This is an account of my experiences as a P.O.W., as I remember it. I fought in World War II and was an Engineer Gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress. This is my account of the time I was shot down and captured on September 30, 1944.

I was stationed in Kettering, England at the time and was enlisted in the Air Force and had been with the service since May 1943. I was with the 401st bomb, group 612th bomb squadron. We were on a mission to Muenster, Germany and our objective was to bomb the railroad-marshaling yard. We missed the target and the bombs fell on downtown Muenster instead. We were shot down just off the target site about 10 miles outside of Muenster. We were captured and taken to Luftwafte base in Muenster on September 30th. We were held there for nine days. During our confinement there, we always experienced abuse by the guards. They only fed us once a day. I had been injured when we were shot down. I got a piece of flack in my knee which the Germans ignored and never gave me medical treatment nor made any attempts to remove it. My knee would swell up like a baseball, and cause me considerable pain.

On the 10th day we were taken into Muenster to be put on a train to Frankfort, Germany to the interrogation base. We were loaded on the back of train that morning, but later that evening the Germans decided to move to the front in case of attack from American bombers, in which we would be the first ones killed. It was during this time that the Germans finally gave me medical attention and finally removed the flack from my knee, and something for the infection. As we entered the interrogation base that night, we saw a man tied to the ground and the Germans proceeded to run him over with a tank. We didn’t know if this was for our benefit to terrorize us into talking but it did give us a scare. That would have been around the night of the 10th of October 1944.

We stayed in Frankfort for five days and five nights. During our confinement at this camp the guards abused us constantly. We only gave them our name, rank, and serial numbers. This seemed to anger the guards who in turned knocked us around. At least at this camp we were allowed more than one meal a day. The Germans then put us on another train to Stettin. That was where Stalag Luft #4 prisoner war camp was located. I don’t remember how many days I was there but it seemed like it snowed everyday and every night. Once we arrived there the guards did not interrogate us. I believe this was close to the end of October, or the first part of November. Sometime in December we could hear the Russian anti-aircraft guns. It seemed they were pretty close. On a Friday morning they moved us from the camp and put us on a train going to Barth, Germany, on the Baltic coast to Stalag Luft #1 P.O.W. camp. While we were there the guards pretty much left us alone and did not interrogate us anymore. This camp was for officers, pilots, and crewmen.

It seems like we were there three months when we began hearing anti-aircraft guns again. We peeked out the cracks of the window shutters and saw the German guards getting on a truck. We thought that they were pulling out and leaving the camp. They next morning there was no roll call nor were there any guards. Our American camp C.O. was Col. Zemke. He was a fighter ace with the American Fighter Group and issued orders that no one was to leave the camp until the 8th Air Force came to fly us back to LaHarve, France. As it turned out this happened sometime in May. Apparently the Col. had been in contact secretly with the 8th Air Force. We waited for five days for our troop transport ship. The ship took us back to America and we arrived at the port in Boston. We were put on a troop train immediately after getting off the ship headed for Kelly Air Force base in San Antonio. Once we arrived there we waited to receive our discharge papers.

Wallace C. Littrell passed away on November 24, 2007.