<Begin Segment 26>

TI: Okay, so you eventually get to a place, a camp?

JY: No, we were approaching, we knew we were changing direction at one point going east, north to east. And then we could hear planes in the distance, then we came into a fairly large marshalling yard, later we learned it was Hanover. And the sirens already were going off, air raid sirens, so this was our first exposure to air raid sirens.

TI: And how did that feel? Were you afraid that your own U.S. bombers would actually bomb you guys?

JY: Well, it's somewhat expected once the sirens started, because as we came into the marshalling yard, it stopped. It must be where the soldiers, German soldiers got off and locked the cars. Then they ran for the shelter, we could see them running for the shelters. And there's a certain intervals at which the sirens bleat, and it gets shorter and shorter as the planes are approaching. At the same time you could hear the roar of the planes increasing, then you finally start hearing them drop.

TI: And again, was there any conversations or comment as this was going on?

JY: Not too much, everybody's just sort of looking at each other, realizing, hey, this is it.

TI: Is that what you thought at times when this happens?

JY: Yeah, this would be a close one.

TI: But you survived that, and then what happens?

JY: Well, it all clears, and we're still there. For some reason, within a day or two, the train reaches a destination which is our first prisoner of war camp. But I don't see any of the soldiers in my unit at all, none from the 106th.

TI: Now, why is that? Why do you think you were separated from the 106th?

JY: I don't know what happened after the bombing, how they rearranged us. That part is a complete blank.

TI: Now, at the camp, did they distinguish between officers and infantry?

JY: It seemed they did, yeah. Even in this... this was in a, the kind of boundary we're in were fairly small. But as I recall, we were, the German separated us at the very beginning into officers and enlisted men because the compound next to us were Russians, and one unit, they had one or two units. One was for enlisted men and one right next to us was officers, Russian officers.

TI: And in this situation, it's kind of interesting, you're in a very stressful situation. I'm curious, so you had a Russian compound. I'm imagining on your side you had British, French, Americans. In this situation, could you see differences in the various nationalities in terms of how they dealt with the prisoner of war camp? Were there differences that you saw?

JY: Not that I knew. They all seemed, treated equally.

TI: And was this where you would get contact with things like the Red Cross? Because here you're under the Geneva Conventions.

JY: No, we didn't see Red Cross in this camp.

TI: So how long were you here?

JY: About a month, perhaps.

TI: And in terms of...

JY: Maybe a little over a month.

TI: ...food and accommodations, can you describe what, in a typical day, what you would get to eat, and how and what conditions you would sleep in?

JY: They'd give us a handful of small potatoes, some looked pretty aged, and they gave us a little burner, a little tin can, which you could put these potatoes on so we could put some firewood under, and that was our ration.

TI: And that's all you would get all day, just one handful of potatoes per day?

JY: Something like that, yeah. There's no bread there.

TI: And then in terms of sleeping accommodations, what was that like?

JY: Gosh, I really can't recall, but the, most of the camps we were in would be a tier of about, three level tier of cots, and then you would just occupy one.

TI: And when you were in this situation, there was probably still so much uncertainty, but did you feel safe, or what were you thinking and feeling?

JY: Well, we weren't in a combat area. And safe in the regard that a large camp like this would be identified by our air force, so there was no... at least while we were there, there was no strafing of the camp or anything like that.

TI: And so under these less severe conditions, did people start opening up and talking a little bit more? Did you get to know some of the people in camp during this period?

JY: Yeah, we did. Among ourselves, all we talked about was food. No talk about women, just for how we're going to live to the next day on a ration like this. And so hunger was the pervasive thing that developed quite early.

TI: But in... well, I'll ask this at the end. Because I'm going to ask you in terms of when you joined the army, or when you were in Europe, how much did you weigh at that point, and then when you were finally released as a POW...

JY: I can't remember. I can't remember any of the weights. I could remember some of the heavy guys weighing in the hundred eighties coming down to near a hundred. They had really gone...

TI: So it was just near starvation conditions.

JY: Yeah.

TI: So you mentioned you were in a month in this camp, and then you were then moved someplace else?

JY: Yeah, uh-huh.

TI: Now, why would you move? Why would you move from one camp to another? Why didn't they just keep you in one place?

JY: I don't know. Except that, well, we were on the move. I just don't know why we were selected to get out of that camp.

TI: Okay, so when you say "selected," you mean, so not everyone moved, just certain people?

JY: Yeah, it was quite a clear-cut unit, it was Americans. I can't remember soldiers from other countries with us, it was mostly Americans that were moved out.

TI: So where were you moved?

JY: Well, we went eastward, and the town where we finally stopped, sometime in train and sometime walking, was a town called Magdeburg. And the next large city to the east would be Berlin. Magdeburg was a fairly good-sized city with nice shops, lot of them boarded up after the bombing, there were other shops that you could tell were quite nice at one time. And the city wasn't destroyed even though it was, it looked like it had been bombed.

TI: And so you were able to see the cities, the train went through it?

JY: Yeah, we were on the ground walking through the town.

TI: And then the camp was like on the other side?

JY: No, we didn't go to a camp, we were still on the go.

TI: Oh, okay, just walking through.

JY: Yeah, going eastward. And then from that Magdeburg, we started going back west again.

TI: Mostly marching?

JY: Marching or on trains.

TI: During this period when you were being marched around, were there people who just couldn't go on, people that would fall ill or even possibly die during this period?

JY: I can't recall that. We did go into some stations, whether we were being detrained or something, and we could see civilians being evacuated, in quite an anxious state, just with their little belongings, being, putting into rail cars.

TI: And these were with Germans?

JY: Yes, German civilians being evacuated.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 2005 Densho. All Rights Reserved.