POW camps in American, insider story

[emtmedic005]

Well i knew my grandfather was in the US Army during WW2 and that he was a medic but i didnt know what he did. I only found out about 3 months ago, he served in a German POW camp in South Carolina during the war.
He was the camps medic and had two German doctors underhim. He was singled out for this assignment because he spoke German with a Bavarian Dialect and he knew German customs.
He was a Tech Sgt and worked in two camps during the war, both were in South Carolina. At first most of the German POWs were from the Afrika Korp, and were members of the German Army. But around 1944 more and more U-Boat crewmen were being sent to his camp. He often had long converstations with the sailors and quickly made friends with them. He remembers that alot of the younger enlisted men were very into the Nazi party and some were sent to POW camps in the midwest for "de-Nazivication".
I dont know if he still has contacts in germany. But if anyone would like to know more info, i will ask my grandfather when he migrates back to Boston from Florida.

[sunvalleyslim]

good story EMT, When you see your grandfather again, ask him if he remembers any U-Boat stories the POW's told him..........

[AVGWarhawk]

Ask if he remember any specifics of what u-boat crew he watched over as the medical technician. What camp was he station? This in invaluable information.

[emtmedic005]

Well hes in Florida allong with the other oldies, hahaha. But seriously he was stationed in a camp about 30 miles west of Charlestown, SC and then he was transferred to a new POW camp like less then 5 miles for Charlestown, SC.

He did tell me how the U-boat crewmen thought that once they were captured by the US navy they would be shot. His understandings were that the U-Boats crews would rather surreander to Americans then to the British.
He did tell me that he talked to a XO of a u-boat and how the sub's captian wanted to go down with the ship and the rest of the crew. But the crew and the other officers took over control of the u-boat and handcuffed the captain, o how did he say it. hmmm it sounded like this , their u-boat was taking on water like a good irishman takes on whiskey.thats good ole'family rascism (family guy)

[mookiemookie]

U-boat crews in general were treated very well in U.S. POW camps. I remember reading about the ones here in Texas where the guards would eat with the prisoners, earning the Germans respect. They worked, learning farming and butchering, working as a mechanic on the Army base vehicles, leatherworking and such. For the work they were paid coupons worth 80 cents a day and could spend it at a canteen for smokes, toiletries and 3 beers a week.

One good story I remember was that there were something like 250 books in German for the POWs to read at this camp donated by the YMCA. The POWs had so many of their work coupons left over that they put them all together and ended up donating $442.00 to the YMCA for the books and $353.07 to the International Red Cross.

Interesting stuff!

[Morts]

someone should start a thread with war histories:) (WW2)
told by their grandparents/other:up:
that would be really intresting

[The Munster]

someone should start a thread with war histories:) (WW2)
told by their grandparents/other:up:
that would be really intresting

Then sticky the thread. I think most People on this Forum are hungry for this sort of information.

I have a true account I could contribute from an elderly Gentleman [81] with a sharper brain than mine but it involves a British Submarine and not a U-Boat.

[Morts]

yea:up:

[bigboywooly]

Uboat - Brit sub whats the difference Kpt
Tell all mate
We are waiting

[sunvalleyslim]

Kapt Munson,

Fire away..............lets hear it.:up::up::up:

[AVGWarhawk]

Unfortunate these great stories are passing away everyday. Funny how most who where there just looked at it like a job and have moved passed it. Yet, we are very interested. I have my uncles first and last B-17 mission over Kiel from the State Dept of the US.

[Morts]

i wish i had any war story
all i have is that my grandfather stole a kar 98k from the road side (dunno where the german was) and ran away and proceeded to have a shooting contest with hes brother against a jacket.
the following evening the partisans came and asked for the rifle wich my grandfather had hidden under hes bed
and he was only 11-14:o

[robbo180265]

I have two Nazi Deutschmarks that my father was given as a small boy. It was from a German pow who, according to my father had been a clown before the war and was quite relieved to be out of it.
Unfortunatly that's all I know about it, but It's still nice to get them out ocasionally and think of their original owner.

[Madox58]

About 20 miles south of me, in Marion Ohio, there was a WWII POW camp.
I know where it was and thats about all I know about it.

[Bera]

About 20 miles south of me, in Marion Ohio, there was a WWII POW camp.
I know where it was and thats about all I know about it.

