S/Sgt. Harold F. Scott
USAAF
My Experiences as a Tailgunner & P. O. W. during WWII
By Harold F. Scott
Copyright © 1996 Harold F. Scott, Juanita A. Scott & Sandra K. Zabel
Published by Two His Glory Publishing
Zabelink2@gmail.com
At Smashwords.com
Other titles published by Two His Glory Publishing
The Kinsfolk Living in a Land of Giants
By Sandy Zabel
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/69027
The Kinsfolk Traveling with the Gypsys
By Sandy Zabel
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/77431
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Thank you for obtaining my Dad's book about his experiences as a Prisoner of War in WWII. My purpose in publishing this book is to share his life story with others and by doing so keeping his memory alive. He was a hero in every aspect of the word.
Sandy Zabel
Two His Glory Publishing
Zabelink2@gmail.com
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 The End But Yet the Beginning
Chapter 2 Introduction to the United States Armed Forces
Chapter 3 Training Begins
Chapter 4 Taking to the Skies
Chapter 5 Heading Overseas
Chapter 6 Landing on Foreign Soil and My First Taste of War
Chapter 7 Mission #1, A Bomb Run & the Worst Battle of My Career
Chapter 8 Base Camp at Foggia, Italy and Missions Galore
Chapter 9 Mission #43
Chapter 10 Trauma and Terror Begins
Chapter 11 More Trauma of a Different Kind
Chapter 12 Stalag Luft I
Chapter 13 On the March
Chapter 14 Escape and Running Wild
Chapter 15 Friends in an Unfriendly Country
Chapter 16 The Beginning of Freedom
Chapter 17 Back with the USAAF
Chapter 18 Our Last Battle and our Journey Home
Introduction
The following is a true account of Harold F. Scott’s part in World War II. For many, many years Harold, better known as Scotty, did not talk of the war and his experiences even to me, his wife, except for some of the funny things that had happened to him.
It was several years before he quit sitting bolt upright in bed in the middle of the night trembling and perspiring profusely. Even to this day he is still plagued by nightmares.
About seven or eight years ago with the encouragement of our two ministers, Dr. Thomas Murray and Rev. Ben Doughty, Harold gathered his family that lived near by and told the following account of his war experiences which we recorded as he talked and I have edited and typed under his direction.
I am sure there were many things that happened to him that he did not reveal and probably never will, but this is the account which he shared with us.
Juanita A. Scott
August 1995
The End But Yet The Beginning
This may sound strange, but I’m going to start my story at the end. The war is over and I’m home on a ninety-day convalescent leave from the United States Army Air Force. It is the middle of May 1945, and I’m sitting on the verandah of my folks’ home in Clarinda, Iowa, a small town of about five or six thousand people. I’ve been a German prisoner. I’m a walking skeleton, a physical wreck and a bundle of nerves. I jump and cringe at every noise or quick, unidentified movement. I smoke incessantly and avoid talking to anyone.
You read about veterans coming home, taking a gun and shooting people for apparently no reason. Well I can understand, for that is what, but for the Grace of God, almost happened to me.
As I sit here smoking and brooding, I can look south across the street and see a service station. About a half block east and on the same side of the street is a movie theater. Much of my time is spent watching the people come and go at the service station or couples and families come to the theater. They are laughing and having a good time and I resent it. I have just been through such hardships: wounded, starved, saw my buddies killed. I feel these people have good jobs, go home at night and crawl into warm, safe beds when over there we didn’t know whether we’d be alive at bedtime or the next day. I have thoughts like, “If I’d take a gun and put a few well placed shots around these people, how they’d squeal and run.” I want them to feel a little fear like we had felt.
I also have thoughts of my sister. Even though she has been dead a year and a half and I did help carry her to her grave, I still haven’t had an adequate opportunity or time to grieve and realize she is gone forever.
So between all these things, I sit here day after day brooding and grieving. I know my folks are worried and don’t know what to do with me as I catch my Mother watching me from a window or a doorway.
One day a wonderful girl I knew came to see me and showed interest in me. It inspired me to quit brooding and get up and do something, so I bought a car and we started dating. I don’t actually know where it all would have ended had she not made her appearance. About ten months later (March 17, 1946), after I was discharged, we were married.
With God’s help and guidance, she and I began the healing process. It wasn’t easy and it took lots of time and prayers, but I have recovered body and soul. I am left with some scars, both inside and out, that will always remain, but they are things I can live with.
The remaining chapters are a detailed account of my part in the winning of World War II.
