[Annotator's Note: Recording begins mid conversation between Hugh Colbert and the interviewer.] Hugh Colbert joined the 106th Infantry Division at Camp Atterbury, Indiana after many of the division's most well trained men were sent to Europe as replacements after D-Day [Annotator's Note: the Normandy Invasion on 6 June 1944]. Colbert was assigned as a messenger in his unit [Annotator's Note: Company B, 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division], but had only completed messenger training during basic training and had no real knowledge of how to perform his job on the front lines. When Colbert first arrived at the front lines he went from 1st Battalion headquarters down to his company's area on the line, then set up his tent before being told that he was supposed to be stationed back at battalion headquarters, so he had to carry all of his gear back and forth for no reason. The 106th Infantry Division relieved the 2nd Infantry Division on the line just before the start of the Battle of the Bulge and many 2nd Division soldiers were surprised to see men of the 106th Division entering the line with ties on. Colbert, however, used his tie to keep warm and even bundle up firewood. Colbert was captured with a group of about 200 other Americans, yet he felt profoundly alone as he marched toward the German positions with his hands atop his helmet. Colbert was baptized at age 13 into the Baptist Church and has been a Christian ever since. Even in the face of capture and intense feelings of loneliness, Colbert remembered his pastor's sermons and the words of scripture that proclaimed that God would always be with him, even in German captivity. When Colbert and his fellow American prisoners were held in the city of Koblenz, Germany while the city was under heavy American bombing, Colbert thought that God had forgotten his promise to be with him, but Colbert and his comrades made it through. Colbert felt that God placed his hand over the building that the American prisoners were held in during the bombing and protected the men inside.

Hugh L. Colbert was born in Electra, Texas in June 1925. He attended school there in the Electra public school system until graduating high school in 1942. When Colbert graduated high school, he had been outside of the state of Texas only once in his life and the only other state he had visited was nearby Oklahoma. He grew up in between two sisters, one five years older and the other two years younger. Prior to the onset of the Great Depression, Colbert's father worked on the oil fields in Oklahoma, but came home to Texas soon after the Great Depression began. Colbert's father figured that he had earned enough money to support the family for two or three years, but when he went to the bank one day to retrieve the money in his account, he realized that the bank had failed, closed down, and lost all of the Colbert family savings. Over the next few years, Colbert's father worked various jobs for long days and sometimes only earned a single dollar per day, but the family never went hungry during the Great Depression. Colbert and his family did not eat extravagant meals, but got by on rice, beans, and cornbread and even had enough food to support Colbert's aunt and her son, who lived next door. Colbert was out in his front yard with his younger sister and cousin on the morning of 7 December 1941 when his mother came to the front door and informed the three that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor that morning. Colbert initially asked his mother where Pearl Harbor was, but the next morning, Monday, he reported to his morning history class early and heard President Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech, which asked Congress for a declaration of war, over the loudspeakers. Colbert then understood the significance of that attack on Pearl Harbor and knew that he had experienced a piece of history at that very moment. Colbert knew that the attack meant war for the United States, but initially felt that the United States was strong enough to win the war quickly. Colbert graduated high school at the age of 16 and immediately went to work as a bookkeeper for a newspaper in Wichita Falls, Texas. When he turned 18, Colbert registered for the draft and was quickly drafted into the Army. He took a bus to Dallas, Texas and went to the Army recruiting station there where he was inducted into the Army on 18 December 1943. Exactly one year later, 18 December 1944, Colbert was captured by German forces in Europe. Colbert went to the Army Infantry Replacement Training Center at Camp Fannin in Tyler, Texas for basic training. He was initially placed in a rifle company, but after only two weeks, he was transferred to the messenger training center where he learned radio transmission, field telephone operation, Morse code, and code deciphering. Colbert did not request the transfer, but when he received his orders, he went without question. Colbert finished his training at Camp Fannin, but discovered he had a stress fracture in his foot from long marches so he spent three weeks in the hospital before returning to Camp Fannin where he joined a new company and awaited orders. Colbert was then sent to Fort Meade, Maryland where he saw the US Capital in Washington DC for the first time in his life. Colbert was stationed at Fort Meade for about three weeks before he was sent via troop train to Camp Atterbury, Indiana to join up with a new infantry division there. When Colbert saw the Capital in Washington DC for the first time, it sent chills down his spine. He spent two weekend passes in Washington DC while stationed at Fort Mead and saw all of the major sites, an experience which he thoroughly enjoyed. While at Fort Meade, Colbert and his fellow soldiers exercised, trained, and played games to stay fit while they waited for orders. At night, the men went on long marches. Colbert went to Camp Atterbury and was assigned as a company messenger to Company B, 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division. At Camp Atterbury, he met one of his closest friends, Company B's other messenger, Leslie Carol [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling], from New York.

