May 4, 1945
Richard's first correspondence home after liberation — a formatted postcard with check boxes to indicate his status. Other than the check boxes, he was only allowed to sign, date, and address it.
May 2, 1945
After 700 kilometers of forced marching through the brutal winter, Richard was finally freed by British forces.
The Journey Home
On February 6, 1945, with Soviet forces approaching Stalag Luft IV, the Germans evacuated the camp. Richard and thousands of other POWs were forced to march westward through the winter — a journey of 700-900 kilometers that would last until May 2nd, when a British jeep quietly drove up and told them they were free.
May 4, 1945
Richard's first correspondence home after liberation — a formatted postcard with check boxes to indicate his status. Other than the check boxes, he was only allowed to sign, date, and address it.
May 6, 1945
So much has been happening that it would take a book to tell it all. We had been marching ever since the Russians got too close to the camp I was in and we never had a chance to write.
On May 2nd we had a most wonderful surprise when a British jeep drove up to the barn we were living in and we found we were freed!
We are now on our way back, in western Germany yet, but I hope to be in the states soon. It sure is wonderful to be eating food again. We sure had some hungry days during the past 3 months. I just finished a meal of roast beef, mashed potatoes, carrots, gravy and white bread. I am going to take a hot shower, the first one for over a month.
May 7, 1945
I just finished a good breakfast a few minutes ago and am relaxing in the sunshine now. It's a beautiful morning, the first for quite a while.
The camp was somewhere between Stettin and Danzig. We crossed the Oder river at Swinemunde and then walked to a camp a few miles north of Hannover — by the way, we started out Feb. 6. We were only at the new camp a week (arrived there Mar. 29), when the western front drew near so we were marched east again back across the Elbe river.
We started that march April 7. When we were liberated, we were about 10 miles southeast of Lubeck. At present I am a few miles from Osnabruk, which incidentally was the town we bombed on our first mission.
May 8, 1945 — V-E Day
Today is a holiday in England celebrating the end of the war. I wonder if it is in the states too. I thought when we were liberated that I might be in the states for the celebration but things ended quicker than I expected.
Germany is surely a badly beaten and disorganized country. You just can't imagine it. I have really missed newspapers and radio the past year.
"We were shot down over Belgium and when I hit the ground, some civilians got me and gave me clothes and were going to get me out of the country but I got picked up by the Germans and was held in prison for 5 1/2 weeks. It's sure good to be eating 3 meals a day again."
May 9, 1945
I am still here at the same place as yesterday. Just finished a swell dinner of roast beef, gravy, brussel sprouts, and mashed potatoes and a dessert of stewed pears in some kind of milk sauce. I had seconds on meat and gravy and 4 helpings of dessert. I am sitting in the day room now recuperating.
Pies, cakes, candy, etc. are something we all missed very much the past few months, and they were always the main topic of conversation when we were half starving during our marching around Germany.
May 10, 1945
We left the last place at 10 today and went to an airdrome by truck about 15 miles. We hopped on a British Lancaster bomber at 2 PM and landed here at Brussels at 3. It was swell to be up in a plane again.
My visit to this city is much different than it was a year ago. Then I was quite a notorious jailbird and was kept under lock and key in the famous St. Gilles prison here. Now I am free to walk the streets of town and buy in the shops, even ice cream we can get here.
The people here sure seem happy. They all wave to us, etc., and the Belgian flag is on practically every building, no more nazi flags as it was when I was here last. The only flags I saw in Germany as we were traveling back after being liberated was the old white flag of surrender. There was one on just about every house, in the country and city.
The Journey Home
May 12, 1945
I am in American hands now and eating in a good old GI mess hall again, and coffee instead of 'tay'. We had chicken for dinner today. I ate the entire landing gear of a chicken, thigh, and drumsticks. My first chicken since a year last April.
We got a new issue of clothes yesterday. It feels good to keep clean and to dress in GI clothes.
May 17, 1945
I am still taking life easy and sweating out processing. They give us plenty of eggs and meat, no spices yet or food that is hard to digest, til our stomachs get in better condition.
I got weighed after about 8 days of good eating, with just my dog tags on, and I weighed 149 lbs., which surprised me. I wish I could have weighed myself when we were liberated but didn't have a chance.
May 23, 1945
I am still here, 9 days today, but I really believe we will get out and on the way to the boat in 3 or 4 days. We have plenty entertainment, movies, USO shows, etc., also sports, although I have been too lazy to exert myself. I have been spending most of my time reading, sleeping, and eating.
Robert Hansen, our ball gunner is here but so far I haven't run into any more of my crew members. I am very anxious to get back to the states so I can find out about them. I am sure at least 3 of them evaded capture when we went down, and got back to the states, and I know 6 of us were captured.
May 30, 1945
I got weighed in Namur, Belgium the 11th of May and weighed 149 nude. Yesterday we got processed, which included a physical. With my pants and shoes on the man said I weighed 167, but I thought he made a mistake so last evening I went back and got weighed again and believe it or not I weighed 161 without my clothes on. That is a new high for me.
June 3, 1945
I found that one can have dental work done here so I finally overcame my fear of the drill and went to see the dentist yesterday. That was the first time I've had work done on my teeth since July, 1943 in Sioux City. I had 5 that needed filling and fortunately none to be pulled.
Now there will be nothing to hold me up at Fort Lewis except probably checking up on my service record and getting paid. I have approximately $1,200 coming.
I had ice cream a couple days ago, which was the first since Easter Sunday, 1944, three days before we were shot down. It sure was a treat.
In my 4 months before we were shot down, I used my 48 hr. leave we had every two weeks by visiting various noted places in London and Norwich. I visited "Old London", that is the medieval part of the city. Of the famous old buildings only St. Pauls Cathedral had a slight damage on the roof.
The windshield around the Pilot's compartment when we first started combat flying was made of what is known as plexiglass — highly transparent, but a long ways off from being bullet proof. Later in the war that glass was replaced by bulletproof glass. The first mission we flew with a bulletproof windshield, a piece of Flak struck it, right in front of the pilot's face. It took a little chip out of it, but never penetrated it.
At times when we neared our target, Flak as a rule was very accurate and plentiful. At times it sounded as hail on a tin roof. In spite of that, our ship flew 20 missions before it finally was shot down, without any of our crew hit except on that fatal day. Two men were wounded. The projectile that brought us down was a 20 millimeter cannon bullet.
There is no defense against Flak except using evasive action, meaning zig-zag flying. The mission in which I participated, we never lost more than 3 ships. However our group, on one mission, lost 13 ships out of possibly 20.
Richard returned home to Washington State in the summer of 1945. He went on to have a 31-year career with the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, raised a family, and lived to be 99 years old. His wartime letters remain a testament to the courage and resilience of an entire generation.
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