Transcripts For CSPAN3 World War II POW Concentration Camp Escapes Rescues 20240713

Tonight we welcome our two great the coauthors of wartime escapes and rescues. I have to say they had me in grade school. I was a fourthgrader when hollywood released the great escape starring James Mcqueen Steve Mcqueen and james garner and charles bronson, among others. All of the guys in my class fell in love with it. We would play at out at recess. Each one of us would take one of the roles. Of course all of us wanted to be mcqueen. He was the cooler one. I always was the one who got executed at the end of the movie. Of course the Queen Mcqueen survives. The movie was based on a true story. The film gave us a real life ending to this story. Only three of those men who escaped stayed escaped. And anothern pilots pilot from the netherlands, no americans. Escape was not often tried and when it was it did not succeed. When it did, it really was an inspiration. It was often hollywood stuff. This is the third time david has spoken here at the library. The last was a little less than a year ago. He is an assistant professor of military history. From where she now ises in minnesota where she the dean of institutional effectiveness and liberal arts at the Minnesota West Community college. Thank you so much for making the trip. Me in welcoming both of them. [applause] good evening. Thank you for coming out. Looks like the weather is cooperating. Last year we were supposed to have a couple of different presentations. They got canceled because of the weather. It is great to see everybody. Thank you for coming out. I am dave mills. This is my good friend, kayla westra. We have been friends for about 10 years. We have worked together up until weut two years ago, and decided to write this about p. O. W. Escapes and rescues. Many of you probably remember a man who was instrumental about and when i asked him about the book, we were asked to come and talk about a number of these episodes. We are going to talk about the history of prisoners and their treatment. Then we will talk about why it was so hard to make a successful escape. Then we will talk about specific episodes. We have a variety of stories for you tonight. We will talk about a prison camp in the philippines where an entire prison camp was rescued. Then we will talk about a number of individual escapes. In 2004, when tom brokaw coined the phrase the greatest generation, he was talking about those who grew up in the depression era and grew up in world war ii. We are seeing fewer and fewer of that generation. This is my dad. He was part of that generation. As we talk about these escapes and rescues, we focus on a couple of episodes. When we were working on this book, i did not watch the movie. As entertaining as they are, they are not always aligned to history. I use movies to get people excited about history. But we have to look at what beyond the movie tells us to get at the real story. There is very little glamour in many of these escapes and rescues. And very little victory against all odds. It is important that we tell the stories. Retelling them is critical to remembering the people and their efforts. Especially for those who did not get out. I will take you back to my favorite time, the middle ages. You need to understand a little bit about this concept. In the middle ages, there were very few prisoners of war. Unless you are noble, you are not worth a whole lot. If you are noble, you might get ransomed back to your family. Theyf you were a commoner, would probably kill you off. There wasnt any point to keep you. Then we have changes in the army composition. They became larger and more lethal. The common soldiers became a little bit more important. It was at this point that a commoner could kill a noble. They could get closer and do some damage. So the value of that soldier increased. Then nobles refined the rules of engagement a little bit more. Armies now numbered in the thousands. Imagine taking care of prisoners of war on that scale became more difficult. By the mid 18th century, we went to more national armies. Soldiers fought for ideology. Andecame more to get men, of course more men were needed if you are keeping these prisoners of war. It became a time when they had to write down some rules of engagement. While the term has been used for centuries, prisoner of war became a legal status only after the hague peace conference. It guaranteed humane treatment and specified what prisoners could do. The peace conference further refined the treatment of prisoners. Torture was outlawed. As we know, the communist forces in korea and vietnam notoriously violated that provision. You will go ahead and advance my slide for me and point out that i was supposed to do that first. Thank you. So escape. It sounds like it ought to be a nobrainer. It sounds like everybody would want to try to escape. But there are a number of problems you have to consider if you are going to try to escape from a prison. The first one is probably you can be shot. It was not a decision to be taken lightly. Once a prisoner decided that he or she was going to try to escape, there were a number of questions that have to be answered. The first one is, how are you going to get out . You have a lot of really smart people who put together a prison in order to keep you inside of it. There are some considerations you need to think of. Guards and dogs and electrified barbed wire fences. Searchlights and watchtowers and landmines. A number of obstacles meant to keep you in. Lets assume that you do get out. What is the next question you probably need to ask . How are you going to travel and where you going to go walking takes a lot of time and energy. Prisoners would probably want to avoid the public. They could attract the attention of the police. A prisoner did not have money to purchase a ticket on an airplane, ship, train, any other kind of mode of transportation. They probably did not speak the local language. So a number of problems that needed to be overcome. The third issue is one of logistics. For most prisoners the clothes that they would be wearing were out of the ordinary. Most soldiers are captured in the uniforms. Any