After he joined Company B, 422nd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, Hugh Colbert and his comrades were issued weapons and underwent some additional training. Since Colbert was a company messenger, he was issued the lighter M1 Carbine as opposed to the heftier M1 Garand rifle issued to most riflemen. As the division prepared to deploy overseas, Colbert sat down with the rest of Company B for a training briefing with the company commander, and the commander informed Colbert that he still needed training on the .50 caliber machine gun. Colbert helped to load the gun, but never actually fired it; still, he was qualified to handle one without ever firing a round. Colbert joined the 106th Infantry Division as a replacement after most of the division's most experienced men had been deployed overseas following D-Day in Europe [Annotator's Note: the Normandy Invasion on 6 June 1944]. The division had just completed two months of maneuver training when Colbert joined, however, so the division was still very well trained and had been training as a single unit since early 1943. The replacement troops that came into the 106th Infantry Division after D-Day in the summer of 1944 consisted of brand new recruits, men like Colbert who had just completed basic training, and even extra men from the US Army Air Forces whom were transferred to the infantry. The division got its orders to deploy in October 1944 and the men took a troop train to Camp Myles Standish near Boston, Massachusetts where the division spent a week. The men then took a troop train to New York City, unloaded, and rode a ferry across the Hudson River to a shipyard from which the division would embark. Each man waited to hear his name called and when it was, he crossed the gangplank and boarded the ship, descended to the lower decks, and climbed into their crowded bunks. Once the men settled into their bunks a bit, they were informed that they were aboard the Aquitania, one of the Allies' biggest and fastest troop ships, and were headed across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. The journey lasted four and a half days and Colbert spent most of the journey admiring the ocean as the ship sliced through the waves. The ship docked at Greenock, Scotland and the men waited for a few days for troop trains to pick them up. The train arrived in Fairford, England where the entire 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment stayed. The men were housed in Quonset huts with Colbert and his entire platoon housed in a single hut.

Hugh Colbert's platoon sergeant was a man name Charles Hruby who was very good with the men and almost seemed like the big brother of Colbert's platoon in Company B, 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division. While in England, Colbert took a three day pass to Liverpool, instead of a one day pass to London. Colbert, an untraveled 18 year old kid from Texas, was fascinated by English society and the experience he had in Liverpool. Liverpool gave Colbert his first taste of the destruction of war as well, he saw a bombed out church that stood empty along with multiple other damaged buildings. He walked to the Liverpool Cathedral where a man pointed out the bullet holes in the side of the building left by a German airplane that had strafed the area. Colbert's experiences in Liverpool were so profound that they stuck with him long after the war. The English people accepted American soldiers with open arms and were very welcoming to them. While in England, Colbert and his fellow soldiers did not really train for combat, but rather did physical fitness exercise which involved mostly hikes and marches. England in November was damp and cool, but not cold in Colbert's memory. On 11 November 1944, the town of Fairford hosted an Armistice Day to celebrate the anniversary of the end of the First World War and the entire 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment stood in formation near the town church next to a monument to the fallen soldiers of World War 1. The priest came and prayed over the soldiers, followed by the battalion commander, Colonel Kent [Annotator's Note: Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Kent], who informed the men that they would soon deploy across the English Channel and that some of them would not return. Ironically, Lieutenant Colonel Kent was one of 1st Battalion's first casualties in the Battle of the Bulge. As fate would have it, every man in 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry on that November evening became a casualty during the Battle of the Bulge; some were killed, others wounded, and the rest captured by the Germans.

As the men of 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment packed their gear and prepared to move out to cross the English Channel, Hugh Colbert of Company B was assigned to serve guard duty at the train station near camp in Fairford, England. However, Colbert was told to take his pack, his duffle bag, and his rifle with him as he would be joined at the train station later that night by the rest of the battalion to load a troop train and move out. Colbert stood guard over the battalion's duffle bags and equipment while the rest of the men cleaned up camp and prepared to move out. About midnight that night, the men marched to the rail station and the entire battalion boarded a troop train to Southampton, England. In Southampton, the men loaded up on a troop ship on 30 November 1944. The crossing took only a night, but when the boat idled off the coast of France, the sea was too rough for the men to load into smaller boats which were to take them ashore. Colbert and his fellow soldiers waited aboard ship for three additional days before the ship was able to move into a harbor, where the men loaded into landing craft and went ashore. Once ashore, there were no trucks available to pick up Colbert and his fellow soldiers, so the commander of Company B, Captain Littlejohn [Annotator's Note: Captain Thomas F. Littlejohn] asked his men if they would rather wait for trucks to arrive, or march toward the truck depot. The men were rearing to go, so they marched down a road for an hour and in that hour, Colbert and his comrades did not see a standing building, but endless piles of ruble and ruin, reminders of the war that the men had arrived to fight. A company of army trucks met up with Company B along the road and the men loaded up and were driven to a bivouac area where they were given the option to either rest there for a while, or continue on in the trucks for a few hours in order to reach their bivouac area. The men elected to stay on the trucks and went on to their final bivouac camp near Rouen, France, where they stayed for a week before being inserted into the front lines. The night before the 106th Infantry Division was to move out for the front lines, Colbert and his good friend Leslie Carroll [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] were on battalion KP duty [Annotator's Note: kitchen police or mess duty] and had to take a mess truck into Rouen to load up with rations and supplies at a supply depot there. Colbert and Carroll returned to camp just at dusk that night and met with their sergeant, who revealed to them that the battalion was to break camp and move out the next morning after chow. That night frozen rain and sleet fell on the camp and froze the tents and made everything wet. Colbert served chow the next morning and then had a miserable time breaking camp in the cold temperatures and freezing rain. Colbert and Carroll were among the first men ready to move out. Finally, the battalion packed up and waited to load the trucks to the front lines. The men stood in the freezing rain and muddy fields for a few hours until the trucks arrived. Then the men loaded up and the trucks joined a massive train of vehicles headed for the front lines. The journey took two full days and a night to reach the front in Belgium. Colbert was lucky enough to ride in a canvas covered truck with Company B's headquarters platoon, but he heard more complaining from the officers in his own truck than he did from the rest of the enlisted men in the company as they entire division raced toward battle.

