Lionel Greenberg - American WWII Veteran
What follows is a brief personal account by Lionel Greenberg about his story of his service to his country and his capture by the Germans during WWII. Original story was published in the Journal of the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest, Volume 5, Fall of 2007. His is still alive and well and living in MN. He has given me permission, plus I obtained permission from the collections of the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest. We thank them for their help.
In the small towns
I was born in Grafton, North Dakota... where I went through Hig school. I was valedictorian and we were the only permanent Jewish family in Grafton... We went to shul, generally, in Grand Forks for the High Holidays... I started at the University of Minnesota in 1939. They sent me here to find a Jewish girl to marry. There weren't enough of them in Grand Forks.
I took training in Washington, D.C. as a fingerprint searcher... and I didn't like the attitude in the place... You could jet tell that some of the guys were there for the draft exemption... I figured that, son-of-gun, somebody's got to be in the military.... So I says, "Here's one week's notice. I'm quitting to enlist."
In Washington I tried to enlist in the Navy Air Corps, but they wouldn't accept me. I went back to Grafton, North Dakota, then came to Minneapolis and took the test for the Army Air Corps and was accepted. Everybody had to go before a committee... I says, "I'd like to be a pilot if you'll guarantee me fighter planes. I don't want anyone else to depend on my eyes." (I wore glasses.) they said, "We can't guarantee you anything." I said, "I'll take navigator."
Military Training
Preflight
training in Texas was pretty good because they had some former teacher... who
knew how to teach... They taught us a little math, a little weather, related
subjects. When we got into navigation, what we had was guys like me who
had just finished navigation school... teaching dead reckoning and how to use
maps and ... the Weems Plotter and the compass. The hardest part for me
was how to use the sextant for night navigation... When I finished ... they gave
me a week's vacation, and I had to go to Boise, Idaho. The crew they
assigned me to had already been in training for a month. It was a little
hard to break in.
Following Orders
We had one mission when whoever was leading our squadron (not our crew) was leading the first wing. He took us over the target three times! Every time you do a 180 - we had 100 planes following us - you go lower, and the lower you go, they can hit you with smaller guns. I could see my friends going down in flames. When we got back for the debriefing, I gave them a big piece of my mind... I had three drinks on an empty stomach... and went in there and told them how crazy they were. Before we left they always said, "If you can't bomb the primary target, go to the alternate." That's what we should've done!
They gave our crew leave, and we went into London. I came back, and I was reassigned to leave the next day for Italy with the 15th Air Force! we were flying to Italy via Casablanca when we heard about D-Day. We knew it was going to come because we had trained... I felt very bad that I missed D-Day.
There I was at 22,000 feet over southern Germany. It was a new
experience for me to fly with a strange crew. I'd met the other nine
men... for the first time in the dark of early morning, 10 minutes before we
started the four engine of the Consolidated Liberator B-24 for the mission to
Munich, June 13, 1944. Now, the worst of the mission was over. We
had passed the target about 13 minutes ago. The flak hasn't been too
heavy... Our plane was undamaged. We were on our way home... I was
looking out of the small window on the left side of the nose, trying to spot our
position more accurately. I was the navigator.
Suddenly, over the inter-phone, I heard a terrifying scream followed by the sound of ripping metal. As I was thrown to the floor, I caught a glimpse of another plane directly under us. A midair collision. Another B-24 had come from the left below to ram us directly under and behind my compartment on the front of the plane. I fell partly on the bombardier and partly on the bomb sight. Things began to whirl as I pushed the bomb sight to get back to my escape hatch, the nose-wheel door. I pushed so hard on that bomb sight that I snapped the metal nick and eyepiece off. I was getting mad and swearing as I began to think of what a grease spot I'd make when I hit the ground four miles below... The plane went into a spin. I was beaten to unconsciousness against the bomb sight and fuselage, probably 15 seconds after we collided.
