I did something strange the evening of May 24, 1944 that I didn't remember until two months
later in prison camp.

 After we were in bed with the lights out, I got up and turned on the light and wrote a note to
a good friend I had on the ground crew. When we left the rest home after a recent leave, I
had been one of the ones who thought we should bring the Red Cross Girls' puppy home
with us. We planned to return it on our next pass. Well, I wrote a note to George Stack and
asked that he make sure the dog was returned should anything happen to us the next day.
I put the note in an envelope, addressed it, left it on the dresser, and went back to bed.
Then I forgot all about it for two months. George has since sent me the note. That's the
only time I ever did anything like that.

On Thursday, May 25, we were awakened at 2:30 a.m. and were told briefing was at
4 a.m. with take-off at 5:15. We were scheduled to take out the main bridges in the heart
of Liege, Belgium. I thought of this as a milk run. We were due back at 11:15 a.m. We
followed the usual routine, I guess, and rode the trucks out to the plane. When it came
time to start engines, I was stowing gear in the waist when Capt. Jim Zengerle came on.
He stopped and told me to fly radio today; "You need the practice," he said. So Bill
Lazar and I changed positions, as we had done before. While he was a free spirit, Bill
was a heck of a good radio man. On a typical mission a lead ship sends the control
points back to division headquarters such as weather, clouds, altitude and so forth. After
routine flying and climbing to 23,000 feet for our bombing altitude, we headed for our target.

Control Point One was the enemy coast. The navigator called all the information that we could really code and send. He gave the time as 08:03. At the same time, I felt flak shake the ship. It was a real close one. A piece came through the radio room over my head and broke something off the gun mount. It fell to the floor. I turned to see what it was, thinking it was a souvenir to bring back. As I did, I glanced out the porthole on right and saw that the Number 4 engine was a mass of flames. I turned and switched my intercom to Command, which overrides all other frequencies, and told Capt. Zengerle that Number 4 was on fire. And then Numbers 3 and 4 were both on fire.

"Let's get the hell outta here," I said. This last might have been a little strong with Col. Chamberlain riding as command pilot on the mission.

I think all of us had flown enough to know the difference between an engine fire, which can be snuffed (or a dive may put it out) and a fuel fire, which means the ship may blow up in seconds. By then, the entire right wing was a sea of flames. I didn't wait for an answer; I whipped off my mask and looked for my chute. I found it buried under a pile of extra clothing on the radio room floor. As I left the radio room, the bail-out bells throughout the ship were ringing. In the waist, Bill Lazor had already pulled the emergency door release and bailed out. Gene Benson stood in the door, just looking down. He turned, and, when he saw I was on the way, he jumped. As I reached the door, I realized Ed Leonard hadn't come out of the ball turret yet. I thought about going back to see why when he popped out and reached for his chute. I waved for him to hurry. Flames were by then reaching back behind the waist. I dove out head first.

As the prop wash tumbled me, I saw the plane, which Jim had pulled off to the right of the group so as not to endanger the others, was a mass of flames on the right side. The next time I got a look at it, while I was falling, there was nothing but pieces. It had exploded.

I had managed to control myself and delay the opening of my chute. I stopped tumbling and fell on my back with my feet higher than my head. I checked the snaps on my chute to make sure they were secure and - talk about doing strange things - I pulled off the white silk gloves I was still wearing. We wore those under our electric gloves in case we had to touch any metal.

All the while I was glancing over my shoulder, trying to judge my altitude. We had been taught that the closer to the ground before opening our chute, the better chance for escape. When I thought the trees were starting to look fairly close I pulled the rip chord. My chute opened beautifully.

I looked at the ground and realized I was 2,000 or 3,000 feet high yet. Then, through my own stupidity, came Anxious Moment Number One. I reached up to pull one half of the shroud lines to spill some of the air out of the chute so that I would fall faster. I was so pumped up, I overdid it and collapsed my chute entirely. I fell like a rock. My chute looked like a wet rag.

I had a lot of luck. The chute reopened when I let go of the lines. This is one of the few things that I sometimes see at night yet - that collapsed chute above my head. I drifted out over the top of a little hamlet while I was looking for an escape route. It was all over an open field, and I spotted a woods about 500 yards away. I figured that if I could make this woods, I had a chance.