The caravan of trucks that took Hugh Colbert and the men of the 106th Infantry Division to the front lines stretched as far down the road as the eye could see in either direction. The caravan wound through French and Belgian towns where a French speaking American soldier conversed briefly with some of the civilians. The long caravan of trucks finally stopped in Belgium and the men unloaded, regrouped, and set up camp for two nights in a forest. After two nights, another caravan of trucks arrived to carry the men the rest of the way directly onto the front lines, but these trucks had no canvas covers to protect the soldiers from the elements. Instead, the men sat in truck beds full of snow and exposed to the winter weather. As the trucks neared the front lines, Colbert experienced a wave of depression as the sounds war and gunfire filled the air, which signaled to the untested troops that they were going into war. The caravan stopped in a small town due to backed up traffic where an MP [Annotator's Note: military police] informed them that they had crossed into Germany and were right behind the front lines. The 106th Infantry Division entered the lines to relieve the battle hardened 2nd Infantry Division, but Colbert never saw a soldier from the 2nd Infantry Division as his unit took up the positions vacated by the veteran division. As a runner for Company B, Colbert was stationed at the 1st Battalion headquarters so that he could deliver orders and messages from the battalion headquarters directly to his company commander. Each of the four companies in 1st Battalion had two runners stationed at battalion headquarters and all eight of them took up positions in foxholes and dugouts left behind by the 2nd Infantry Division. The dugouts and foxholes were reinforced and covered with logs which provided protection from the winter weather. Unfortunately, however, the makeshift stove left in the dugout failed to work properly. The battalion was stationed in a wooded area on the Schnee Eifel, but the forest in that region was not dense, but rather consisted of groups of trees. The 1st Battalion headquarters was located ot an elevated position in a clearing that overlooked the American front line and Colbert could see into enemy territory. When Colbert and his comrades moved into position on the front lines it was cold and wet, but temperatures dropped below freezing at night and remained just above freezing during the day. Every day, the roads and terrain thawed slightly and made for miserable, sloppy, wet conditions, but the terrain then refroze at night. Each evening Colbert reported to Company B headquarters to deliver his messages, but he had no overshoes for his boots to protect his feet from the cold muddy slop that he repeatedly trudged through between battalion headquarters and company headquarters. Colbert and his fellow runners repeatedly requested overshoes from battalion, but it was not until Colbert met with Company B's executive officer, a lieutenant, at battalion headquarters on the evening of 15 December 1944 that something was done. That evening, when Colbert and his fellow Company B runner reported to company headquarters, the lieutenant had secured a pair of overshoes for both runners. Before shipping overseas, the division was outfitted with winter clothing which included top coats, field jackets, wool uniforms, wool socks, combat boots, and even ties. Throughout his time on the front, Colbert shared his dugout with the other Company B runner, and one of his best friends, Leslie Carroll [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] from New York, a friend whom he still visits and keeps in touch with today.

[Annotator's Note: Hugh Colbert served as a messenger in Company B, 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division.] When the 106th Infantry Division relieved the 2nd Infantry Division and moved onto the front line, the intelligence that was disseminated to the men suggested that they were moving into a relatively quiet sector of the line and were only stationed there to gain experience. During the fall of 1944 the prevailing attitude among Allied soldiers was that of optimism and there existed a hope that the war might be won by Christmas of that year. Although it was apparent to Colbert and his comrades that the war would not be won by Christmas of 1944 when they moved to the front lines, it still seemed as though the Allies faced a defeated German army and that, come spring of 1945, the Allies would swiftly push back into Germany. The division carried most of their supplies with them to the front lines and those supplies were expected to last them their first few days on the front. In Colbert's memory, the men of 1st Battalion were not resupplied before being captured by the Germans. From their positions on the front, the men knew that they were very near to the enemy's positions and could hear the sounds of war coming from the German lines, especially sporadic machine gun fire from various enemy positions. There was never any indication to Colbert and his comrades that the Germans were planning a massive counterattack. Instead, the men were told to expect a few enemy patrols, but the Americans figured that the Germans were no more interested in fighting than they were since men on both sides had to battle the harsh winter weather. As a messenger, Colbert did not go out on any patrols, but rather went back and forth between the battalion headquarters and Company B's headquarters. In one instance, while Colbert and his fellow Company B runner, Leslie Carroll [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling], were on their way to company headquarters to deliver a message, the pair encountered two unidentified men approaching them on the road. Carroll and Colbert crouched out of sight behind some bushes and soon identified the men as two lieutenants from Company A, but Carroll and his fellow soldiers knew how close the German lines were and remained wary of the enemy even behind their own lines. Colbert never encountered any Belgian civilians while on the front lines as most all civilians had vacated the war zone there, but the company confronted a few German patrols, none of which Colbert encountered personally. By the end of the day on Friday, 15 December 1944, after a few days on the front line, Colbert felt very well acclimated to his situation on the front and felt he knew the area and the terrain around his position very well.

