Edgar A. Grabhorn's first ten missions [Annotator's Note: as a navigator with the 838th Bombardment Squadron, 487th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] focused on damaging enemy transportation and airfields. This was before the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. His last mission was an oil refinery northeast of Berlin, in Pölitz [Annotator's Note: Pölitz, Germany, 29 May 1944]. They encountered fighters then. Grabhorn was in the lead squadron, bombed the target and turned back for England when Messerschmitts [Annotator's Note: German fighter planes] jumped them. Their plane was badly battered, and it was clear they would not make it back. They were losing altitude, engines, and fuel. They were a flying bomb, as the bomb bays filled with fumes. Grabhorn was shot in the legs and bailed out of the plane. He landed in the Baltic Sea near the island of Bornholm [Annotator's Note: Bornholm, Denmark]. Grabhorn did not see any of his crew nearby. A German freighter picked him up and took him to Germany where he was put in a prison camp for the next year. He does not remember how he got out of the plane after being shot. One of his crew's gunners shot down a Messerschmitt. They bombed Pölitz around noon after having taken off around eight o'clock in the morning. They were escorted by Jugs, P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] up to a certain point, but when they left, the German fighters came in. He was able to treat his leg wounds with the pack in the inflatable raft he was in. Months later he was taken to a Luftwaffe [Annotator's Note: German Air Force] hospital where his leg was treated. The Russians were approaching, and he could hear the artillery fire. The doctor told Grabhorn that if he was still there when the Russians arrived, he would be shot in his bed along with everyone else, so the doctor had him shipped out to Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany], saving his life. Grabhorn was not interrogated until October [Annotator's Note: October 1944], though he was shot down in May [Annotator's Note: May 1944]. He had a full leg cast on his right leg, from his foot to his hip. It was removed in Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] on his way back, and he got a new one. He spent two more years in the hospital before getting out and going back to active duty.

Edgar A. Grabhorn [Annotator's Note: a prisoner of war] was moved to Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany] where he was put in Dulag Luft [Annotator's Note: Wetzlar Camp, Dulag Luft Prisoner of War transit camp and interrogation center at Wetzlar, Germany]. All of the prisoners, officers or enlisted, were treated and housed the same. He was put into a cell for 10 or 11 days, not seeing anyone else. He was then moved for interrogation. There were microphones in the walls. They were moved a lot, ending up in Meiningen [Annotator's Note: Stalag IX-C (b) prisoner of war camp and hospital in Meiningen, Germany]. There were about 500 men in the camp including Russians, Frenchmen, Englishmen and other Air Force men. While imprisoned, he would walk around and talk to the guards, trade cigarettes for local newspapers, translate it and tell the others about it. The news he got was always a few days behind. He was tempted to try to escape but his friends talked him out of it, telling him that his leg cast would result in him being shot before he got out. No one tried to escape from that camp while Grabhorn was there, most of them were in pretty bad shape and starving. They did not have access to a radio. They were not segregated by nationality or officers and enlisted men. His best friends there were South African and French. Each airplane typically carried ten men, six gunners and four officers. They were kept in small barracks that held 40 to 50 people with bunks and wood stoves. They received one out of every four Red Cross parcels they were supposed to get. They later found thousands of parcels in the city hall. The Germans had been hoarding them. He was able to write home but never got a response. By the time Grabhorn arrived in Meiningen, he had been speaking German for so long that his English was rusty, and the other prisoners suspected he was a German plant and would not speak much to him. A sergeant from his bomb group arrived at the camp, identifying him, and explaining that they thought his whole crew had died. The prisoners spoke more openly to him after that. No one else from his crew survived. When the German freighter picked him up [Annotator's Note: in the Baltic Sea where he landed after bailing out. He describes this in Segment 2 – "Bailing Out and Capture" of this interview series], he asked them to look for other survivors knowing they were out there, having seen other parachutes when falling through the air, but they only made one circle and left.

