Chapter 17: Stalag XIIA

 The Shower of Frogs chapter follows. The attached is a contemporary Google Maps image of Stalag XIIA's location.

Chapter 17: Stalag XIIA

Stalag XIIA, outside Limburg in northwestern Germany [see separate graphic], was set up to accommodate about 1,000 prisoners. There were now, we understood, 4,000. It was crowded, that was unmistakable. The excess numbers put a pressure on every activity in the compound. It was now the first week in October, and it had rained for three weeks. 

The yards around the barracks were slithering in mud. Bunks were long-since filled, so that new arrivals found places on the crowded floors. German guards, whom we learned to call Postens, wandered in and out of the barracks, patrolling, searching, making trades. In this situation Stubbs and I were drawn closer together. Stubby hammered a couple of tin cans into cups with handles, manufactured a few utensils out of wire and wood. He began work in a blower-a contraption made from powdered milk cans and meant to speed up heating with a minimum of precious wood. I gathered old cans and wood from work details.

Gradually we settled into a routine. The day began at five o'clock with ersatz coffee or hot tea. This was followed by roll call in the wet yard. It lasted from thirty minutes to two hours. At seven we might get soup, barley, parsnips, or an assortment of weeds. It was better not to examine too carefully the contents of the soup. If there was no air alert we had soup again at eleven-that is, sometimes.

Occasionally we got molasses. We were given a sixth of a loaf of sawdust bread and three potatoes each day. The distribution of food was a scene of chaos. Americans, who for months had lined up for chow, now ignored lines and grabbed what they could. The apportioning of food was a wild scramble of quarreling, arguing, bitching; childish, distempered Americans. The filthy Nazis, "the Master Race," had to step in and discipline us in order that each American got his share.

No two men in two thousand wore identical uniforms. Cotton shirts, wool shirts, green fatigues, woolen trousers, olive drab jackets, wool jackets, helmets, overseas caps, helmet liners, knitted caps, belts, no belts, socks, no socks, a few gloves, fewer overcoats, and a multitude of insignia clothed us, a fantastic and motley army. 

Within days trading became a way of life. Money, all money, was of no value. Clothing, watches, rings, and cigarettes were the articles of trade. The bargaining was mainly for bread. After our watches, rings and clothing disappeared into the German army and civilian population; we were left with cigarettes. Trading took place among French, Polish, British, Russian, Serbian, and American POWs, but mainly between American soldiers and German guards and civilians. Trading was strictly forbidden and was done sub Rosa.

"Stubby," I said, "I had an offer today for my paratroop boots. Three loaves of bread and another pair of shoes." "Don't take it," he said. "I have no intention," I replied. "Some guy traded his wedding ring for five loaves of bread." "Christ." "I spent the day burying potatoes: great piles of them covered with earth. They watched us like hawks, as if the lousy potatoes were scarce. I swiped a couple."

"Let's bake 'em," said Stubby. We went outside, found a dry spot, and built a fire, and I started to hold the potatoes on a stick. "Put them in the hot ashes, Bill," Stubby said.  I realized that I had never baked a potato before. We toasted the bread we'd saved from noon, heated the soup we'd just got, grabbed the blower, and raced inside to sit on our blankets to eat dinner.

"When do you think we'll get Red Cross boxes?" Stubby asked. "Any day now, I hope," I replied. We'd heard about the boxes, even seen the remains of some. The Germans were supposed to distribute them, one to a man, approximately every two weeks. The boxes were to supplement a POW's daily ration. We waited and waited and waited.

After five weeks the Red Cross boxes arrived from Switzerland. Some of us thought that they did not just arrive but were on hand all the time and finally distributed by the Germans. The evening we received them was reminiscent of the joyous getting and giving on Christmas morning. Stubby and I got one box apiece. We spread our blankets over the bricks and opened the boxes. All around us the air was bouncing with laughter and conversation.

There was the smell of fish, meat, and cigarettes. The cardboard boxes were about fourteen inches square and six inches deep. Each box contained cans of meat, fish, cheese, candy, jelly, crackers, powdered coffee, tea, sugar, and chewing gum; necessities like razors, and blades; toothbrush and washcloths. And there were American cigarettes, each cigarette worth almost literally its weight in gold. 

