WEBVTT

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Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg
Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is

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Lester Shrink. He's a US Army
Air Forces veteran of World War Two.

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He served as part of a B
seventeen bomber crew was shot down over Denmark

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in nineteen forty four. And trust
me when I say that's just the beginning

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of his story. And Las,
thank you so much for being with us.

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Well, thank you very much.
Where were you born and raised,

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sir? Long Prairie, Minnesota,
November sixteenth, nineteen twenty three. So

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we are recording in early November twenty
twenty three. You've got a special birthday

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coming up, sir, Yes,
I guess there were. There will be

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one coming up fairly shortly one hundred
years. Was there a history of military

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service in your family? My brother
served in the Pacific. Outside of that,

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not really. What are your memories
of learning about the Japanese attack on

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Pearl Harbor. I can remember it
well. I was having breakfast with my

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family and my mother was just shocked
when she found out, and of course

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she was very fearful that both of
us would be drawn into the woulder at

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that point. Were you at a
senior in high school. I had just

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graduated shortly before that. Okay,
And so did you join right away or

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did you wait a little bit.
I joined up my nineteenth birthday, and

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so that's November of nineteen forty two. You're right, okay? And where

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did you go after that? Kurt
Utah for basic training, Shepherd Field,

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Texas for mechanical training, Kendall Field, Florida for the gun training, Alexandria

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Army Air Base for flight training.
Is there any particular reason you chose the

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Army Air Forces? I would imagine
it because my brother was in the Army

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Air Force serving in the Pacific.
So once you got to training, did

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you have a particular job in mind
that you wanted to have? Well,

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not should. Everybody wanted to be
a pilot, but it didn't turn out

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that way. What happened when you
tried to become a pilot? Well,

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I think on purpose they made a
person fail some tests because they told me

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my ice fight was not that good. And here I am almost a hundred

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not even wearing glasses. I could
see the most minute objects and I don't

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even have any problems at all seeing. So I think it was just a

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big excuse because they didn't want me
in that position. So you were assigned

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to be a ball turret gunner?
Correct, yes, And how did that

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happen? I was the last one
chosen, and the crew everybody else with

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the fraid of it. I tried
to give it away, nobody would take

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it, so I was stuck with
it. And so for those who don't

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know the layout of a bomber,
explain where a ball turret gunner is bolted

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midway airplane on the bottom. And
so it's a pretty tight space, right,

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It's a ball that's exactly three feet
across. It's usually manned by somebody

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quite small, usually five six five
seven. I was five eleven and a

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half. So how did you squeeze
in there? Well? I couldn't wear

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my heavy flying suit, so I
had to get rid of that. Then

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I was very very stretched in there, believe me. And these are long

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flights ten hours sometimes right, ten
twelve We have a lot of time,

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twelve even fourteen sometimes could you even
walk when you got out of there?

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Well, you were a little bit
tramped, put it that way, all

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right. So when did you deploy
to England? November nineteen forty three was

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there any additional training there before you
went on missions. Yes, they did

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have some a few training sessions,
not anything great. I can remember that

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they had a bolter rigged up that
a person could practeton, and they had

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dummy airplanes projected on a wall that
you could practice on. And what kind

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of gun did you have in the
turret? Two fifty caliber machine guns?

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And did you have the ability to
pivot and swing them around? Oh?

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Yeah, three hundred and sixty degrees
and almost a little bit above one hundred

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and eighty degrees. How did you
move yourself around? Did you have gears

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or did you just use your own
boot? All you tried to do is

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you had two handles. All you
had to do is tilt the handle which

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way you wanted to go, either
up or down or turning. Now,

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one of the things that we talk
about a lot with bomber crews is how

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cold it was on the plane.
Oh yes, it got very very cold,

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sometimes minus sixty. How did you
deal with that as best as I

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could? Luckily, I came from
a farm and I was very used to

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the cold weather, So I don't
think it bothered me as much as the

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southern guy that perhaps didn't even see
see a snowflake. I think I was

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much better prepared than them. Was
it tougher to not have your heavy flying

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suit? Very much so, because
the electric flight suit that you had was

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very unreliable. A couple of times
it burned out completely and I was left

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with absolutely no heat at all.
Did you get frostbite? Yes? That

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severe? Did you get on your
fingers, your feet, fingers then feet?