personnel walking down the street are going to attract the wrong kind of attention. What about identification papers that everybody in europe was required to carry. How would you eat . You have no money. You want to avoid the local population. You cant just walk into a restaurant and order up some grub. Eitherrth issue is, in germany or japan, the problem of fitting in. This is particularly obvious with americans in the pacific theater, where the japanese would have control of the philippines and other items. Even in germany, nobody ever mistook me for a local. I was not sure how they knew i was an american. But they always did. The last question is one of physical limitations. A whole lot of these guys are not treated particularly well. The idea of getting out of a prison camp and putting some distance between themselves and the guards who would be looking for them rather quickly raises some obvious problems. There are a number of issues you have to think before you can even consider. One of the things you might want to do is get some help. Every escapee had the help of other prisoners. Large prison camps would have escape committees. They are usually made up of the highestranking folks in the prison camps. If you are a prisoner and you had an idea that you were going to escape from prison, you would need to go to the escape committee and present your plan. This is a military organization. The idea of hierarchy is one that is embraced. If you have a plan, you go to the escape committee and you brief them on your plan. The committee can either approve or disapprove. One of the reasons it might disapprove is that you need to put your plans on the back burner. One of the reasons that might be the case is that you might interfere with another escape plan that is already in the works. You need to coordinate that. The last thing you want is to mess up one plan because you stumble into something. Another reason it might be disapproved is it could have little chance of success. The escape committee might look at this idea and say, all youre going to do is bring a lot of scrutiny and attention to the prisoners. This could make it harder for everyone else. You actually did need to have some semblance or chance of success in getting out. If the Committee Approved of your escape plan, that meant the entire committee and most likely a whole lot of folks inside the prison itself were going to help you out and assist. There is not a lot of folks could do but may be a distraction to draw attention away from whatever area you were going to be focused on getting out. Civilian occupations that would help in a prisoner escape. Folks who were printers and were able to forge identification papers. Artists were also very good at helping with these details. Tailors would be able to take your uniform and make it more like a civilian suit. Especially if it was dyed. Bribing guards is another thing that the prison system would do. Everybody would be checking, how vulnerable is this new guard . Can i bribe him . How amenable is this person to making a trade of some sort . Oftentimes the only way you could get critical equipment like a typewriter or a camera to make these fake ids was to bribe guards. Lots of folks did not even know where they were in the prison camp system. Information could be had from guards. You could also bribe guards to get money so that prisoners would have some currencies. Maybe if they spoke the language well enough they would try to purchase a ticket. On one hand, escape is pretty difficult. You can try to leverage the knowledge and expertise of folks within the prison, a lot of times you had a pretty good shot of getting away. With that, i will advance the slide. I will turn it back over to kayla. Trainable. That is why we are friends. So a little bit of my thunder was stolen. But i get to talk about the great escape. I imagine a number of you know the story, but for those of you who do not, we have been talking about all the logistics of getting out of the camp. Prisoners were notorious for trying to escape. The germans put the worst offenders in their most secure camps. That camp primarily held air force personnel. It was in poland. As you can see, the barracks were built off of the grounds. There was also some sand underneath the topsoil. If they were trying to tunnel, they had to put that sand somewhere. They often would put it in their socks and try to walk around and get rid of it. The tunnels had to be extremely long. The barracks were back from the fence quite a ways. In order to tunnel, they had to hide what they were working on. Being a little bit humorous, they named their three tunnels, ick and, did, and d harry tunnels. One was built in the dark corner of the barracks. Each tunnel went straight down for about 40 feet. This enabled them to avoid microphones. Of course that sandy soil, eventually they ran out of places to put all of that sand. So they decided to sacrifice one of the tunnels. They filled it with sand and all of the supplies that they needed. Shortly after that, the germans found the tom tunnel. So two of them are compromised. They began working on the last tunnel with some renewed enthusiasm. They had heard they would be shipped to a more secure camp because of some of their shenanigans. They wanted to get out as soon as they could. It took them about 15 months to complete one of the tunnels. They had to wait for a moonless night. Down, outas, 40 feet and into the woods. The first ones out were the ones who spoke german. Probably had escaped before. A little bit more confident. Then they had a lottery for the next 100. They thought they could get 200 men out in a single night. The first man made it through the tunnel and found it cleared the fence and went under, but it did not make it to the woods. They had not accounted for this. The tunnels exit could be seen from the guard tower. It slowed down the process of getting the men out. They were only able to get out about 10 per hour. At midnight, the air raid sirens went off. When the sirens went off, they cut the power, so they had to stop. The power came back on and then one of the tunnels collapsed. At 5 00 in the morning, they had gotten 76 