(00:00:00) Where were you on that day in December? 1941? Most Americans don't have an answer for that. Most of us are too young. But if you're much older than 45 you probably remember distinctly where you were what you were doing when the news (00:00:14) came it's good as out real funny, but I was rebuilding an engine and a 1934 Ford V8 Roadster (00:00:22) check after Heidi was a young man of twenty (00:00:24) five had the engine apart and I had four new pistons in one side. I was just installing and then my dad came down and said the bomb Pearl Harbor so the other foreigners fixed everybody's excited their radios and it was just pandemonium everywhere people calling each other your in-laws and relatives and things like that. Did you hear what happened? You know, it was just incomprehensible. I was listening to the radio music or something and my wife wasn't the kitchen. And all the ones we interrupt this music to say that Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japs. I went out to the kitchen and I said to my wife as well that's son of a bitch is finally got his way. That's what he wanted. You could tell he was (00:01:12) Roosevelt was trying to get us in (00:01:14) coming out of church. Somebody came by and said Pearl Harbor what Pearl Harbor will Japs attacked at Pearl Harbor. That's how we found out about it. At the time I don't think that even (00:01:29) registered but if a fairly young Richard Arbus didn't immediately grasp the meaning of that day's news. The implications were crystal clear to those like Lloyd Marty who were already in (00:01:40) uniform. I was inducted on the 3rd of December. I was home on my first furlough on the day the war started and of course, they called us all back immediately By Radio. I'll tell you I got kind of a sinking feeling that lasted for four years till I was (00:01:58) out and for Lester domeier the news of Pearl Harbor had particular meaning just 10 days before the attack the Navy Cruiser USS Boise on which he was serving had left Pearl Harbor for the Philippines domeier says it's hard for him not to think about what it might have been like if he'd been in the harbor when the planes appeared. (00:02:17) We all knew what we do on a Sunday morning and there. In Pearl Harbor everybody not everybody sleeping, but they come back from Liberty. I think Liberty expired at 12 o'clock at night or one in the morning. And then you have your sundae procedure and all of a sudden comes the attack. It's confusion and you have no ammunition on the top deck, you know for any aircraft can um, and that's all locked up in the magazine and the captain of the ship where the country offices that could the captain is the custodian of the keys. And by the time you get organized the attack was over they were sitting ducks. That's what happened. Nothing prepared. Yeah, when three four hundred planes come at you so they had no chance yesterday. December 7 1941 a date which will live in infamy United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked. By Naval and Air Forces of the Empire of Japan the attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage. to American Naval and military forces I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. With confidence in our Armed Forces with the unbounding determination of our people we will gain the inevitable Triumph. So help us (00:04:04) God for many Americans. It wasn't until the attack on Pearl Harbor and President Roosevelt's address to the nation the following day that this war became a reality. Actually, of course, the fighting had been going on for some time in Asia. Japan had Unleashed its Army in China in 1937 in Europe War had begun in the fall of 1939. But up until the attack on Pearl. It had been someone else's War the fighting was going on somewhere over there. It was probably less true in nuam though people there had deep roots in Europe in Germany many had been born there others were just a generation removed contacts with family and friends in the old country were frequent and the people of nuam took their German Heritage. Seriously Joy softer Heidi (00:04:49) In those days downtown people in the stars and everywhere spoke German. It was their native language English was secondary. In fact, they thought in German during the first (00:05:04) world war the German Heritage of nuam had caused serious problems for the people of this community back. Then there was something called the Minnesota Commission on Public Safety. It was a special wartime executive Council designed to make sure that the state ran smoothly during wartime the council took upon itself to root out any disloyal elements in the state. They unleashed the full Fury of the State against New Ulm going so far as to replace them mayor whom they consider to be of questionable loyalty the event that precipitated them move was a massive anti conscription rally to which perhaps 10,000 had attended many interpreted. The rally is anti-American protests ermine and though there was probably some of that it was basically an anti draft. Light tan Steinbach (00:05:51) a lot of these Germans here came over to America to get away from the draft over there, you know, and in the first before the first world war the German Nation over there was really militaristic, you know, they all had to go in the army when they were young in that sin. That's why a lot of people came over here to get away from that say (00:06:09) nuam many people will tell you got a black eye from its World War 1 experience and as the second world war broke out there were still some lingering questions about just how people there felt about their country. (00:06:21) I know that the very fact that Jack was German a full-blooded German and had the background he had that when he didn't list the FBI came and they investigated him all over town. They went to one Courthouse the police station every place to make sure that he was not