Next I felt a rush of cool air, and I regained consciousness enough to realize I was making a freefall through space... Not knowing how close I was to hitting, I wasted no time in reaching under my flak suit to pull the ripcord. I was doubtful whether my chute would open... from under a 30-pound flak suit. Luckily it did. The suddenness with which my decent was decreased almost knocked me unconscious again. Then I wiped the blood our of my eyes and say that I was about 10,000 feet above the ground. I took my flak suit off and watched it float to earth in a flat spin. In a matter of minutes I made a safe landing on German soil.
The Capture
I was captured by a German soldier about a minute and a half after I hit the ground, as I was hiding my chute in preparation to attempt an evasion.
There I was in Bavaria, Germany, walking on a trail, carrying my parachute and flying boots. My captor was behind me, pointing his rifle at my back. My captor, hereinafter called "Fritz", appeared to be a member of the home guard. His uniform was old and wrinkled and his rifle about an 1898 model. He was at least six feet tall, about 180 pounds, and appeared to be about 20 years old. He had shown no sings of wanting to harm me. We were alone - no one else was in sight, yet.
Fritz stopped me and pointed off to the right. Coming across a field of underbrush was a group of 12 men. Eleven were dressed as farmers, each carrying some type of hand farm tool, such as a shovel, hoe, pitchfork, or two-handed scythe. The twelfth man was about five foot seven, very stocky, about 200 pounds, and he carried nothing. He wore a business suit and business hat. Fritz had me wait until they reached us. Then I remembered some tales I’d heard back at the base. Don’t get captured by civilians. They’ve been known to torture airmen by pounding their fingers on a rock or railroad track, and even killing the “Luftgangsters with Big Pockets.” When they reached us, they stopped. Then the twelfth man left the group and walked up to me. He asked, “Are you Americanisher or Britisher”? I answered, “American.” He hauled off and hit me on the jaw and knocked me down. I dropped my chute and boots, stood up and raised my fists to defend myself. Then Fritz pushed me back with his gun barrel and aimed his rifle at the twelfth man and the others with him. He told them to leave me alone, disband and go back home. They left. Later, Fritz let me know that the twelfth man had lived in Berlin with his wife and daughter. His wife and daughter were killed in an American bombing raid. I could understand his anger toward me. . . .
Fritz probably saved my life. . . . He didn’t know any English. We both were pretty good at sign language. I know a little Yiddish . . . so I could understand a little German. . . . He marched me to a new shed. . . . On the left side of the path we were following was a fenced in area, and there were two men standing there who furtively gave me the “V” sign. Fritz took me into the shed and locked me in. Pretty soon he knocked at the door and came in [with] three cigarettes . . . a gift to me from the two guys in the fence—Russian prisoners of war who were working on the farm. [Later,] Fritz comes in with a cup full of some liquid, and there’s foam on top. I says, “Beer?” He says, “Bier, nicht. Milch.” So I had a nice fresh cup of milk. Then he comes back and he’s got a plate of eggs and potatoes fried together. . . . It was good, and I could keep it down.
In the shed I lay on the bench. First I took my helmet off. My head was full of contusions, scabs all over. . . . I took off my shirt, and I was black and blue from below the teats on up. . . . I thought, “What can I do? How can I get out of here?” . . . I’d taken quite a beating, so I just gave it up. I could never overpower Fritz. I didn’t have the strength left.
The officer comes. They put me in a vehicle with a couple other soldiers to guard me. The first camp we get to . . . was an accumulation point, a little tent town of prisoners. They put us on a train. . . . A week after I went down I got to Dulag Luft, an interrogation and transit center where they put you in solitary confinement. There was a window there. I couldn’t see out because it was frosted, shatterproof with wire embedded in the glass. A very narrow room. I could almost touch the walls stretching my arms out horizontally, maybe 12 feet long.
I got my number, 6116. I was at the end of a long hallway. When they called out that number, I knew that my door would open and someone would escort me to an interrogation.