On the evening of 15 December 1944, the night before the Germans opened up the massive offensive referred to as the Battle of the Bulge, the 1st Battalion sergeant informed Hugh Colbert that he was to take up watch around the messenger station at 1st Battalion headquarters from 0500 to 0700 on the morning of 16 December. At 0500 that morning, Colbert was awoken from his dugout, bundled up as best he could, and took to his watch for the morning. Colbert paced his watch route around the headquarters three times when he heard the deafening sounds of the initial German artillery barrage. Colbert confirmed with another soldier that the fire was the German's before an enemy rocket hit right near the headquarters. Colbert ran back to the message center to alert his sergeant, but when he tried to get in the door he had to answer a series of questions from the sergeant to clarify that he was American. The sergeant had heard the barrage that began the attack and was already in a defensive mindset. The sergeant radioed over to the battalion commander that the battalion was under attack. Where Colbert was located at battalion headquarters was some two miles behind Company B's headquarters. When the Germans commenced the attack on the 422nd Infantry Regiment's position, the men were unaware that the other regiments of the 106th Infantry Division had also come under attack that morning. On the radio that morning, Hitler [Annotator's Note: German Dictator Adolf Hitler] was quoted claiming that the Germans would be in Paris by Christmas and the German attack became known as the Belgium Bulge before the battle coined its historical name. That afternoon, Colonel Descheneaux [Annotator's Note: Colonel George Descheneaux Jr. commanded the 422nd Infantry Regiment] organized a task force to thwart the German penetration near the town of Auw, but Colbert was not included in it and never had any direct interaction with Colonel Descheneaux. Throughout the first day of the battle, 16 December, Colbert became increasingly concerned with the situation. Later in the morning, a sergeant ordered Colbert to man a .50 caliber machine gun in a pillbox and defend an open area to the front of the battalion headquarters and was ordered to fire on any movement there. While Colbert was in the pillbox, his Company B supply sergeant came up in a jeep to resupply from the battalion ammunition depot there and informed Colbert that the Company B executive officer, and Colbert's friend, Lieutenant Brice [Annotator's Note: 1st Lieutenant William Brice] a West Point graduate, had been killed that morning, shot in the head under the lip of his helmet. This was disheartening news for Colbert who looked up to the lieutenant more than he did his own company commander. As the day wore on, Colbert and the men at 1st Battalion headquarters prepared to take up defensive positions in foxholes for the night. The next day, 17 December, Colonel Kent [Annotator's Note: Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Kent, commander of 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment] observed German troops and equipment advancing on the battalion's flank. He called in an artillery strike on the German advance, but the artillery battalion used up their daily ration of shells simply zeroing in on the enemy positions, thus, once they had the enemy zeroed, they had no more shells to fire, which infuriated Kent. On the evening of 17 December, a German artillery round landed right in Kent's dugout and killed him. The night before that, 16 December, however, Colbert spent the night out in the cold in a foxhole but was lucky enough to be invited into Colonel Kent's heated dugout for a short period of time to warm up before he went back out and spent the rest of the night in the foxhole in the snow and mud. While that night was miserable, battalion headquarters still had a functioning mess station, so Colbert and his comrades still had decent chow through the first night of the battle.