Then he was on the up-and-up, you know that he really wanted to serve his country and then he was more American than he was German because there was a lot of you know question about things like that. I tell you about it was we were manufacturing dial and one cement company refused to ship with cement. Because it's German community. And you know, I personally don't know. I think you use it for excuse because there was a shortage of cement, you know, but they refused to ship cement to us because we were from the German community (00:07:21) for the younger German Americans like the author Heidi's there was no doubt where their loyalties lie. They and their parents were born here. They were definitely Americans first, but for some of the older ones America's entry into the second world war was not nearly so easy to reconcile Leona has his mother-in-law was a first-generation immigrant. (00:07:42) It makes a big difference whether you know, you had your ties over in Germany because the older folks who left relatives over there would feel entirely different than we who were born in this country and our own parents were born here. But his mother left 13 brothers and sisters over in the Old Country. So naturally her feelings would be entirely different than ours and she worried about her nieces and nephews over there and that her sons were over there probably shooting down their own cousins and it's (00:08:14) understandable by the time of Pearl Harbor has husband Richard was already in an army uniform. He'd been drafted the earlier that year despite a bad leg has he had put up quite a stink about that and though she wasn't able to change the local draft boards mind about taking him. She's so impressed the board that they offered her a job. It wasn't a pleasant way to make a living during those years, but she did need the work. (00:08:38) It's on my own, you know, my brothers were drafted while I was there my brother-in-law It's tough but there was nothing you can do about it. It was just their numbers came up and they had to go but there were I think there were 40 of them that left that time to there were 41 he left. How was that when you'd have 40 young men going off and I suspect 40 families. They're all around the bus. Seeing them off and try and do them, you know head. Well, I can remember when he went you're all standing there and holding your hand out trying to get the last handshake and the tears and it's rough and like I said working with with drafting people all the time and not being able to really do anything to help people. There's no you just if they were certified one a that was it the next group that went they went by number. So you just you just felt you had to do your duty (00:09:38) though. Nowhere near as controversial as during the Vietnam war. The World War II draft did raise a few eyebrows after all the local draft boards were deciding who would and would not be putting their lives on the line and to this day in New Orleans. There is talk about who should and shouldn't have gone Choice after Heidi (00:09:57) there were young man They weren't they weren't like the draft Dodgers of the Vietnam War. Were they all ran the Canada? The in World War II was different they'd get their doctor to say they had a bad back especially if they're old man was a good friend of the doctors or the get a letter of need that they were needed for something or some of them developed bad legs and all these little things and you know that those young men. we're never really well thought of because they'd pulled strings to get out of it. And in a town as small as this, you know, I suppose they could get away with it in the Twin Cities, but not here not in a small town like this. You knew who had a bad back and didn't have one and all of a sudden got one (00:11:02) again Leona Hesse, (00:11:03) you know, sometimes it didn't seem quite fair, but they were a bunch of fear, man. They tried to do the right thing, but You know, it's people didn't always understand the reasons behind why people were rejected and so they took a lot of heat and there are you know, they really get become nasty about (00:11:25) it. Of course many young men in the new all Mariah were deferred from the draft. They were engaged in vital Industries farming or working at the nearby canning plant Jack after Heidi was deferred because his family Brickyard made drainage tile that was important to agriculture figuring he'd probably get drafted later on. Anyway, he decided to enlist in the Air Force. (00:11:46) I can't say I kind of had a guilty feeling I was sitting home, but I just had a kind of feeling that I you know, I should do my part. I don't know. A lot of draft Dodgers but I didn't want to be one I can tell you I had argued with a draft board for a couple of months before they let me go was that a tough decision at all (00:12:09) coming from this very Germantown to to join the service and go into the the war against Germany (00:12:17) in World War Two. It was no feeling here for Germans none. those SOB's started the war and I had the feeling if they do. I like friends in England them will be the next step. That was my feeling. That's one reason. I thought well better to go over there (00:12:39) throughout those winter months after the attack on Pearl Harbor young men were leaving nuam by the busload nearly every week. Another group was off first to Fort Snelling then onto training somewhere in the South men that fault one of New Orleans young man returned less domeier came home that November on a short furlough the first from nuam to come back after seeing battle the month before his ship the USS Boise had participated in the biggest naval battle of the war and engagement with a Japanese Fleet near Salvo Island accounts of his story were front page news in New womb for several days running (00:13:14) in the afternoon. We were told spotted a bunch of Japanese ships again a task