Homer
Pou arrived in England in January, 1944 and was shot down on
his fifth mission, the March 8, 1944 raid on Berlin, flying
Return
Engagement.
His regular plane,
Lucy Poo,
was in for repairs. Pou
spent the remainder of the war as POW #3735 in Stalag Luft III.
Following are excerpts from his diary, kept during the evacuation
march from his prison, and presented exactly as he wrote it. The
“Bob” mentioned in the narrative was his co-pilot, Robert Lauback.
The forward was written by another POW, Dave Pollak.
Forward:
This
tale is dedicated to the boys with the clipped wings. The lads who are fighting
the war the hard way... waiting, waiting, waiting for some
faint spark to light their dreary hours. Perhaps it will be the mail or
clothes, or the sound of bombs on Berlin or Leipzig. Theirs is an untold
tale of human endurance, of what we Americans call guts, pure and simple. Theirs
is a tale of a fight with death; the fight they won. No
decorations, glory or promotions await them. Their reward is life itself.
They
think of their lucky buddies safe at home, wearing ribbons, wings and covered
with glory. But in reality, the men here are the lucky ones.
There are some who have been blown out when their planes exploded; some who have
gone down unconscious, crashed, and have lived to tell
about it; some who have bailed out of flaming planes into the sure, cold death
of the North Sea, only to have their pilot-less plane circle them,
drop a life raft, and crash, burning, into the sea after them; some who have
spent days alone in the sea without food or drink; some who have
fought seemingly unending battles against insurmountable odds, and have lived to
tell their tale.
These
are the lucky ones. Though they outwardly bemoan their unhappy existence and
envy their friends at home, inwardly they know that
they are fortunate – fortunate because God saw fit to pluck them from certain
destruction, that they might live.
Evacuation Notes:
Big evac.
flap raged throughout camp for several days previous to actual movement.
Everything was in rumor stage. Room 12 feeling was
we wouldn't be moved; however, we were all flapping and making preparations. On
the date of evac., Sat. Jan. 27, we had a communal Victrola
in the room for our use while ours was being repaired. For one D-bar we had
purchased a package of excellent needles and for several days
had been playing classical records in the communal collection. They were
splendid records and being enjoyed very much. Got six new
symphonies just after lunch and by meal time had played five of them. The last,
Beethoven’s Sixth, or Pastorale, was just waiting for the table
to be cleared.
The British
R.C. Christmas parcels were given out the week before; one for three and our
four boxes of pancake flour had been sweating out
coal. Saturday we bashed all those off at the rate of four cakes each, with goon
honey. Fish dished up a big gash cake for tea time and we
had ample coffee. It was the end of our first week on full parcels since Sept.
11, so we were really in. We bashed off eight cans of salmon for
supper plus spuds plus a big Klim pie mit raisins and chocolate. We finished
eating and were sitting around shooting the breeze as per usual
while waiting for wash water to get hot.
"You
Can't Take it With You"
opened to a first night audience at 7:30 p.m. At 8:05, Col. Goodrich stopped the
play and gave the order for
everyone to get to his block and be ready to move out in 30 minutes. Being next
to the theater, we got the dope almost immediately and
were galvanized into action. Wright, Clausen, Ramsey, McIntosh, Levin, and
myself used GI blanket rolls ala Civil War. Fisher, Woody, Sereno,
and Bob used shirts sewn up for packs. Mayer, Epps, and Everts used one-piece
long johns as packs with Red Cross suitcases. Turner had
built an Indian pack carrier and sewn up a shirt to use with it. The room was in
a complete shambles by the time everyone was ready. We
mixed a big jug of Klim and cleaned out the cupboard pretty thoroughly for food
to carry. By 9:30 we were all formed ready to go.
It was a
pretty night – fairly clear, no wind and the cold wasn't penetrating. After
waiting in line for quite a while we began to move so we took
our last look at Stalag Luft III.
Word was
passed back that Col. Goodrich ordered that there be no escapes. It was followed
by word that the goons said they would shoot
two men for every escapee. This later proved to be just a rumor.