Introduction to the United States Armed Forces
I would like to begin my story with a bit of background material. From the age of about twelve or thirteen I was crazy about guns. Most kids were crazy about cars and mechanics, but not me. My fancy was guns and horses, but especially guns. You might say I even idolized them, polishing them and running my hands over them. Why my folks didn’t object, I have no idea. My dad was very strict, but outside of teaching me not to point a gun at anyone or shoot in anyone’s direction, they didn’t seem to pay much attention. So, two-thirds of the time I went around looking like a walking arsenal with my Grandmother’s old pistol in my belt and a rifle in my hands. I did a lot of hunting on my Grandmother and Uncle’s farm and brought in game to eat. They recognized my prowess with a gun and if an animal got mangled by dogs or wolves or diseased, they’d call for me to come and kill it to put it out of its misery. It gave me a good feeling to be able to do this for them, a pride of accomplishment.
I was nineteen years old and working on a farm near Creston, Iowa, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. My folks lived in Clarinda, Iowa, and Dad worked for a manufacturing firm by the name of Paris and Dunn.
The United States got shoved into war so quickly and unprepared that they had to send all their guns to the front lines leaving nothing for the service men to use in training. Joe Poley, a photographer and a friend of my folks, saw the need and got the bright idea of making wooden trainer rifles for the Air Force and Navy. These trainer rifles could be made quickly so the government liked the idea and gave Mr. Poley a contract. He returned to Clarinda from Washington D. C., made a deal with Paris and Dunn to finance and manufacture his gun as a subsidiary company and called it Poley Manufacturing Company. My folks made me aware of the situation so I quit my farm job, came to Clarinda and started making trainer rifles.
I became acquainted with the Poley family and in the evening I’d help in the studio developing pictures with Mrs. Poley, Donna, and Charles. Donna and I started dating.
My job in Clarinda didn’t last long as my number soon came up and I was drafted shortly after I reached the age of twenty. Mr. Poley told me he could get me deferred as the plant was considered a Defense Plant, but I chose to go to the service. I reported to Camp Dodge, which was north of Des Moines, Iowa, took my physical, my I. Q. tests and passed with flying colors. They gave me fourteen days to go back home, straighten up my affairs and report back for duty. At the end of the fourteen days my folks and I arrived in Shenandoah, Iowa, at five in the morning and reported to the Armory where they fed us a big breakfast along with other young men and their families. After breakfast those going to the service loaded on a bus and took off for camp.
We pulled into Camp Dodge (October 17, 1942) and the first thing they did was swear us in, read us the Articles of War and issue our clothes to us. Our winter uniforms were called O.D.s, Suntans were for summer and Fatigues were work clothes - three types of clothes and three sets of each. Then we went to the barracks to learn which clothes were which and how to wear them. This old Sergeant lined us up and said, “All right, I want you to go into the barracks, take off those civilian clothes, put on your O.D.s and be out here in five minutes!” Many of the guys didn’t half listen when they were handing out our clothes so it was a regular melee. Some would yell, “What the hell is O.D.s?” Many went outside with half of one uniform and half of another. The Sergeant would chew them out unmercifully and send them back in until they came out correctly dressed. We did this over and over, changing uniforms until everyone could come out properly dressed for whichever uniform the Sergeant asked for. We gathered up all our civilian things and they shipped them home as the service furnished everything we wore.
The next morning wake-up call was a bugle playing reveille over the intercom. One of the new recruits yelled, “Blow it out your ass!” A voice came over the intercom, “I’m going to come down there and give you a chance to do just that.” The recruit clapped his hand over his mouth, a startled expression appeared on his face and he muttered, “He heard me!” We learned a good lesson that day.
I was at Camp Dodge three days and each afternoon we all reported to the Parade Grounds. It was an induction Center where they assigned men to different branches of the Service. They called my name the third afternoon and loaded those that were called along with our baggage into trucks. took us to the train depot, put us on a train and we took off. We took up one whole Pullman car. They didn’t tell us a thing, what branch of service we were in or where we were going.
As we rode along I was talking with this small guy sitting beside me. I always considered myself fairly shy, but this man seemed really shy. Pretty soon he said, “I wonder what branch of service we are in?”
I replied, “I don’t know. I don’t have any idea what we are in.” Of course our clothes had the Air Force Patch and everything on them but we were too dumb to know. The old Sergeant in charge of us and a batch of guys were down in the aisles shooting craps. This guy beside me said, “I’m going up and ask that Sergeant what we are in.”