force in fact Heading towards Guadalcanal and then we knew then in the afternoon late that we're going to engage them tonight and everybody was very very tense. And I think we did meet him with the we had four Cruisers. I think the Salt Lake City Chicago. They were heavy Cruisers Salt Lake Chicago Boise and I think the our sister ship the Helena was with us and in about midnight, we spotted them and the action started and then we shot for on 27 minutes and constant firing and then they hit us viciously and our ship was set afire. And then we had to get out of formation. And the rest of the ships took care of them (00:14:06) in that battle. The Boise was credited with sinking six of the Japanese ships. (00:14:11) See we had the initial blow. That's just like you get in a fight with a guy if you get 15 punches, and before he fights back, he's bleeding. Our gun was knocked out. I was a first Slaughter I was a guy that took the shelves out of a ready none out of the ready box from the speaking. Oh, yeah to lift them 75 pounds and I think of fired around all about 80 shells, that's a lot and that's constant firing and when we were hit underneath the shell like from the Japanese had exploded and knocked up all our wiring and blew up the deck practically and then we hand rammed the shells into the chamber, you know, and Shop mechanically until they gave the word cease firing when we there was it (00:14:59) When you were taking such heavy fire yourself, did you feel that you know, this was going to be it and you were going to go down (00:15:06) you don't see anything. See you see all fire from the blast of the guns every 1519 guns firing. That's all I hear is noise noise noise and knocks the cotton out of your ears one blast left (00:15:18) another later other young men from nuam came home with a different story. They were members of a unit of combat engineers. Who'd fought on an island called at 2:00 in the illusion chain just off Alaska Victor. Braun was among them. (00:15:32) It was the most dreary God forsaken place that you could imagine. The Bering Sea is on the North side and Pacific Ocean on the south and those two warm and Kurt cold air masses constantly fought each other and you had violent storms and fall. Continuously there you very seldom ever thought of (00:16:02) son. The Japanese had dug in on it too shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor bronze unit back by Naval and air support were ordered to retake the island. It was the only Land Battle of the war fought on us soil. (00:16:15) It was mass confusion. Right away, you know you you didn't know where the enemy was. It was mortar mortar fire and the sniper which was really the what I thought was the worst. Not knowing where it come from (00:16:35) the Japanese held The High Ground a tattoo. They weren't about to relinquish it without a fight after more than a week of on-again off-again skirmishes. The Japanese launched a massive attack from their positions in the highlands. (00:16:47) That was that was the scariest thing you ever could imagine. I forgot how many people there were in this last suicide breakthrough. it was Several hundred they knew that. They couldn't do anything anymore and they went out about three o'clock in the morning and broke through our lines and tried to kill his many of us is the possibly could and then committed suicide. just there was just Windrose of them they just killed themselves It's just it's just like insane. that night some sniper had hit me in the side of the helmet and went right on through just creased my scalpel and in right out again, and I couldn't hear anything for a long time after that but So, I don't know how lucky can you get this? This was just a miracle. I never thought I'd might see Minnesota again, but it's funny thing L. If luck is with you what you can go through (00:18:12) Victor Braun survivor of the battle for a to but for the occasional Soldier back on leave for the semi-regular but rarely newsy letters from overseas news of the fighting was of a more generic variety from the newspapers and increasingly from the radio. It is telling that most people seem to have gotten the news of Pearl Harbor from their radio because from the beginning it was radio that brought this war home radio that helped America understand what was going on over there and why there was William shearer in Berlin Eric sevareid Charles Collingwood and George Hicks and of course Edward r-- Murrow and London (00:18:50) standing on a rooftop looking out over London at the moment. Everything is quiet for reasons of national. As well as personal security. I am unable to tell you the exact location from which I'm speaking off to my left far away in the distance. I can see just that think red angry snap of any aircraft burst against the steel blue sky, but the guns are so far away that it's impossible to hear them from this location about five minutes ago. The guns in the immediate vicinity were working here. I can look across just as a building not far away and see something that looks like a splash of white paint down the side and I know from daylight observations, but about a quarter of that building has disappeared hit by a bomb the other night (00:19:38) Joyce after Heidi (00:19:39) here was a radio announcer by the name of HV kaltenborn that my father wouldn't have missed his program for anything and he was a very historical person in he was very good at keeping you abreast of what was going on. It was it was horrifying that I could tell you Kelton Barnes voice if I in Anwar tomorrow, I'm sure because we always had it on. Is this that you just didn't want to miss anything? You want to know where they were. How are we doing where we going to lick that guy or weren't we and you live for the radial (00:20:24) war is an uncertain time. Who knows where one's husband father son or brother will be stationed what kind of action he'll see whether or