Floyd Dumas' father worked for the New York Central Railroad in Malone, New York as a boilermaker. Dumas had three brothers and three sisters. He was the third in line and is the oldest brother. His brother Leonard served in the Air Force and was also a POW. He was shot down over Vienna. Dumas went in first then his brother volunteered to go into the Air Force. Dumas was in Alexandria Bay, New York in the Thousand Islands when he learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor. A bunch of the guys from Malone would go to that area to work in the restaurants. He worked there from the spring through the summer when he got his draft notice. This was in 1942 and he was 22 years old. He signed his papers in Albany, New York where he was issued a uniform then put on a train to Camp Croft, South Carolina for basic training. Dumas loved the Army despite what he went through. If he was not planning to get married he would have stayed in. Dumas was a BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] even though he was the smallest guy in the company. He served in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division. The division was made up of guys from mostly Oklahoma and Texas and they did not get along with Dumas and the other Yankees. After some training they became good friends. Dumas has tried to locate some of the guys he served with but cannot. When the Germans hit them at Anzio they knocked out more than half of the division.

Floyd Dumas was in a prison camp in 1943. He made his first landing in Sicily. After that landing they were given a rest then they went into Salerno. They were then pulled off the line and allowed to take showers and were issued new uniforms. After that they landed at Anzio. The landings at Sicily were not difficult. In northern Sicily they ran into Italian and German troops which they fought. Salerno was worse and longer than Sicily. Anzio was the worst. In Sicily they were tasked with taking the Comiso Airport. Dumas did not mind the combat in Sicily but Salerno and Anzio were rough. When they were heading for Rome they were ordered to stop and dig in.

Floyd Dumas believes that they could have taken Rome if they had not been stopped. They were ordered to dig in and spent two or three weeks waiting to move out again. Dumas was very close to the guys he served with [Annotator's Note: in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division]. They had conducted amphibious training at Cape Cod and mountain training in Virginia. They did a lot of training. The men in his unit were from all over the country. Dumas carried a BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] throughout the fighting in Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio. He also carried most of the ammunition for it along with a Bangalore torpedo and rations. During one of the landings, Dumas had to help a fellow soldier get ashore.

After Sicily, Floyd Dumas went to Salerno. The fighting there was not much different than it had been in Sicily except that they were there longer. A few of the guys in Dumas' outfit [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division] were killed or wounded but not him. He was lucky. As far as he knows, he killed a German officer one day in Salerno. They were dug in and watching a farmhouse. Dumas saw the reflection of sunlight off of the lenses of a pair of binoculars the enemy officer was looking through. He fired at the man and hit him five times in the chest. After Dumas fired everyone started shooting. He feels lucky that he was not killed after taking part in three amphibious landings. He also credits the Italians who hid him in their houses with his survival. When the Italians learned that Dumas and the men he was with were escaped American POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war] stuck behind the German lines they hid them in various houses. They also hid out in hollowed out haystacks during the day. One day, an American Spitfire [Annotator's Note: British made Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft were flown by some American fighter squadrons during combat operations in Italy] strafed some of the haystacks and one of them blew up. The Germans were hiding ammunition in them.

Floyd Dumas was injured at Salerno when a fragment from a hand grenade hit him. He was patched up and stayed on the line. At Anzio they were dug in on the Mussolini Canal all the way in the front. They could see the German tanks which were dug in right out in front of them. The engineers knew that an attack was coming so they blew up all of the bridges that crossed the Canal. The Germans were not able to get their tanks across the Canal but their infantry was able to get across. When Dumas was captured, the Germans launched a full out tank and infantry assault right on his position. Dumas and the guys with him threw their rifles and ammunition in the water because they knew that they could not win the fight. Dumas had never seen so many Germans or tanks in his life.