What about the Guantanamo POW ("war"?) camp? How do the americans treat those prisioners?
Before anyone here shots me, :oops: I´m just asking this question because there´s a lot of talking about the horrible conditions and ill-treatment dispensed to those prisioners, altough USA is well-known for the extreme care and respect that they treated the german and the japanese during WWII...

[mookiemookie]

About 20 miles south of me, in Marion Ohio, there was a WWII POW camp.
I know where it was and thats about all I know about it.

What about the Guantanamo POW ("war"?) camp? How do the americans treat those prisioners?
Before anyone here shots me, :oops: I´m just asking this question because there´s a lot of talking about the horrible conditions and ill-treatment dispensed to those prisioners, altough USA is well-known for the extreme care and respect that they treated the german and the japanese during WWII...

The reason no one is bringing that up is because it's pretty off topic for this thread.

[scalelokt]

My grandfather told me a lot of stories from the war. He was in Europe and was part of the Normandy invasion on D-Day. He's not alive anymore but I remember most of the stories. Some crazy stuff to be sure.

[IceGrog]

My dad was in the USN in ww2, on destroyer escorts fighting the Japanese, but he didn’t talk much about it when I was growing Most of the stories I head from him were the ones I overhead when him and buddies got together. I remember that right after Pearl Harbor his ship spent many weeks chasing phantom Japanese subs around the islands there. And his ship one time picked up some sailors that had suffered at the hands of the Japanese. But I remember him saying that bravest thing he did was crossing the ocean in a destroyer escort, as small as it is.
I just remember as a kid he would take my brother and I to fish off the beach, we would be there until the wee hours of morning. He didn’t catch a whole lot but he would just sit there drinking his beer and looking out over the surf. Hummmm wonder what he was thinking of?
Sorry a little bit of rattling on.

[bigboywooly]

Not rattling on at all Ice
Treasure those memories mate
Thanx for sharing
All of you

[mookiemookie]

As I'm too young to have stories of my own, I'm just relating ones that I liked from the various books I read. Here's another I liked:

"One day a group of prisoners [from the Galveston POW camp], dressed in their faded denim pants and jackets with a big white "P" on the back, were mowing and cleaning the grounds of the Army airfield. Across the road at the municipal golf course Dr. Edward Randall and friends were having a game of golf, and the doctor lobbed a ball over the fence into the airfield. "Das ball, das ball, bitte," he yelled at the prisoners, trying to remember a few German words. They looked at him, and one ran to pick up the errant ball. As he threw it back over the fence, the prisoner called, "Here it is, sir."

:rotfl:

[Ducimus]

Bera,

That's the type of question you should ask on the General forum. Not here.

[Zinmar]

One of the gentlemen I delivered heating oil to was a seabee. He was stationed to Pearl Harbor one before the attack. The stories he told me about what happened just before the attack, and our island hopping across the Pacific were just incredible!!! I have been talking to him and he has given me the ok to record our conversations. Now I am not a writer but I am sure that there are some guys out there that can do that.

[mookiemookie]

I have been talking to him and he has given me the ok to record our conversations. Now I am not a writer but I am sure that there are some guys out there that can do that.

That's one of the best things you can do.

There's this bar I go to for happy hour with my buddies sometimes, and there was this little old man named Jack who would come in every afternoon, have a couple gin and tonics and leave, like clockwork. I got talking to him one day and we got on the topic of war. I asked if he served in WW2. He said he was stationed on an escort carrier in the Pacific and was a pilot. I bought him a drink and he told me about flying patrols. I asked him if he saw any action and he told me that he shot down a couple Zeros. I asked if they were really as fast as their reputation makes them out to be and he told me they were, but its like they were made of paper...a few well placed shots and they went down. I made sure to thank him for what he did for us, and in typical vet fashion he told me "Oh hell, that was 60 years ago." and I said "Yes, but think about how things would be if you DIDN'T go and do what you did 60 years ago."

He told me a story about a young Mormon kid from Utah, only 17 or 18 years old. He went up for his first patrol and when he returned to the ship, the deck crew was helping him out of his plane and Jack said his eyes were as big as saucers and he had messed his flight suit. The deck crew asked him what the hell happened up there, and the kid said "I...I saw my first Zero!" They asked if he got him, and the kid told them he did, and they all laughed and told him good job and sent him to go get himself cleaned up. It was a great story, the way Jack told it.