I knew he was getting himself in trouble, but he got up, went up the aisle, tapped the Sergeant on the shoulder and said, “Say, Sarge! What outfit are we in?” The Sergeant looked up disgustedly and said, “Hell, Man! You’re in the Air Corp!”
The guy, white as a sheet, turned around, hurried back to his seat and sat down. I commented, “Well, I guess we know what we are in now.”
Training Begins
From Camp Dodge, Iowa, we ended up in Miami Beach, Florida, for our basic training. The Air Corp had requisitioned part of Miami Beach and we stayed in a hotel called the Princess Ann. It was three blocks off the ocean front and we drilled on the beach. It wasn’t easy marching in the sand, but we did enjoy swimming in the ocean when we were off duty.
The Sergeant directly over us was Sergeant Griffith. He was very strict, but fair in all of his dealings. I liked and respected him a lot. Sergeant Griffith told us it rained between two and four p.m. almost every day in Miami and he sure told the truth. We’d be marching along and a quick shower would come up drenching us to the skin. We just kept right on marching, the sun would come out and we’d be dry by the time we got through.
In our obstacle course we had a board wall ten foot high that we had to get over. You’d run, jump up on a cleat that was about half way up, grab the top and swing yourself over. One soldier was so short he couldn’t make it so another fellow and I would boost him over. Sarge knew we were doing this, but he didn’t seem to care as long as we all figured out a way to complete the course.
Not long after we got to Miami we were lined up for mail call. As your name was called by the mail clerk you would break ranks, walk to the side, go forward and get your letter and return to the ranks. I kept getting cards and getting cards until finally Sergeant Griffith said, “Just stand right here, Scott!” My co-workers at Paris and Dunn had all sent cards -- twenty-six of them.
All the time we were in basic training we had to stand guard duty, two hours on and six hours off, day and night. They gave us a billy club and we would walk around the hotel. One of our guys was afraid of the dark so when it was his turn to guard in the dark he would give someone else a dollar an hour for standing watch for him. I made a few extra bucks that way.
We were taking Judo training so one day this fellow and I were wrestling around practicing in the aisle between the bunks. Sergeant Griffith had a room at the end of the aisle and it had a bulletin board beside his door. We didn’t realize we were working our way toward the end of the aisle. This fellow threw me over his shoulder and the heels of my boots made two holes in the bulletin board. We got up quickly, moved back to our bunks and sat down. We hadn’t much more than sat down when Sergeant Griffith came in, started to go into his room, noticed the heel prints in his bulletin board and said, “Who the hell had his feet that high?” Nobody squealed and he didn’t press the point. I guess he figured no one was going to tell him anyway so he just had a new bulletin board put up and let it pass.
Two days before Christmas we were lined up for inspection. It was called Standing Parade and we had to stand quite awhile. The temperature was exceptionally hot that year and some of the men passed out. The man right by me fell, but we were standing at attention so I couldn’t do anything for him. The Medics came with a stretcher, picked him up and carried him off.
In our basic training, believe it or not, we trained with the trainer rifles I had helped make. The only time we actually used real rifles was along toward the last of the training period when we would go out on the firing range and practice shooting.
At the end of the six weeks we shipped out. It was the day before Christmas 1942 and as I said before, it was hotter than blazes. We dressed in our Suntans, packed everything else in our barracks bags and they loaded them in the baggage car. As usual they didn’t tell us where we were going. We ended up in Lansing, Michigan, in a howling blizzard with no coats or anything. They did take us around the depot out of the wind where we stood until the trucks came to pick us up. We just about froze to death.
In Lansing we stayed in a college dormitory and took our gunnery training. The Oldsmobile plant there had been changed over from car manufacturing to making Browning Machine Guns and canons. We had to learn to take a fifty caliber and a thirty caliber machine gun completely apart and reassemble them. The final test was to take a fifty caliber machine gun apart and put it back together wearing cotton gloves and a blindfold. We each had a small table and the gun stood on a rack beside it. We would place the parts on this table. When I found out what the final test was to be I devised a plan and practiced. I would put the big parts in the middle and line the smaller parts up around the edge of the table as I took them off. That way they were easy to find and in line to go back on. It worked really well for me that way.
Here in Lansing I started running around with a bunch of fellows that got me started drinking. I turned twenty-one and you know what that means, we had to go celebrate. Of course we went out and got smashed. The next morning I couldn’t find my overcoat. The guys told me I gave it to a lady at the bus stop. She made a simple comment about it being cold so I took off my coat, put it around her shoulders and insisted she keep it. It cost me twenty dollars to replace it, but at least I was a good natured drunk and not a mean one.