Unbeknownst to Hugh Colbert and most of the men in the 422nd Infantry Regiment, the German advance had completely cut the entire regiment off from the rest of the American lines by the morning of 17 December 1944. The next day, 18 December, Colbert went out in the afternoon to gather some cover for his foxhole, which had been filing with melted snow during the day. As he gathered tree branches, a German artillery shell landed near his position. Colbert sprinted to the nearest foxhole and dove in, quickly followed by two other soldiers who piled in on top of him. Soon after Colbert and his comrades took cover, another shell impacted right where Colbert had been standing seconds earlier. The encounter was Colbert's first real experience under heavy enemy. Later that afternoon, a German Messerschmitt fighter plane flew over and strafed Colbert's position. He froze out in the open as the plane's machine guns kicked up snow on either side of him, but ultimately left him unscathed. 17 December 1944 was essentially a slow day for the 422nd Infantry Regiment as most of the heavy fighting had moved past its position to other areas. By 18 December, the regiment was completely isolated with no hope for reinforcements or new supplies to arrive. The 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment then geared up to take back a small town near its original position. As the 1st Battalion got its orders, however, supplies ran extremely low and Colbert could barely get so much as a single can of pineapple juice from the mess station. Before moving out to make the assault, the men were ordered to pack up their duffle bags and line them up along a road in an orderly fashion with the handles all facing the same way, which the men assumed was in order for the trucks that would be sent to retrieve the bags to do so more quickly. Instead, the bags were doused with gasoline and set ablaze as the battalion moved out. On the morning of 18 December, the men received the last snack from the food that they had in the original supply stores. Along with the duffle bags, all of the battalion’s heavy equipment and the field kitchen were destroyed. As the battalion moved out, many of the soldiers jettisoned any excess materials and equipment that they carried. Colbert dropped his gas mask but held on to the rest of his gear. Company B had two jeeps and a truck, and 1st Battalion's Headquarters Company had a few vehicles but the battalion mostly moved out on foot through the slippery, muddy roads which sent numerous vehicles into the ditch. The men marched with only their packs, but Colbert was lucky enough to throw his pack in his supply sergeant's jeep. Ultimately, his sergeant was captured, and his pack was lost forever. As the march drug on, it became clear that the battalion, and the regiment as a whole, was totally lost. The men marched aimlessly for hours without reaching the town they were ordered to capture, which was only a few miles from the battalion's original position. By the evening of 18 December, 1st Battalion had passed the positions of 2nd Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment in a wooded area and halted the march. The 1st Battalion then moved to another wooded area where they dug in for the night, but the tree roots were too thick to dig foxholes, so most of the men huddled together for the night. The next morning, the men were to attack and one of the sergeants in the battalion took a group to spearhead the attack out across a nearby roadway. The spearhead barely made it down the road before the Germans opened up from their lines and cut off the spearhead group completely. Back in the battalion's main position near the town of Auw, the men were told that the 589th Field Artillery Battalion was dug in at a position not too far from 1st Battalion. As it turned out, however, the position was overrun by German tanks, and those tanks then advanced down the roadway and began firing on the battalion's position in the wooded area just as German artillery began falling on them, which effectively ran the battalion out of that location. Under the heavy weight of German fire, Major Moon [Annotator's Note: Major William P. Moon took over command of 1st Battalion after Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Kent was killed in action earlier in the battle] ordered Colbert to run back to 2nd Battalion's position and ask Colonel Scales [Annotator's Note: Lieutenant Colonel Charles Scales commanded 2nd Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment] what should be done. Colonel Scales did not much care what 1st Battalion did as he had his own plans for 2nd Battalion. Colbert raced back to 1st Battalion just in time to see Major Moon and a group of 1st Battalion officers run from the wooded area. Colbert caught up to Moon, delivered Colonel Scales' message, and then Major Moon ordered him to report to his sergeant as Moon and the rest of the officers high tailed it out of the area to try and make it back to the American lines. The historical records of the battle reflect that Major Moon bravely organized the men of 1st Battalion and led them in a last fight against the overwhelming might of the Germans. Colbert saw Moon, the officers, and a number of other 1st Battalion men flee the battlefield just as four German tanks surrounded Colbert and the remaining 200 men of 1st Battalion, who had no choice but to surrender.

As the situation unraveled for 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment, German tanks cut off the battalion's position and artillery fire continued to pound the area. In the chaos, Hugh Colbert's good friend and fellow Company B messenger, Leslie Carroll [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] was assigned to a bazooka team in order to fight the incoming German tanks, which left Colbert to handle a significant portion of the battalion's messaging needs. The situation quickly became hopeless for 1st Battalion as the German tanks were too far away for the Americans to fire on and the battalion lacked the firepower to effectively combat the enemy. Initially the men were told that British armored units were being sent to rescue them, so many initially thought the tanks moving into 1st Battalion's position were friendly, but as the tanks bore down and began firing, it became clear that the tanks were German. At that point, the decision was made by one of the battalion sergeants to surrender. The men threw down their rifles and discarded their other weapons and began the march up the hill toward the German tanks. Colbert was uncertain if any American soldiers had made clear to the Germans that they wished to surrender and there was a rumor that a sergeant marched up the hill under a white flag, but the men went towards the enemy positions anyway. Colbert's friend, Leslie Carroll, was given a slight concussion and slightly wounded by a German artillery shell blast and Colbert watched as Carroll was helped aboard a German tank to be evacuated. That was the last time Colbert saw Carroll until after the war. As Colbert marched up the hill toward the Germans, it began to sink in that he was a prisoner of war. Still, Colbert was not scared for his life when captured by the Germans, who seemed cordial enough during the surrender. The Germans lined the American prisoners up and searched them for gold jewelry and watches, which prompted some men to discard their valuables in the snow rather than forfeit them to the Germans. The Germans then marched the men down the road into the town of Auw, Germany, where the men were held in a barn on the edge of town. The men were held there for a while as the Germans decided what to do with their 200 prisoners, which made many of the men nervous. Apparently, one of the German officers wanted to shoot the Americans and be done with it, but another disagreed since the Americans had surrendered. Ultimately the latter officer's opinion prevailed and a little while later, the Germans informed the Americans that they were officially German prisoners and that they were to be marched to the rear of the German lines. Some 7,000 or 8,000 Americans from the 106th Infantry Division were captured by the Germans in the battle, but the sheer volume of American prisoners sort of comforted Colbert. On the march to the town of Auw, Colbert saw his first dead body, an American jeep driver who lay dead on the side of the road. Later, Colbert saw the bodies of two medics and a man whom the medics had carried on a stretcher all heaped together in the snow and the boots on those bodies had been stripped and taken by the Germans and the sight these dead bodies truly made Colbert appreciate the gravity of war. Colbert's friend on the front lines from Company B had also told Colbert about the young German teenage soldiers who were killed in the battle. As Colbert was marched into captivity, he truly felt that the US Army had let him and his comrades down. He felt that the US Army did not do enough for the men on the front to protect them. Colbert also feels blessed that he never had to take a life in combat and he never even fired his weapon at the enemy. He feels that he did not have the heart to kill and that doing so would have haunted him after the war. Colbert did not object to the war, however, and did not wish to avoid service on the grounds of being a conscientious objector. He simply wanted to serve in any capacity required.