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Yes? Did that make it hard
to fire? They weren't frostbitten that

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bad, but it did affect Yes. Did you have the same crew for

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most of your missions? We had
the same crew, the exception of the

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bombiteder was shot down with another crew
on his second mission, and then we

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had a replacement bombaedeer. Where were
you based in England? Paddington? Tell

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me about your first mission. Obviously
this is your first real bombing run.

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What do you remember about it and
what comes to mind? First bombing run

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wasn't too bad. It was too
ludwig to and I can't remember what we

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were bombing a place. But the
first bombing grade wasn't too bad. It

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was the second one that by worst
one. Yeah, well, let's talk

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about that. Because there was a
lack of communication. That led to some

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trouble there right, Yes, lack
of communication, but more so weather problem

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because we had taken off from the
air base and after we were well on

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our way, the weather turned bad
and they crawled all the crews back,

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but for some reason, our unit
didn't get the call back, so we

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went on to bomb the target alone. So we faced a whole dog on

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looft off, and they bore down
on us and shot the heck out of

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us. I'll do you escape.
Well, first thing had happened, we

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got to hit in our number two
inch and took the horror half of the

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engine out. There was the gaping
hole that's or it must have been at

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least four feet across. And then
the next thing we received another burst back

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in the tail faction and that also
had a great big hole right through the

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airplane. But worst of all,
that was one of my missions where my

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heaated electric suit went out. And
when that would happen, it would get

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a short and you'd get like a
great big burn where the suit caught fire.

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I mean you'd put it out,
but then you had no heat for

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the rest of the mission. So
when the loof off was bearing down on

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you, what do you remember about
your work as a balter at gunner?

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How are you confronting them? You're
doing the best you can to trying to

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shoot down as many as you can. But that's another thing. You really

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haven't got time to tell if you
really hit or mist because there was another

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one so close behind that you were
freeing back trying to catch the second one.

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And are you talking to the other
gunners so you know what you're You're

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in the midst of all the fighting
and everything. It's not like Hollywood.

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You are not hollering back and forth. You're too damn busy. Many of

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your guns you were able to get
all the way back to England, though

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correct we didn't make it back to
England. Although we didn't make it back

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to our base, we crash landed
in a field that was under construction.

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It was so dark and so foggy
that we didn't realize under construction and we

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almost collided with the pile of stumps
in the middle of the wrong way.

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Was anybody seriously injured in the crash
landing. No, We had a wonderful

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pilot. Even with all the battle
damaged and everything, he still managed to

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bring it down safely. I forgot
to tell you the second blast that I

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said within the sails section damaged some
of the control surfaces. It put the

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plane in the diving mode. And
when we were safely over England, the

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pilot called the other engineer myself to
help him uh with the with the plane.

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And I couldn't believe how much pressure
they wasn't that uh the column.

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Both both of us were braced and
here the pilot and the co pilot had

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been flying it like that for hours
and hours. Now, once you were

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safely over England, did you climb
out of the ball tore once? Once

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you were safe safely over England,
Yes, you could get out of the

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ball turret, But until you're over
England, no way. Because as you're

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landing, how close if you were
still in there, how close would you

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be to the ground About fix eate
inches six to eight inches. That's not

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a lot of room for air,
a lot of room for air. And

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of course you had to have the
guns stolen away. You couldn't possibly have

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him down like you had to have
him you exited the turret, you had

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to retract the guns. That's Lester
Shrink, a US Army Air Force's veteran

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of World War Two. He served
as a ball turret gunner on a B

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seventeen bomber crew. When we come
back, Shrank takes us on the mission

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where his plane was shot down and
he became a prisoner of war. I'm

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Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans
Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm

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Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this
edition is now one hundred year old Lester

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Shrink. He's a US Army Air
Force's veteran of World War Two. In

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our last segment, mister Schrank told
us about the mission in which is B

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seventeen was barely able to limp back
to England on February twenty second, nineteen

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forty four. He and his crew
were not so fortunate. Shrank now continues

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his story with the mission that led
to the men bailing out over Denmark,

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Shrank himself becoming a prisoner of war
and enduring vicious interrogations. Our small group

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was used to fly a decoy run
trying to lure the luftloff away from the

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main targets in the Ruh Well.
We've been attacked by quite a number of

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fighters on the way in but it
was almost a routine mission. Just before

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we were shot down, I saw
JAU eighty eight hit the airplane just throw

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left, so I'm crashing into the
ocean. Just about three or four minutes

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later, it was our turn.
The first thing I heard was a great,

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big explosion. The next thing I
heard with the pilot calling the navigator

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asking for the nearest land and I
knew right then that we have had it.

