I probably knew about it
over there in the middle of a field in Germany even before his folks
were notified. The pilot who had been flying with Len explained that
Len's plane was damaged and he was trying to make it back to England.
His plane quit over the Channel and he had to parachute out. He landed
in the water and the chute came down on top of him. He was tangled in
it and drowned even though he was a good swimmer. He was flying with a
good outfit and had shot down two enemy planes.
The German guards were standing around us with huge black dogs that I
believe were Dobermans. They started marching us to a train in single
file and the guards and dogs kept us in line. The dogs were staining
at their 1eashes with teeth barred and saliva foaming from their
mouths. They were really fierce and we were petrified with fear. They
were only about six feet on each side us and you can bet we stayed in
a perfect line! We boarded the train and started out with the hope
that American fighters would not come down and strafe the train. We
didn't know where we were going but figured it was to a prison camp.
Somewhere along the way the train stopped and down a bank below us was
another train with all the people from it standing on the grass. They
were about 200 feet from us and Americans also. We saw pilots we had
gone through training with and a few we knew from other squadrons in
England. We waved and hollered but our train started up again.
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