Edgar A. Grabhorn [Annotator's Note: a a prisoner of war Stalag IX-C (b) prisoner of war camp and hospital in Meiningen, Germany] was being held in eastern Germany when Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] Third Army approached, and tanks from the 11th Armored Division came through Thüringen [Annotator's Note: Thüringen, Germany], near Meiningen. The Germans had convinced Hungarians to defend the place, they fired panzerfausts [Annotator's Note: single shot, German anti-tank weapon] at the tanks. The first tank blasted the building and roared into the camp. It was good to see them. They gave the prisoners K-rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals]. The tankers told the men that artillery was not fired in the area because they knew the prisoners were there. The 11th kept on going and some of the freed prisoners joined them. The Red Cross arrived with the tanks and took the prisoners away in ambulances. Grabhorn was taken to Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany], then flown via Gooney Bird [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft] to a hospital Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] where he stayed almost a month. He went from 97 pounds back to his normal weight. He had turned 20 while in the prison camp. From Paris, he went to a hospital in Salisbury, England, then to a hospital ship in Bristol [Annotator's Note: Bristol, England] finally being sent back to the States from there. He arrived just before 4 July 1945. In March 1947 Grabhorn was returned to general duty and restored to flying status shortly after that. He was flying in an A-26 [Annotator's Note: Douglas A-26 Invader light bomber and ground attack aircraft] in the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953] on low-level night attack missions. He was not too keen on it. He thought about going to pilot school, which he had previously qualified for, but his superiors did not approve it. He went from El Paso [Annotator's Note: El Paso, Texas] to Washington [Annotator's Note: Washington, D.C.] where the refusal for pilot school was confirmed. He was transferred to Hickam Field [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Oahu, Hawaii]. He soon met the woman who would become his wife who was the daughter of a Colonel stationed nearby.

Edgar A. Grabhorn's group [Annotator's Note: 838th Bombardment Squadron, 487th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] targeted airfields, railway yards, and industrial complexes throughout Germany, never bombing troops. They hit one airfield in France [Annotator's Note: 11 May 1944], at 10,000 feet instead of the usual 20,000. The flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] was much more severe and they lost several airplanes, including one which his group commander, Beirne Lay [Annotator's note: Lieutenant Colonel Beirne Lay Junior], was on. Lay later wrote the book "Twelve O'Clock High" [Annotator's Note: with Sy Bartlett; published in 1950]. He was a real soldier. He waited in the plane until all of his men got out first. Grabhorn had read another of his books, "I Wanted Wings" [Annotator's Note: published in 1937], when he was in college. Lay was doing his second tour and survived against all the odds. Speaking with fellow airmen several years later, Grabhorn found that they did not mind having to fly extra missions [Annotator's the Note: as the war went on the US Air Force increased the number of missions required to be relieved]. Surviving and coming home was strictly a matter of chance and luck They were losing ten percent of the group every time they flew. As a prisoner of war in Germany, Grabhorn and his fellow prisoners were given less and less food as the Germans were losing ground. They were given a slice or two of black bread and ersatz coffee [Annotator's Note: coffee made of non-specific ingredients to replace real coffee] for breakfast. For lunch they had potatoes or soup, and for dinner they had more black bread. He went from weighing 150 pounds to 97, and he was not the only one. They bartered only very little with the Germans, as they did not have much either.

Before the war, Edgar A. Grabhorn had gone to Purdue [Annotator's Note: Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana] to become an engineer with the goal of designing automobiles. The military was a good life, except for war, of which he experienced three [Annotator's Note: World War 2, the Korean War from 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953, and the Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, from 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975]. The military taught him discipline, and he loved to fly. He learned a lot of responsibility and met a wonderful woman who became his wife. The Germans told Grabhorn, while he was prisoner, that once the Americans won the war, they were going to rebuild the German cities. The war broadened the outlook of many people. They were no longer isolated. When he was liberated from the prisoner of war camp, food was foremost on his mind. He was glad to not hear guns firing anymore and to be heading home. Grabhorn did not talk about his wartime experiences for a long time, it took a bit of time for him to be ready.

Edgar A. Grabhorn was born in 1924 in Annapolis [Annotator's Note: Annapolis, Maryland]. The Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States] was difficult, and his father lost two homes. They ended up moving to a farm in Indiana where he learned a lot, and which served him later. Before the war started, Grabhorn was studying at Purdue University [Annotator's Note: in West Lafayette, Indiana]. The war started when he was in his second semester. He applied to be a pilot and was accepted to the Air Corps Reserves, shortly thereafter called to active duty and learning to fly. He trained as a navigator in Hondo, Texas, as well as a gunnery officer. He was commissioned in 1943. He joined a bomb group, the 487th [Annotator's Note: as a navigator with the 838th Bombardment Squadron, 487th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force], a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] group, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In early 1944 they flew over to England, where they were based out of East Anglia [Annotator's Note: East Anglia, England] in a little town called Lavenham [Annotator's Note: Lavenham, England]. They did very little additional training after arrival. On their first mission, they targeted railway yards in Belgium. Unfortunately, the lead airplane did not get its bombs off and they were fired at. They had to make three runs before releasing their bombs. They lost one engine but made it back. They flew without escorts. The flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery] was bad. He felt sick to his stomach when he was told they had to go back over the target where they had been fired at. It was the first time he had ever been shot at, and he got three doses of it. No one in his airplane was wounded on that first mission.