They knew I was Jewish. I was so stubborn. I never changed my dog tags [with
the] “H” for Hebrew. . . . The first interrogator I had did not speak good
English, and he caught me understanding a little German and got angry at me. “If
I knew you could speak German, we
would be talking German!” I says, “Well, I don’t speak German. I just understand
a couple words.” He did threaten [to turn] me over to the SS, Gestapo, if I
didn’t answer his questions. . . . He wanted to know what base I came from and
what position I had on the crew.
Of course, I didn’t tell him. I think I had two interrogations by him, and then
I waited for three days. No interrogations. That leaves you wondering. You get
nervous exponentially. Then they called 6116. I get escorted to a man educated
in England, and he spoke perfect English. He was a nice man, and he says, “What
have you got to hide? Now, all we want to know is, were you the navigator on
this crew? We’ve got the whole crew. We don’t know who the navigator was. You
don’t have to say anything. If your name belongs here as the navigator, just nod
your head and then you will get a shower and you can shave and we will give you
a book to read and send you to a permanent camp. I nodded my head. I figured I
wasn’t giving away any secrets. Of course, he threatened me with the Gestapo if
I didn’t do it. “We don’t like Jews. You know that,” he said to me.
I get sent to Stalag Luft III . . . roughly 100 miles southeast of Berlin. .
. . We were registered by German soldiers who were probably as old as our
fathers and veterans of World War I. . . . One man says, “I notice you’re
Hebrew.” “Yes.” “What should I put down?” he says. I says, “Well, my dog tags
say ‘Hebrew.’” He says, “But you know we don’t like Jews.” “That’s right. I know
that.” He says, “You might suffer if I put down ‘Hebrew’,” . . . but I didn’t
take the bait. I says, “Look, you asked me a question, I gave you an answer.
What you put down is your business.” He put down, “Other.” Inside the prison
camp nobody ever indicated they knew I was Jewish. . . .
We had a secret radio . . . and we knew that the Russians were getting close to
camp. On January 29, 1945, the play (at our little prisoners’ theater) was You
Can’t Take It with You. At eight o’clock that night [the play was stopped] when
the senior American officer walked on stage. “Get ready. We are marching out of
here in two hours.”. . . Now, I’m from Grafton, North Dakota. I know
temperature. I know the sound of snow when you walk on it. The temperature was
at least 10 below and a wind! . . . I was originally issued an American Army
overcoat and some underwear, maybe a shirt. I can’t remember ever being issued a
pair of pants. . . . I had Army six-inch-high boots I was wearing on the
mission. . . . But I was a trader . . . and had been trading all along, and I
could sew a little. I had a good supply of socks. We had no idea where we were
going. . . . We fall out in the snow, and then we start marching. They marched
us on the Autobahn. No vehicles . . . on the Autobahn because they are clogged
with snow. They didn’t have any gas anyway. We saw lots of civilians on their
way away from the Russians. . . . They’re walking, too, just like we are, but
they’re going in a different
direction. We were heading . . . east to a railhead. . . . For me it was a
three-day march . . . we ended up . . . in boxcars, 50 in a “40 and 8” [40 men
and 8 horses]. . . for three days and three nights. They let us out once to take
a sh*t. . . . Most of us went to Moosburg, near Munich, Stalag VII-A,
where we were liberated on
April 29, 1945.
Lionel Greenberg:
Born
1921, Grafton, North Dakota. Enrolled at University of Minnesota 1939.
Enlisted in Army Air Corps 1942. Attended navigation school in Texas.
Attained rank of second lieutenant. On June 1944 combat mission over
Germany with 459th Bomber Group, his plane was hit and he was captured.
Held as a prisoner of war until late April 1945. Awarded POW medal and Air
Medal. After discharge, reenrolled at University of Minnesota, earning
business and law degrees. Worked for Internal Revenue Service as an
appeals officer and later became a municipal judge in Mendota Heights, MN.