After he was captured Floyd Dumas and his fellow prisoners were marched to a small town and put in a basement. They were in the town of Anzio. Every building in Anzio was destroyed. They were marched from Anzio about 30 miles to a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] camp near Cinecitta without food or water. Whenever they passed the bodies of German soldiers they had to stop and bury them. The Mussolini Canal had been dug to help the farmers irrigate their crops. When they got to the prison camp they were told that they would be there for 12 days then they would be sent by train to the Black Forest in Germany where they would be put to work. On day ten, Dumas and an English prisoner escaped. They got away in broad daylight. The Germans were all watching the aircraft flying overhead. Dumas and the others were playing cards when they learned that there was a breach in the fence around the camp. Dumas and the Englishman slipped through the breach then came to a high wall. They snuck into a building and hid in there until nightfall. That night there was a severe storm. Dumas and the Englishman used the cover of the storm to go over the wall then they made their way to the countryside.

They [Annotator's Note: Floyd Dumas and the English soldier he had escaped the prisoner of war camp in Cinecitta, Italy with] got to a farmhouse and knocked on the door. They were let in by the elderly couple who lived there. The couple gave them some dry clothes. Dumas was able to speak a little Italian and was able to communicate with the couple. They left the house and took shelter in a bombed out house. The Englishman decided to try to get back to the Allied lines but did not make it. Dumas decided to wait for the Allied lines to get to him. He took a chance and went toward an Italian civilian and traded his uniform jacket for the man's coat. He then went into a small town and knocked on a door. The Italians in the town dressed Dumas like an Italian and helped him hide from the Germans. He stayed in the town for months. One day an Indian soldier arrived. Dumas spoke with the man and asked about escaped prisoners hiding in the Vatican. Dumas and the Indian decided that they would go into Rome the following morning even though Dumas had no identification papers. They walked to a train station then took a train into Rome.

When they [Annotator's Note: Floyd Dumas and another escaped prisoner of war] got to the gates of the Vatican they were turned away. The Vatican could not take in any more escaped prisoners. They were told to go back to where they had come from then return three days later. When they got back they were to look for a man across the street from the Vatican. Dumas went back, found the man, and went with him to a convent. There, Dumas met a guy from Scotland named Bill Robb. Dumas remained at the convent for a while. Robb spoke fluent Italian so he did all of the speaking whenever they went anywhere in Italy. Dumas suspects that some of the Italians they spoke to were suspicious of Robb's accent. Dumas and Robb moved from house to house. One of the families who took them in provided them with nice clothes. While in Italy, Dumas and Robb would go into local bars and restaurants. Robb carried a pistol but Dumas did not. In one bar they encountered a German officer. Robb shot the German officer in the back of the head then he and Dumas left the bar like nothing had happened. Dumas and Robb later moved into an underground tunnel with three Italians.

A week or so after they [Annotator's Note: Floyd Dumas and another escaped prisoner of war named Bill Robb] got there, they were told that American soldiers were close by. They contacted an officer with the 88th Infantry Division who took them to Rome and put them in touch with troops who could take care of them. When they went into Rome they were shot at by German sharpshooters. Dumas was interrogated by an American officer. He was then flown to the United States where he spent three days telling his story to officials. He was then released and allowed to go home.

Floyd Dumas had been in hiding in Italy for five months. One close encounter Dumas had with German soldiers was when he and Robb [Annotator's Note: see segment titled On the Run in the Streets of Rome] came upon two German soldiers with a broken down truck. They just walked past the Germans and pretended that they did not understand them. Another time, they were on a trolley heading to the Vatican to see the pope give a speech. That was dangerous because the Germans frequently stopped the trolleys to check the identification of the passengers. Robb had a false identification card that had been made out by a priest that said he was a student. Dumas did not have a false identification. Three or four plain clothes Gestapo officers jumped on the trolley and began checking identification but the car was so crowded that they could not get back to Dumas. It was all just luck. In one of the places they stayed they had a room adjacent to a room shared by a German soldier and his Italian mistress.

After they got into Rome and were interrogated, Floyd Dumas and Bill Robb went their separate ways. They stayed in touch for years after the war. At some point Robb moved to Canada, not far from where Dumas grew up. He went to the town and found a number of people who knew Dumas but none who knew where he was. Robb finally found Dumas' parents and went to see them. They told him that Dumas was living in Danbury, Connecticut with his wife and child. Robb went to Connecticut and spent two weeks with Dumas and his family. The two friends stayed in touch until a few years ago when Dumas stopped receiving letters from Robb. Dumas assumes that he died. [Annotator's Note: the interview ends with Dumas and the interviewer looking at a picture and talking about it.]