Sadly, that was the last time I ever talked to Jack. I didn't see him for a couple weeks, and I asked the bar owner (who I'm friends with) where he was. She told me he passed away a few days before. So I raised my glass to him. Here's to you Jack! :()1:

[Lannes]

Hi all...Long time member and lurker...well, unlurking from GWX long enough to relate the following-

I interviewed my uncle about 15 years ago. I've got about 3 hours of him on tape. I set out to "interview" him, but ended up probably only asking about 4 or 5 questions in the 3 hours over several glasses of sweet tea.

He was a member of the 101st Airborne. Dropped in Normandy, Holland, fought at Bastonge, etc...If you've seen Band of Brothers, you've pretty much seen alot of his story. A few interesting tidbits from that afternoon-

He said the worst thing he ever smelled was the uniforms that were impregnated with an anti-chemical gas substance. Said it stunk so bad once you had sweated in them that no one could stand wearing them and they were soon thrown away.

On the way over to England, his ship conducted constant anti-submarine drills and at one point he heard the escorts in the distance depth charging something...

As he told it, he left the plane on D-Day as a Sergeant and landed as a Platoon Sergeant, which he was until V-E Day.

German prisoners my uncle came in contact with were incredibly disciplined and well behaved. In fact, he said they were better disciplined and mannered than his own troops.

He said that, to this day, if he had to go on a drug raid or get invloved with any other type of shooting, he would stand by his .45 Thompson submachinegun over any modern weapon. He said the Thompson was just unbelievably devastating at short range.

He said the saddest thing he saw in the entire war was a group of children playing and one of them accidently set off a live round, killing them all. He said you could have put what was left in a bushel basket.

He had a girlfriend in Germany during the occupation that he keeps in contact with even now...and I'm the only family member that knows that...Not even my aunt...

In the end, he had earned a Silver Star and 2 Bronze Stars, one for Valor and was on a ship bound for the Pacific to jump on Japan with the 11th Airborne. He said they announced V-J day and turned the ship around for San Francisco...

[nedwreck]

I got this story from the late,great William Ward EaselyII who was a Navy pilot in WWII.
We had a POW camp in Clinton, MS not far from here. The prisoners helped build the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station. Basically, a giant scale model of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. It was built to experiment with ways to control flooding on the Mississippi. You can still go look at it, it's very impressive.
A POW was trying very hard not to get noticed taking pictures of it with a homebuilt camera. (How he planned to get them back to Germany is anyones guess)
He was spotted by one of the engineers who told him he could take all the pictures he wanted because it wasn't a secret project. He stopped taking them after that.

Bob

[Heibges]

My mom's brother, Robert Davis, was a gunner in a bomber during WWII. He was shot down over Europe and spend several years in a German POW camp. The War really messed him up, and he was kind of ostracized by the family because of it. A very sad story actually.

My dad was in the Army National Guard in the 172nd Infantry Regiment. He joined in 1938 because he figured a war was going to start soon, and he wanted to make sure he was surrounded by the best soldiers possible, in this case Vermonters, who made up a large part of the Regiment. (Put the Vermonters Ahead! is a saying that goes back to Civil War). Also he wanted to get away from his old man, who was a real prig by all accounts.

My dad had great respect for the Japanese. He had very little for US Army Officers.

On the way do Guadalcanal, on the Presidential Liner Calvin Coolidge (the President from Vermont), they hit a mine, and the boat sunk, and the regiment was stranded, without any equipment, on an island.

They eventually made it to Guadalcanal, and fought with Big Mac across the Pacific all the way to the Phillipines. He won a Bronze Star, and his unit received a Presidential Unit Citation for the Battle of Ipo Dam in the Phillipines.

My dad never talked about his experiences in combat. He was very relieved when I didn't have to go to the First Gulf War, but I can't help but thinking he may have talked to me about combat if I had gone.

[GT182]

Reading, PA had a POW camp during WIII at the airport, or where the airport is now. Mid Atlantic Air Museum(MAAM) has 2 of the building that are still in use today. I've been in both and it's an eerie feeling to think of the soldiers interned there and what they must have thought about being so far from their homeland. Not sure if rhey were sub crews tho. I'll have to check on that, as the museum must know.

My mom had a friend in the PTA back up north in NY who's husband was a POW in a German camp. It messed his mind up so bad he was on disability for the rest of his life from it. They owned a small gas station/grocery store and when you went in there were times you'd think he was having a flashback. From what little I heard the Germans were very rough on the ones in his camp.

