A Letter Home, May 13 1945

Editor's note: Some of the language in this letter (referring to Germans as "Jerry", for example) reflect the strong feelings that prevailed then, only weeks after the war had ended. Over time, Ira's feelings about his role in the war and the suffering of innocent civilians would undergo a change.

Sunday, May 13, 1945
Polebrook Army Air Field
England

Dear Folks,

I spent a very interesting day Friday. I worked from 5 a.m. Friday until 1 a.m. Saturday - 20 solid hours - but on a very good cause. We flew down to Linz, Austria to repatriate prisoners of war. We landed at a Nazi airfield in Austria to pick up 30 French POWs who had been released after 5 years in a Jerry prison camp and flew them to an airfield in France. We must have seemed like angels to them, the way they fell all over themselves trying to be helpful and expressing their gratitude. It's a long story, though.

Before we took off from here, we were sprayed all over with DDT - an anti-louse powder - as most of them had lice and there's' a typhus epidemic in the Reich and Austria. The plane was also sprayed, so we were well protected.

I flew as navigator; we only flew a skeleton crew to leave more room for the POWs. There were Capt. Wilcox, Lt. Leibrock, Sgts. Speaker and Usherwood, and myself as the entire crew (normally B-17s had 10 crew-ed.). We flew at very low altitude, touring the German cities on the way down and seeing the damage we had done at close range. In fact, we buzzed the pants off of Germany.

It's almost beyond belief, the destruction we saw. Almost all the cities are just heaps of burned-out wreckage and rubble. We saw Aachen, Koblentz, Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, Nuremburg, and on the way back Stuttgart, to mention a few of the larger cities. They are just KAPUT as the Germans say it, dead cities. Aachen is the only one in any condition at all. Where their former inhabitants live I don't know - or care.

We flew so low we stampeded half the cows in Germany. The kids are incorrigible - we saw them throwing stones at us as we roared over. It's laughable but serious. It shows how they hate us. I reciprocate in full measure.

We spent an hour souvenir hunting on this Austrian airfield. They've got all kinds of Jerry planes parked there. Messerschmitts, Focke-Wulfs, Junkers, Heinkels. I poked around them all, but all souvenirs had already been stripped from them.

It's a funny thing, but my high school French came in very handy on this trip. None of the former prisoners could speak English, so I had to act as interpreter for the crew and I don't like to brag but we got along fine, altho I must have given them plenty of cause to smile the way I mangled the French language. I never thought the little French I learned 8 years ago would come in so handy.

I had a few packs of chewing gum which I distributed among them, and they went crazy over it. They strutted around with big smiles on their faces, their jaws going a mile a minute.

Most of them had never been close to an airplane before, much less ride in one, and their awe-struck behavior when they were led out to the B-17 was something to see. One of them asked me in very slow French where they were going. When I replied, "Nous vous prenons a France" [We take you to France], they became almost hysterical with joy. In a moment, with that one sentence, they changed from beaten, starved slaves into happy human beings; they became men again. As if a dam had been let loose, they plied me with all kinds of questions: where in France were they going? How long would it take? Was there food in France? How was France now? Was Paris destroyed, was this town and that town bombed? I guess their happiness inspired me because I remembered more French than I ever thought I knew - this after 8 years! They were staggered when I told them in 3 hours they would be in Orleans, over 600 miles away. "C'est fantastique!" they muttered.

I was in the bombardier's position for the take-off, and there were ten POWs in the nose with me - the nose usually holds two or three - so I couldn't move around much. I just sat up in the plexiglass front of the nose and did map reading pilotage, which was all that was possible as I couldn't reach my instruments. They kept pointing out the windows and chattering like excited children at a picnic. I kept passing them slips of paper telling them points of interest.

Soon we approached the Rhine River above Strasbourg, which at that point was the border between Germany and France. When we were over it, we all sang the Marseillaise, the national anthem of France.

In another hour we were over our destination and landed at the Chateaudun airdrome, west of Orleans. When they were all out, each one came by and shook hands with us and thanked us very much for the "happiest day of their lives."

We took off right away and landed back at Polebrook, our base, about 11:15 pm. After changing clothes and washing up and having supper, we were deloused again and got to bed (around 1 a.m.), dead tired but with deep satisfaction. We had been out 20 hours, 13.5 of them in the air, and so I slept until noon the next day and spent the rest of the day relaxing and not doing a darn thing except going to the movies.

I still haven't told you about the Flak home and the wonderful time I had there, but that will have to wait for the next letter, as this one is long enough.

All my love. I'm fine.

Your Son,

Ira