[bobbysocks]

Lt. David G. Elliott's interrogation report

I hit a locomotive and the explosion hit my plane, tore off my tail and set the engine on fire. I tried to climb to bail out, turned over a forest S. of Reims, rolled out of plane in 6 seconds and the plane fell in a forest. The tail of the plane hit me on the thigh and sprained my left ankle. I landed on the edge of the forest near the German flak batteries, a few feet from my plane. My chute caught in a tree --- I got out of my harness and ran for about five miles in different directions but making south towards Vitry. My first aid kit and toilet kit were strapped on my chute and I had to leave them. At 2100 hours I sat down and took out maps and used my mae west as a mattress and my helmet as a pillow and covered my face until dawn. I then buried my goggles, throat mike and everything I didn't need. Then, in the morning of August 11, I headed SW and walked in a forest and spent the night N of Champsfleury. Next day I came to a clearing. I saw a young woman and 2 men cutting wheat. I watched them for several hours. Then at 1100 hours when the girl was near me I stepped out and called to her. She finally came over with one of the men. I used the phrase card to declare myself and asked for water. They told me to hide where I was and after an hour Roger Couteau, about 35 years old, brought civilian clothes and water. He then took me to town to his house. He fed me and hid me in a barn for 4 hours. At 8pm he put me in a room where I stayed for a day or two. A. M. Griselle was very helpful and M. Pinard, the mayor of Champsfleury, gave me cigarettes.

There were German soldiers in town and things were getting hot so Couteau hid me in a barn next door to his house. I got very ill here. I was here until 23 August. Then M. Couteau came and said he was Chief of Resistance and that a Russian woman had told the Germans this and that next day 3,000 Germans were coming into town. At 1500 hours that day he and I went on a bike to Arcis sur Aube, convoyed by Resistance men on bicycles. We went South of Arcis to another small town where there was a Maquis stronghold. Couteau left me with the Maquis chief, who with his wife and aide, took me in a car into a forest NW of Troyes next to the river. There I stayed with the Maquis until 26 August. Saturday the 26th, about 0400 I heard trucks and at dawn a Maquis scout came to say that the Americans were there. So I went out to the road and got into a medical truck. It took me to a headquarters at the front lines. I saw Col. Clarke and Lt. Col. Wodin (4th Armored Division) and I gave him tactical information. We were surrounded by 1,000 Germans and had a skirmish with them. I bivouacked with them and next day was sent back in a POW convoy to Sens to Corps headquarters. There I saw a G-2 major. Then Major Muller, AC, took me to XIX Tac and then I went to Lemans and thence to Laval and Bayeaux Airstrip for a flight back to England.

Lt. Robert B. Hoffman's story

Hoffman, affectionately known as, "Old Dog", because he called others by that name, was flying with Littlefield in Hellcat White flight on the day they were bounced by Me-109s. Both were pulling off a dive bomb run on a bridge at Sens, France, when bounced. Each had dropped a 500 pound bomb and as they pulled up Littlefield heard "Hellcat break!, Hellcat break!" and glanced over his left shoulder to see Hoffman nearby with a 109 sitting on his tail with all guns blazing.

Littlefield yelled, "Dog break right!", as he broke right. During the break Littlefield saw Hoffman in a spin with both engines pouring smoke and flames.

Hoffman bailed out and broke an ankle on landing. He hobbled through the French countryside until he made contact with a Frenchman who turned him over to a member of the French Underground. He lived with the French for three months and was taken to Paris to await transportation south. In Paris he was turned over to a man who spoke excellent English. This man spoke of bars in Los Angeles that Hoffman had also frequented. They became friendly in the short period that he was in Paris.

One day the Frenchman said that it was time for Hoffman to leave and provided him with a car and driver. As they were driving through Paris, the driver stopped the car and motioned that he had to make a phone call. When he returned, they drove only a short distance when they came to a German roadblock. Hoffman was taken into custody and placed in Frenze Prison in Paris. While in the prison, he talked to a P-51 pilot who had exactly the same experiences in Paris! They came to the conclusion that the French Underground was unwittingly funnelling airmen into Paris where this Gestapo agent spent a few days with them and then packed them off to prison. Apparently, too, when the Gestapo undercover agent had called for a roadblock, those responsible were a bit slow in responding.

Hoffman was taken to Buchenwald, where the infamous Ilse Koch, noted for making lamp shades out of human hide, was on the staff. There were about eighty-three Americans and the same number of RAF and other Allied Air Force members. A good number of the Allied airmen had been turned over to the SS or Gestapo by French who did not want to become involved.