When the Germans captured Hugh Colbert and his unit [Annotator's Note: Company B, 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division], he was bundled up sufficiently for the cold. He wore overshoes over his combat boots, a wool uniform and sweater, a field jacket and topcoat, among other warm winter clothing. Since many Americans had abandoned any excess equipment and clothing that they felt they no longer needed earlier in the battle, there was a supply of coats, caps, gloves, blankets, and other garments available to the men if they needed any further protection from the cold. The Germans did not force the Americans to strip any clothing or jackets off when the Americans surrendered, but the Germans did confiscate loose garments and pieces of equipment that a prisoner did not have on his body directly. For example, the Germans snatched a pair of overshoes that hung from an Americans belt upon capture. The Germans did not take anything from Colbert, however. The Germans first marched Colbert and his group of about 200 Americans to a barn in the town of Auw, Germany, where the Germans decided where and how to move the prisoners out. The Germans then marched the Americans out of the town and the Americans saw the full force of the German army as it advanced into battle. There was an endless line of trucks, tanks, and even American jeeps full of German officers. The Americans constantly had to jump off the road and out of the way of the German advance as no German driver worried about running over an American prisoner. Despite the volume of German forces and equipment that passed the American prisoners, Colbert still felt that the US Army had superior equipment and vehicles except for the German tanks. Colbert was never interrogated by his German captors and was only later asked for his name, rank, and serial number. Colbert's main concern initially after being captured, however, was registering with the Red Cross so that the US Army would be alerted of his capture and relay the news to his family back home. The Germans marched Colbert's group of prisoners to the town of Prum, Germany where the Americans were housed in a school building attached to a church. The school building was slightly damaged by bombing, but the Germans rushed Colbert and his fellow prisoners in for the night all the same. Around noon the next day, Colbert and his group of prisoners moved out from the school and saw the Germans marching another 1,000 or so American prisoners in. From Prum, the Germans marched the Americans to Gerolstein, Germany where they housed Colbert and his comrades in a barn. By the following day, Colbert's small group of prisoners had been joined by hundreds of other American prisoners. That evening, the Germans began moving the prisoner towards a train depot to ship the prisoners out. The Americans were given a few biscuits and a piece of cheese for a travel ration. The Germans packed the train cars as full as possible, but when Colbert got to the front of the line to board a train, the Germans stopped him as the train was full. The Germans then marched Colbert and the remaining prisoners to another train station. Colbert spent three or four days at the next station, but American bombing halted any trains out from there. Colbert spent Christmas Day there, but American planes bombed the station on that day, which was not terribly intense, but still caused the Americans to hit the floor. Early in captivity, Colbert felt that his situation had to improve from his first night in the bombed out school in Prum. Due to the 106th Infantry Division patch that Colbert and many of the American prisoners wore on their shoulders, the Germans knew what unit the Americans came from. While some prisoners removed their patches upon surrender, Colbert kept his on while in captivity. Some American prisoners from the 28th Infantry Division openly blamed the men of the 106th Infantry Division for their capture and claimed that the men of the 106th had not done their jobs and that had led to the capture of units from other divisions. Men like Colbert and those on the front line simply followed orders in the battle, however, so those kinds of attitudes from other American prisoners hurt. Once Colbert's group of prisoners was joined by larger groups of American prisoners, Colbert really understood the weight of the German victory. The Americans had heard Hitler's [Annotator's Note: German Dictator Adolf Hitler] promise to be in Paris by Christmas of 1944, and, after joining the mass of American prisoners, Colbert felt as though Hitler's goal might be realized.

