Category: Chapter 6: Fay and Mac

Fay and Mac

Fay talked about how cold it was. Once it was clear that they were going to surrender, the officers told everyone to remove their overcoats so the Germans couldn’t take them. So it was really cold, and chaotic. They left everything behind – weapons, duffle bags, water. 

The Germans organized them in loose groups and marched them around for two days, finally ending up at a rail center 30 miles away from where they had been captured. The countryside they walked through had been devastated by bombings. The prisoners hadn’t eaten for many days by this point.

On December 21st, they were finally given food – two packs of hardtack and some cheese – and it was supposed to last. They were also loaded into filthy boxcars, up to 90 men in a car that was meant to hold 60. The conditions were bad. They were locked into train boxcars and they had little food, water or air beyond a crack at the door. The conditions inside the cars as the men were forced to use them as bathrooms led to an epidemic of diarrhea.

In the scrapbook Fay put together after the war, he created a loose timeline of his journey as a POW. Like everyone else, he was afraid. He was also really glad that his friend Mac was with him. During those days in the boxcar, they heard constant bombing as the train moved slowly forward. On Christmas Eve, American planes unknowingly bombed the train when it was just outside Lindberg, Germany.

1st March – Dec 19 – 21st
Boxcar – Dec 21 – Dec 28th
Lindberg Bombing – Dec 24th
Arrived IVB Muhlberg near Liepzig – Dec 24th
Left IVB Jan 6 – by walk and Box Car
Arrived IIIB – Furstenberg Jan 8
Left IIIB Jan 31 – Arrived IIIA Luckenwalde – Feb 8

For about the next month, Fay and the other POWs at Stalag IIIB were able to develop something of a routine. They received a couple of Red Cross packages while they were there and it was full of great stuff:

  • – 1 lb. can of margarine
  • – 12 oz. can of meat and vegetable stew
  • – 6 oz. can of liver paste
  • – ½ a pound of sugar
  • – 1 lb. can of powdered milk
  • – 1 lb. box of prunes
  • – 6 oz. can of jam
  • – two 2 1/2 oz. cans of salmon
  • – 7 oz. box of C ration crackers
  • – 8 oz. can of chopped pork
  • – 5 packs of cigarettes
  • – two D ration bars
  • – 4 oz. can of soluble coffee

It needed to last two weeks for two men.

“It is quite a variety, but just barely a taste for two men,” one prisoner said.

Fay, as usual, tried to make the best of it. He joked around and helped organize a Christmas celebration a month late. They rigged together a couple of stoves so they could have hot meals. There were church services and Fay found some comfort there. He hoped to receive some sign from home and longed for an indication that his family knew where he was and that supplies were on their way.

But my mother was just getting word about Fay and the news she was getting didn’t look good.

Hometown Drama

While Fay was being transported in a freezing boxcar around Germany, Barb was finishing up the semester at school and was taking the bus home for Christmas break. Barb had been a faithful letter writer to Fay, but she didn’t know that he hadn’t received many of them. On Christmas eve, Barb penned a chatty letter to Fay telling him about the parties she attended the week before and her trip up to Charlevoix to see Thelma and Shirley.

Although Fay had been in the hands of the Germans since December 19, my mother didn’t even know that her father was in any danger until January 11. It took a little time to find her, but a telegram was delivered to her that day reporting Fay as missing in action.

THESE TELEGRAMS AND LETTERS, CAREFULLY PRESERVED IN MY MOTHER’S SCRAPBOOK, REALLY MADE IT ALL SEEM LIKE A MOVIE TO US AS KIDS. IT WAS SO THRILLING, LIKE OUR MOTHER AND GRANDPA FAY PLAYED STARRING ROLES IN A WWII MOVIE – JUST LIKE THE ONES OUR DAD WATCHED ON TV. WE POURED OVER THESE ARTIFACTS AND THEY BECAME AN ESSENTIAL PART OF OUR FAMILY STORY AND, FOR ONCE, WE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO EMBELLISH THE TALE.