I hadn't been watching my decent, and suddenly I landed, and landed hard. My chute collapsed against a fence. My leg hurt, and I was afraid I had broken it. I jumped up to test it, and it seemed okay. I hurriedly gathered up my chute from the fence, figuring to head for the woods and bury it. It was then that I heard some small arms fire and shouts. I turned, and there were 12 to 15 German solders running toward me with a couple of motorcycles with side cars. I dropped my chute and turned to face them with my hands above my head.

At this point, I had two different emotions. First, I realized that I wouldn't have to face that black, ugly flak or fight fighters anymore. It seemed as though a heavy weight had been lifted off me. And yet, there was the sickening feeling that there would be no more clean clothes, warm meals or other good things that we had been used to.

As for the rest of the crew, Bombardier Wayne Barnett, my closest friend, tried to open his chute at about 5,000 feet; but when he pulled the ripcord it came right out and nothing happened. Not easily flustered, he reached around and opened the snaps on his back-type chute. After he pulled a piece of it out by hand, it opened normally. He landed in a tree with some eager French farmers trying to get him down so they could hide him. Unfortunately, German soldiers arrived first.

Walt Travis, our navigator, was blown out through the nose but parachuted safely; he was picked up at once. Al Millin, riding in the tail, opened his chute at 10,000 feet and, as he drifted down, watched the Germans pick me up. I guess they were too occupied to look up. He landed in some tall grass and hid. The next day he worked his way inland, evading the German troops, and the second day he made contact with the French underground. They hid him until the Allied troops came through in mid-August.

Pilot Jim Zengerle delayed his chute's opening until close to ground. He landed in the tall grass unseen. He crawled into a nearby hedge and covered himself up. In early afternoon, a French farmer came by, looking over his fields. Without acknowledging Jim's presence, he flipped a candy bar over near him. It was a signal that he knew Jim was there and to stay put. Later that night they came back for him, and, like Al Millin, he spent the summer confined to a French farmer's attic until the Allies came through in August.

The only two married men on the plane, J.P. Hurdle, our engineer and top turret gunner, and Lt. Col. Chamberlain, who was flying as command pilot, died when the ship blew up.

I was taken to a little hamlet I had drifted over where the Germans had set up a command post. There I met Walt and Wayne. None of us gave any sign of recognition of one another, as we weren't going to give the Germans any information. They kept asking what our target was. I kept repeating my name, rank and serial number.

Later that day, I was transferred to a small jail cell nearby. There were four adjacent cells and Ed Leonard, Gene Benson, Wayne and Walt were all there. Everyone was in sort of a high spirits, knowing it was over for us. But we didn't realize what was ahead.

The next day we were moved to Paris by truck, and then on a train to Frankfurt, Germany. It was on this train that Wayne and I almost attempted our first escape.

The train was barely crawling up a steep grade. We had the window wide open. The guard was asleep in our compartment, just across from me. I was supposed to slug the guard - or maybe it was Wayne; I forget which one of us - but one of us was going to slug the guard and we were going to dive out the window. Then we were afraid of gunners on top of the train, and also the retribution to other POWs. We gave up the idea. Later, we were to see days when we wished we had tried it.

When we left the train at Frankfort, the civilians tried to get at us at the railroad station. This got really hairy. Our guards rushed us downstairs to a small court from which there was no escape. There, to their credit, they turned and pointed their machine guns on their own people to keep them from us. From there we were taken to a big German interrogation center. We were each placed in solitary confinement. Three or four times a day, I was taken to a German officer for interrogation. He sat behind a neat desk with fresh flowers on it, and got all exasperated with me when I kept repeating my name, rank and serial number. Then I was returned to my cell. In the evening, you have a lot of time to think when you lay on that bunk with nothing to do. It seemed like a was a long ways from Weedsport, New York. This routine went on for five days. I had no contact with any of the others. At one session my interrogator sent shivers through me when he told me he could turn me over to the Gestapo and they would take me across the street to their basement and make me talk. I was glad he didn't.

I was finally taken out to join the other POWs in the yard. The next day, we were on a train headed for a new POW camp up near the Baltic Sea. Here, I was lucky again. The prison camp was about a mile-and-a-half from the railway station. Our guards, with their dogs, allowed us a leisurely walk to camp. I was to see later groups come in running the distance, with the guards jabbing them in the back with their bayonets And others who had been nipped by the dogs.

After a complete strip search, I was taken into the compound. To my joy, there to greet me were Gene Benson, Ed Leonard and Bill Zazar. It was like old home week.