of those 100 men out. The 77th one was caught. So the men who got out all ran to the forest. There was quite a bit of snow. Traveling was difficult. All but three of them were rounded up within two weeks. The germans executed 50 of those 76 within two weeks. The three who made it back were that norwegian pilots and the dutch pilot. Some of you know this story from the great escape. It was a pretty fictionalized account, but entertaining nonetheless. The cooler king, and this is the character Steve Mcqueen was based on. He was known as the cooler king because he was captured and escaped many times. He was the basis for this character. He was a native texan who had volunteered for the Royal Canadian air force in june of 19 1940. He had gone to britain. He was first shot down in france. He was one of the most heavily punished prisoners in world war ii, spending over six months in solitary. His first stint came after a prank against one of the guards. The guards were trying to count the prisoners, which they often did, and several men started milling around. If you have ever tried to count kindergartners, it is very similar. The guards did not find it as funny. That was his First Experience in the cooler. He tried to escape. He was found in the shower room. He got two weeks in the cooler for that. The camp became overcrowded. He was sent to another camp to the northeast in poland. The day he got there, he tried to escape again. He was unloading a train and ran. D underneath, and he they caught him and put him in the cooler again for a couple of weeks. During this time he had secured a small file and was trying to get out of his cell when they caught him the second time. You can kind of see a pattern here. He gets out of the cooler and he tries to cut through the fence with wire cutters. That time he did not kick caught ners did. Ught days in theut 10 cooler, and he did escape from a camp in the wayne you and was actually on the loose for a couple of week. When he was caught to this time they said they were going to execute him because he was problematic. Instead they sent him back to the stalag. That was when the great escape took place. He could not participate, because he was in the cooler at the time. When they executed those 50 men, he decided his career was over as an escape artist. As i was researching, i could not help but think of all of the hogans heroes that i watched as a kid with the prisoners and the there were no charming colonel hogans in the real pow camps. As much fun as they were to watch on tv, that was not real life. If there was an award for the prisoner demonstrating the most if there was an award for the prisoner demonstrating the most coolness under pressure, that award would go to George Grimson. He was a Radio Operator on a british bomber. The germans transported him back and forth to a number of prison camps before he settled finally at the stalag we have been talking about. He was a serial escape her. He learned to speak german very well. It was his confidence and bluster that were his greatest assets. He twice escaped from prison by dressing as a german officer and simply walking out the front gate. He was quickly sent back to the prison camps. His most daring escape came when he pretended to be a german electrician. He disguised himself by wearing a blue jumpsuit. He had a fake electrical meter. And a fake identity papers. This is a depiction of this stalag. This is a gate. It is not the main gate. This is the german section of the camp. This is where all the guards slept. You would have to go through this main gate here from the prisoner section into the german section. And then write out the main gate. He started as an electrician back here. He walks to the backend end of the prison. He gets permission from the guard tower to start checking the fence. He is checking the barbed wire. It is a wonder he did not elect to kid himself. He begins working his way down the prison fence. Until he gets right to the watchtower. Right here. He is right beside the gate. He accidentally drops as electrical meter on the others of the fence. He looks up at the watchtower and he swears wildly. He walks right out the main gate. He picks up his electrical meter and keeps going. Nobody really questions him because he is obviously a German Air Force enlisted man. He takes off his jumpsuit. Underneath, he has a suit from the escape committee. He is on the loose for a while. He gets on a train headed for the baltic sea. He attracts the attention of the train police. So after this escape attempt, he essentially the way you. Sent to lithuania. What is interesting, they have the tallyho network, a number of Prison Guards who are very susceptible to bribes. The escape committee has bought a number of prison guard uniforms, a number of identity papers, passes, so they can see what the paperwork looks like that they have to recreate. George grimson goes to the escape committee and says, i want to sk. They say, that is good because we have a job for you. One of the biggest problems, anybody u. S. Caves is almost certain to be caught anybody who escapes is almost certain to be caught. What the Committee Asks George Grimson to do, be want you to escape but stay in the local area and work with the polish underground soap when other people as cape, you can help them on their way. He agrees. He is set up outside the prison working with the polish underground for three months until he just disappears. Nobody knows what happens to him. To this day, nobody is sure. Most likely, the germans figured out that there Prison Guards were corrupted and they arrested, they would have been executed, but likely those Prison Guards were tortured before they were executed and most likely told the germans about George Grimson and his operations outside the prison wall. George grimson helped three soldiers to escape and they paid it back to england. Most likely, kustoff poker gestapo heard about George Grimson at executed, although there is no record of it. A great book about George Grimson is called the sergeant s capers. It is not a number of episodes but his story is in there. A story about George Grimson was one of love and courage. This episode