Allied airmen were eventually sent to Stalag Luft III when Reichsmarshall Goering heard of their imprisonment at Buchenwald. These men were later sent to Stalag Luft VII A at Moosburg via Nuremberg prison when the Russians were approaching Stalag Luft III. During one of these prison transfers Hoffman described a forced march in which he was threatened with being shot if he did not keep up with the rest of the prisoners. He had rebroken his ankle and was marching with a makeshift crutch. He was liberated at Stalag Luft VII A by Patton's Army.

Robert Bruce Hoffman was born in 1921 and was from Baltimore, Maryland. He was a survivor.

Lt. Julius M. Hummel relates his experiences

Julius "Joe" Hummel, the only pilot of the 55th Fighter Group to escape from German captivity relates his experiences:

I was shot down while strafing a German airfield near Halberstadt, Germany. I received head and knee injuries after crash landing and had difficulty walking so was captured almost immediately. I was sent to Stalag Luft III, near Sagan. In January 1945, we were sent to an old Italian POW camp near Nuremberg. About the 2nd of April 1945, the Germans decided to march us to Munich. Bill Laubner, also a pilot in the 38th squadron and I were shot down on the same mission and were together as POWs. Bill could speak German and we along with Jack Sturm, a P-47 pilot from the 355th Fighter Group, plotted our escape from the line of march. Bill's leg started giving him trouble so he had to abandon the escape attempt with us. But he distracted the nearby German guards so successfully during a rain storm that Jack and I made our break and got away cleanly. The weather was cold with rain and sleet and quite miserable for the next 4 or 5 days.

We took refuge in barns, in villages, and dense trees. The first few days we moved only at night, finding it fairly safe to move through towns and villages after nine p.m., but holed up during the day. We had to depend on road signs, we had made crude drawings from an old German map and an occasional glimpse of the stars to navigate at night. When the weather improved it became much easier. We moved from 25 to 30 kilometers south of Nuremberg to the north west towards Wurtzburg. We were not making good progress so started moving during the day as well, avoiding towns during the day. Running low on food we liberated potatoes, chickens, bread, eggs and milk from milk cans set out along railroad tracks for the milk train. We were eating a lot higher on the hog than in POW camp. But our feet were paying the price.

We were close to capture several times but bluffed our way out by claiming to be Polish or Spanish workers and once by claiming to be German soldiers. About midnight we were hurrying through a town and blundered into the town square filled with German troops taking a break. Probably around 800 to 1,000 of them. Fortunately it was a fairly dark night and we told the German colonel who stopped and questioned us that we were German soldiers hurrying to catch up with our unit that was about 5 kms. ahead. We snowed him good and it worked. One bright sunny morning while following a railroad track we stopped to fill our water bottles at a spring. Two Germans in uniform stopped and questioned us. So we said we were Polish workers and were going to work on a farm ahead of us, just beyond the next town. They told us to go ahead of them. They were in uniforms with overcoats that we had not seen before. We had just decided that they were not armed when a third one showed up and he was armed. We walked further on and then found out they were slave labor guards in charge of between 25 and 30 young 16 to 20 year old Polish and French boys and girls who were repairing bomb damage to the tracks. They had a Polish boy question us so I distracted the guards attention and Jack told the boy in German who we really were. The boy pretended that he could not understand us fully so the guards called a Frenchman out and we did the same with him. In the meantime all the other kids found out who we really were and started to offer us bread, cheese and sausage. Then the guards really smelled a rat and the big wheel with the gun said he was going into town and get the army officer to come and deal with us. As soon as he was out of sight Jack and I took off for the woods. The two guards told us to stop and tried to get the kids to stop us but the kids just laughed and waved goodbye to us.

After about 12 days and the Lord only knows how many miles we walked, very nearly being bombed by our own bombers near Roth and being strafed by a German night fighter near some burning German tanks, we finally made contact with armored units spearheading the 4th Infantry Division of Patch's 7th Army south of Wurtzburg. It was pretty darn hairy, we were told that U.S. soldiers had been watching us since about 2 a.m. with the aid of night vision enhancement equipment when we were looking for food in the lockers of the burned out tanks. They said the only reason they did not fire at us was that our clothes did not look like German uniforms. So they decided to wait until daylight and see if we came out of the shell hole and then challenge us, which they did. We stayed with the 4th until they had transport going to Ludwigshaven a couple days later. From there to Arras, France and in a C-46 where the C.O. of the C-46 outfit flew us to Camp Lucky Strike. Within a week we were on a ship bound for home.