For me, it took some doing to get used to prison life. As long as we had one half of Red Cross food parcels, we could make out okay. The Germans gave us a cold loaf of black bread - bitter bread - per week, some grease for butter and a pail of boiled potatoes for 16 men. Sometimes when they brought a pail of soup in, we would look at it and dump it down the latrine.

Somehow the guys acquired a radio. Several men each carried a part of it and met each day to get the 4 p.m. BBC news from London. This, in turn, was passed around to each barracks.

This camp, at least to me, was escape-proof. We were locked in the barracks at night with guards and dogs roaming outside of it. The barracks were set up on piers to prevent any tunnels. Our favorite pastime, when we weren't getting food parcels, was to walk the fence. We'd walk the perimeter of the compound by the hour. Gene Benson and I spent many hours circling the fence, talking about everything.

When we had only German rations, just a few of us had the strength to walk the fence. But first, there were three roll calls each day when we had to line up in front of our barracks and be counted. Often the Germans would miscount. This meant a search of all barracks and then a recount before they realized they had made an error.

As winter came on, the noon-day roll call was eliminated. Each room was given nine bricks of pressed coal dust a day for their stoves. After the roll calls we would sit on the bunks with our shoes off and our feet curled up underneath us, trying to warm them. For me, each day seemed like a month. There was a wash room where we could take a cold water sponge bath any time of the year. Thanks to the Red Cross parcels, we had a bar of soap and did cold water hand laundry almost daily for something to do. On Christmas Eve the Germans gave us a real treat. They let us roam the prison yard until midnight. All the floodlights were on, and the bonus was just to be able to be out in the dark - to walk the fence.

Some guards were downright mean to us; others, not so. One guard told us he had been transferred to the western front and, in two weeks, he would be eating GI food, meaning, his heart really wasn't in the war. They were mortally afraid of the Eastern front and the Russians. In January, the Germans became extremely nervous. When the Russians broke through they just decided to move us. I made notes of the dates on the back of a soap wrapper which I still have.

We left camp on January 31st in boxcars. We were packed in on a bed of straw with a few buckets for toilet facilities. Soon, many of us started digging a peephole in the cracks. At the next stop, the Germans opened the door and yelled to us that if there were any more holes, six of us would be taken out on the spot and shot. This, effectively slowed up the making of any new holes.

On the second night out we stopped at the Berlin marshaling yards for the night. This was probably the worst place in the world to spend a night. Sure enough, about 10 p.m., the air raid sirens were going off. Fortunately for us, there was a lone Mosquito bomber, and he dropped a single 2,000 pound bomb. Part of the war of nerves. I found out after the war that the war's heaviest raids on Berlin took place the night after we were there. I was lucky again.

We arrived in Nuremburg on Feb. 8. Through my peephole, I could see the devastation of the city. We were marched to a POW camp outside the city. This was a real run-down camp where we found our navigator Walt Travis, and Wayne Barnett, and a P-51 pilot named Capt. Dick Broach. They were in an adjoining compound with only a rickety fence separating us. Right away, Wayne and I started making escape plans. We started hoarding our food - what little we had.

We found that if we mixed the food together, including the hard block of chocolate from the Red Cross parcels, and boiled them together, they hardened into a small block. This we called Iron Rations. One bite and you could go all day. We received Red Cross parcels intermittently; between times we were extremely hungry. We ate the noon soup by putting a piece of grease or German butter on the soup that would coat the top. That way we could not see all the bugs that were in the soup. We'd fix our eyes firmly on the wall and eat.

The Germans decided to march us to the east. During the day we were put up in some farmers' barns, making for one mad farmer. About the third night out, just before we were to start marching at dusk, Wayne, Walt and Captain Burch and I had a meeting. We had no idea what the status of the war was; we decided it would be too risky to escape. We thought the war must be winding down. We started marching in blocks of about 150-200 POWs, surrounded by guards and dogs.

Each hour, we got a 10-minute break. About 10 p.m., Wayne and I decided to escape. At 11 p.m. we stopped for our break. During these periods the POWs would sit along one side of the road with the guards on the opposite side. We'd picked a spot to sit where the underbrush was close to the road. Without saying anything to the others, when they called everybody up, for a few seconds the guards weren't looking and we slipped down into the ditch and behind the underbrush, and started moving out away from the road. We were in an area of low brush and semi-swampy ground. We had only moved about 200 feet when the next block of POWs came marching by. The dogs with this group picked up our scent, and we flattened out on the ground, not knowing what would happen.