"Stubby, do you want some of my meat?" I asked. "Don't open yours till later." "No, sir, I'm hungry. I intend to eat the whole can right now." "All right, so will I," I said. With Stubby's homemade utensils we spread beef on crackers anal feasted.  Between bites I said, "Stubby, since I don't smoke, what'll we do with my cigarettes?" "I'11 swap you for some of them," Stubby said. "OK," I agreed. "Take the cheese and the candy," Stubby said. "I don't like 'em anyhow." "How many cigarettes?" I asked. "Whatever you want," he replied. We worked out a deal. I saved some cigarettes for trading and built up a stock of food. We continued to eat and examine each article over and over, reading every word on the labels. Stubby had, of course, long since lighted a Camel and was enjoying deep drags. "Let's make some coffee," Stubby said. Except for ersatz coffee, we had not tasted American coffee since we flew from England.

Stubby grabbed some wood and the blower and went outside to brew some water. I watched the boxes Some men sat alone, silently going through their boxes, relishing the luxury of having more food before them than they could eat at a single sitting. They examined each article, selecting, rejecting, sampling, putting away. Men in twos and threes sat around their boxes, eating, swapping, exuberantly kidding, and griping over the dividing and the worth of each article. Some men were passing among others swapping, bargaining, trading. Stubby returned with the hot water and mixed the powdered coffee, and we sat, talked, and munched on food. It was a little like being back in our tent in England, where we had done exactly the same thing. After one cup Stubbyraced out and heated some more water. We drank four cups. We were getting silly. The effect on my nervous system was like an injection of dope. The place was jumping'. When the Germans turned out the lights at ten o'clock I was wide awake. Stubby and I talked for hours, nibbling away on some crackers and jam. Before dawn I fell asleep. At roll call the next morning I said to Stubby, "I was ha/itching and turning all night. What a coffee jag." He laughed and said, "I went to the latrine during the night. It wasn't only the coffee that disturbed you. A couple of rats ran over us."

Going to the latrine at Stalag XIIA was an experience. Inside our barracks there was a milk can. It was placed near the entrance and overflowed onto the muddy floor. It was hours before a detail came to clean it up. Outside, on my way to the latrine building, it was wet and sloppy. Within the brick building the floor was a slithering mass of mud two inches deep. In the dimly lit latrine there were a few partitioned stools, but most were lined up along the walls--thirty to forty on the longest walls. Excrement, which filled most of the stools to overflowing, oozed about in the mud. The contents of the stools was collected manually in small wooden wagons and carted away, in some cases to be used as fertilizer. If the stools were once operated by flushing water they were no longer. Needless to say, there were none of the amenities of a toilet. Men walked guardedly, as upon eggs, in this building. The smell that rose from the latrine was straight out of Hell. The fear of an epidemic became my greatest terror. 

The overcrowded conditions, improper diet, obnoxious latrines, and increasing cold weather as we ended October in northern Germany led to illness. Diarrhea and dysentery, old familiar enemies, returned. In POW camp, without the American medics and their supplies, any disease was ominous. It was rumored that in order to get to a hospital one needed to be nearly dead. We saw no reason for the Nazis to take any special precautions with us. 

Soon after I arrived in Limburg I lost track of Sergeant Birdwell and Corporal Gerry. As  noncommissioned officers, they were separated from privates. I thought of them often. I remembered our many arguments, our long, long miles together, our many bivouacs in Louisiana, Carolina, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, England; I remembered our Christmas together in North Ireland, our terrible days together in Normandy. I missed them. I never saw them again. 

As private soldiers Stubby and I were required, by the Geneva Convention (we were told), to work. In Stalag XIIA that meant digging pits for potatoes, removing rubble from bombings, and digging ditches. On one such detail we walked to the edge of Limburg and were given shovels and told to dig. One bright and knowing POW asked the German guard what we were digging. "just dig," he grunted. "Are these gun emplacements?" the POW questioned. "Yes," said the guard, and pointing to the earth he added, "Dig." The POW refused. There was a big argument. Other POWs joined the argument. A Luftwaffe officer came over, and the POW explained, "By the Geneva Convention we are not allowed to dig gun emplacements against our own troops." More verbal exchanges. Big talkers. Big joke. From the argument I gathered we had two choices: resist and take the consequences-probably solitary confinement and no food-or dig. My notes inform me that we all dug. Not willingly; under protest, at the end of a rifle or a bayonet. But we dug; with infuriating slowness and like stumblebums, we dug.

