in the confines of Fallingbostel. This was probably in the last week of March, 1945.  Vic’s group continued the march and were liberated on May 2, 1945. The British liberated Fallingbostel on April 16, 1945!

Vic and his buddies were told to get to the airfield at Celle, just a few miles from the barn they were liberated and from there, he said they went to Soligen, Germany, to Camp Lucky Strike in France, then to New York City on the Queen Mary It was the end of WWII for Vic, and the end of our re-creation of his Death March. He fooled ‘em. Jim

The number of kilometers we drove during the re-creation of our father’s Death March  2002 miles  

Mayors of the towns of Bad Fallingbostel and Oberke placing flowers at the memorial gates of Stalag Luft 11-B, sometimes simply called Fallingbostel

Mayor of Bad Fallingbostel 

Our sound man and cameraman/producer. David and Harold 

The Fallingbostel train station where POWs were taken to SL-11B and the Jews were taken on to the killing camp at Auschwitz.  There were work camps and killing camps, Auschwitz had one mission; kill. 1.2 million people were killed at Auschwitz; 1.1 were Jewish Germans. 

The cobblestone road that the prisoners on the Death March walked on to Fallingbostel. This portion of the cobblestone road has been saved as a memorial to the marchers. 

Ellen Weaver Hartman and me sitting on the remains of the steps to the administration building of Stalag Luft 11-B, Fallingbostel. Joe Weaver, Ellen’s father owned a service station on University Drive in Starkville. 

The de-lousing barn at SL 11-B. I believe my father, Vic, had his one and only shower here (without soap) on the eighty-six day Death March. 

The memorial and site of the mass grave of thirty-thousand Russian POWs that were killed during their imprisonment in German prison camps.  I’m certain that there are mass graves and no memorials to tens of thousands of German POWs that were killed as POWs in Russian prison camps. 

Kriegie Kids at the memorial gates of Stalag Luft 11-B, Fallingbostel.

Ellen Witt, me, Ellen Weaver Hartman, Laura Edge and Rich Ruben. Witt and Edge are sisters. 

Bad Fallingbostel train station. 

Oberke, Bad Fallingbostel

We are nearing the end of our journey and spent our time time today meeting with town officials in Oberke and Fallingbostel. These two towns claim Stalag 11-B and Stalag 357 as their own. Both mayors made presentations in their respective town halls or Rathouses. The presentations were detailed and lengthy. In all the villages and towns we have visited, cameras seem to bring the town’s marketing people in to make sure we, and film viewers, know how important their areas are to the world. I don’t blame them and would be doing the same thing. 

Oberke is a town of 500 townspeople but situated on the edge of a long time British military installation. When the British pulled out a few years ago, the empty barracks became the haven of Afghanistan refugees fleeing their country from the war.  Germany is to be recognized for providing a safe place for these war weary folks but you can visualize what a culture shock 5K Afghans would have on Oberke’s 500 citizens.  The mayor never made any recognizable comment on the matter. 

My high point of the day was a trip to Celle to the sight of the airfield from where my father, Vic, was flown to begin his trip back to the U.S. after liberation. He said in some notes he made when preparing for a talk to a school group that he was liberated by British troops in a barn near Celle. We don’t know where the barn is but being at the site of the airfield gives some closure to our journey. This visit wasn’t in our schedule, but for some reason the time became available and we drove the extra couple of hours to the site. Thanks to Christine, our film director for making the special effort to get me to the spot and to the others in the travel group for agreeing to the change. 

We couldn’t get on the base, an active German helicopter tactical base, but the Commandant came out to visit with us. Very kind of him and it made the stop even more memorable. He also verified the base is the same one that flew WWII ex-POWs to freedom. It is certainly modernized but the same spot. 

This is a picture of POWs after liberation as they walk out of Stalag Luft 11-B and 357.

Mayor of Oberke sharing stories of the prisons that were in his township. 

Exhibition of items from.the local stalags

Me with an 92-year-old eyewitness of atrocities toward Russian prisoners. Germans and Russians treated each others prisoners in inhumane manners. 

Our hotel in Bad Fallingbostel, which was in business during the war. 

Gate of Celle airbase from where Dad was flown after being liberated. 

Christine talking with the base commander.

Base commander 

Friendly Fire

 May 16, 2024
Greese, Luneberg, Bad Fallingbostel 

On April 19, 1945, just a fee days before the liberation of airmen at Gudow, a group of about two-thousand POWs were on a road in the beautiful little town of Greece marching toward Gudow. The war was virtually over and the sky’s were completely dominated by allied air forces. 

As the men, some walking for nearly eighty days at this point, continued their wandering at the will of Hitler a British Typhoon fighter plane appeared and flew over the men. Excited to see the friend in the air, the Kriegies waved and cheered. The plane made a quick bank, returned and strafed the column of men killing. 60 and wounding many. It is believed that the pilot mistakenly took the airmen as retreating enemy troops. It was a tactic used by retreating Germans to wave at allied planes in the hopes of being seen as friends. The dead were buried temporarily in the Church yard in Greese.  John Nichol and Tony Rennell wrote about the event in their book, The Last Escape.  I recommend it if you’re interested in learning more about the plight of the POWs in WWII.  Laura Edge, our traveling partner, also has a wonderful book she authored about her father’s POW experience; On the Wings of Dawn. . 