uses a bout of those factors. This story is about a german prisoner who made one of the longest escapes ever during world war ii. The prisoner we are talking about is fronz von werra. He was shot down in 1940 and taken prisoner within minutes, interrogated for several weeks, then transported to a pow camp. He spoke english very well. Slight accent, but spoke very well. In 1940, he makes his first escape attend. The british used to take prisoners on hikes through the countryside. You have the atlantic on the left, English Channel on the right, where are you going to go . Still, it is a pain to try to round these fellows up as often as they tried to sk. Werra was one of those guys. On one of these hikes, these his buddy start a fight to distract the guards. He jumps off a bridge, runs into woods, and he is admired for six days before they find him in the hierarchy meadows where the sheep are grazing. He was hungry and cold, so he did not resist too much when he was arrested again. He was also a serial skescaper. He was transferred to a tougher prison camp. He and four other guys titled out of their barracks under the fence, even under the road until they popped out into woods. These guys go their separate ways. Werra is a pilot and has the idea that he will sneak onto a Royal Air Force base, steal a plane, and fly it back to germany. Sounds crazy, right . Nobody accused him of being sane. He decides to give it the middle school try. He has to get to a base, he follows the sounds of a train whistle until he comes to a railroad station. He comes up to the clerk with a bit of an accent, he is not from around here, he told the clerk he is a dutch Fighter Pilot, shot down the night before, i need to get to my base quickly. The clerk is suspicious. He is listening to the story, i did not hear anything about a plane being shot down around here. He calls the police. Werra, as charming as he is courageous. Within a few minutes, he talked to the clerk down off the ledge and has convinced him that he really is a dutch Fighter Pilot and i have to get back to my base. He calls the local base and they say, we will send a car. Now you have the Police Coming and the air force coming. You can be sure werra is hoping the air force gets there first. But it is the police. Two detectives show up and start questioning him. They are suspicious as well. That does not deter him. He is as charming and polite and flattering as he can be and pretty soon he turned these detectives, they believe him. The air force is on their way . We will stay here and just chat with our ally Fighter Pilot and pass the time. Eventually, the air force doesnt send a car to pick up werra and the police are waving at him and promised to stay in touch maybe. Ive made that last part up. When you get the idea. These two Police Detectives bought this story. Now he goes to the air force base, where he walks into the Administration Office and says, i am from this other base and i would like to borrow a plane so i can get back to my unit. The air force guys are not buying it for a second. Where are you from again . What did you say your name was . Where were you shot down . No report of planes being shot down there. We are going to call your unit and check up on you. The art try to get through they are trying to get through. Werra walks out of the office tomorrow he is going to look for a plane. He wonders through the gate, plasters his way through the gates, goes and finds a new hurricane airplane sitting next to the runway. He climbs inside, looks at the instruments and has no idea how to start this thing. He gets out of the plane, walks around, finds a mechanic, this German Air Force armor German Air Force officer finds a british this German Air Force armor German Air Force officer finds a british mechanic who tells him how to start the airplane. Well, here is what you have to be. Turn the switch and flipped that letter. Got it. I understand how to fly the plane. He is mom is away from freedom until he realizes you cannot just start this thing by pressing a button, you need an external power supply. Would you mind getting one . Sure. The mechanic leaves to get this power supply to start the airplane, moments away from freedom, all he needs is to start the engine until he hears the words, get out. He has been discovered. He is arrested, transferred back to another prison camp. That is not the end of our story. Werra is selected to go to a prison camp in canada. He is put on a ship for nova scotia, the president s get to canada, loaded on trains for their rights to the prison camp. The guards believe the train is escapeproof because the windows have a frozen shut. This is january of 1941. With those prisoners crammed into this railroad car at each car has a small, ineffective and inefficient heater, but it has one. With werra scraping on the window, it is not long before he opened up the window where everyone assumed this railcar is escapeproof. His plan is, as soon this train starts slowing down, im going to jump. The train slows down, comes into a small station, and soon it is starting up again. The train pulls away from the station, werra lets out the window and jumps out and falls into a snow bank that breaks his fall. The place that is circled, this intersection, that is where he jumped out of the train. You can see where i highlighted or placed in google maps this town. That is 30 miles between the point where he comes out of the plane and where he crosses over into the United States. He is called, there he is cold. It takes him a couple days. He is hoping the river between canada and the United States is frozen. It is not. He had to spend a few more hours, he finds a boat. Eventually, he gets across the river and into the United States. He find a road and starts walking down the road until he finds himself in ogdensburg, new york. First thing he does, turn himself in to local police officials. He is charged with illegal entry into the United States, but other than that, nobody knows what to do with him. He is allowed to roam free. On a previous page, there was an article about how this german pow is seeing the sights in new york city and living it up. What he is not sure