After German forces captured Hugh Colbert and his unit from the 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division, the Americans were mostly supervised by German Army units. They did occasionally come across German SS units, but mostly remained in the hands of the German Army. After American bombing prevented the Germans from shipping Colbert and his group of prisoners out from Gerolstein, the prisoners were marched all the way to the city of Koblenz, Germany. In Koblenz, Colbert and his fellow prisoners spent two days in a barracks, which was a relief from the wind and cold of the December battlefields. American bombers raided the city on consecutive days. After the second day of intense bombing, the American prisoners petitioned their German guards to move them out of the area but the guards refused without word from their superiors so the Americans threatened to walk out regardless of what the Germans ordered. That afternoon, the Americans walked out of the barracks and stood in formation in the street against the orders of their guards. There were so many American prisoners, however, that the guards could not control the Americans, and finally the order was given for the prisoners to march the rest of the way to a prison camp some 35 miles away. Colbert and his comrades marched for a day and a night and finally arrived at Stalag XII-A near Limburg, Germany on 31 December 1944. Their stay at Stalag XII-A, however, lasted only two days before the Germans loaded up Colbert and his group of prisoners in boxcars and sent them on a six day train ride across Germany. After a grueling ride, during which the train was strafed and bombed occasionally, Colbert and his comrades arrived at Stalag IV-B in Muhlberg, Germany. Enduring a bombing raid was an almost indescribably intense experience for Colbert. With every bomb that fell around him, it seemed more and more certain that the next one would hit his building, but the buildings in which he stayed during bombing raids were never hit. Colbert remained at Stalag IV-B until 4 or 5 February 1945. In Stalag IV-B, the officers were segregated, the noncoms [Annotator's Note: noncommissioned officers] were segregated, and finally the Jewish soldiers were removed from Colbert's group, which left Colbert with a group of privates, who were ordered to a labor camp in February 1945. At that point, most of Colbert's buddies from his unit were sent to a different work camp and Colbert ended up at a labor camp in Werdau, Germany. The camp held 125 men and the guards became more and more friendly the longer the men were held there. Before Colbert and his comrades even entered combat, the Americans were generally aware of the Nazi government's poor treatment of Jews in Europe, but Colbert was not concerned for his Jewish comrades who were removed from the group in Stalag IV-B. Colbert ended up staying at Stalag IV-B for about a month before he was shipped to the labor camp, but the camp was extremely crowded and essentially filled to capacity as a result of the Battle of the Bulge. The camp was filled with almost every nationality from the Allied nations, and some of the prisoners were initially hostile towards the new American prisoners. The British, however, were always extremely friendly and welcoming to the American prisoners and took special care to show them how life inside the camp functioned. Some of the British soldiers were captured by the Germans in North Africa and had been in captivity for four or five years. When Colbert and his comrades initially arrived in Stalag IV-B, they were put in a quarantine barracks, where the group barely had room for each man to lay down on the floor. The men slept so close together that they all had to sleep facing the same direction, which made sleep scarce and restless. There was a latrine outside the barracks, but the cold temperatures made its use miserable. Colbert remained in his US Army uniform while in captivity. He and his comrades also had to deal with lice and bedbugs while in the camp, and the problems with lice and insects intensified in the spring.

Food was extremely scarce for Hugh Colbert and his comrades in German prison camp. Morning rations consisted of a half cup of lukewarm coffee, lunch rations included a half cup of soup, and evening rations consisted of a single slice of bread. While at Stalag IV-B, the prisoners rarely had personal interactions with the German guards except when they first came into the camp, and when the prisoners were counted in the morning. While on a German prisoner train, Colbert split a Red Cross parcel between himself and ten other men, which was difficult since the prisoners had no utensils to divide any parts of the parcel. Colbert received another Red Cross parcel when he arrived at a small labor camp which was his final destination in German captivity. There, he split the parcel with only one other American prisoner. In the labor camp, Colbert and his group of prisoners were given rations by table, not to each individual prisoner, so the table selected a divider to split the rations among the men, and the divider chose his portions last which prompted the men to divide the rations as equally as possible. When Colbert arrived in the labor camp, there were already 100 prisoners there. Those men worked in a factory that recycled cotton, but Colbert and his group were only intended to stay at that work camp until a new camp was ready. That camp was never completed by the Germans, so Colbert and his fellow prisoners ended up doing cleaning and utility duty around the labor camp for the men who worked in the cotton factory. In late March or early April 1945, the Americans bombed the vital railway yard in Zwickau, Germany. In response, the Germans took all of the prisoners in Colbert's labor camp and took them to the rail yard to fill the bomb craters there. The men worked day and night, but the German guards did not care much about the productivity of their prisoners, so long as the Americans worked vigorously when the Nazi railroad officials came to inspect the progress. The American prisoners did not trade with their German guards, but, if an American prisoner got his hands on a German ration coupon, the German guards would take that coupon and purchase something for the Americans with it. As the war drew closer and closer to an end, the German guards became increasingly friendly with the American prisoners, but Colbert attributed that more to the sympathy of the guards for the prisoners, not the situation of the war. Most of the guards Colbert encountered were in their 30s or 40s, around the age of Colbert's father during that time. While in captivity, the Americans attained information about the state of the war through any and all sources available. Americans heard snippets while out working in factories and some men managed to smuggle in radios in order to broadcast the BBC news [Annotator's Note: British Broadcasting Company]. The German guards were careful not to reveal any solid information about the state of the war, but the Americans knew that the Allies were winning and that liberation was coming. Colbert never considered attempting to escape German captivity, especially once he arrived in eastern Germany so far from the American lines, but there were men who made escape attempts. A few men actually escaped the labor camp and enjoyed a few days of freedom before they were recaptured. The Germans put these men in solitary confinement as punishment, but the Americans loved solitary confinement as it offered a warmer room and slightly better quality food. The Germans, however, could not hold the prisoners in solitary confinement for long because the American lines pushed closer and closer to that location, so the prisoners were transported back to the labor camp.