[The Munster]

Here's mine from my elderly friend [81]. Bear in mind in that on these Lochs on the West coast of Scotland, there was fervent activity involving Subs and Warships in the 2nd World War.
It was at one of these Lochs, that had a Torpedo Range where my friend who was 17/18 at the time was working on a pier when a Submarine came alongside and docked. What stuck out in his mind was how quiet it was. 3 Men disembarked and walked down the pier towards offices that were there at the time. It was unusual because a Sub didn't normally dock at this particular pier and it didn't pick up any supplies. What caught his eye was the conning tower and the 'emblem' that was upon it. 3 large pieces of brass that had been deliberately made for the Submarine .. a large 2, a Tank and a person on their knees in prayer = Amen.

Later, when I got onto the Internet, I tried to do some research on this; Googling and Wikipedia.
From Wikipedia, I extracted this information..

HMS P311 was a T-class (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/British_T_class_submarine) submarine (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Submarine) of the Royal Navy (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Royal_Navy), the only boat of her class never to be given a name. She was to have received the name Tutankhamen but was lost before this was formally done. The Prime Minister (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Prime_Minister), Winston Churchill (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Winston_Churchill) had minuted the Admiralty on 5 November (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/November_5) 1942 (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/1942), 19 December (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/December_19) and again on 27 December (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/December_27), saying that all submarines should have names. In the final minute, he provided a list of suggestions and insisted that all unnamed submarines be given names within a fortnight.
P311 was a Group 3 T-class boat built by Vickers-Armstrong (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Vickers) at Barrow-in-Furness (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Barrow-in-Furness) and commissioned (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Ship_commissioning) on 5 March (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/March_5) 1942 (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/1942) under the command of Lieutenant R.D. Cayley. She was one of only two T-class submarines completed without an Oerlikon 20 mm anti-aircraft gun (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Oerlikon_20mm_cannon), the other being HMS Trespasser (http://www.subsim.com/w/index.php?title=HMS_Trespasser_%28P312%29&action=edit).
She joined the 10th Submarine Flotilla at Malta (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Malta) in November 1942, and was lost with all hands between 30 December (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/December_30) and 8 January (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/January_8) 1942 (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/1942) whilst en route to La Maddalena (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/La_Maddalena), Sardinia (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Sardinia) where she was to attack two Italian (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Italy) 8-inch gun cruisers (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Cruiser) using Chariot (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Human_torpedo) human torpedoes carried on the casing as part of Operation Principle (http://www.subsim.com/w/index.php?title=Operation_Principle&action=edit). It was assumed that she was mined (http://www.subsim.com/wiki/Naval_mine).

Information I got from Googling ..
This Submarine met up with 2 other's off the West coast of Scotland and set off for the Med, my friend could have been one of the last human beings to see this Sub and there is a possibility that the men were dropping off the Wills of the Crew before the Patrol as they returned to the Sub with no supplies etc. German U-Boat Crews had to submit a Will before they went on Patrol so I am only presuming the Brits did the same but that is only my theory.
Another thought I have is the Crew knowing they were going to get this name and asking the Commander permission to have an emblem made and placed before it was official ?!

I know this story does not involve POW Camps and will remove or transfer if anyone is offended by it.

[zombiewolf]

All of these stories are priceless.My Uncle served on the HMS AJAX and Ramalises,my mum grew up in London during the Blitz,my neighbor was a Mossie Pathfinder pilot.
All of therestories are priceless.When I am aked by them "Have I ever told you about..."I say no and let them tell the story no matteer how many time I heard it.

Reguarding Guantanamo rest assured we do mean things like put panties on their heads.
But we NEVER EVER SAW their heads off with a blunt knife while its being video taped whistling Dixie or shouting "god loves us god loves us' nor do we keep them in rat infested cages a la "The Deer Hunter"

sorry rant over.:nope: forgive me please

[fredbass]

Back on topic:

I saw a documentary a few months ago on TV about the German POW's in the U.S.A. during WWII. It covered a lot of things, but the one thing that stood out to me was how good they were treated. In many ways, they had it better than the average american citizen. They pretty much got anything they wanted and could do or build just about anything they wanted to and had all the food they could eat, while americans were rationing their food and supplies. Many locals were rather upset about how good they had it, not that I could blame them.

[mookiemookie]

Here's a great site I found on German POWs in America. It even includes some of the newspapers that the POWs put together for their camps. Very interesting read!

http://www.traces.org/germanpows.html

[Ishmael]

Here's one I learned from my home town:

I grew up in Benicia, Ca. up in the Northern San Francisco Bay on Carquinez Straits. During the war it was home to the Benicia Arsenal, an Army post dating from the Mexican War that included William T. Sherman & Ulysses S. Grant as officers who served there and cemented their lifelong friendship. It's also home to the oldest Volunteer Fire Dept. in California, dating from 1851. The Fire Department still has the original Hand-Pump Fire engine, built in Germany in the late 1850's.