of is what the americans will do to him. Will they ship them back to canada . He is not going to wait to find out. We are not at war yet. We are not at war until december. German intelligence is operating in the United States freely. German intelligence gets into mexico. Once in mexico, he makes his way to point out areas his way to brazil. He catches an ocean liner to spain. He goes to italy, from italy back to germany. This is april. It takes him four months to get back to germany. Upon his return in april of 1941, adolf hitler i watch him an award, the iron cross your by july, hiller has invaded the soviet union. A couple months later, he is transferred back to germany, his squadron gets new fighters, they are testing these things out in holland. On october 25, 1941, he takes off in his new fighter, he is going to test it out over the atlantic. For whatever reason, the engine seizes up and he has to crash land into the atlantic and he is killed. He is a german, but after all that, it is kind of a sad story. He dies, but his body is never recovered. A great book about his exploits, it is called the one that got away. There was even a movie that was created in 2002. We have had a charm, now we get to longevity. Henry was a french soldier and one of the few who served in world war i and world war ii and the only one i could find, im sure there are more, the only one that escapes world war i and world war ii and cap meant. He was a captain in world war i and captured during a bayonet charge. He spends a couple of months in german captivity, he escaped and 20 circus. I am not making that up and joined the circus. I am not making that up. He joins a network. He escaped back to the netherlands and back to france. Over 25 years later, he was was 61, a fivestar general, he was fighting in france and got captured again by the germans. During his military career, he had honed his expertise in the german language. He knew about their tactics quite well. He was not surprised when they took him to a prisoner of war camp on a cliff face with guarded entrances. They had a good idea they did not think he would be able to escape. For two years, he looked for ways to escape. He memorized the area, stole a map. He was also an officer and he had certain privileges that other people did not. He was allowed to get packages from his wife and he got robe and other things he needed he got robe and other things that hed he got rope and other things he needed. He was allowed to go on daily walks because of his rank. On april 17, he climbed down a 150 foot cliff face and escaped. For any man, or woman, climbing 15 stories is quite a feat, but he was 63. He shaved his mustache, put on a hat and raincoat and walked away from the camp. His escape consisted of two parts. He met a young man who had papers and clothing for him, his wife arranged this. Part two was trickier. He got on a train, got through the various checkpoints. He crossed the border into france. He made it through those checkpoints even though the guards were supposed to stop anyone over 511. He was six feet tall. He sent a telegram to his wife upon his escape. He sent the same telegram on his second escape. Business concluded, stop. Excellent health, stop. Affectionately, henri. This is probably the hardest story for me to tell because it was so moving when i was researching it. One of the most expensive prisoner of war camp escapes happened in 1943. It was near the eastern border of poland and not many documents have survived because the germans tried to erase the history of what happened. It opened in 1942 cop was built for the purpose of killing jews. The lead was not good but it had a rail he had a rail line. Jews arrived 10 boxcars at a time, carrying 2000 people. They were cast within 24 hours. They were gassed within 24 hours. Their hair was cut before they were sent to the showers, the gas chambers. Somewhere attend to work. Those who worked what they were involved in. This caused them distress. They had to clean up the remains after each trainload was gassed, they had to bury people in mass graves. The workers were expected to herd these people through the trains, through the camps, to their deaths. They were told not to speak out. While there was some knowledge that reached people in london and washington, leaders did not intervene. By the spring of 1943, most polish jews were dead. In 1940 three, dutch jews were brought in and killed. By september, there were few if any trains arriving. The workers who were there were worried about whether they were going to be next. In september, 19 43, the russian jews arrived. Rumors were focused on whether the camp was going to close and when that happened, the remaining jews would be killed. One man and the others had to act quickly. They made a plan. There were 600 prisoners at that time, october 14, 1943. 300 of them escaped, one of the largest escapes during brother or two. During world war ii. The man and others killed officers, they plan to walk out, but it turned into a chaotic event. Some of the escapees were caught, but others were held by farmers, including the man, who lived in a farmers barn. Those who did not escape or shock. Within days of the escape, bss ss order the camp taken down because they did not the ss order to the camp taken down because they did not want the world seeing what they were doing there. Many of those who escaped spoke about his experience about that camp and he passed away not long ago. We had not planned to talk about auschwitz, but yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the liberation. It seems fitting we talk about this. Particularly one of the escapes. At the height of the concentration camp operations in 1944, the germans were executed 12,000 people a day. Hardly anyone outside the camps knew what was going on. Two young men would eventually make their escape and tell the world what was happening at auschwitz. One was 17 when he was sent to our shores. He believed if he could get the truth out, people would stop getting on trains and stop believing what they were being told. He was determined to tell people what was going on. He turned to a 25yearold for help, he was from the same