not he'll come back and for many Air Force wives like Joy softer Heidi that uncertainty began long before her husband went overseas. You (00:20:40) just didn't know whether you were going to come back one day or the next. Well, it was that way even in training there were many many young fellows killed right here in learning how to fly learning how to do this or that And the Y's would never know where they see the cats and walk up to the house. You were staying in you wondered which wife was going to get it, you know and sure enough it be one of us. I was very fortunate. It was a gradual process of programming you into this by the time your husband did get ready to go overseas. You had been really programmed from leaving home living in one room fear of the flying learning about the discipline and the Air Force. He's not coming in on Saturday night, you know, you can't you can't expect to see him when you want to see him. It was a discipline (00:21:39) really all during those years of training after Heidi had tagged along from air base to Air Base is her husband's flight instruction continued then in 1944 new orders came, they didn't list the next base both knew what that meant. Jack was headed overseas. (00:21:54) It was a suicide. They were going to go through that Brenner pass in Austria and they told him that most of them will not get back alive. And so they knew that and I don't know how men can take that. I don't look to this day. I don't know how they can calmly them go get an airplane and go knowing that they're going to be up against its terrible odds. You just did things automatically, you know. we get up at three o'clock in the morning going to breathing eat some breakfast get the airplanes ready to go and we take off a lot of times we didn't get home till Eight nine o'clock at night. Then we have deep breathing. You know, what did you see? What did you shoot? Where was this or that then we get some supper take a shower. Go to bed. Three o'clock, sir, sir. You're flying you finally got to be a zombie. I know in briefing a lot of times the morning at stand in the corner and sleep. I told me a co-pilot my navigator somebody no you guys it's your turn night sleep (00:23:08) after Heidi was flying B-24 is over Italy. He was a command pilot. He had a crew of 10 (00:23:14) all the missions we flew were Into you the Brenner pass or into their oil refineries or storage oil storage. And of course, we just boil we had a lot of planes lost. It was pretty pretty rough. I think I had had one with the cold milk run. We had a hit the Marseille France and that was like flying the practice Mission, you know went out there and we got over there and there's nobody there to no guns. No airplanes and we dropped her on some came home. But all the rest of them. The worst of course was Flack that there's anything you could do about it, you know, we'd hit Vienna which had one of the only oil refineries left at that time and when we came in there They just put up a wall. They didn't shoot at you. They put up a solid black wall of flak and to hit the bombing on a bombing run to hit the target you had to fly through that. Whoever said fighter protection along and we get up to this and other ones they'd say bye-bye boys will pick you up near side. And of course, we had a quote through it and no one was left it pick up and take back. when we went in on a bomb run you'd see a Maybe a white one go off couple of miles ahead of you and then a red one would go up. Maybe I'm over you and see them lead by that did figure out how you were so that my time we get there. We'll be ready for it. Of course after a while. We got smart we come in and just about the time we hit were the flag was we either drop or he's a little bit and then we drop what they called chat see they had their guns were fired by radar. So we drop chaff which was the same thing as tintal you hanging a Christmas tree. They said Vienna the streets in Vienna were two three feet deep in that stuff and that flickered up the radar. Sometimes they would shoot miles away from who we work (00:25:32) but black wasn't the only danger to a B24 and its crew Germany's aggressive research and development effort in military Aviation had reaped considerable dividends for the (00:25:42) luftwaffe. They were building a rocket plane in the Munich Rim area in Munich and little Rheem is right next to it made a big airport there. They were building a rocket plane on that. Darn thing would come over and they take off and they go right through our formation. And they take maybe five six planes and they were they'd go so fast our guns couldn't touch him then they turn over and come back down again take four five more but it was so fast. It just went through his without. You know, there's no way you can get close to our airplanes couldn't be close to catching up to it. Like the first time I ever saw a jet plane was there's between in Jetson they ran away from us we could yeah, it was just a puff and they were gone. I suppose you're involved in pretty much a cat and mouse game with each side developing something and then you had to react to it and then they'd be something else and you say holy cow. What's that? But see like this the first time we saw jet them. We got back and reporters and had been seen before then what we did. Usually we flew when I was in 50 ones usually flew a leader and two hours to together when we see a Jet Plane. They couldn't stay in the air first maybe 20 minutes 30 minutes. Maybe that's all so we'd follow them until they land then one guy would go down and destroy the airplane and the other guy would go after the pilot. Then pretty soon they had strips in the woods near land on these strips, then we'd come down and both sides of the woods would be nothing but gun see that it shooter has done. So then we'd start carrying maybe a hundred pounds and stuff on the 51 and instead of going through and destroying