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We were going down, and the
navigator came back immediately and he says,

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twenty minutes the landfall New East,
So in other words, we had

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twenty minutes with their plane being on
fire. There was explosion every few you,

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I would say every ten second,
so there'd be another explosion. He

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wouldn't believe him, and he they
were so severe that they would blow the

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fire completely out, but then it
would real ignite and you'd have another explosion.

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The wing held off all the way
until we were just over landfall,

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and then there was one final blast
and it blew the whole end of the

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wing off. What saved me is
during that twenty minutes, I had plenty

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of time to get out of the
turret and be ready to bail out in

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case we were over land and all
of you got out correct. We all

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got out successfully, except for the
pilot and the misfortune of landing in a

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frozen over lake. But the ice
run that thick and he broke through the

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ice and he was calling out for
help. There were some Danish people that

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wanted to save him, but the
Germans shot at him. Wouldn't let them

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save the pilot. Then after he
was dead and they made the Danes go

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out and get his body. Of
course I didn't find that out until after

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the war, or in fact,
I didn't even know how he was killed

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until after the war. All right, So what happened to you described the

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jump? First of all, the
jump was pretty much routine. One of

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the waist cunners was going to exit
first, and when he saw what outside,

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for some reason, he froze.
I gave him a big kick in

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the rear and send them out.
Then I jumped out. But when I

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pulled the ripcord, the shoot didn't
deploy, But it wasn't that big a

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deal. I reached back in the
covers and pulled the drugue shoot out and

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the parachute up, not successfully.
I hit like a ton of brick because

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they had deliberately made the parachutes real
small, because the Germans had a habit

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of shooting men in their parachute and
making the shoot small uh limited the time

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that you were in the air.
I landed in a muddy field and they

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were already a semi circle of Germans
around me, all pointing they're gun at

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me. So I didn't have the
least chance to escape or anything, but

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to be captured. Where did they
take you? It took us to a

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schoolhouse that had been taken over from
the Danes. That's where they kept us

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for the night. Did they interrogate
you? Interrogated us, but not not

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that much. The real interrogation came
later. How did they treat you?

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Generally? When we were first captured, they didn't treat us too badly at

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all. They were more curious,
claiming that America wasn't even in the war,

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than when we are assured them we
were Americans. Then they said that

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we must have been mercenaries hired by
some other ally, and they were more

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curious about us than anything. One
incident, they took my wallet and I

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had some English pounds and some American
dollars in it, and I demanded a

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receipt and that just infuriated the Germans
that said, why would you want a

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receipt? And I looked at him, I said, because we're going to

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win win the war, and I'm
going to collect that for the war.

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Oh. He just flew into a
rage and told him to get that Schweino

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out of here. We'll nable him. In the morning after we got the

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new log looft. This is the
third day now, and we hadn't had

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anything to eat and very little to
drink. We were hungry. The Dickens

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they took us into this great big
room where they must have been at least

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five hundred prisoners waiting to be interrogated. During the time you were waiting,

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you heard every kind of horrible sound
like beatings, screaming, cursing, begging

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for mercy, and occasional gun shot. When it keme my time for interrogation,

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there was this German guard. If
Hollywood have picked him for a character,

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they couldn't have done a bet a
job. The first thing you noticed

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he was missing his right arm at
the elbow. The other thing you noticed

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he had a scar right across his
face where even his left eye was missing,

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and he had what we call a
burp gun, which is kind of

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the equivalent of our AK forty seven, and he would punch you the way

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he wanted you to go. And
when I entered the room, the German

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officer treated like he was an old
friend of mine, and of course I

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gave my name, rank and serial
number. He wanted to know if I

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wanted to have a chair in his
cigarette, and I said, no,

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00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:17.400
thank you, sir, I don't
want either. I prefer their mainstanding.

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Then he says, oh, yeah, shrank, Yeah, we know all

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about you. And to my amazement, he went back to a file,

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went through the file, and he
came back on the folder. Yeah,

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we know all about you. Your
mother and father, and they named their

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names. You live in a dairy
farm, You've got a brother and a

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sistery they named their names. He
says, we know all about you.

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And then he says, I'm sure
that you'd like to have them know that

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you're safe and well, and of
course I said, certainly, sir.

