AN EXCERPT FROM "FINAL MISSION" (as a preface to the following chapter)
The B-l7 blew up, and I was blown out of the Plexiglas nose compartment into the blue afternoon sky. I was momentarily unconscious, so I am not sure how my parachute opened - but it did. Although I should probably have been petrified, I don’t remember any such feeling. I had a conviction that we would continue our controlled descent and fly over the enemy lines and back home. That was of course, unrealistic and stupid.
I woke up seconds after the explosion in time to see pieces of empennage floating around me and drifting lazily to the ground. I had a sharp pain in my groin from the parachute straps and had a cut on my wrist. The copper taste of blood filled my mouth from the cut under my chin. The silk glove on my left hand was full of blood, so without thinking, I took it off and threw it away. I was floating all alone in deep silence in the sub-zero temperatures.
I looked up and saw our airplanes flying home, leaving heavy contrails. There was also a huge tear in my silk chute, and I remembered a training exercise when we were told not to worry about such things. The trainer had said the parachute would hold. I never looked up again. I looked down and saw engines burning on the snow-covered ground. I was bleeding, and I was in shock, but I had a single thought.
Well, at least my war is over - or so I thought.
I Ain’t Gonna Study War No More
by Irv Pliskin
I have no idea how fast I was descending. But as I hung there, in the chute, after a few moments my wits started to come back to me, and I looked around to see if I could see any other parachutes.
I couldn’t.
Could I have been the only survivor of that explosion?
How could that be? I was the one guy who was the non-believer, the only one of the crew who did not go to prayer meetings before missions, the only iconoclast in the group.
How could I have been the only one to survive?
I looked down again, and saw that I was headed for a set of high tension wires strung from some pretty high towers. I don’t know what would happen if I hit them, but I had an idea that I would become a soprano, should I connect with those wires.
I didn’t know how to move a parachute in its descent, but I figured I would try. I reached up and took one of the chute lines and started to pull it on the side away from the dangerous wire, and hopefully move in a direction out of the dangerous area. I was in the process of pulling on the chute shrouds when I passed the wires about a hundred yards from me and hit the ground. I was so relaxed, I did myself no damage. Often first time parachutists tense up and break bones when they hit the ground.
I was in a snow-covered field, with no place to hide but a large haystack not far away. I unstrapped my chute harness, grabbed the escape kit, a little box that was tied to my parachute straps, and ripped it loose. In previous attempts to investigate the thing, I had been absolutely unable to even move it. I tucked the kit into my coverall pocket, and started to run to the haystack leaving foot prints in the snow.
The German soldier I had seen from the chute (seeing him had not registered at all) came over a little knoll in the field and pointed a very big rifle at me.
Influenced by all the movies I had seen, I stopped, and put my hands in the air.
“Habben zie gevare?” he asked.
All the years I had spent learning Yiddish paid off. I knew what he meant. He was asking if I had any weapons.
“Nein. Kine gevare. Ich hab ein messar.”
(No, no weapons. But I have a knife.)
“Bevise.” (Show me.)
I reached into my pocket and took out a tiny gold pen knife I had been given by my dad as a good luck talisman. The soldier shrugged it off, and let me keep it.
He marched me back to my parachute, and indicated that I was to pick it up and carry it and walk ahead of him. I did as he suggested and then I began to feel a strange feeling. I was an officer, he was an enlisted man, I should not be carrying anything when I was with him, he should be carrying it. It was, in some way a feeling of anger and rage, but I dared not say anything. And I didn’t.
We trudged across the field, for about fifteen minutes I think. It seemed like an eternity. We came to what was obviously a one-room school house. He pointed to the door and took my parachute from me. I suspect they either repacked them for their troops or used the silk for some other purpose.
“Arien,” he said. “Gay Arien.” I understood that, too. Go in. So I opened the door and walked in and almost lost control of my bowels.
The room was full of Hitler Yugent, Hitler youth, in full uniform. It was a room that reeked menace. These kids were not happy to see an American flyer, and they looked as if they would do me bodily harm and tear me apart limb by limb.
The Hitler Yugent were young kids, Boy Scout age, but trained in paramilitary pursuits. They were indoctrinated with the Nazi doctrine: “Kill your enemy as quickly and as painfully as you can.” Had they known, or suspected I was Jewish, I feel certain they would have terminated me right there and then as painfully as possible. One of them reached for the dagger on his belt as soon as he saw me, but a senior soldier, obviously in charge, shouted at him to stop, and to behave. “Aer is ein kriegsgefangen, und, mir muse mit em raden” (He is a prisoner of war, and we need to interrogate him,) is what I understood him to say.
I was pushed into a corner and ordered to stay there.
After about ten minutes (my watch had been smashed when the plane blew up, so I could not be sure) the door opened again, and Roger Rand was pushed through it. He limped into the room. He was as surprised to see me as I was him, I am sure.
“Oh my good God, Roger, you got out.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Are you hurt? You’re limping.”
“My ankle, I must have sprained it when I landed in the chute. I don’t think it’s broken. I hope it isn’t.”
