S/Sgt. Harold F. Scott My Experiences as a POW during WWII

By Harold Scott

This is the story of Harold F. Scott's (Scotty) experiences as a tailgunner on a B17 and his injury and capture by the Germans. He tells of life as a prisoner of war in a German concentration camp and also his struggles to survive a death march across Germany.

Harold Scott gave a talk to his family 40 years after the war ended and it resulted in this book.
Everything related in this book is true as he remembered it.

His family would like to share these memories with you so we will not forget the sacrifices our military made at that time and continue to make.

If you decide to obtain this book you will not be disappointed and will agree with his family that Harold Scott was indeed a hero.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Two His Glory Publishing
• Release date: Dec 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452417981

Harold Scott

Harold Scott was a survivor of a German prison camp and also a death march through Germany during World War II. He married and lived with his family in Hastings, Nebraska till his death in 1996. He loved to write but this is the only piece that I, his daughter, have. Thank you for your interest in his book.

Book preview

S/Sgt. Harold F. Scott

USAAF

My Experiences as a Tailgunner & P. O. W. during WWII

By Harold F. Scott

Copyright © 1996 Harold F. Scott, Juanita A. Scott & Sandra K. Zabel

Published by Two His Glory Publishing

[e-mail]

At Smashwords.com

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author and publisher.

Thank you for obtaining my Dad's book about his experiences as a Prisoner of War in WWII. My purpose in publishing this book is to share his life story with others and by doing so keeping his memory alive. He was a hero in every aspect of the word.

Sandy Zabel

Two His Glory Publishing

[e-mail]

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The End But Yet the Beginning

Chapter 2 Introduction to the United States Armed Forces

Chapter 3 Training Begins

Chapter 4 Taking to the Skies

Chapter 5 Heading Overseas

Chapter 6 Landing on Foreign Soil and My First Taste of War

Chapter 7 Mission #1, A Bomb Run & the Worst Battle of My Career

Chapter 8 Base Camp at Foggia, Italy and Missions Galore

Chapter 9 Mission #43

Chapter 10 Trauma and Terror Begins

Chapter 11 More Trauma of a Different Kind

Chapter 12 Stalag Luft I

Chapter 13 On the March

Chapter 14 Escape and Running Wild

Chapter 15 Friends in an Unfriendly Country

Chapter 16 The Beginning of Freedom

Chapter 17 Back with the USAAF

Chapter 18 Our Last Battle and our Journey Home

Introduction

The following is a true account of Harold F. Scott’s part in World War II. For many, many years Harold, better known as Scotty, did not talk of the war and his experiences even to me, his wife, except for some of the funny things that had happened to him.

It was several years before he quit sitting bolt upright in bed in the middle of the night trembling and perspiring profusely. Even to this day he is still plagued by nightmares.

About seven or eight years ago with the encouragement of our two ministers, Dr. Thomas Murray and Rev. Ben Doughty, Harold gathered his family that lived near by and told the following account of his war experiences which we recorded as he talked and I have edited and typed under his direction.

I am sure there were many things that happened to him that he did not reveal and probably never will, but this is the account which he shared with us.

Juanita A. Scott

August 1995

The End But Yet The Beginning

Chapter One

This may sound strange, but I’m going to start my story at the end. The war is over and I’m home on a ninety-day convalescent leave from the United States Army Air Force. It is the middle of May 1945, and I’m sitting on the verandah of my folks’ home in Clarinda, Iowa, a small town of about five or six thousand people. I’ve been a German prisoner. I’m a walking skeleton, a physical wreck and a bundle of nerves. I jump and cringe at every noise or quick, unidentified movement. I smoke incessantly and avoid talking to anyone.

You read about veterans coming home, taking a gun and shooting people for apparently no reason. Well I can understand, for that is what, but for the Grace of God, almost happened to me.

As I sit here smoking and brooding, I can look south across the street and see a service station. About a half block east and on the same side of the street is a movie theater. Much of my time is spent watching the people come and go at the service station or couples and families come to the theater. They are laughing and having a good time and I resent it. I have just been through such hardships: wounded, starved, saw my buddies killed. I feel these people have good jobs, go home at night and crawl into warm, safe beds when over there we didn’t know whether we’d be alive at bedtime or the next day. I have thoughts like, If I’d take a gun and put a few well placed shots around these people, how they’d squeal and run. I want them to feel a little fear like we had felt.

I also have thoughts of my sister. Even though she has been dead a year and a half and I did help carry her to her grave, I still haven’t had an adequate opportunity or time to grieve and realize she is gone forever.

So between all these things, I sit here day after day brooding and grieving. I know my folks are worried and don’t know what to do with me as I catch my Mother watching me from a window or a doorway.

One day a wonderful girl I knew came to see me and showed interest in me. It inspired me to quit brooding and get up and do something, so I bought a car and we started dating. I don’t actually know where it all would have ended had she not made her appearance. About ten months later (March 17, 1946), after I was discharged, we were married.

With God’s help and guidance, she and I began the healing process. It wasn’t easy and it took lots of time and prayers, but I have recovered body and soul. I am left with some scars, both inside and out, that will always remain, but they are things I can live with.

The remaining chapters are a detailed account of my part in the winning of World War II.

Introduction to the United States Armed Forces

Chapter Two

I would like to begin my story with a bit of background material. From the age of about twelve or thirteen I was crazy about guns. Most kids were crazy about cars and mechanics, but not me. My fancy was guns and horses, but especially guns. You might say I even idolized them, polishing them and running my hands over them. Why my folks didn’t object, I have no idea. My dad was very strict, but outside of teaching me not to point a gun at anyone or shoot in anyone’s direction, they didn’t seem to pay much attention. So, two-thirds of the time I went around looking like a walking arsenal with my Grandmother’s old pistol in my belt and a rifle in my hands. I did a lot of hunting on my Grandmother and Uncle’s farm and brought in game to eat. They recognized my prowess with a gun and if an animal got mangled by dogs or wolves or diseased, they’d call for me to come and kill it to put it out of its misery. It gave me a good feeling to be able to do this for them, a pride of accomplishment.

I was nineteen years old and working on a farm near Creston, Iowa, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. My folks lived in Clarinda, Iowa, and Dad worked for a manufacturing firm by the name of Paris and Dunn.

The United States got shoved into war so quickly and unprepared that they had to send all their guns to the front lines leaving nothing for the service men to use in training. Joe Poley, a photographer and a friend of my folks, saw the need and got the bright idea of making wooden trainer rifles for the Air Force and Navy. These trainer rifles could be made quickly so the government liked the idea and gave Mr. Poley a contract. He returned to Clarinda from Washington D. C., made a deal with Paris and Dunn to finance and manufacture his gun as a subsidiary company and called it Poley Manufacturing Company. My folks made me aware of the situation so I quit my farm job, came to Clarinda and started making trainer rifles.

I became acquainted with the Poley family and in the evening I’d help in the studio developing pictures with Mrs. Poley, Donna, and Charles. Donna and I started dating.

My job in Clarinda didn’t last long as my number soon came up and I was drafted shortly after I reached the age of twenty. Mr. Poley told me he could get me deferred as the plant was considered a Defense Plant, but I chose to go to the service. I reported to Camp Dodge, which was north of Des Moines, Iowa, took my physical, my I. Q. tests and passed with flying colors. They gave me fourteen days to go back home, straighten up my affairs and report back for duty. At the end of the fourteen days my folks and I arrived in Shenandoah, Iowa, at five in the morning and reported