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Well, then you fill off this
red cross sheet and gave name, rank,

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parents' names they could be notified.
And then all the rest of them

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were all military. What kind of
plane you were flying, what altitude,

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you're at what kind of bombs you
were carrying, what your intended target were,

222
00:20:15.240 --> 00:20:19.960
what other targets you We had briefed
on it, so you handed back

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to them all blank ooh. He
just flew into a rage. He said,

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you dunk off. Don't you think
we know that you flew to be

225
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seventeen? Write it down? And
of course I gave my name, rank

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00:20:33.319 --> 00:20:38.799
and serial number. He took out
the pistols and whacked me across the headdress

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saw stars. Then every time he
would ask you a question, I would

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give my name, rank and serial
number. He kept on beating me up.

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The German guard behind me would take
the gun barrel and ram into my

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back. And this went on for
I don't know how long. At last

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00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:04.720
he pointed the gun right at my
temple and he said, you better answer

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the next question or else then you
think the gunshots And I composed myself give

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my name, rank and serial number
again, and he kicked me in the

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rear that almost flew out of the
door, and I breathed the thigh relief.

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I found out later if you would
have given even the least little bit

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of information, they would have beaten
you to a pulp. Trying to get

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more. Germany had spies all over. The deal about my parents I think

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was from when I enlisted. Apparently
they've taken the newspaper and uses their propaganda,

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if you want to call it that. I remember one of the crew

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said, the clock in your mess
hall is five minutes slow. Why don't

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00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:06.119
they ever change it? The guy
said it actually was five minutes, so

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00:22:06.839 --> 00:22:11.000
they must had spies all over.
With the brutal interrogations over US Army Air

243
00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:17.039
Force's balterate gunner, Lester Shrink was
sent to a prison camp. When we

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00:22:17.119 --> 00:22:22.119
come back, he describes the conditions
there, being forced west as the Russians

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moved in from the east, and
the eighty six day death March he was

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forced to endure. That's next.
I'm Greg Corumbas and this is Veterans Chronicles.

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This is Veterans' Chronicles. I'm Greg
Corumbus. Our guest in this edition

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00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:42.519
is Lester Shrink, a US Army
Air Forces veteran of World War II.

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When we left off, mister Shrink
had just endured a severe interrogation, but

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00:22:48.960 --> 00:22:55.799
never gave up more information than his
name, rank and serial number. Now

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00:22:55.960 --> 00:23:00.240
Shrank tells us about the prison camp
he endured, and then the eighties six

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00:23:00.279 --> 00:23:04.920
Stay Death March he survived. In
German captivity. They finally gave us a

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00:23:04.960 --> 00:23:11.319
little something to eat. It was
a crust of bread Spirit Spirit with a

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tape of jelly made out of beets. But when you're hungry that long if

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anything tastes good, How long did
they keep you there? Only about a

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00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:30.200
day or so? Uh? And
then they put us on a train taking

257
00:23:30.279 --> 00:23:34.279
us to salid of six. But
they had also taken away our shoes and

258
00:23:34.400 --> 00:23:41.440
stocking, so we had to walk
in this train station in the snow barefoot,

259
00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:47.000
and of course that was to keep
you from the steep escaping. Well,

260
00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:51.599
yes, it got worse later.
Oh, you went to an Uh,

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00:23:51.759 --> 00:23:55.759
Lithuania for your prison, correct,
yes? So what was the prison

262
00:23:55.920 --> 00:24:03.119
like? Stalar Is six was bad? You didn't occasionally get a red Cross

263
00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:10.839
parcel or not steady or anything like
that. You suffered more from the cold

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00:24:11.799 --> 00:24:18.880
because the barracks weren't heated or anything. It was just all the people crowded

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in the same room. You got
somebody from other gis. What was the

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00:24:26.799 --> 00:24:32.359
food like there? What were the
conditions like you got one meal a day?

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00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:40.720
If you got that sometimes if there
was any little thing that irritated Germans,

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00:24:40.759 --> 00:24:45.680
like huge the Allied vicar or something
like that, they would punish you.

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00:24:47.319 --> 00:24:52.839
Or somebody did something stupid, like
one time somebody desecrated the picture of

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00:24:53.440 --> 00:24:59.880
Hitler and we paid dearly for that. Now, the Soviets were a pro

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00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.359
coaching from the east at that points, correct, okay, And so what

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00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:10.079
did the Germans do as the Russians
got closer? Well, we could.

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The first place, you had to
put shutters on at three o'clock every afternoon

274
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and keep them on until I think
it was nine o'clock the next morning.