town. He was connected in the camp and got a new job, in the office, where he was writing down names of people who were sent to the showers. He had access to those german records. All the prisoners killed, and he had the determination to escape. In 1944, he was now 19 and the other man was 27, they hid in a hollow of a woodpile and covered themselves in tobacco leaves so the dogs would not find them. They knew from past experience that it would take three days before the guards quit looking for them. They waited for three days in the woodpile. Then they walked 15 days, 85 miles of occupied poland to the slovakian order at arrived at the Jewish Council headquarters. They knew the concentration camps were bad, but had no idea of the atrocities. They were so stunned by the stories, they were not sure they could believe them. It was not until one man started reciting the names of hundreds of exterminated jews that they finally believed them. They had knowledge of conditions that would only be known to people who had been there. Afterward, papers around the world picked up the stories and their wish to tell people what was happening at auschwitz was fulfilled. Our last episode of the night is about a prison rescue. This is unique in that it is a rescue, not an escape and happens in the pacific theater. The japanese had taken many prisoners of war to the battles of the pacific, but by 1944, they are losing the war at losing territory. They fear the prisoners had taken would be liberated by the advancing allied armies. Japanese officials gave orders that no prisoner is to be lost to the allies, they should be executed first. In december 1994 1944, allies are approaching a japanese prison camp. When the japanese realized how close they were, they took 150 allied prisoners and put them in a ditch, poured gasoline, set it on fire, folks trying to jump out, they would be shot. 11 out of the 150 eight it out of the ditch into the woods and were able to relate this story once they were behind friendly lines, which gave impetus to the idea of liberating these prison camps before the allies. Two allies. Two allies got to close. Many american and filipino soldiers were veterans of a death march and were in rough shape, making this rescue more problematic. The idea that the prison camp was 30 miles behind friendly lines added to the complexity of the problem. Companies of the sixth ranger battalion were tasked, ordered to liberate the camp. 125 rangers left their encampments and on the way they picked up scouts and guerrilla fighters until their numbers reached 450 soldiers altogether. The plan called for Charlie Company to set up at the front of the camp and Foxtrot Company to go around behind the camp and a signal for the start of the attack was one Foxtrot Company was in place, they would initiate the attack. The prisoners were confused, what is going on . Are we being executed . Confusion reigns. They figured out, these americans in uniform are there to rescue them. Within 30 minutes from start to finish, the start of the attack until 30 minutes later, all 513 allied prisoners were outside the camp and on their way back to friendly lines. A lot of these folks are in rough shape. The guerrilla fighters, alamo scouts had coordinated with local villagers to give a hand and get these folks out of the prison camps and back behind friendly lines. Many of the philippine villagers brought water buffalo with cards and for those prisoners that could not walk, they had a ride, 30 miles back to friendly lines. It took almost a week with folks who are in rough shape to get everybody back. What they did. All 513. Within a week, the american soldiers were put on ships and were headed back home. Probably the best book i have read on this is called ghost soldiers, it goes into detail if you are interested. To wrap up always. It was a privilege to work on these stories and do research. I am a student of history, david is a professor. I am the writer and editor. It was encouraging for me to read the stories have stories of people helping each other. The hardest part was the people who did not make it out. I agree. It was a rewarding experience to read about the courage of ordinary people and ordinary people helping other ordinary people. Maybe we can go forward and try to exercise that in our own lives. All right . So, we have a couple more presentations coming up in the next six months. As part of this world war ii exhibit or series. We will talk about iwo jima, liberation of manila, that of fdr, that of hitler. The occupation of germany . I will be back. If you are interested, if you can make it. June 9. Then my boss is coming to talk about macarthur. With that, we have a couple microphones that are being placed in the aisles. If anybody has questions, come on up to the microphones and feel free to ask. I will most likely turn it over to my coauthor to answer your questions. [applause] i have three questions, choose one. If you have a comment about rates on hollenberg. The third was about the one they command to escape. Any of those three would be great. One was about how one got a ticket into colditz. These guys who escaped, colditz was supposed to be the highest security term and camp. How did one got there as opposed to being sent back to one of the regular one . There is a great story in the book about that. You could earn a ticket to get into colditz, which is difficult , physical place to get in and out of. They still managed to escape from there, which was incredible. A number of people, you did get a ticket to there. They tried to move those managed to escape americans to places where they would stay put. Thank you so much. This is fascinating. I write for our american greatness in the federalist. When i was in the university of kansas, i heard a story that the chapel was constructed by german prisoners of war. I think during world war ii. Have you heard stories about shenanigans of german prisoners of war that came to america, held in america, escaping or stirring up trouble over here . I have not heard a lot of stories about prisoners creating problems. In fact, most prisoners had a good idea what life was like back home. At the end of world war ii, by the last year, the soviet union is overrunning russia and ukraine. That is the breadbasket of europe. All of that food had been cut off. In order for a german prisoner of war in the United States and there were hundreds of thousands of them all over the United States those prisoners of war were generally working on farms. They got to eat pretty well. Most of them were pretty grateful to be working on farms. They would live with farm families and do the work every day. That is an area that is open for a lot more research. What is it that prisoners were doing . It would not surprise me that they built that chapel, i just do not know for sure if they did. They were engaged in all kinds of work. At a reasonable price, i think it cost if a farmer wanted to hire a german pow, a cot . 