This gave me Anxious Moment Number Two. I expected machine gun fire and dogs coming after us. But the guards called for the dogs to be quiet, and kept marching. As soon as they were safely by, we started moving again. We had only gone a short distance when the next group came by. Again, the dogs picked up our scent, this time more insistently. Again, the guards paid no attention to the dogs. After they passed, we made it to the woods and were free.

It was a dark night; no stars. Also, there was no compass. We traveled as fast as we could in the dark, always in the woods. As daylight came, we stopped in the woods when we heard sounds ahead. We crawled up to look over a bank below us. There on the road were the POWs marching by. We had traveled in a huge semi-circle and back to the road we had left, only farther ahead.

Here we made the mistake that we would make several more times. We went too long when it became light before finding a place to hide. We turned to go back away from the road, and shortly saw someone walking through the woods. When we turned to go back the other way, we saw another person walking. We were caught between two pedestrian paths going through the woods. The woods, at this point, were fairly level and clean. We found a little spot near where we were, lay down and tried to hide ourselves somewhat. We lay like this all day, watching people go by on either side of us. Had they looked, I'm sure they would have seen us. What a long day that was! We could hear gun fire all day and figured we were near a rifle range - probably the Home Guard practicing.

I wondered how I had ever gotten from the little town of Weedsport to lying on my back, half covered with leaves, in the heart of Germany. I don't remember the sequence of days and nights of the rest of our escape; I remember the events though they may not be in order.

After dark that night we managed to leave the area, staying in the woods. I can't recall where we slept on this day and night. I remember the third night well. It was raining. We were cold, wet and hungry. Fortunately, some farmers had planted potatoes early, and we were able to dig them up. With those and the iron rations, we kept going. By late in the evening we were so wet that we left the woods and started walking down a road we came upon, still traveling on instinct for direction. An occasional German staff car would pass us and pay no attention. I confess, my spirits were at a low point. If Wayne was discouraged, he gave no sign of it.

After perhaps an hour or so we came to the edge of a village with four or five railroad passenger cars parked on a siding by the road. Realizing we had to get out of the cold rain, we went in one of the cars. They were pretty well shot up, thanks to the American fighter pilots. The inside was a mess. We brushed the broken glass aside and lay down on a seat and went to sleep.

We awoke in the morning about 6 o'clock to a new life. The sky was clear and the sun was out. We found our directions and figured we had been going the wrong way for the past three days. As we stepped out of the car a trainman at a small station hollered to us. We made as though we didn't hear him, and casually walked toward the rear car. As soon as he couldn't see us, we made a made dash for the nearby woods and looked for a hiding place until night. We were forced to cross an open valley, and did so with no one bothering us. In the next woods we found a cluster of evergreens and a mound of leaves - the perfect hiding place. We took off some of our wet clothes to dry and stayed there until dark. It was dusk when we moved out to get a look at what lay ahead while we could still see.

As we neared the edge of the woods we spotted two people. We turned and ran as fast as we could back through the woods. They didn't follow us. We kept moving west, staying in the woods as much as possible. Once we got boxed into a small village at 12 or 1 o'clock in the morning, and started walking through town. As we passed the center of town someone opened a second floor window and challenged us. Again, we continued our walk as if we hadn't heard.

As soon as we cleared the village we quickly made for the woods. Later, we again got caught trying to go too far, and daylight came before we could find a place to hide. This particular time there was nothing near by except a small finger of tall grass and weeds projecting out into a field. The woods were so tiny, sparse, smooth and small that we didn't dare lie there. We figured no one would come out onto that little grassy strip, so we went out to it and bedded down for the day. I'd never had trouble sleeping, and went right to sleep. As luck would have it, a farmer decided to plow the field that day. Wayne always slept like a cat, and I had, he claims, a tendency to snore. Every time the farmer with his horse came to our end of the field, Wayne would jab me and tell me to be quiet, as he'd only be about 100 feet away from us. I'm sure Wayne didn't sleep much that day. I think it was about a day or two later that we started moving again at night, and at about 9 or 10 in the evening, came to a river. It wasn't too wide, but it was swift and cold. We went both ways, looking for a place to cross. We discussed swimming it, but figured we didn't have the strength to make it. Going upstream we came to a bridge on the edge of a hamlet. People were crossing with no problems. We crawled up near the base o the bridge and lay there, watching. We watched until 2 a.m., and had seen no guards. We decided to try it.