with machine guns. We start dropping bombs on them. So then they'd get bigger guns. He was always like you say acting counter react and that's the way the whole thing went. (00:27:50) Why laughter Heidi was playing his deadly cat and mouse game in the Skies over Italy and Austria, his wife was back home in a womb she and her infant child waiting listening to the radio marking time. (00:28:02) We were all were waves and we all played bridge and it just kept you from thinking, you know, it was better than thinking and we we all had children or we're going to have children or all the same age and and we laughed a lot. I mean I drank enough Coca-Cola in those years. That was the only pop your head was Coca-Cola only might have that orange girl. I can't remember but everybody drank coke in so we drank coke and played bridge and that dulled your senses. You didn't have to stop and think about it. (00:28:45) But then one day in the spring of 1944 The Daily Mail brought what after Heidi had long feared might come a telegram (00:28:53) my sister-in-law was at my house and here comes the Western Union. And of course I had been programmed for that one for a couple three years and I couldn't open the telegram my sister and I had to do that and it said that he was missing in action a couple days later them. Here comes a letter from General Nathan Twining his Commanding General. And it said that they interrogated the the ones that did get back to the base and they said that no one could have gotten out of Jack's playing alive. And I can't remember the exact amount of time that elapsed through this thing, but then all of a sudden I got a telegram from Switzerland and then I got that one from Jack (00:29:50) Jack's playing it seems had been shot down over the Brenner pass fortunately though. He was able to get his crew out alive before losing control of the fatally wounded bomber most fortunate of all they parachuted into neutral Switzerland rather than into an area held by German troops. I heard all of that. If you got (00:30:08) caught in were a German and of course, they took it out any because you were fighting your own brothers (00:30:13) and sisters and cousins and stuff. A lot of guys were beat (00:30:17) though. They had been that's marks and stuff and they said that if you had German name or from German descent they gave it to him every day. Till I start getting towards the end of the war more and they knew they were going to get to work. So, you know, they were going to be defeat at the 8th. They knew that then I guess they started to act a little better. (00:30:44) Tell me about this camp in Switzerland (00:30:46) from the camp in Switzerland. The the police that we stayed was a little town called Auto Bowden. We stayed in an old abandoned Hotel. It was nice but no heat and we didn't get much food. They didn't have much themselves. So we had a we had one of its newest soldiers were there are guarding us but we had our own commanding officer and all this stuff. We had a regular camp and we could walk out into the mountains all we wanted to (00:31:17) after had his life in that internment camp while certainly not pleasant was in marked contrast to the experiences of other soldiers captured by the Germans. Her blobs was with an Armored Division that had followed the initial wave at Normandy a few days after D-Day and the summer of 1944. They were overrun by German units and take it to Stalag 3C. Just east of Berlin. He is still reluctant to talk openly about what happened to him there. (00:31:44) Well the can't do it. We are to to tears and are one of us left in the bottom has on the next punch slept in the top on. The let's draw we slept on straw because all ice effect and everything. We didn't have much food. How do you spend your days that's a lot of times. It's so sad around and walked around and that's about all you could do (00:32:12) Labs was held in Stalag 3C for six months until a Russian unit liberated the camp early in 1945 to get back home though. The Americans were forced to walk to Warsaw Poland where they were able to find passage back to the States lobs still finds himself returning to that camp though. Remembering what happened there? (00:32:31) Thank you busy. It's all right, but if I have to sit around everything I am I Get up tight with the retirement now that's mixes. It was a little worse again find yourself thinking back. Yeah. Good Heavens, you know jump on the pick up and drive around and gets my mind off everything again. (00:32:54) Bob says it's gotten a bit better lately. He's just started getting together with other World War II pows and a psychologist from the V8 to work through it all 40 years after his release there were others from nuam held prisoner during the war many others who returned home with gruesome Tales to tell particularly those held in the Pacific by the Japanese. There was one though who didn't make it back. He was willibald Bianchi a decorated hero who had been captured at Bataan his unmarked pows ship had been sunk off. The Philippines will be on she became New Orleans most highly decorated soldier. The awards came posthumously (00:33:32) representing the president of the United States and the Congress. I am to have the honour this afternoon. It's commanding officer of Fort Snelling 2% Cemetery. Mrs. Perry own father. Captain will it but see Beyonce. The Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the Call of Duty in action with the Enemy. I'm February 3 1942 here bug up province of pecans Philippine islands and behalf of my son the state of Minnesota and the City of New Orleans. I strictly accept this medal on it. My boy, my son is so close. So precious to a mother's heart and to bring such Rich return is truly. Wonderful. I am child. (00:34:38) The fighting in the Philippines had gone badly for US forces in 1942 and in the end US troops there were ordered to surrender. But Gordon Lang