World War II veteran survived brutal times

Editor’s Note: The following is a letter written by Sgt. Shirley W. Hancock, a friend of Libby resident Darlene Hammons. Hancock, who lives in Bozeman, wrote this story to detail his experiences in World War II.

We were awakened as usual before dawn on Aug. 27, 1944, to prepare for our 24th mission. After a quick breakfast, we went to briefing.

When the target was uncovered we saw that it was Blechhammer, Germany, a very long mission, and were told that there were several hundred anti-aircraft guns in the area and it was hit just five days before the Germans may have moved more in.

The flight to the target was not bad. A few areas where 88s threw a few bursts of flak our way, but no damage.

A group ahead of us actually disappeared in the black cloud of flak. I was in the waist position on this mission and the flak closed in as we were on the bomb run. It was heavier than any we had been in before including two trips over Ploesti oil fields.

The bursts were heard and felt, and the helpless feeling prevailed that we just had to pray we got through and released our bombs on target. Just as the bombardier said “bombs away” we took a hit somewhere in the front of the plane (B-24J).

A quick burst of flame came back through the plane and it felt like we hit a brick wall. Almost immediately the second shell hit us and the black smoke was blinding. I couldn’t see Sgt. Ted Brown only a few feet away.

Something hit me in the chest and knocked me against the plane. I landed on top of my parachute which was on the floor. I looked at my chest and saw the flak suit was torn but still in place and I was having trouble getting my breath. My oxygen mask was on the side of my face, which I corrected.

It was impossible to realize everything that was going on. We were hit three times in a matter of seconds. I saw Ted Brown get to his feet, and together we opened the camera hatch. I released my flak vest and put my parachute on the snaps as we could see the bodies of the crew in the front of the plane going out.

Sgt. Q.E. Meyer and Sgt. Bill Killian were close to us and Sgt. Tony Annie was in the tail gun position. After several members from the front of the plane had left, and there was no response on the intercom, we started bailing out. With the smoke and noise of the badly damaged aircraft we knew that it could explode at any second.

After my chute opened and I got my bearings, I started counting parachutes. There were five below and behind me and four above and ahead of my position. That made 10 chutes. I knew we had 12 men on board.

It turned out later that two didn’t get their chutes open right away and were out of sight. Everyone got out of the burning plane.

Any man that ever bailed out over enemy territory knows the indescribable feeling of going down into an unknown country. Everyone on the ground would be your potential enemy.

We watched the plane explode.

Bail out was above 20,000 feet so it took some time, it seemed forever, to reach the ground, but I was coming down in a heavily wooded area and the landing was of great concern at the moment. My chute was swinging me like a pendulum, and as I hit the ground going backwards I hit a jackleg fence.

The fence was a tough obstacle, and I was knocked out by the force of the landing. When I came to, I was alone and my parachute was draped over part of the fence and a waist-high bush. I knew if there was a chance to escape, that parachute had to be made less obvious.

Pulling it down and getting it pushed under a small pile of brush was quite a job. I hurt every place, but knew I had to get the hell out of there. Stripping off my heated suit and consulting a map from my escape kit and laying the small compass on the map, I determined where south was and headed out.

My right leg was bleeding from a small gash that was either caused by a chunk of shrapnel or my encounter with the fence, but the worst hurt was my knees and the large bruise on my chest.

I consulted my compass frequently and moved south as fast as I could. After some time, I came to a large clearing in the woods which was in the course I wanted to take. After looking carefully, I decided to cross the clearing as to go around would have consumed valuable time in getting as far from the target area as possible.

I started across at a run but only went a few yards when a man in civilian clothes detached himself from a tree about 75 yards in front of me. He had seen me before I saw him. He had a red band around his arm and looked like he wore a suit and dark hat. He also had a rifle which he brought to his shoulder.

I turned back to the timber as he fired the first shot. I could hear it hit the trees in front of me. He fired twice more, but the last one he wasted as I was back in the shelter of the timber and moving fast.

This time I circled the clearing, got my heart out of my throat and kept going south. After about seven hours and many miles, my luck ran out.

I crossed a small road and a young man on a bicycle came around a bend and saw me. What a howl that little buzzard made. I continued on and, within a couple hundred yards, ran out of timber. It was all open country with a German soldier with a rifle in plain sight. I could hear the sound of vehicles, men and barking dogs behind me. There was no place to go, so I stood by a tree and waited.

Within a few minutes I was approached by German army personnel, two of which had dogs. There must have been three loads of them because the trucks were still in the road when they took me back there.

Two soldiers walked me down this road a short distance, made me strip to the skin and examined my clothes. One man in the building spoke perfect English and  told me to relax, the war was over for me. He saw my leg and the blood and said I would get medical attention in town. I never saw any medical personnel.

A truck came by and they  put me in the back with a guard and we went into a small town. A piece of the tail section of our plane was in the truck and I lay down on it on the trip to town.

By the time we got to town I became so stiff and sore it was difficult to get out as ordered. Once inside, I saw Sgt. Meyer, our ball turret gunner, sitting in a chair.

We didn’t speak for a while because a German officer sat behind a desk glaring at us. The officer finally motioned me to chair in front of the desk and started the questions. All he got was name, rank and serial number. He got the same answers from Meyer.

We were put into an army truck and taken to a jail. We were then put on a train, and after three or four days were in Frankfort on the Main River. We spent a day and a half at the prisoner-of-war center, then put back on a train, a small box car with a hole in the floor for a toilet.

We were given very little to eat since being captured.

We rode this wonderful accommodation along with about 20 other POWs to a small railroad station called Keifheidi. There we were unloaded and marched a mile or two to the prison camp Stalag-Luft 4.

The stay in Stalag-Luft 4 is well documented in other articles, so I won’t go into that. The terrible part for most of us started with the now-famous death march across Germany. Lager “D” walked out Feb. 6, 1945, and this ordeal ended some 500 miles and unrealistic misery later at Bitterfield, Germany, on April 26, 1945. Hunger, sickness, filth, thirst and fatigue took its toll.

For the next 10 days we were pretty much on our own and ate too much. I got sick and ended up in the 77th Field Hospital on May 17 at Amiens, France, and was taken by ambulance to the 179th General Hospital at Rouen, France. After 27 more days I started for home, and arrived in the states on July 4, 1945. God bless America.

I went to Camp Kilmer, N.J., and called my wife, Althea, who I hadn’t seen in over a year and a half. We talked $10 worth.

I can’t describe seeing the Statue of Liberty and hearing my wife’s voice. As Lawrence Welk says, “Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.”