We walked up by the road and started to cross. We got across to the other side and thought we had it made. About then, two German soldiers stepped up to challenge us. We hadn't been able to see them from the other side. In my prison camp German, I offered them a cigarette - American naturally - in our Red Cross parcels, because neither Wayne nor I smoked. Their response was to point their rifles at us and say, "March."

They took us to a nearby house that they were using for a command post, where several officers were tuned to a radio. They didn't seem interested in us. They indicated that Wayne and I should sit in what would have been the dining room. One of the soldiers said in broken English that there were two of our comrades lying on the floor in the living room. There were two bodies curled up under a blanket. We went to look under the blanket, expecting two dead GIs. It turned out to be Walt Travis, our navigator, and Capt. Dick Broach. They were both okay and had been captured about two hours before us on the same bridge. Despite our situation, it was almost like a party, we were so glad to see them.

While comparing notes with them, they had also changed their minds about escaping and did so the same night that Wayne and I did. The two men that we ran into on the edge of the woods that night were them. They said they saw us and ran the other way, not knowing it was us.

The Germans gave us some toast with jam, and coffee. It seemed like a feast to us. Later that day we were taken to a nearby village and put with another group of POWs that was being moved. They had us in a public barn; I believe there were about 100 of us.

Something rather strange happened the next day. We - Wayne, Walt, Capt. Boarch and I - were all taken outside, and three or four soldiers started marching us out of town. We couldn't figure out why or where and didn't like it. We knew the Germans were rough on escaped POWs, having murdered 60 British RAF boys after an escape. Finally we came to where a camp where Hungarian troops were staying. Somehow Walt Travis got into a conversation with their adjutant. Walt was quite articulate. I believe the adjutant had lived in Linden, New Jersey and Walt came from nearby. The two talked for quite some time. They finally gave us a dish of something like stew; it was probably true Hungarian stew. After that, they started marching us back to where we had come from. To this day, I don't know for sure why they did this. In the summer of 1946 I received a letter from this adjutant asking for help to emigrate to the United States.

When we were back in the village, Wayne and I talked about what to do. He said, "We know we can do it; let's hoard some food and go again the first chance we get." I agreed. We started marching again at night. Food was a serious problem. We found that when they took us to farms to spend the day, we could sneak into the chicken house and always get a few eggs without getting caught. Something happened on one of these days that would give us a lot of laughs through the years - though, at the time, we didn't think it was very amusing. We were dead serious. I had been looking around one morning and came back to the hayloft where Wayne and I had been sleeping. I found him sitting against a wall with hay pulled over his lap and his hands under the hay. I asked him, "Are you okay, or are you sick?" He said he had caught a chicken and was dressing it under the hay, and was trying not to get caught. He said for me to go get something to cook the chicken in. We were allowed small fires to cook potatoes and so forth. I found something to cook in. It washed out extremely well. I won't say what it was. Wayne knows what it was. We were so hungry. We found some dandelions and put them in with some potatoes and the chicken, and cooked. It ended up like a thick stew. We ate our fill of this, and our stomachs wouldn't hold it. We would throw up and then eat some more, then repeat the process.

A few days later, I got in the chicken house, and on this occasion they started running out the door. I managed to catch the last one. I took it by the neck and was swinging it around when a door burst open. A German soldier was screaming at me with his rifle pointed at my belt. I dropped the chicken and it started out the door. One more swing and he would have been too late. As soon as I could, I got out in the middle with the other POWs.

On another occasion we were lined up to be counted outside the barn and the count was one short. The young German lieutenant became frantic and soon went into a rage. He drew his pistol and emptied it into the hay. Then they recounted, and found it was okay. At this, an RAF man laughed. They started beating him with rifle butts. It made me sick.

Shortly after this, Wayne and I escaped again, using the same method as before. It was easier this time. I can't remember where we spent the nights, but finally, we approached a farm house and asked for food. The poor farmer was so scared, he wouldn't let us into the house. But he pointed to the barn and indicated we could hide there. At this time, German troops were everywhere. We knew we must be near the front. We wanted to hide and wait. We went to the barn and into a little shop-type building. The only door was the one we had come through.