We compared notes. Roger’s experience was different from mine. He had been at the controls when the plane fell into the dive from which it blew up. He had seen the fires, of course, and he had immediately hit the alarm bell, to signify bail out.
But the bell didn’t work. Obviously the electrical system had been put out of commission when we took the first hit. He shouted into the intercom, but that didn’t work either. He was flying the plane as best he could. He thought that Satterfield, who was not moving at all, had been killed by the second shell that hit us on the starboard side. He was trying to fly the 17, when it tipped up and fell over nose down. At that time it exploded, and he said he was blown out the roof of the airplane. The fuselage above him opened up like a sardine can, and he found himself in the air. He pulled his chute and came down in a field near a farm house. He was surrounded by farmers, who kicked him, hit him with sticks and might have killedhim. Fortunately, a soldier arrived to take him into custody. Roger, like me, had seen no chutes, so he was as amazed to see me there, as I was him.
Our captors did not interfere with us as we compared notes. I told him what had happened to me; he related what had happened to him. We both agreed that we were among the world’s luckiest guys. Neither of us had explanations as to why we had survived. We were just amazed that we had.
At that point, the door opened again, and Bob Bright, our ball turret gunner was shoved into the room. Bob’s arrival was certainly amazing. We were dumbfounded to see him there.
The ball turret on a B-17 is the most hazardous of places at almost any time, especially in combat. It is mounted under the belly of the airplane, and it is not very big. In order to get into it a man has to be helped, and once in it it must be like a womb. The gunner sits on his back, basically, in sort of a fetal position. He rotates around 360 degrees on a flat plane, so he can see both ends of the airplane. His other movements permit him to rotate almost up to the fuselage, or directly down, He lays on his back, and literally points his butt at his targets, and then fires away. It is a tight, cramped place. Generally a man needs help to get out of it, although it is possible to get out by oneself, as Bob had done. But it is not easy.
Bob was pretty bloody. He had a large gash on the left side of his head. What he told us was horrifying. He saw the fires, and knew that he had to get out of there. He managed to get out of the ball without any help, although it was a struggle. He got into the waist of the plane, and looked forward toward the radio compartment. Everett, our radio man was slumped over his desk, not moving. Bob turned and started to walk to the rear escape hatch.
Mason, the waist gunner was standing at the gun opening, looking out at the fires, and sucking on an oxygen hose. He was not wearing a mask. I learned later, that this was a fairly common practice, for a man to suck on a hose at altitude, rather than wear his mask. The guys did it when they wanted to have a smoke: never worrying about the volatility of the oxygen or the possible consequences. Bob hit him on the shoulder, and got no response. He hit him one more time to get his attention, and then walked to the back of the compartment, about another 15 feet.
There he found Bell, the tail gunner, lying on his back, not wearing an oxygen mask. Bell had crawled forward from his position, and was lying supine, gasping. Bob put an auxiliary mask on the man, slammed it on his face and turned the oxygen up full. It was, of course, possible that the oxygen lines had been severed, and that that action would not help in any case.
Bob then pulled the handles that were supposed to jettison the rear door escape hatch and blow it out into space. Nothing happened. The jettison device did not work. He then grabbed the door handle, turned it and held the door out with his left hand, into the slip-stream of the airplane, checked his chute and jumped.
The door slammed against him as he jumped through the fires and cut his scalp open. The left side of his body, including his face and hands was peppered with little pieces of molten aluminum. He floated down in his chute and was taken prisoner immediately, and because he was further away, apparently, they took longer to get him to the school house where we were being held. He, too, said he had seen no chutes.
He told us this as he was standing there bleeding and in some discomfort. I decided that I had to do something for him, if I could.
I turned to the man in charge and I asked for water.
“Vasser, bitte. Vasser. Ich moose haben vasser. Ken ich haben vasser bitte?” (Water, water, I must have water. Can I have some water, please.)
“Yah,” he said, and one of the boys went to get me a tub of water. I used a handkerchief to wash Bob’s face, to try to remove some of the caked blood, and to staunch the blood seepage.
“Danka.” I said.
Roger looked amazed.
”I didn’t know you could speak German” he said.
“It isn’t German, I said.
“Not German? What the hell is it then?”
I didn’t dare tell him, I was not sure how close the English words were to the German, so I remained quiet. He stared at me, and it suddenly dawned on him.
“Oh,” said, “my God.”
The water seemed to help. Bob had stopped bleeding and appeared to be a little more comfortable.
A little while later, two very large Wermacht soldiers came for us. They marched us out of the school to a very small two-door automobile and ordered us into the back seat. I had not seen such a car before, none of us had, but I suspect that that was our first ride in a Volkswagon.
They sat in front, and drove down the country lane that led to the school, and then turned on a major highway. I saw a road sign that indicated that Aachen was only about 12 kilometers to our left. Had the airplane gone only a few minutes further West, we might have come down in our own territory and not have been captured at all.
They drove us to a little town, with a small church. I learned later that the town was called Gravensbrough, and it was quite close to the no man’s land that constituted the front lines of the fighting. In theory, of course, the three of us in the back seat should have overpowered the driver and his companion, commandeered the car and driven to our lines. So much for theory. We were in shock, we had no weapons and never even considered such a move, so far as I know. We could have planned it; they apparently did not understand English. But we sat there until they got us to our destination, which was a small church.