decided that surrender was not for him. So he headed into the jungles on the island of Leyte. I've had a little Shack built up in the hills a few miles Inland from the Sea Coast. and I thought I'd live up there for not next to three months until (00:35:05) the war was over, but (00:35:07) I was going to live a life of Peace, you know sort of a Relax, and enjoy Joy everything until the war was over but it was why should we fight a war if you can have a nice peaceful life, but that life of Peace was not to come for lying and Informer told the Japanese that he was living on Leyte the Japanese Patrol attacked and destroyed his home. And so Lang the only American on the island decided to join the war after all organizing some Filipino neighbors into a sizable Guerrilla Force he to Japanese were spreading themselves very thin they would Not have one large Garrison in the capital of any particular Island, but they would put maybe a squad or platoon whatever that would be in their numbers in all the little different towns. So they could control the whole island Lang began his Guerrilla campaign by attacking Japanese patrols. We picked the spot that had sort of a hill on the side of the road and At the truck came by I don't know there might have been about 20 in the truck and there might have been out of maybe. Forty or I'm not sure of the number of us 30 40 something like that. So we were all a one-sided erode and just everybody let go at the same time when the Truck came by and we didn't kill him instantly they shot back. And then after we ambushed this Patrol, we had a pretty good setup. We knew when they were coming and go they may patrols daily and we wipe them out Lang spent the rest of the war hiding out from the Japanese going from Island to Island under the protection of Filipino friends. He took a Filipino wife and they had a son most of those years. He was the only American in his area for Gordon Lang. This was a very different War for him. This was personal after all it was after the Japanese attacked his home that he decided to join the war and unlike most soldiers Lang had some control over his Destiny. Well, I tell you what was enjoyable about it. I could make my own decisions. I could take I could take my chances with my life and decide whether I wanted to engage the enemy or or Live Another Day. and you didn't depend upon somebody else's foolish decisions with someone else's life. So I could decide for myself if I wanted to I took I took a lot of risks. I'll admit that. I did a lot of foolish things, but it was my decision through it. All Lang's family back home in New Orleans knew nothing of this the military authorities had presume languages dead, and that's what his parents had been told. It wasn't until the summer of 1945 a full three years after he'd headed into the jungle. The Lang's parents learned that their son their only child had been alive all along for a brief time during 1942 some local news replaced. The war news at the top of New Orleans local newspaper on June 1st. The paper said several dozen Nazi prisoners of War would arrive just outside New Orleans to establish a prisoner of war camp in all perhaps as many as 250 would be interned in an Old State Park campsite new home had been chosen for this Camp because there was a severe Manpower shortage their farmers in the surrounding area and the Del Monte canning Factory in nearby Sleepy Eye. We're both in serious need of help German prisoners would go a long way to solving the labor shortage Richard Arbus supervised prisoners working at the Del Monte plant. (00:38:52) I was in charge of about 22 of them the 28 of them in the cook room and canning room. We had people from ages from 16 to 55:16. (00:39:07) That's an awful young (00:39:08) Soldier. Those were the last ones that came in and they told us that they were picked up off the streets. The last part of the war had no training they went but it uniforms given guns and put out to the front (00:39:26) Arbus actually got to know his prisoner workers quite well during their stay in New Orleans break times were often filled with talk about the old country about the war. It was a rather congenial atmosphere all in all and though the prisoners were kept in a fenced camp with armed guards keeping watch. No one seemed to think the Germans menacing in the least (00:39:45) the guards and the PW is got along real well. The guards are bring them in and then you never know what happened to him the first couple of days they pee on the roof and all over the yard and that after all they disappear but time to bust came they be there or if they weren't the PW to go look for him because they always told me here. We can't go home without the guards. He says we got to have them. (00:40:16) Herbert director has Vivid memories of that camp near the wall. He was held prisoner there six to eight of us be blocked in in the in the camp and about 75 different out to the canning Factory in Sleepy Eye. I've worked in it in the kitchen first in the German Kitchen washing dishes, you know, and then they needed a cook over and there are four American guards and I went over there cooking for his captors Richter had a chance to get to know many of New Orleans residents. There was the man from the bakery you came each day with fresh bread and the ice man who stopped by from time to time and of course the butcher who shop a new all marked her visited several times a week to pick out fresh meat Richter says, he has fond memories of his years in that camp particularly the Sunday afternoon band concerts. The event was from the German air force. The plate in a camp in front of the you know, we had in the compound, you know, we was living in we had a clubhouse continue in front of the clubhouse. We had a big Recreation Area their context variables playing all the time when people from town from your room they came listen to us. We will sing in German. You