During World War 2, there was a POW camp there containing, mainly Italian POWs with a few Germans sprinkled in. At the time, the local houses of joy were primarily staffed by Italian girls from Contra Costa county. Once a month, on a Sunday, the Italian POWs were marched down First Street to patronise the houses, and were known to get into fights with the local Italian boys over the girls.

One of the German POWs, I was never able to find out his name, was on a work detail by the firehouse one day and noticed the old hand-pumper moldering away in the back of the firehouse. It turns out that his grandfather had worked in the factory where the engine was built and had accompanied his grandfather to the factory on many occaisions. He went to the POW camp Commandant & the Arsenal Base commander and offered to restore the Engine as a work detail if it was allowed. The Base commander contacted the Mayor & Fire Chief who were only too happy to oblige as no one there had any experience in that kind of restoration.

Over the next two years, he lovingly restored the engine to pristine condition and, after the war, returned to Germany. As a result of his work, The engine is still in use. Every October, there is a Fireman's Muster in Benicia where fire departments from all over the nation come with their antique engines and have competitions with each other for which dept. can roll out & ready fastest, which one can shoot a water stream the farthest with the antique engines, and other phases of the firefighter's job. So, if you're ever in the Bay Area in early October, check out the Benicia Fireman's Muster and see the results of his loving restoration.

On a side note, Benicia was one of Jack London's early haunts as an oyster pirate and then a member of the Fish Patrol(now the Dept. of Fish & Game). He wrote a series of short stories about his adventures there entitled,"Tales of The Fish Patrol". Below is a link to those stories online. I used to sell the local newspapers in the same bar Jack frequented 100 years ago.

http://emotional-literacy-education.com/classic-books-online-b/totfp10.htm

[desertisland]

Just curious. How do you de-Nazify someone?

[Gildor]

I remember my dad telling me about a POW camp in Northern Ontario. The guards would let the germans take rifles out of the camp to go hunting. Conditions were so good that there was usually no fear that they would try to escape. As a matter of fact, in my neighbourhood growing up I can recall some elderly german men that were former POWS in the camp nearby that loved the area so much that after the war they immigrated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_POW_camps_in_Canada

However, this site documents an escape attempt at Camp X. (some audio clips from CBC radio 1981)

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-71-1642-11379/conflict_war/pow_camps_Canada/clip6

[GT182]

I can't remember his name, or the year, but there was a German POW that escaped from a POW camp in Ontario and made it across the St. Lawrence River to Ogdensburg NY. There was also a movie of his adventure on the television back in the 60s. He was lucky as he almost froze to death from the frigid winter temperatures, and getting wet if I remember that correctly.

[mookiemookie]

Here's one I learned from my home town:

I grew up in Benicia, Ca. up in the Northern San Francisco Bay on Carquinez Straits. During the war it was home to the Benicia Arsenal, an Army post dating from the Mexican War that included William T. Sherman & Ulysses S. Grant as officers who served there and cemented their lifelong friendship. It's also home to the oldest Volunteer Fire Dept. in California, dating from 1851. The Fire Department still has the original Hand-Pump Fire engine, built in Germany in the late 1850's.

During World War 2, there was a POW camp there containing, mainly Italian POWs with a few Germans sprinkled in. At the time, the local houses of joy were primarily staffed by Italian girls from Contra Costa county. Once a month, on a Sunday, the Italian POWs were marched down First Street to patronise the houses, and were known to get into fights with the local Italian boys over the girls.

One of the German POWs, I was never able to find out his name, was on a work detail by the firehouse one day and noticed the old hand-pumper moldering away in the back of the firehouse. It turns out that his grandfather had worked in the factory where the engine was built and had accompanied his grandfather to the factory on many occaisions. He went to the POW camp Commandant & the Arsenal Base commander and offered to restore the Engine as a work detail if it was allowed. The Base commander contacted the Mayor & Fire Chief who were only too happy to oblige as no one there had any experience in that kind of restoration.

Over the next two years, he lovingly restored the engine to pristine condition and, after the war, returned to Germany. As a result of his work, The engine is still in use. Every October, there is a Fireman's Muster in Benicia where fire departments from all over the nation come with their antique engines and have competitions with each other for which dept. can roll out & ready fastest, which one can shoot a water stream the farthest with the antique engines, and other phases of the firefighter's job. So, if you're ever in the Bay Area in early October, check out the Benicia Fireman's Muster and see the results of his loving restoration.