While we worked, one newly captured POW who had recently been in the States enheartened us with, "You should see what the German POWs get at home." We paused to listen. He went on, "They have clean barracks. They get GI chow." "So?" someone said. "And who cares?" The guy went on, "They even mix with American soldiers and civilians." "Yeah, Americans are softhearted." Who could refute the reporter? So we argued these international problems while we dug a few lousy holes for the Germans to hold out against the coming of our buddies. It was as funny as hell.

If ever there was a buddy system in some units of the U.S. Army, by October in POW camp it was no longer discernible. Prison life, indeed the boxcar ride, saw the buddy system collapse. Hunger for food and cigarettes dominated our lives. All we had lots of was hunger. All we had to share was hunger. We started begging butts when a man reached for a cigarette. The butt, pinioned on the point of a toothpick or held tightly at the tips of a tweezer, was passed around among ten to twelve men while it burned the last one's lips. We watched our buddies snipe butts from the latrine floors. They begged butts from Nazi guards, from German civilians, while the latter looked on in contempt and the former with withering scorn. 

... to be continued ...

End of the box car ride ... to the POW camp

Conclusion to Chapter 16, The Box Car Ride in A Shower of Frogs 

On the eighth day the train stopped; the guards slid back the door and ordered us to get out. Their insistent repetition of, "Raus; raus," left no doubt that the word meant "get out and hurry up."

But we were no longer in a hurry, no longer in a hurry to get out or to do anything. The guards, each afflicted, it would seem, with high blood pressure, kept repeating that mouthful of repulsive sound: "Raus." Our eagerness to walk about, to stretch our legs, to get some air, to relieve ourselves was subdued by stiffness, depression, contempt building into hatred. Those near the door went out; the rest of us rose from our cramped positions on the floor and moved toward the door. There was a three-foot drop to the wet ground. Some of us climbed down; some jumped. All the while the guards, acting under the influence of superiors walking above them on a small rise, kept hollering and shouting in a demanding voice, "Come! Come! Raus! Raus!"

It was late afternoon, the sky dark and the air damp and heavy, as if it had rained for days. We were bone-tired, dirty, smelly, hungry, with ten days' growth of itchy beard. Some of us were constipated; some had the Gls; all were lousy with fleas. Some had set expressions of determination; a few were still curious, a couple laughing; a proportion were beaten in spirit. However, most of us, each in his own manner, were set for self-preservation. The German guards in their ill-fitting dark gray ankle-length overcoats with ammunition belts buckled over their coats and around their middles, carrying bolt-action rifles, worked furiously to get the ten cars of POWs into a formation. After they assembled us in a column of fours, we right-flanked and in long wavering lines scrambled up a six-foot slimy incline. We slipped and slid clumsily as we climbed to the top, where German noncoms standing on the road above us added their insistent, "Come! Come!" to that of the guards. Once on top, we re-formed into a column. The guards marched us hurriedly along a road a quarter-mile to the entrance of a camp. The view included a complex of high barbed-wire fences with twenty-foot-tall guard towers every fifty yards, each manned by one or two German soldiers with a machine gun. We passed through two gates, each made of logs and barbed wire.

Once inside, we were lined up in a military formation with a front of about forty men. Guards frisked us for weapons, knives, and who knows what else. Smooth-faced, well-groomed, boot-shining Luftwaffe officers, their blue uniforms neat and pressed, stood ramrod straight in front of us. They inspected us, marching smartly up and down our lines. They were so real they looked like actors from central casting, Hollywood. I wanted only to spit upon them. We stood in formation for two or three hours while the Luftwaffe went through the procedures of admitting us to Stalag XIIA.

Speaking English, one informed us, in fact promised us, better treatment if we gave them no trouble: no escaping, doing as ordered, etc. At last we had plenty of air to breathe, but standing up for hours was not our longest suit at the moment. The ground was wet; it was intensely cold. The waiting was insane.