To backtrack a minute, our day started at a barn just outside of Gudow that has been identified as a night stop for marching airmen. It’s in bad shape but you can see it fits the mold for marching stopovers. 

Our day continues with a drive to Luneberg for lunch. 

Memorial to the sixty men who died in the friendly fire incident at Greese.

We ended our day by driving to Bad Fallingbostel and we will be spending the last three nights of our trip in a hotel that was in use during the war. Jim

Big Day in Gudow

 May 15, 2024
Gudow 

The spot where six-thousand POWs were liberated. 

Boy, the Von Bulows organized a city wide event to honor our visit. We started with a ten o’clock church service at the Lutheran church built in the seventeenth century. The service was created especially for us and done in enough English for us to be able to keep up. It centered around the importance of getting along with one another and featured Amazing Grace played by a ninety-two year old gentleman, the long-time organist of the church. But what came next was almost more than I could handle. The entire congregation, including the Kriegie Kids, moved down to the alter and the organist played our national anthem. I’ve never been as proud to hear the anthem played before in my life. Tears welled up and heartfelt communications were being understood by folks who didn’t understand either language. At the conclusion of the service, he played the German national anthem and the Germans were just as moved as we were. 

Now, as I sit in my room and reflect, it will remain a special memory for the rest of my life,  I’m not sure how my father would have felt being here, but I think he would be glad to know I was here and was helping to perpetuate the memory of the American investment paid in young men’s lives for a better world. 

After the service we were shown a video on the Gudow liberation and then.served a traditional German lunch of potato and pork soup and dark bread. There could be no better menu when considering the meals most POWs ate, if they had anything. I can assure you our soup was better than any the POWs had. It was delicious. 

After lunch, two German university historians presented research on WWII events of interest and on several individual research accounts of air battles and outcomes. Enjoyable and interesting presentations we all enjoyed. 

The day has provided more information for us than we ever expected and we came away with lifetime memories and many new friends  

The day ended with dinner at a town favorite restaurant and a German favorite menu, wiener schnitzel, brown bread and beer. Mr. Von Bulow ordered everyone a shot of Korn as a stomach settling digestive, which he said was a Von Bulow tradition after schnitzel. It put a period on an almost perfect day  

For your information, Korn is not the distilled spirits commonly bootlegged in the south, but a smooth after dinner liquor enjoyed in Germany. Good day, tomorrow we travel again. Jim

Community group gathered for our visit  at 

Welcome by Gudow by the mayor  

Outdoor lunch

Visit with eye witness of liberation of POWs by British forces

Another eye witness of the liberation 

Mrs. Von Bulow

Mr  Von Bulow

Standing at the Gudow liberation point. 

The Von Bulows

May 14-15, 2024

Neubrandenburg. Gudow

Poor internet for a couple of days, probably few pictures.

We’ve had an interesting day, not because all of our days haven’t been interesting, but today we visited Stalag Luft I. Vic was never there, but one of Kriegie Kid’s father was liberated there so we made a stop. Not much left there, but it was good to see the site. 

The interesting news for today is the Von Bulows. You may remember Claus Von Bulow and his 1980s U.S. trial for attempting to murder his wife Sonny. Well, his family extended is very well-to-do and lives in Gudow, Germany where a large number of POWs were liberated.  

In 2017, Laura, our Kriegie Kid author and her travel partner Ellen made contact with Detliv Von Bulow and shared news of our Kriegie Kid group. He became interested in our mission and invited us to visit if we got to Gudow. 

Upon knowing we were making this trip he invited all of us to his home (manor) for dinner and to meet his family. Further, he has planned our time in Gudow to assist us in retracing the steps of our father’s WWII POW histories. The Van Bulow’s could not have been finer hosts and we were treated much better than we expected; they made our Gudow visit very special.

We are staying at the Roschi's Gästehaus in Gudow, a bed and breakfast set in a small and very German neighborhood. Our accommodations are perfect, and Mr. Von Bulow is sending breakfast, and he had us for cocktails and a light dinner last night when we arrived. He planned a busy day for us and another dinner this evening. 

I should add that this home is a an 1826 Greek Revival style manor with southern plantation style high porch and columns, beautiful gardens that overlook a lake and complete with really big white swans.  I’m guessing the mansion is at least 30k sq.ft.  25 foot ceilings, and our dinner was served on the dining room table that seated the fifteen of our party, including the Von Bulows, their son and daughter-in-law and film crew, with five or six empty seats. Oh, the “light” dinner was by candlelight.

Finally, during the war, the manor was taken over by the British as a command center and the family was moved with a small amount of necessary pieces of furniture to the stables. The house suffered from the occupation but was not destroyed, and after repairs and renovations the house is now in its present very good condition.  The family had to re-purchase much of the land of the estate from the new government or from someone I didn’t quite understand. When war is on your land and you are the defeated aggressor, reprisals are appropriate, if appropriate. Jim

No one brought up the other deal.