10 a day if the government was going to feed them or a farmer could feed them out of what he had on hand. You have some thoughts . Not necessarily related, but i have been doing work on minnesota history. The dakota wars of 1862, after the hanging, the dakota men were sent to iowa on a camp. They did not try to escape because of the threat up what would happen to their families on the reservation. There were other things at play other than trying to escape. They were barking working and the promise was their families would be taking care of if they stay put. Regarding that topic, if you go to know brass can you go to nebraska, there was a huge pow camp. It is an interesting place to go to. If you are on about six route 6, there is a historical sign. There was a pow camp, mostly african bmws. They did work on farms. What i want to say about come on the scene from the great escape, the british officer who escaped is having dinner in a german home and he is passing by, he is eating and eating at a british way, using his forte in his left hand, carving the meat with the right hand, that is how my grandparents who are english would eat. That gave him away. You have to think about stuff like that even if you spoke perfect german. Interesting. Thank you. I want to thank you most of all for putting a german prisoner of war camps in the same lecture with concentration camps. That is usually dealt with separately and i think it is important to know the difference. With that in mind, if you are in a prisoner of war camp in u. S. Cape, it is probably going to be the ss that pursues you and take you into custody. That brings be to my question. If you are in a camp and being treated halfway reasonably well i will not say it was good, but better than the japanese and philippines with that in mind, during the custody of personnel, who are reasonably humane, you are going to be liberated anyway because we are winning the war, if you are in a camp and being treated reasonably well and if u. S. Cape you will have the ss after you, isnt there a case it would be better to sit tight at which to and wait to be liberated. Which is why the vote to attempted to escape is less than 1 . Most people were happy to wait out of the war. You are taking your life into your own hands by trying to escape. You have an excellent point. Thank you very much. And thank you for putting those two things together. I have a question but also a comment about the german prisoners of war. I have a good friend whose father was an ss officer and was imprisoned in kansas. He lobbied the United States so much, as soon as he could, he brought his family to the United States and that is how my friend became a citizen. The whole family became wonderful citizens, following the war. My question is this. These serial escape bests escapists, considering the terrible things germans did to people, why were they allowed to be put back in the cooler, back in the cooler, back in the cooler again . Was it entertaining . Did they begrudgingly respect them . Why didnt they just get rid of those because they were a problem . Part of it was the prisoners of war, you are not supposed to execute them. When they shot 50 of them that came back, part of it is trying to be humane treatment. Im sure they were annoyed. Maybe entertained. I dont know. A followup, he talked about why they would escape, you know from the local officer who wrote about Winston Churchill and his escape, this kind of romance obviously, being a great journalist, his rising fame, did that affect when you did your Research Come out that that affect the mind set up of these prisoners . Winston churchill . When he escapes, late 1890 or something as i recall so, yes. Winston churchill there is a local author we include that episode of Winston Churchill in our book as well. Winston churchill escapes, he has to walk across the desert. He is nearly killed a number of times. He is a politician. A prolific writer. Who is he going to write about but himself . It is a great way to gain publicity and there are those one of the argument is, that is how he gets into politics, by playing this veterans card and hero card to its maximum. It works. Well for him. It works pretty well for him. How did you go about identifying resources for the research . Was it from military sources or civilian sources . We are fortunate, military records provided us access to things you could not normally get. Looking at many primary sources as we could. People had written themselves, and secondary sources. We called on the military records. This was a big project. I think we had 77 different episodes in the book. Each of which had to be individually researched. We relied a lot on secondary sources as well. If we could find a book where someone had written we found some military records, it would have been forever trying to go to the National Archives and research it that way. A lot of these usually, we have three or five sources for each episode we look at and make sure things are buying up. Things are lining up. Sources came from all over. I want to say, 75 years today, my dad was captured in belgium, him up and a half after the battle of the bulge which he had been in. He was taken to my husband and i went there in 2006. At that time, the format of the camp was still similar to the picture you showed early on and it is a childrens camp now. The buildings were some of the