World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, American; World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German
1 was amazed at how widespread their spy system must have been and
assumed they must have had informants at every base in England and the
U.S. All he asked was that I sign the papers to the effect that all
the information was true which I refused to do. He even had the number
of my plane and knew the position of it in the flights.
Just recently I read the book The Interrogator by Haus Scharff and
realized that he was the one who interrogated me. He moved to the
United States after the war and lived in California. The third and
last time I was taken in for interrogation Bruce was in the room when
I was brought in. We just looked at each other and tried to show no
sign of recognition. He didn't say anything and shortly another door
opened and in came "Here I sit, fat, dumb and happy" Barlow who had
been shot down a month previously. We still tried to show no sign of
recognition and finally the interrogator said: go ahead and say hello
to each other for we know already you were flying together. We shook
hands and smiled at each other. After eleven days of solitary
confinement we would have liked to talk, but didn't. After those
eleven days we were desperate to talk to someone besides the
interrogator! He asked no more questions and we were taken back to our
rooms. Barlow was not in the same prison camp that I was and I believe
that was the last time I saw him. I learned later that after he
returned to the States he stayed in the service and rose to the rank
of Major before I lost track of him.
After eleven days, according to the straws on my shelf, we were all
taken to a large room. There were about fifty of us and it was a sight
you should have seen. We all had beards an inch or longer and the
talking and hollering was deafening. Even the situation in which we
found ourselves did not dampen the laughter and Joy of being with
friends again. Bruce was the only man I knew but these bomber crews
were immediately as close as long lost buddies. We all had a shower
and then a shave. They gave us a little pair of scissors like you have
in kindergarten and I cut Bruce's whiskers and he cut mine. We had to
cut them off enough so the razor could do the rest. We only had one
razor blade which everyone used (and it was dull) but we managed to
get fairly clean without too much bleeding.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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