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And as the Russians are approaching,
you could actually, even even with the

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shutters on, you could see the
flash of the light. And then a

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week or so later you could actually
hear the rumble of artillery. And that's

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00:25:42.359 --> 00:25:49.000
when the Germans decided to evacuate the
camp. Now this is in July,

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00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:57.799
so it's very very warm, and
they marched us to some box cars.

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It started loading us around noon,
and the box car got full. They

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00:26:04.920 --> 00:26:11.079
would take bayonets and jabbed the guys
in the doorway so they'd go back in

282
00:26:12.440 --> 00:26:17.960
make room for more prisoners. And
at last there was standing room. Only

283
00:26:18.359 --> 00:26:23.160
then they slammed the door shut and
we were in that box car the rest

284
00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:26.640
of the day, no food,
no water, and of course the temperature

285
00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:33.480
just soared, luckily for us,
as they got dark. They moved the

286
00:26:33.559 --> 00:26:42.559
train to Memble, Lithuania, and
loaded this onto a coal ship, and

287
00:26:44.160 --> 00:26:51.279
there too, the hole of that
coal ship was so crowded that you couldn't

288
00:26:51.279 --> 00:26:56.720
even sit down or anything. You
stood standing for three and a half days,

289
00:26:57.839 --> 00:27:02.920
no food, no water, And
to make it even worse, there

290
00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:07.279
was about two or three inches of
coal dust on the floor, so every

291
00:27:07.319 --> 00:27:12.480
time your feet could never really get
a firm footing, and by the time

292
00:27:12.519 --> 00:27:18.279
you got done there, your legs
were just aching. Not only that,

293
00:27:18.359 --> 00:27:26.039
but you were so crowded. They
had no sanitation whatsoever. Everybody had severe

294
00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:32.119
dysentery from the poor diet, and
you relieved yourself right where you stood.

295
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:37.680
So the air was just as foul
as it could be. It was hotter

296
00:27:37.720 --> 00:27:44.839
than dickens from all the body heat. The only ventilation was a little about

297
00:27:44.839 --> 00:27:49.000
a four foot opening where we had
come down into the hold. I can't

298
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:53.319
even imagine. I can't even imagine
what happened after that. When they got

299
00:27:53.319 --> 00:28:00.599
the destination. They put us on
box car, and in this box car

300
00:28:00.759 --> 00:28:07.359
they had the Hitler Youngen in other
words, the real young leither marine and

301
00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:11.920
I could speak German, and I
ask him how old they were. They

302
00:28:11.920 --> 00:28:18.640
were twelve and thirteen years old guarding
us, and I think they were more

303
00:28:18.680 --> 00:28:23.480
afraid of us than but we were
afraid of them. But the train ride

304
00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:33.359
only lasted overnight and we ended up
a place called Grosti chow Poland with them.

305
00:28:33.920 --> 00:28:41.799
Ready had a German officer there and
he was saying today before that when

306
00:28:41.880 --> 00:28:45.480
we when we got on this box
car, they made us put on our

307
00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:52.839
overcoats and they shackled us in twos. So now it's the middle of the

308
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:57.559
summer, hot of the dickens and
we're in an overcoat, shackled the gather.

309
00:28:59.519 --> 00:29:03.480
But then you're we got this German
officer thing. Today is their lucky

310
00:29:03.559 --> 00:29:08.079
day. Not only are you going
to get one Red Cross parcel, you're

311
00:29:08.119 --> 00:29:12.279
going to get two Red Cross parcels. And my guerish, I couldn't believe

312
00:29:12.319 --> 00:29:18.880
my ears, But sure enough they
had it up to Red Cross parcels.

313
00:29:18.880 --> 00:29:22.039
In the other words, you got
one under each arm. The minute that

314
00:29:22.400 --> 00:29:27.960
was done, I heard them give
their order a fixed bayonets, and they

315
00:29:29.039 --> 00:29:33.799
released a bunch of police dogs and
they run us down the road for five

316
00:29:33.960 --> 00:29:41.119
kilometers, jabbing us with bayonets and
the police dogs snapping at our heels.