The officers in knife-edged jodhpurs turned us over to the heavy-booted noncoms, who marched us off to a brick building. Inside, we were ordered to remove our clothes, carry them to an adjoining room, and hang them on hooks provided. We were led into another room-a shower room. At that time in my life I was not aware of Nazi gas chambers, so I took the shower offer literally. The water was warm, but there was no soap. Our clothes, which were being deloused, were returned to us, and we marched back outside.

We stood in formation, waiting while the other POWs showered and were deloused. Food finally arrived. We had no mess equipment, and the food was soup-a kind of weak slop. Somehow we got cans and drank some. The griping, quarreling, and pushing among the Americans for food began at the first serving in prison. After we ate the soup, we entered a barracks and were given a blanket. Most of us stretched out our full length on the unmoving brick floor and fell asleep. 

End of the war ...

This isn't a commemoration of  September 2, 1945. It's a commemoration of the end of the war for William Stigall in June 1945 after his release from the German POW camp, recovery in England, and a still harrowing voyage across the Atlantic to New York.

The Box Car Ride ... continued ... Days 6 - 7

[As a visceral anti-fascist, what would Bill Stigall think of today's America? We do know what he thought of the Nazis and their box car.]

A six-foot, eight-inch American named "Kentucky" did a good deal more than take up a lot of space. Aside from food and women, about which he regaled us for hours, he seemed most fond of his mules. They were probably his only acquaintances not sick to death of his repetitive, foul, and poverty-stricken language. We'd heard 'em all, but even as prisoners of the army, which we all had been, we could sometimes escape Kentucky. We were now his captive audience.

On the afternoon of the sixth day the train again came to an abrupt, jerking, unexpected stop. Again the guards ran for cover. We could see them easily through the windows. They scattered from the train like rats from a sinking ship. There was immediate terror in the boxcar. Again we hollered, "Guards, let us out!" Again, "Shut up!"

There was furious scrambling to get the door open and the barbed wire away from the windows. We heard a plane, but it was not over us. It seemed to go away from us. We listened, and when we could no longer hear it, one man asked, "How do we know our car is marked?" "We don't," someone answered. "It's marked; I saw it," another answered. "How do we know it's marked big enough for the pilots to  see?"

One man refreshed our memories with, "Germans mark ammunition cars with POW and HOSPITAL. And you can be damn sure the pilots know that." "Shut up!" someone yelled. "Listen!" The sound of the plane grew louder. We could not see it, but there was no doubt that it was someplace above us. We heard it dive.

"It's coming down, for Christ's sake."

The nearer it came, the wilder the squirming and shoving in the car. Instinctively we sought the sides of the boxcar, pushing and swearing to get a spot along the wall and out of the center of the car. The plane made a pass somewhere near us, and we heard a hundred or so bursts of machine-gun fire. No one knew which direction to run. We kept trying to guess if the plane was coming down the
track or across the car. Again we heard the plane above us, but off in the distance. We waited in silence for the next pass. Several minutes went by. We waited. We could no longer hear the plane. We saw the guards return to the train. When they got close enough we cursed the bastards. They got in their cars, and the train resumed the trip.

Being trapped in a German boxcar with Allied planes strafing the area was a great equalizer. It was hard to believe that any man here was free of bitterness, frustration, and fear.

[Years later my Dad met an Englishman and as they recollected, the Englishman had bombed my Dad's POW camp. I can't say they stayed good friends.]

William Stigall, 1943 and 2001

The Box Car Ride ... continued

We quickly learned two German words: Vasser and Luft, water and air. Whenever we stopped and the guards, who rode in a separate car, were outside our door, we shouted out to them, "Guard, Vasser! Guard, Luft!" They ignored us or told us to shut up. We banged on the door. The guards either screamed something that sounded threatening or let us bang. Among ourselves we argued whether air or water was more important. Tempers grew short. Cigarettes were running low. Early in the morning one POW thought he heard a plane overhead. He was mistaken. The quibbling and bickering over water, air, and a place to sit continued into dawn and the next day.