We were ordered out of the car: “Rouse, Rouse” and led into the basement of the church. The basement was a good-sized recreation room equipped with cots and running water, and we were to remain there until they got orders from above, telling them what to do with us. I remember it as being fairly dark, but not threatening. We sat around, comparing our stories again and again, and marveling at our great good fortune. I have no awareness of being fed very much, but I don’t think I was exceedingly hungry, either. We were, no doubt, still very much in shock.
We started to communicate with our captors. The man in charge, a sergeant, had, he told me, at one time been an officer, but he was reduced in rank quite arbitrarily. That was common in the German army, apparently. I sensed that he had been very unhappy about that. Officers in the German army enjoyed a host of privileges, which this man now missed and resented being denied.
By the evening of the second day, we had begun to communicate fairly well. My Yiddish with its German base seemed to work. I had a smattering of the language and could communicate somewhat. They seemed to feel I spoke pretty good German for a foreigner, and we chatted away.
Late in the afternoon a German Vermacht soldier came for me. He led me out of the basement into the open, and marched me down a path towards a very large farm.
Roger was alarmed when they came for me, and kept asking where they were taking me. I asked the same question of course, but was told “Sie Shtill.” Shut up.
The sergeant in charge told Roger that they could not keep three prisoners, could not accommodate them in the facility, and that I was going to be executed. Roger did not know what to do, or how to respond, although he attempted to get them to change their mind.
Meanwhile, they marched me down the path, across a driveway to a fairly large brick dwelling. I was led inside, and into a very large, very bright country kitchen. There were about twenty civilians in the kitchen, and they pulled out a chair for me, at the end of a large, scrubbed wooden table.
“Du vilst epes zu essen?’ a German frau asked me. I was stunned. Something to eat? Sure I did.
“Ya, bitte.”
“Gut.”
She brought me a plate with sausage and fried potatoes and, I think, a vegetable. “Ess.”
I had no idea what was going on, but I shoveled in the food as quickly as I could, so they wouldn’t change their minds. Everyone there watched me, and when I was finished I learned what this was all about.
I was in the house that belonged to the Burgomaster, the town’s mayor. He was the senior person there, and sitting in the most prominent spot. The frau who had fed me was his wife. The other people were residents of the community, and they were there by invitation. Their purpose was to find out whatever they could about an American soldier. What did these men think? Why were they so insistent on fighting the war?
I was there because of their curiosity. The burgomaster had been captured by the British during War I and had spent some time in a prison camp in England. He had a little bit of English. When they heard that one of the Amnericanisha Fligers sprecht Deutch, they decided to have me over and chat.
This was certainly not an interrogation. The questions they began to ask me were very far from military. And those that could have been military were basic things that any German intelligence officer would be sure to know. They were interested in very basic things. Where was I from? How old was I? How much money did I make? How long had I been a flyer? Why did I fly? What was my job? How high did we fly? Was it cold up there? How cold was it? Why did I fight against them? Why did I hate the Germans?
There were no trick questions, These were basic things everyone in the Luftwaffe knew. The Army regulations indicated that I should, under questioning give only my name, my rank and serial number. In this case, I disobeyed the orders as I cooperated fully and answered the truly harmless questions.
“Was I married? Did I have a girl friend? What did she look like? I had a picture of Grace Kahn in my shirt pocket, I pulled it out and showed it to them. They were impressed and asked what I thought of the looks of a very uncomely girl working in the kitchen. She’s fine I said. All women are fine.
When they realized that an average mission could take many hours, one of the old men in the group turned to me and asked: “In dem airshiffa, vos tooin zie as du darfts pishen?”
Some of the listeners sniggered, and I understood him perfectly. “What do you do if you have to pee while you are in the air?”
Without realizing that my answer was really a wise-ass answer I told him the truth. “Pishen? Pishen uber Deutschland.” I might have gotten in trouble with that answer, but I did not. They all laughed, and seemed to appreciate the accuracy of my response.
There were a few more questions, and then the soldier who had led me there came for me. We began our walk back to the church, and as we are walking in the very cold night air he turned to me and said, in quite good English: “Did you enjoy your supper?”
I told him that I did and that I was surprised with his English fluency. He told me that he had learned it in school and was happy to practice it. He also told me that he had just come back from the Russian front, where he had been wounded, and was now recovering. It was terrible there, he said, but he expected to be shipped back as soon as he recovered, since his unit was stationed there.
By this time we had reached the church. He led me to my basement and said goodbye. I wished him well.
Both Roger and Bob were overjoyed to see me back, and asked all sorts of questions. I told them all about it, and that I had had a reasonably good meal. Actually, it was the best meal I have ever had in Germany.
Irv Pliskin is a retired advertising agency owner. He is a combat veteran of World War II and an Ex Prisoner of War of the Germans. Married, with three kids, and four grandchildren he devotes his time to writing flash fiction. He hopes, that someday, he may become the Grandma Moses of flash fiction. He lives with his wife of 57 years in Cherry Hill, NJ. Contact Irv.