317
00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:48.119
And no only reason that they had
given us the Red Cross parcels. They

318
00:29:48.200 --> 00:29:52.880
knew that you would drop them,
and that way they could say that you

319
00:29:52.920 --> 00:29:57.799
didn't want the parcels, threw them
away. When we finally reached the destination

320
00:30:00.039 --> 00:30:04.759
they had to slay in this metal, you could about imagined how famished we

321
00:30:04.839 --> 00:30:11.200
are, no water or anything for
it better than four days. It's about

322
00:30:11.240 --> 00:30:17.400
four and a half days now,
in the sweltering heat, and the Germans

323
00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:22.440
would taunt us. There was some
pumps nearby. They would pump water and

324
00:30:23.039 --> 00:30:30.960
throw the water at us and do
everything to and tagognize us. And all

325
00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:36.240
of a sudden, one of the
gis started singing God bless America, and

326
00:30:36.400 --> 00:30:42.319
we all joined in, and that
just absolutely infuriated the Germans, knowing that

327
00:30:42.359 --> 00:30:48.519
we were so desperate for water,
and yet we could have the nerve that

328
00:30:48.640 --> 00:30:52.160
taunt them right back. They finally
gave the order, either you stop or

329
00:30:52.200 --> 00:30:56.720
we start shooting, And of course
then we had no choice. Oh,

330
00:30:56.839 --> 00:31:03.920
by the way, by with these
parcels under your arm being shackled to the

331
00:31:03.000 --> 00:31:08.400
neck, the other person that just
you can about imagine that what that did

332
00:31:08.440 --> 00:31:15.200
your risk running that distance, uh, not being in sync with your partner.

333
00:31:17.720 --> 00:31:22.839
Then they had what we called the
strip search. They took one prisoner

334
00:31:22.880 --> 00:31:30.880
at a time and made him completely
undressed and searched everything that they owned.

335
00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:37.720
When my turn came, I was
about one of the only gi that managed

336
00:31:37.759 --> 00:31:41.799
to hang on to both of my
parcels. A few of them managed to

337
00:31:41.799 --> 00:31:47.720
hang on to one. And there's
this great big German guard we had called

338
00:31:47.759 --> 00:31:55.319
him ham Hands. He was one
of our guard guards in stalag Luft six

339
00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:00.839
and he was the most brutal guard. You can imagine. One thing he

340
00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:06.759
would do is when you weren't watching, he would take the rifle button snap

341
00:32:06.839 --> 00:32:10.200
it on you on your arch,
trying to break your arch. Other times

342
00:32:10.400 --> 00:32:15.319
he would come up and cuff your
ear, trying to break your ear drums.

343
00:32:15.839 --> 00:32:21.240
He would do everything like that.
And that's the guy that was going

344
00:32:21.279 --> 00:32:28.279
to going to strip search me.
I hadn't taken anybody clothes off, and

345
00:32:28.400 --> 00:32:34.640
he grabbed the red Cross parceled and
I could speak German. I told him

346
00:32:34.640 --> 00:32:38.880
not the Red Cross parcel of their
mind. He took a pistol and wham

347
00:32:38.960 --> 00:32:46.640
on my head. I fell on
the ground, recomposed myself, kept on

348
00:32:47.720 --> 00:32:52.119
that they were mine. Five different
times he hit me, either on the

349
00:32:52.200 --> 00:32:58.240
chin or on my head. My
head was just a bloody mess, and

350
00:32:58.880 --> 00:33:05.440
I finally realized that if I would
keep on refusing that he would actually kill

351
00:33:05.519 --> 00:33:10.000
me. So at last I let
him have the parcels, and the minute

352
00:33:10.079 --> 00:33:16.160
his back was turned, I grabbed
my belongings and ran out and hit amongst

353
00:33:16.200 --> 00:33:22.039
the guys that already been strict search
and hit my head under my overcoat.

354
00:33:22.119 --> 00:33:28.519
Pregending I was the sleep he came. He came out looking for me,

355
00:33:29.599 --> 00:33:35.960
cursing in German. He made several
passes in front of me, not knowing

356
00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:42.319
who I was there, and he
finally went in, and I breathed a

357
00:33:42.400 --> 00:33:45.599
sigh of relief. I'm sure if
he would have found me, that would

358
00:33:45.599 --> 00:33:49.920
have been the end of me.
Incredible. How do you keep going after

359
00:33:49.960 --> 00:33:57.519
something like that as best as you
can? That evening ration was too little

360
00:33:57.559 --> 00:34:00.640
care. Now this is July,
so that have been planted. Aren't that

361
00:34:00.720 --> 00:34:05.799
big yet? Two little bit of
carrots about the size of my finger.