Even though the address was a little vague, the telegram was the first indication to anyone in the family that something was amiss in Europe. There was a general military order that forbade any transmission about the battle in Brussels until January 22, so there had been no news coverage of the massive surrender of the 422 and 423 regiments.

American soldiers after the battle in Belgium

The larger city newspapers had carried some news about the battle in the Ardennes in late December, but all indications were that the Allies would be able to push the Germans back over the battle line. Barb and Shirley had no idea that Fay was even in Belgium.

A follow-up letter tried to reassure my mother that “missing in action” simply meant that the whereabouts of Fay were unknown and that it did not mean the “case is closed.”

James A. Ulio, the Adjutant General

The letter was hopeful and realistic at the same time. It terrified my mother. She recalls that the days and weeks following the telegram were a blur and she felt suspended in time.

For more than a month, they had no idea whether Fay was alive or dead.

News Articles about Fay’s MIA Status

There still had been no official notification that Fay had been located and was a POW. Barb wouldn’t receive that telegram until April 4. In a letter dated April 13, the Director of the American Prisoner of War Information Bureau stated that Fay was interned at Stalag IVB in Germany and that she would receive two tobacco labels soon so she could mail him some cigarettes. 

All of that was really old news by then and the war would all be over before anyone could send Fay any cigarettes.

Luckenwalde

Fay’s routine at Stalag IIIB didn’t last long. With the Russians getting closer, the German high command decided to withdraw all the POWs that were in the path of the advancing Allied and Soviet troops. Perhaps the prisoners could be used as bargaining chips as a last-ditch effort as German defeat felt imminent.

So on January 31, Fay and the other POWs at Furstenberg were told to start walking. There had been rumors that they would be marched out of camp so some of the soldiers had been saving food for a few days. But when they moved out, most of them didn’t have time to grab anything. Some of the men were still without warm enough clothes and it was freezing in those early months of 1945.

Allied POWs being marched toward Berlin 1945

The smart ones grabbed one of their blankets as they started walking.

“The Brat March” in Fay’s handwriting from his scrapbook

Fay referred to it as The Brat March, 5,000 Strong. Other soldiers had different names for it. In all, 80,000 POWs were force marched across Germany toward Berlin. Fay and his fellow prisoners marched until February 8, 65 miles in total. They walked by corpses of civilians who were trying to escape the constant bombing and bloodshed. Some of the prisoners didn’t make it either.

POWs at Luckenwalde

Of those who survived, most were starving, sick and mindless by the time they arrived at their next stop Stalag IIIA – Luckenwalde.

Staff Sergeant Kenneth Grant also experienced the forced march and he described the ordeal in his diary:

I am going to stop beating around the bush and put in just what happens now. I just don’t care any more. We marched all last night and today. It was so cold you had to keep moving to keep warm. We marched about 35 miles and they finally put us in a barn to sleep. I should say to sit up. There were at least 475 of us in it. I sure am weak and tired.

We marched about 28 miles again today. They didn’t give us any bread today and I am almost starved to death. Just did get in a barn tonight or I would have had to sleep outside all night. I am so tired and weak I can hardly move. These Jerries aren’t human. If we don’t get any food tomorrow I won’t be able to go any further.

A lot of the boys escaped last night and that made it bad on the rest of us. We marched about 30 miles again today. I never would of made it, but I saw a G.I. get shot in the head for stopping and I knew I would get the same if I stopped. They gave us 1/5 of a loaf of bread per man which I ate right away. We were then put in a barn to sleep for the night.

Today is Sunday and we didn’t march but 10 miles. We got to a town and they gave us some more bread. They couldn’t find a place for us to sleep so some of us were put in a church and some in a school. My feet are bleeding now, but I guess I will just have to grin and bear it. Sure could use a good hot meal.

Today was plain hell for me. I could hardly walk and they made us go 20 miles today. We got to a deserted town and put us up for the night. We managed to trade some soap to a woman for some bread. I doubt if I can go much further.

Today was as bad as yesterday. I tried to get a ride on a wagon, but there was no room. We went about 12 miles today. We were told we would get there tomorrow.