On a side note, Benicia was one of Jack London's early haunts as an oyster pirate and then a member of the Fish Patrol(now the Dept. of Fish & Game). He wrote a series of short stories about his adventures there entitled,"Tales of The Fish Patrol". Below is a link to those stories online. I used to sell the local newspapers in the same bar Jack frequented 100 years ago.

http://emotional-literacy-education.com/classic-books-online-b/totfp10.htm

That is one of the best stories I've ever read on these boards. Thank you so much for sharing that! I loved it!

[Lannes]

The one neat tidbit on German POW's I can add is this-

I was heavily into American Civil War reenacting until a back injury ended that. I was part of a pretty authentic group- real "hardcore" bunch and very focused on presenting the most accurate portrayal we could- Confederate and Union both.

Anyway, a fellow I knew is one of the foremost experts and researchers in the country on Civil War uniforms and he uncovered that apparently there was some sort of clothing shortage in some of the German POW camps in North and South Carolina. Some official in North Carolina discovered that, packed away in an old run down warehouse, there were bundles and bundles of never issued Confederate shell jackets and pants. The uniforms were made of a jean/wool weave and the jackets were what is referred to today as the North Carolina pattern. These were then issued to the German prisoners for their work uniforms...

Any of these jackets today, in just about any condition, would sell for tens of thousands of dollars each...

All told, there are probably less than 100 Confederate shell jackets left in existence today...and thousands were issued to German POW's just 60 years ago...

[August]

Just curious. How do you de-Nazify someone?

Explode the myth of Aryan superiority?

[August]

All told, there are probably less than 100 Confederate shell jackets left in existence today...and thousands were issued to German POW's just 60 years ago...

Interesting. I read a book awhile back that in WW2 a unit fighting in the pacific requested a shipment of machetes and was sent (by mistake apparently) 1860s issue US calvary sabers. Our boys did the American thing and modified them into a quite serviceable, though fancy looking, brush cutter. I wonder what they'd be worth.

Regarding the German POWS, my maternal grandfather was one of them. According to family lore he was captured by American troops walking home on the Autobahn a few weeks before the end of the war and spent the next two years in a pow camp in Texas. Four years later my mother brought my dad, an American from Indiana, home to meet him. According to Pop the reception was a bit, well.... frosty, at first.

It got even frostier when they took him and my grandmother for a ride in my dads car and it got not one but four flats several miles out of town. The old man bailed out and walked home with my grandmother in tow.

I was so glad I got a chance to spend some time with him when I was stationed there in the late '70s, before he passed away. That man was hard as nails.

[Woof1701]

I never met my maternal grandfather and so I don't know any specifics, which might be a blessing. Only what my mother and grandmother told me. He was a German Army Medic on the Eastern Front near the end of the war, and was captured by the Russians and served as a medic in the POW camp under very bad conditions. Most injured soldiers died already on the way to the camp and were simply left lying next to the street. There was little to no medication and if you got infected or ill you had very poor chance to survive the labor camp. My grandpa was among the "fortunate" to be released after only five years. Many German POWs stayed far longer or never returned.
During the last months of the war many people - among them my grandmother with my one-year-old mother - had to flee their homes in Eastern Prussia, where her family had been living for ages, from the advancing Russians. Luckily my grandfather had managed to arrange for them a place to stay in Garmisch in Southern Bavaria. So my grandmother packed the stuff and her two children and set off on a journey into the unknown. They were lucky to leave in time since the Russian soldiers made little difference whether you were a civilian or a not. Many of her neighbors never made it out of East Prussia. The 1500 km trip took almost two weeks on foot and parts of it by train, where the railway system hadn't been destroyed and they arrived in Garmisch shortly before the war ended and were lucky to be in US-occupied territory.
My grandmother raised her two children in Garmisch alone until my grandfather returned from POW. Apparently he had changed a lot but never lost his kindness until he died in 1970. My grandmother never returned to her home in Eastern Prussia - now in Poland - not even for a visit after the "Iron Curtain" was drawn back in 1990 and visits were possible. Her son - my uncle - however went back for a visit in the mid 1990s and found many places still intact and even several people of Polish ancestry he knew are still living there. No Germans though. They either fled or were killed. My grandmother died in 2004 at the age of 97.