362
00:34:06.519 --> 00:34:10.920
That was I ration after four and
a half days of not eating. Now,

363
00:34:10.920 --> 00:34:16.280
as time went on and they forced
you west right as the Russians came.

364
00:34:16.559 --> 00:34:22.280
Yes, they were fourthing us west, but they evacuated the camp because

365
00:34:22.320 --> 00:34:27.599
the Russians were coming, and there
were no more prison camps that they could

366
00:34:27.920 --> 00:34:31.760
put us into because there'd been so
many of them have been taken over that

367
00:34:32.920 --> 00:34:37.679
I was on the German what's called
the German Death March for eighty six days.

368
00:34:38.239 --> 00:34:45.840
You never saw withinside of a heated
building. You've either slept in some

369
00:34:45.960 --> 00:34:52.480
farmers barn or many many times just
out the open and the field. You

370
00:34:52.599 --> 00:35:00.719
had one blanket that you shared with
five other people. They each had a

371
00:35:00.760 --> 00:35:08.239
blanket, so you'd form a group
of five people sharing each other's blanket.

372
00:35:08.599 --> 00:35:13.719
I read that they forced you to
march so much that your socks and your

373
00:35:13.719 --> 00:35:21.000
shoes basically disintegrated. Yeah, my
stocking didn't. There wasn't any foot left

374
00:35:21.039 --> 00:35:25.000
anymore, just a kind of a
little band up around my ankles. And

375
00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:32.320
the shoes were so worn that I
can see my toes right through the shoes.

376
00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:38.519
I mean they were sticking out of
the holds that's where I had more

377
00:35:38.599 --> 00:35:45.480
frost bite. Even today, I've
got very little feeling in my hands and

378
00:35:45.639 --> 00:35:52.159
also my feet. In fact,
my feet are even right now, they're

379
00:35:52.199 --> 00:35:57.000
cold. They have the sensation of
being cold. I should say, how

380
00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:02.760
are you liberated by the English Army? They treated us very very well.

381
00:36:04.480 --> 00:36:07.519
I can't imagine that feeling after what
you had been through. You know,

382
00:36:08.880 --> 00:36:13.360
it had been way for a year
before, since I had a man.

383
00:36:14.079 --> 00:36:16.840
Of course, all during that death
march you couldn't shave through. I had

384
00:36:16.880 --> 00:36:23.719
a great big mob of unruly whiskers, which I just hated. And we

385
00:36:23.719 --> 00:36:31.360
were just filthy with lafe fleas and
dead bugs and of course severe, such

386
00:36:31.519 --> 00:36:38.480
severe dysentery that so many times all
it would be was mucous stained with blood.

387
00:36:39.199 --> 00:36:42.840
Well, in our last few minutes
here less, I want to get

388
00:36:42.880 --> 00:36:47.559
back to the beginning of that last
mission, because one of the things that

389
00:36:49.440 --> 00:36:53.119
you kept thinking about over the years
is why didn't they finish us off in

390
00:36:53.159 --> 00:36:57.920
the air? Why didn't they shoot
us down instead of letting us exactly?

391
00:36:58.320 --> 00:37:02.119
And so you decided to explore this. What did you find? When I

392
00:37:02.159 --> 00:37:08.360
got my first computer, I started
hunting for whatever I could find about our

393
00:37:08.519 --> 00:37:16.320
crash and all that, and I
got lucky. I was on a on

394
00:37:16.400 --> 00:37:22.559
a website called B twenty four dot
net and there were two guys discussing the

395
00:37:22.719 --> 00:37:30.760
very mission that we got shot down
on. So I interrupted them and told

396
00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:35.960
them who I was and told them
that I was looking for the crash site,

397
00:37:36.079 --> 00:37:40.880
and they put me in touch with
the Danish farmer where I plane had

398
00:37:40.960 --> 00:37:46.440
crashed, and that was that was
the start of it. I made friends

399
00:37:46.440 --> 00:37:54.039
with the Danish farmer and he invited
us to come visit the crash site,

400
00:37:54.079 --> 00:38:01.000
which we did and one of the
outings there was another Danish man there and

401
00:38:01.039 --> 00:38:07.599
I had mentioned that when we were
shot down, this German officer came looked

402
00:38:07.639 --> 00:38:12.960
at us and I figured that he
was the German pilot that shot us down,

403
00:38:13.760 --> 00:38:16.480
and I had made the statement that
I would liked to have talked to

404
00:38:16.519 --> 00:38:22.360
him. This guy, this Danish
guy, said I'll help you find him.