We got to our destination today. It is Camp III-A (Luckenwalde) about 35 miles from Berlin. They didn’t have enough barracks for us so we were put in tents. My feet were so bad some fellows had to drag me the last mile or so. We got 1/5 of a loaf of bread again.

In the end, only 21 of the original 205 soldiers from Company E made it through the battle, the camps and the March.

Fay and Mac had survived.

Aftermath

The next few weeks were chaotic and tense. True liberation was still eluding the American POWs at Luckenwalde as the Russians made seemingly no effort to get the soldiers back to their lines. At least they were eating better.Some of the Americans succeeded in escaping the camp, but Fay and Mac stayed put hoping that they would be released soon. There was some talk about moving the POWs East, but that was the wrong direction. 

Soviet Soldier

Later they would find out that the Russians were seeking a fair exchange of prisoners with the other Allied forces, although it felt more nefarious than that at the time.

They were only 15 miles from the American line on the River Elbe, but it felt a lot further away.

Finally, on May 12, 1945 the Red Army released the British and American POWs. At home, Barb received a call from Fay’s father, her grandfather in Ionia, on May 16 telling her that Fay was alive and in a hospital in England. Another soldier from Ionia had phoned his parents from England and said he had seen Fay and that he was recuperating. That wasn’t exactly what happened, but it was true enough.

Scenes from Camp Lucky Strike in May 1945

Fay and his fellow prisoners had actually been taken from Luckenwalde by truck to Camp Lucky Strike in Le Havre, France. It was a long, hard 10-hour trip through a war torn countryside and Fay was pretty sick. He was suffering from severe malnutrition and weighted only 87 pounds. A vitamin deficiency had affected his eyes so they were extremely sensitive to light. Once they arrived at the repatriation camp, Fay was sent to the camp hospital for treatment.

German Refugees May 1945

“Large trucks would arrive at the camp regularly, full of jubilant GIs dressed in all sorts of motley clothes, half-‘Jerry’ (German) and half-American. We took those soldiers who were ill to the hospital. There were many emaciated soldiers who had been caught in the Battle of the Bulge the previous December. The Germans did not know what to do with them as they were in full retreat after January 1945, so they marched them back and forth from place to place, and fed them very little as there was little food to be had.      Prisoners captured earlier were better off, but all of ours were sad to see. However, their spirits improved once they arrived at Lucky Strike, since they knew they would soon be going home.”  ~ ~ Remembrances of Josephine Bovill, 77th Field Hospital, Camp Lucky Strike

Fay kept some of his POW cash as a souvenir in his scrapbook. They later learned that Hitler had wanted to kill all the POWs in March, while they were on the Brat March. And by the time Fay and Mac were finally liberated, the war in Europe had been officially over for four days. 

Mac wasn’t as ill as Fay, so he was shipped to the US soon after arriving at Camp Lucky Strike. He was already home with his parents in New Jersey by June 5 when he sent a quick note to Fay c/o The Chatterbox in Charlevoix.

Fay also made it down to Chicago at least once during his furlough. Alfred was on the scene a bit, but my mother said he already had a new love interest and would soon move away. Alfred would later marry a woman and have four children.

But Fay was still not completely well. When his furlough was up, the Army gave him a Temporary Duty Assignment for the purposes of recuperation, rehabilitation and recovery at the Albion Hotel in Miami. Many of the hotels in southern Florida had been requisitioned for a number of uses, but the Albion Hotel was Fay’s resting place for two weeks. The Albion had been built in 1939 in the Nautical Art Deco style and was still viewed as a stylish address.

(The Albion would later experience several years of decline and served as the grungy local headquarters for Abbie Hoffman and Students for a Democratic Society during the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami.)

Fay must have loved the luxury of it all.

Somewhat rested and having gained most of his weight back, Fay was discharged from the Army on August 30 at Fort Dix in New Jersey. The war was over and he had survived. Life would never exactly feel the same again, but Fay’s spirit went forward undaunted.