same you showed. On the outside of the camps come out there was a Historical Marker saying this had been starlike 90. There were graves inside and so one attributed to the war. In 2017, we were taking our grandchildren there. At that time, we knew where the camp had been, we passed it because it was totally different. Now, it was an Elegant School where people would come in to study certain things. Their attitude towards us, asking questions to be sure, they kinda brushed me off, did not want to talk to me. One was the transition in germany where now they are trying to it is a long time since the war, it is probably not a proud history of those camps. The history of germany in world war ii is problematic. We get german officers at the school who have to be careful about some of the things they say in class. We take a number of students over to germany and do a joint staff ride with American Students and german students and talk about the battle of the bulge. They have to be careful about some of the things they study, the things they say, because the people, the government, the culture is cognizant of the nazi past and how problematic that is. It does not surprise me that they are not amplifying that whole thing, they are the get go they are letting it go. I believe your story. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, it was wonderful. As we had been reminded of this last week and reminded by some of the people, speaking of the jewish holocaust, we are also reminded that not these killed nazis killed half a million homosexuals, a lot of different groups. Did you run into your research, indications of what other groups when the escapes happen . Mostly russian at the time of that last escape. The sheer volume that went through their was overwhelming to research. There were a lot of Political Prisoners early on. As the germans went east, behind gary and, romanians cannot dictate different ethnic groups were showing up at different times. The good news is i do not have it on my list, but dave carter will be talking about the holocaust in more depth. He will give a class which is after the war was over, there was persecution against jews and the number killed and that sort of thing. Anybody who did not support the reich and deemed unworthy. Common tests, french, italian, if you upload to the regime, you were probably going to end up in a concentration camp. Americans end up in concentration camps. Political prisoners, anyone considered undesirable in a nonsupportive of the third reich and its goals its going to end up in a prison camp somewhere. What could be the advantage of Prison Guards taking bribes like that . What would they bribe them with . Money . What could they get out of it . Food out of red cross packages largely. Very dangerous, wasnt it . Human nature. The guards i do not have information about what happened to them other than the best speculation is why they were arrested and they were tortured before their execution, that is when they probably gave up George Grimson. Kind of in passing, we know the scheme was uncovered and they were punished. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] weekend on American History tv, a lecture from the unc chapel hill on the 1960s. The 1945 film to the shores of iwo jima and a look at slavery in the nations capital. Tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on lectures and history. Rights inr on equal the 1960s. An incredible sense of optimism and hope. The sense of optimism of the 1960s is really incredible. People from all walks of life, even the most downtrodden, disadvantaged people. For black southerners who never had voting rights, facing the world in the rhetoric of many of its leaders. Eastern, two0 p. M. Guests take part in a White House Historical association conversation on slavery in washington. Nine of the first 12 president s brought inflated ego, used enslaved labor at the white house. Youre really trying to figure out, what do you need to get a building going . Get a white house going . What do you need for entertainment. Slaveealized that it was labor that would provide the foundation for them to craft and create became the white house. Real america at 4 00 p. M. Eastern, the film to the shores of iwo jima telling the story of the brutal 36 day battle where thousands of marines were killed. P. M. , a look at lincoln, douglas and the emancipation with historians. Explore the american story. Watch American History tv this weekend on cspan3. Sunday night on q a, we will discuss notable speakers of the house with a Political Science professor. We have come a long way from the days of dwight eisenhower. The idea bank that you are in separate institutions and the speaker of a particular should there is a way in which that was a sign of a healthy, vigorous partisan differences. If you disagree should not be the afraid to say so. This is what troubles me and there are certain ways in which our elected officials, we expect to share some common agreement senseues or at least the that they have important roles to play that should rise above their policy differences. Watch sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan q a. 9 00 p. M. Night at eastern, a journalist report on the issues facing the working class in moral america in their book. They are interviewed by the oregon democratic senator. Tax many of the people in the small towns around america, they are walking on a tightrope. One of ms. And they fall, there is no safety net. We have vastly overdone it. Consistent with this narrative, blaming the people who fall off the tightrope for the catastrophes that follow. Watch afterwards sunday night at 9 00 eastern on cspan two. Presidency,he william allman, former white house curator, talks about the white house east room. We join the program as hugh hew itt talks about renovations to the museum in yorba linda, california. True to form, with any facelift, we need chiseled gins. We have four copies of in the white house to collection and hang in the east room. These are brandnew reproductions that were done with the assistance of the White House Historical association, beginning with the most famous of them all, george washington