405
00:38:22.719 --> 00:38:27.639
And it took him four and a
half years. The tracked down the

406
00:38:27.639 --> 00:38:36.920
German pilot, and then I started
corresponding to him and he actually invited me

407
00:38:36.960 --> 00:38:45.440
over to Germany. He lived in
Heidelberg, and in twenty oho eight we

408
00:38:45.920 --> 00:38:51.960
went to visit him and he turned
out to be a very very very nice

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00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:58.119
guy. Showed us all around,
showed us his medals, showed sights and

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00:38:58.199 --> 00:39:05.719
things like that. I had mentioned
that I never saw the plane that was

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00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:09.360
the Tacan, the shot that's down, and he says, no wonder,

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00:39:09.400 --> 00:39:14.480
he says, because he said I
made a shallow dive. He said,

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00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:20.199
there's no way you could have seen
me. Then I was asking him about

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00:39:21.400 --> 00:39:25.920
other pilots, you know, shooting
in the parachute, and he what He

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00:39:25.960 --> 00:39:30.760
said, Why should I? He
says, I saw that you were already

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00:39:30.800 --> 00:39:36.599
out of the war and heading back
to land. He said, my only

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00:39:36.719 --> 00:39:40.000
fear was that you were trying to
escape to Sweden. And so because he

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00:39:40.079 --> 00:39:44.519
knew you'd be taken prisoner, he
didn't shoot at you. Yep, Like

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00:39:44.599 --> 00:39:46.719
he said, why should I?
What was it like to finally get an

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00:39:46.719 --> 00:39:52.039
answer to those questions? It kind
of brought closure to everything. You know,

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00:39:52.199 --> 00:39:58.679
so many men like me don't want
to talk about the war. And

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00:40:00.159 --> 00:40:06.119
my daughter that started asking me to
write something down sheet said, Dad,

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00:40:06.119 --> 00:40:09.159
when you're gone, I won't have
any idea what you went through. Well,

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00:40:09.199 --> 00:40:15.639
I reluctantly started to write a few
things, and then when I met

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00:40:15.679 --> 00:40:21.480
the German pilot. That just kind
of brought everything together, and I found

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00:40:22.280 --> 00:40:27.639
that the more I talked about it, the less it bothered me. And

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00:40:27.800 --> 00:40:34.159
today I can freely talk about my
capture, about my combat, anything,

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00:40:34.519 --> 00:40:37.800
and it really doesn't bother me.
So I feel very fortunate. What are

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00:40:37.800 --> 00:40:44.320
you most proud of from your service? Well, I think that I feel

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00:40:44.920 --> 00:40:52.639
a very very very small way I
helped preserve our freedom, and so many

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00:40:52.679 --> 00:40:58.239
people really don't know what freedom is
like until they actually lose it, Like

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00:40:58.559 --> 00:41:02.599
I lost it. I realize what
it's like. You're not be free.

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00:41:04.159 --> 00:41:08.760
But the average, especially here in
America, I don't think most of them

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00:41:08.800 --> 00:41:14.639
even give it a lot. They
just think everybody is free, and that

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00:41:14.760 --> 00:41:16.880
is not the cave. Well,
leus, it's been an honor to meet

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00:41:16.920 --> 00:41:22.599
you and to speak with you same
here and thank you for your time and

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00:41:22.800 --> 00:41:25.960
especially your service. You went through
so much for the sake of our nation.

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00:41:27.079 --> 00:41:30.199
We appreciate you well. Thank you
very much. I wish I could

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00:41:30.199 --> 00:41:34.719
have done more. Lester Shrink is
a US Army Air Forces veteran of World

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00:41:34.719 --> 00:41:37.360
War Two. Served as a vaulter
at gunner on a B seventeen bomber crew

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00:41:37.760 --> 00:41:43.280
shot down over Denmark in February nineteen
forty four, spent more than a year

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00:41:43.599 --> 00:41:55.480
as a prisoner of war. I'm
Greg Corumbus. This is Veterans Chronicles.

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00:41:57.920 --> 00:42:00.719
Hi, this is Greg Corumbus,
and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles,

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00:42:00.920 --> 00:42:07.440
a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American

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00:42:07.679 --> 00:42:13.280
Veteranscenter dot org. You can also
follow the American Veterans Center on Facebook and

446
00:42:13.400 --> 00:42:19.199
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447
00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:23.599
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448
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449
00:42:30.280 --> 00:42:32.199
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