13 Proved Unlucky for WWII Vet

(posted Feb 15)

(Editor's note: Lloyd Sanford was recently honored by American Legion Post 500 on his 90th birthday. The Speedway Navigator attempted to interviewed Mr Sanford, but his poor hearing made the process difficult. Mr Sanford provided this written statement about his capture and time served as a POW in Germany during WWII.)

March 5, 1945 - We were on our 13th mission. The mission was to Berlin. We had three engines shot out and was losing altitude. We threw out a lot of our material and were trying to keep the plane up. Pilot ordered us to bail out. He told me to keep my top turret guns in case we were attacked by fighter planes.

The pilot and I were the last ones out. I had a chest pack on, it failed to open when I pulled the rip cord. I finally got the flap open and pulled the chute out. When the chute finally opened the strap hurt my groin. I have a small hernia. I was close to the ground when the chute opened and I hit pretty hard on my right side.

Civilians were waiting for me with guns and pitch forks. They would have killed, but three German soldiers pushed them off me with their rifles. The older German had a pistol at my forehead and he was yelling his head off.

They took me to a large building with a lot of desks and chairs. Gun racks were on the wall. One of the officers pointed to me and to the gun rack. At that time I thought I had had it. Then three of them took me to Frankfurt and I was in solitary confinement for three days and nights. I was questioned by a German captain. All I told him was my name, rank and serial number.

I had water thin soup and sawdust bread once a day. Then they took us up to a train station and put us on a train. We didn't go far until we were strafed by our own planes. Then we walked back to the center of Germany and were given two blankets. They had already taken our clothes, flying suits and boots. I wear 8-½ shoes and they gave me size 11, in which I walked about 500 miles. I put cardboard from Red Cross parcels in my shoes to help them fit and to keep warm.

They then marched us to a camp just south of Nuremberg. We were only there a few days. Once a day we had horsemeat stew and sawdust bread. Sometimes it was potato soup with skins and dirt in the bottom of the bowl.

We were supposed to get a Red Cross parcel once a week, but when we got one, the single parcel was for several prisoners.

This was so long again that there are some blank spaces. We were then marched south to Mooseburg. We were strafed on the way. Several men were killed. The planes were our planes, P-47s. At one time we were caught in an open field and our planes were coming from Nuremberg. We took toilet paper and spelled out P.O.W.’s and the fighter planes waved their wings at us and left.

We reached Moosburg, where we received very little food. We were then liberated and taken to Landshut where we were flown to Reins Frances.