know, what he was clean Richter isn't alone in his fond. Memories of the new on Prison Camp many of the area's residents also speak highly of that experience Carl Romberg and Orville Ramos were among the area's farmers who use the prisoners as harvest help worked out real (00:41:47) good. Can we work together on the farm? You know, it's Ash together neighbors, okay. So he went down with the truck picked them up. And then they come out and they shock for me then they shock for you. There were 10 of them the first time. And laughs we start sashing we got field for about a (00:42:10) week. These Farmers didn't really seem to consider the prisoners much different from ordinary Farm laborers. They paid them 60 cents an hour, which was to be held for them until their release and they fed them just as they always had their Farm (00:42:23) hands invite him in and they sat down the table eat with us. Actually, you weren't even supposed to visit with them. But that seemed rather cruel (00:43:00) pain Steinbach was in high school when the prisoners first arrived in New Orleans to us do it should have looked different, you know, (00:43:06) because they were Nazis or Germans, you know, but they were just people to see they were just like home around here. You know, they had a pretty well made I'm intolerant girls used to visit him out there from town but not (00:43:19) everyone in the womb felt so friendly towards the German prisoners Joy softer. Heidi wanted no part of (00:43:25) them. They used to tell about how the women from town would take pies out and cakes and slip them over the fence. I really don't know if that's true or not. I certainly didn't I mean cuz they made me angry. My husband was over there because their Lord and Master created this problem and so I probably was inside very very bitter about the whole (00:43:51) thing. Nevertheless after Heidi's father-in-law had contracted to have prisoners help out at his family Brickyard. You simply needed the help. So after he saw quite a bit of the Germans and she paints a very different picture of the (00:44:04) prisoners in they were the most arrogant. Bunch of soldiers that I have ever seen there was one that was called Joel and he had to be the meanest looking thing. I have ever seen. I'd hate to meet him in the dark at night. Then there was a Tall Blond. He did meet a good one for the movies blond Steely cold blue eyes and just a grim set mouth. I was really quite afraid of him and I if he was around I didn't I didn't linger (00:44:39) but perhaps the strongest response to the presence of German prisoners in the womb came from Jack after Heidi. He was more than a bit chagrined to return from an internment camp in Europe to find his former enemies working in the family business and a drawing what seemed to him pretty high living (00:44:55) there were being treated like Kings over here and you know, we just did nothing over there. So no, in fact, I think it was only Maybe two or three weeks after I got back. I went to back to work right away and it just got the three weeks and I got rid of them. I didn't want anything to do with him. I couldn't I just couldn't stomach that these guys. You know working and they even took trucks ran up town and people take food out to him and stuff. I wasn't for me. Well, I actually resented the fact that they were there. But new arm generally didn't seem to have much of a (00:45:42) problem with having the (00:45:43) pows. There was some of them like the older people that I could name some names I won't but I mean they're older ones that course. They thought they were being mistreated and they felt sorry for him and his kind of thing. I guess there even some women who go out there, but they had a pretty nice living pretty high off the (00:46:09) hog for his part Herbert Richter has mostly good memories of his imprisonment in the new or Mariah. He says he can't help but feel a bit nostalgic every time he catches a re-run of Hogan's Heroes and the TV. He says he would have signed a contract to stay on there. If only the authorities had allowed it in the first place. I ever had a choice. I would have never left. I want to stay here but only doctors and lawyers. He could stay Herbert worker was able to get back to this country after the war though. And he's lived in Kenosha Wisconsin for most of the past 35 years. If there were some mixed emotions in knew all about the prisoners of War held their report soon began filtering back to the city that were even more troubling as Allied Forces converged on Berlin. They uncovered the death camps Dachau buchenwald and the others Clements pitka was a member of one of the two units that liberated Dachau. (00:47:03) I think the first thing we see when we got to the gate, Was Prisoners you got that life? There was something like 30,000 prisoners that were still alive there, but in the compound itself, there was 45 boxcars of dead prisoners that were brought down from I believe it was the concentration camp at buchenwald because buchenwald was overrun before Dachau and a loaded up all the live prisoners of book involved and put them in these strain and shove it into the Dachau and they just started it. Did you (00:47:42) you speak German? I'm assuming did you get a chance to talk with any of the German civilians from around (00:47:48) there at all? Well those that I talked to all of them claimed they didn't know what was going on there. Of course, none of us could buy that I don't know how you can kill thousands of tens of thousands of people are not know what's going to go on what's going on right around you along that point. I have relatives over there liver is close to there and they to swerte didn't know what was going on at Dachau but like I say, I just can't buy it. (00:48:19) It could go wasn't the only soldier from nuam to come home with stories of the horror of the Nazi camps Lloyd Marty. So a camp just outside ORD rough