All of the first day we sat. The sun was warm on the top of the boxcar, and we sweated. We tried to get more air in the car: no answer. During the day we heard distant planes, but none came over or near us. Outside, there was activity, guards walking up and down, conversation among them. No action. Shortly after dark, with frightful suddenness, planes swooped down over us and strafed the area. We later learned that the train engines were blistered with machine-gun fire and disabled. We sat all night and waited. Before dawn we started again. Most of us were groggy or half-asleep but conscious that at last we were getting clear of the switchyards. We traveled without a stop into the next day.

By ten o'clock on the second day it was warm in the car. Whenever we stopped, the guards appeared outside the door, but the door did not open. By noon it was sweltering in the car; we began stripping off clothes. The day passed without water, food, or air. There was no chance to stretch our legs or walk around. What cigarettes were left were smoked down to butt ends and passed around among six or seven men. One man had a tweezer and held the butt a little longer, passing it to a friend or two. We stopped numerous times but got no response from the guards. One POW spoke German and was persuaded to tell the guards about the Geneva Convention regulations regarding POWs-whatever these regulations might be.

The third night the tension in the boxcar was rising-or, more exactly, the irritation increased. We were hungry and thirsty. The air stank: the only method of relieving ourselves was to use a five-gallon milk can left for that purpose. The cap on the can didn't entirely prevent odors from escaping. When the train was moving it was difficult to use the can. It was at best a tremendous effort to climb over many men to reach it. One man didn't make it to the can.

On the morning of the third day the door was opened and some loaves of bread and a few hunks of cheese and butter were thrown in. The door was immediately shut. We tried to get the guards to reopen the door, to no avail. We now had nearly a full milk can. None of the bread was cut, which made distribution an almost insurmountable task. We had a few knives, so, arguing and quarreling as to the size and number of slices per portion, we cut the bread into pieces. A few men went without bread. Some got cheese, some butter. Some none. Each time for the remainder of the trip when the door was opened and food tossed in, there was endless bickering and quarreling.

On the fourth evening we got water: some did; some didn't. By now it was clearly a case of every POW for himself, quite literally for himself, if he wished to survive. A few of us worked together. Stubbs and I stationed one of us near the door to assure us of at least one portion.

Next day we spotted, outside the car, an American officer, a POW. After much arguing he got the guards to open the door. We were not allowed out; we spent our energies keeping men from crowding around the opening, blocking the entrance of air. In a short time the door was shut, but the officer, who was surprised at our condition, got the guards to remove the boards on the windows. Strong barbed wire covered the openings, but we had more air and light. The officer returned to his car, the guards to theirs, and the train went on.

By the fourth day the unshaven, hungry men ran entirely out of the buddy system. It was "to hell with my buddy." The milk can was removed; helmets were now used, the contents thrown out the window. The eighteen-inch square window would allow, once the barbed wire was kicked out, a not-too-large man to squeeze through, drop the ground, and make a run for it. There was big talk about it. Two paratroopers slipped out.

On the afternoon of the fourth day the train came to a screeching halt. We could hear and see the guards running away from the train. Someone shouted, "Planes!" Inside the boxcar there was sudden panic. One man was screaming and kicking against the door. Several men hollered out to the guards, "Guards! Open! Guards! Let us out!" Other men shouted back at them, "Shut up! They ain't lettin' us out. So shut up." A man yelled, "Why not? They can't shut us up in here." "If they let you out, you'll escape; that's why. So shut up."

The German-speaking POW was trying to get the guards to answer him: "Posten! Posten!" A couple of men begged the guards to let them out. There was no response.

We heard the planes at some distance; they were far off. We waited. They never came near. The guards returned to the train. We shouted at them again for more air. The train continued on its way.

During the fifth night a few men stretched out on the floor and stayed put until shoved over and made to sit up so all could at least sit down. By now our muscles were stiff, our hipbones bruised from the hard floor, and we itched from the straw. We sat with our heads resting on our chests until our neck and back ached. We then stood up, exchanging places with others. It seemed colder the fifth night.

Some attempt was made to cooperate and take turns lying down or lying together for warmth against the cold. Most of these suggestions were futile. Time and again the train stopped for interminable waits, would suddenly jump forward and stop after fifty yards. Again we'd wait.

... to be continued