Not long
after midnight the temperature dropped considerably and a strong cutting wind
sprung up. With short intervals for rest and a goon
issue of bread and marge we marched thus ‘til after daylight. Our first stop was
Gross Seltzen. We were put into a barn there around 11 a.m.
and given a five-hour rest. We bashed food, lightened our loads and, with hot
water kindly provided in small quantities by the farmers,
consumed all the coffee possible before trying to catch 40 winks.
The next
stage of the journey was undoubtedly the most difficult. The goons issued each
man a ½ pound of marge as we started out into
the light snowfall. Darkness came soon and with the cessation of the snow there
was a drop to subzero temperature with a freezing wind
of 25-35 mph cutting us to the bone. Just eating hunks of plain marge and lumps
of sugar from time to time managed to keep most of us
on our feet. The entire march that night I was aware of the fact, as were
several others, that to stop and sit down would mean inability to
keep going, so during each rest stop we would remain standing, just moving our
feet in an effort to keep circulation up. Nothing would get
them warm except brisk walking, and our marching degenerated into a 6-inch
sliding stumble-and-stagger combination that would have
seemed funny had we been normal.
The guards
marching along with us were in no better condition. One guard threw his rifle
down and a kriegie carried it for him for quite a
distance before he would consent to take it back. Most of the guards started the
night before with enormous field packs which we estimated
to weigh at least 75 lbs. On the first night one of them gave quite a laugh by
just walking out of his pack with a contemptuous "kaput!" and,
not even looking back, he trudged forward.
After
remaining 4 km away for hours, we crawled into Muskau, making our night’s march
25 km and our total distance from Sagan, 55 km. A
tile factory with its cement floor and slight warmth was Seventh Heaven to us
that night. We bedded down at 2 a.m. fully dressed except for
our wet shoes and socks, and sank into oblivion. The factory proved to be an
excellent home. It was comparatively clean and well lighted, and
after moving a lot of pipes outside we were not too cramped for space. A hot
water faucet at one end of the building remained operational most
of the time and a workers’ kitchen upstairs gave us assistance with oatmeal,
barley, etc. We remained there all Monday and Monday night. In
the middle of Monday night, some 250-odd men from the West camp joined us and
filled up every inch of remaining space. You could walk all
over the building without putting on shoes and never see the floor. We again hit
the road Tuesday morning at 9:30 with the column reversed,
the sergeants in the lead, followed by 139. Bob remained at Muskau, to come on
with the West camp. His side was beginning to show signs
of giving trouble.
The march
that day was comparatively easy. We covered 18 km and put up for the night in a
barn at Graustein. The last day’s march was a
snap as we only had 7 km to go to Spremberg. We stopped at a large panzer school
and went into an empty repair garage for our short stay.
The goons issued us hot barley soup which was declared by all to be damn good.
At 3 we started for the train and arrived there to be herded
together; 51 men in our tiny European boxcar. For two-and-a-half days and three
nights, there we were until we got off Saturday morning at
Moosberg. It was a continuous nightmare of being crowded, cramped and
exceedingly uncomfortable. We were short on water, food, time for
any natural activity, space, temper, light and any relaxation of tired legs and
feet almost impossible. We got off the train only to go into a barn
that was inferior to any other barns we had been in. Nearly 600 men were jammed
into one barn. The goons did issue warm tea in the mornings,
soup at noon, spuds, bread and a spread in the late afternoon. Air inside was
always foul and there was a lot of sickness and dysentery.
Pou’s
son, Bruce, reports the following:
“After the war, my father was hospitalized and treated for severe depression and
physical wounds he
received when he was shot down. Like many other veterans, he didn't talk very
much about his wartime experience. The depression he suffered
after the war was due primarily to the feeling that he somehow let his country
down by not completing his missions. My father died from cancer
in 1981.”
RETURN TO STORIES
This story and dozens of others can be found in
The 388th Anthology, Vols. I and II