in (00:48:29) France when we came in there were about 20 Germans in the courtyard just were machine-gunned and according to the people that were still there still a few left alive that managed to hide but they were so bad such bad shape they could hardly walk. And they said that these people couldn't walk. This was they were from the hospital part of it and they just machine-gun them right there. And you could see they were full of holes and blood was running all over the place. It was really gory. Well, then we went out they took us out about well, maybe 3/4 plus city blocks and there were ditches dug 10 feet deep and there was a bunch of railroad rails there and they were there were still corpses half-burnt on the rails. They were burning them. They were digging them up and burning him. I guess the order had come through to get rid of the evidence. Well, of course, it was only half done, but some of these ditches were two blocks long and you'd still see like a leg or an arm sticking out of the bottom of it. Really? Oh, it would I was there and I was there quite a while because they took pictures and the Soldiers that would come in that were used to seeing people dead with just cry like babies when they see this you'd been ordered to this Camp to see this case. Yeah. Everybody was supposed to go back for a week. They brought people in before they started to clean the place up. Well, we were all anxious to see it. Anyway, of course, I think Most of us had heard about these places, but we never quite believed it and you just had to see it to believe it. It's just you just can't imagine how anybody could do that? Without actually seeing it yourself, (00:50:28) but if most Americans didn't actually see the Camp's they were given a sense of the horror a glimpse of the gruesome reality when Edward r-- Murrow by far the most respected of the war correspondence describe what he'd seen at a place called buchenwald (00:50:43) when I entered men crowded around tried to lift me to their shoulders. There were two week many of them could not get out of bed. I was told that this building had once stabled 80 horses there were 1200 minute 52 a bump. The stink was beyond all description. I asked how many minutes died in that building during the last month? They call the doctor we inspected his record. The only names in the little black book behind the names of those who have died those across I counted them. They total 242 242 out of 1200 in one month. As I walk down to the end of the barrel, there was Applause from the men too weak to get out of bed. It sounded like the hand-clapping of babies. There were so weak. I pray you to believe what I have said about buchenwald. I have reported what I saw on heard what only part of it for most of it. I have no words dead men are plentiful in war but the Living Dead more than 20,000 of them in one camp and the country round about was pleasing to the eyes and the Germans were well fed and well dressed American trucks were rolling towards the rear filled with prisoners soon. They would be eating American rations as much for a meal as a minute book involve received in four days. If I have offended you by this rather mild account of buchenwald, I'm not in the least Sorry (00:52:13) by the time of that broadcast. The fighting was over in Europe. The tide had turned in the Pacific though. There were several months of fierce fighting and two atomic bombs still to come it would be several more years before all the men would be back home safe in the end reflecting on their experiences during those War years the people we spoke with in nuam voiced a variety of feelings and memories, but there were two responses that kept recurring we're glad it ended we're lucky to have made it through. (00:52:42) I know I lost my hearing loss a lot of here is I left all this flying you were that there and helmet all the time, you know to go. I don't know. I just it happened when I came back and it's gone. I was 20 years old when I went in and 24 when I got out so that was some of the best years. Yes. Were they good years? Well, I wouldn't want to go through it again, but I guess I wouldn't want to give up my experience either (00:53:19) what you get out of that experience. (00:53:21) What did I get out of it? I think it made a man out of my boy - well it set me back about 10 years, you know two years before you knew it was coming and you kind of didn't decide what you're going to do then and then another four years another four years afterwards. You just kind of just fooled around but you could figure it the bite of six to ten years out of your life. The other part of that though is you saw a lot of the world that people of my generation is too soon. Stay don't know I shouldn't say that. I enjoyed that part of it. Really I got to see an awful lot of Europe. In fact, I have I I've got kind of an ambivalent attitude toward the whole thing. I sometimes feel that it had to be having been in Europe. I just feel that it was something that that wouldn't go away. Although I've read the wedemeyer reports and he claims that the Germans never had any intention of going any farther than England. It's quite a ways in the cell. Yeah, that's quite a ways in itself. I would hate to live in this world today with Hitler running, France and England. I really would whether they'd of the heat of ever been able to hold it. That's questionable. And I don't know anyway, I that part of it always says well, it's a good thing. We went over there. We were so glad to get back. I don't know he just it was just like a bad dream or nightmare or something and just it's hard to describe it. I think I've hardly a day has passed away that I didn't think about this experience. It's something that you cannot block out of your mind it it just stays with you. You just can't leave it out. I feel fortunate that I kept my sanity and could come back here and live a normal life again.