We kept watching the road, and there came Anxious Moment Number Three. Two German SS soldiers came up the drive and up to the door of the house. They talked with the farmer, and then started straight for the doorway where Wayne and I were. Wayne found a rusty old hunting knife and I had a piece of iron pipe. We waited on each side of the door. After all we had been through, we weren't going back now. This might not have been a smart idea on our part, but in our frame of mind, it didn't matter. Whether they were looking for us, or a place to hide themselves, we'll never know. They both stopped about 40 feet from the door, looked all around, then turned and started down the driveway. We had lucked out again.

In early afternoon, we were watching the road. We saw the nicest sight I have ever seen - two American jeeps with an American flag flying from the front fender along with two 10 wheeled trucks. As they came nearer, we came out with our hands raised high and said we were Americans. They stopped and we told them who we were. There were four or five GIs with a colonel, looking for housing. They took us aboard. We were on cloud nine!

As we entered the outskirts of a nearby village, we came upon an old barn. Suddenly, out of the barn, came 25 German soldiers, all waving white flags from their rifle butts. The Colonel had them all throw down their guns in a pile, and told them to remain there as Allied troops were coming. Much the same as we entered the village; the Colonel got hold of the burgermeister (the Mayor), told him that tanks were just over the hill and to make sure that they all put their guns down before the tanks rolled into the village.

As we left town, something was said about tanks, and the Colonel said, "Hell, I don't know anything about tanks; we're in the field artillery." They were racing ahead to find the best housing, and were miles in front of the main lines when the move was canceled, so he was heading back.

On the way back, we saw two German soldiers run into our farmhouse and barn. As Wayne and I each had a German rifle by then, the Colonel let us help look for them. We were certainly not in the frame of mind to be looking for Germans with a loaded rifle. Luckily, we didn't find them. Really; we didn't look that hard.

They had left a German motorcycle with a side car, and the Colonel had the GIs take it back to base.

That evening was indescribable. We had real food and coffee, but they kept after us not to eat too much. I was to stay in a house with the other enlisted personnel. It was a nice house. I had my first bath in almost a year. A tubful of hot water and real soap. The GIs came up with clean clothes for me. Then I was given a feather bed; a true feather bed and mattress to sleep in. I remember being afraid to go to sleep. I couldn't believe that this was really, finally, happening.

I forgot to mention: When I was in Stalag 13 D at Nuremburg, the Germans said we were going to have a shower. The showers were made for 50 to 75, maybe 100, all at once. We had about three minutes of water. When I got home and heard how they had gassed the Jews in this type of shower, I got a real cold chill.

Anyway, after a good night's sleep with the GIs, they gave us pancakes for breakfast. The colonel said he was supposed to deliver all liberated POWs to a staging area. As there were a lot ahead of us, he said he would give us food, fuel, and guns and a motorcycle with a side car, and we could head for the French coast. He said he would forget that he ever saw us. What a guy!

True to his word, we left about noon with Wayne driving the motorcycle and me riding in the sidecar, just like I did when we were shot down. I only wished I had a chauffeur's cap for Wayne to wear. Late in the afternoon we came to a pontoon bridge across a river, probably the Danube. As these bridges weren't built for three-wheel vehicles, we ditched the motorcycle and hitched a ride with GI trucks returning for supplies. A lieutenant took us under his wing, and we slept in some sleeping bags on the floor of a house taken over by the Army that night.

The next day we went to the airport where the C-47s were flying in and out with supplies. We, along with several others, hitched a ride to the coast of France. We were then taken to a camp set up to receive liberated POWs. We were some of the first POWs there. It was here we received a brief physical, and went on a liquid diet six times a day before they finally give us solid food. While we were here, the war ended.

When I look back, I see a lot of funny things; but to Wayne and I, they were deadly serious at the time. I was sorry we were shot down. I wanted to finish our tour of duty so badly. But we might have lost it all later on...who knows?

As I said, earlier, I was very lucky throughout. I flew on a good crew and had so many lucky breaks along the way. When I figure the crews who crashed on landings or take-offs, or broke apart from flak or were chewed up by fighters, or ditched in the North Sea where few made it out - I was lucky.

I couldn't have found anyone I would rather have made an escape with than Wayne. He was just as determined as I was to get through to the American lines. It is safe to say I wouldn't trade the experience for a million dollars, but I wouldn't go through it again for any price.