We
were all in the same situation so it didn't matter, but Bruce and I
were still together. I don't know where Ullo was by this time.
One day we crossed the Danube River and there was a large unexploded
bomb sticking up out of the pavement in the center of the bridge. We
walked a little faster until we were by it. Towards the end of this
march I remember being in a large open area near some buildings when
a heavy rainstorm started and we all ran for cover inside them. One
lone figure was laying out there under his coat in the rain and
nobody helped him inside. He must have been separated from the
friends who had been helping him. I found out later that he was John
Bradey from Victor, N.Y. and when I got back to Camp Kilmer in New
Jersey he was there and still sick. We became acquainted and he
borrowed a clean shirt from me to wear home. He promised to return
the shirt and about four weeks after getting home his wife sent it to
me. There was enclosed a letter telling me that he was it the Buffalo
VA hospital very ill from having a ruptured appendix. It had happened
when we left the first prison camp, so he had suffered with that
through two marches, two camps and all the way home. The will to
survive was so great that it had kept him going all that way.
All the pilots in England must have been briefed on our location
because during the remainder of the last march and at the last camp
we were never again bombed or strafed while cities all around us
were bombed.
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