As the war drew nearer and nearer to an end, Hugh Colbert and the rest of the American prisoners in the German labor camp heard the sounds of Allied artillery firing in their direction. When the Allies firebombed the German city of Dresden, the prisoners saw the sky glow red from the flames, even though Dresden was some 90 miles away from the labor camp. By 15 April 1945, Colbert and his fellow prisoners knew their liberation was near. The number of German guards dropped from seven or eight, down to only three. At the time, Colbert was being held with his group of prisoners right in the heart of the small town of Werdau, Germany and he saw a German woman run out near the building where the Americans were held and begin snatching her clothes off the drying line. Colbert opened the window and the woman warned of American bombers in the area, but when Colbert responded with obvious delight, the German woman became furious. On the afternoon of 16 April 1945 Colbert and his fellow prisoners were liberated by American forces. That afternoon, the American prisoners began to hear small arms firing growing louder and louder as the Americans neared the town, so the prisoners moved to the ground level of the building that they were held in. American forces advanced into the town in a spearhead and a sergeant made his way to the door of the building in which Colbert and his fellow prisoners were held, spoke with the prisoners, then shot through the heavy door at the entrance and kicked it down. The three German guards left accountable for the American prisoners then surrendered to the Americans in a cordial manner and obviously respected and trusted the Americans. After the Americans cleared out a sniper in the surrounding area, the former American prisoners were ordered to gather their belongings and run away from the town in anticipation of the battle that was to take place for the town. Colbert gathered his stuff and ran back through ranks of American soldiers who covered the prisoners' retreat. Just as he made it through the lines, one his American liberators began to cry, overwhelmed at the sight of his fellow countrymen regaining their freedom from the enemy. Colbert and his comrades reorganized on a hill to the rear, and the feeling of liberation was spectacular. Colbert and his comrades on the hill were joined by liberated French and British soldiers, as well as a group of some 40 Russian women who had worked as forced laborers in the area under the Nazis. As the Colbert and his fellow liberated prisoners loaded up in a truck convoy, they were given extra rations and food and candy by other American soldiers who were glad to see the liberated Americans. One man even shared his own birthday cake on the windshield of a jeep with Colbert and a few other liberated prisoners. It was at that point that Colbert truly realized that his time as an enemy prisoner was over. It took three more days before the convoy reached Gera, Germany where Colbert stayed for four days before being shipped out to France. The Red Cross came through Gera and offered Colbert and his comrades the chance to send a brief telegram home to their families, an offer that Colbert eagerly accepted. Colbert sent his Red Cross telegram just a week after his mother had received his first note from German captivity. The second letter that Colbert had written his family from prison camp in January 1945 did not arrive in his home town until January 1946, so the telegram from the Red Cross was the first opportunity Colbert had to inform his family of his liberation.

The worst aspects about Hugh Colbert's prisoner of war experience included his uncertainty regarding the future, the lack of food and drink, and the harsh cold weather. Colbert was not officially registered with the International Red Cross until 6 January 1945, so there was no record of his capture or whereabouts available to anyone from the day he was captured, 19 December 1944, until 6 January 1945. After being processed at a camp in Gera, Germany, Colbert and his comrades were moved out to an airfield, where they were treated for lice, put in a barracks for one night, and then loaded up the next day on a plane for Paris, France. Due to some confusion the next day, the men found a ride with a pilot bound for Nancy, France, so Colbert and 24 other men accepted and flew to Nancy. It was Colbert's first ever trip in an airplane. In Nancy, the pilot decided to unload his cargo, refuel the plane, and then take Colbert and his comrades to Paris unannounced. The men again accepted the ride and they had to wait on a runway in Paris for a few hours until some army trucks were arranged to take them on into the city. In Paris, Colbert got his first hot meal since being captured then stayed the rest of night on a cot in the lobby of a Paris hotel. Colbert and his comrades were processed in the basement where they ditched all of the clothes that the men had worn since their capture. Then the men showered off the filth of months in captivity and were outfitted with new uniforms and fresh undergarments. After he redressed in fresh clothes, Colbert retrieved what was left of his personal belongings including an address book, some photographs, his billfold, and his New Testament. The Germans did not take any of these items from Colbert, but they did confiscate all the money in his billfold. He had a few American dollars, an English pound note, some coins, and some French and Belgian invasion currency, but the Germans only offered Colbert a receipt for the invasion currency and simply took the rest unrecorded.

After spending one day in Paris, France, Hugh Colbert boarded a train for Le Havre, France in Normandy. Upon arriving in Le Havre the next morning, Colbert and his comrades were taken to a cigarette camp [Annotator's Note: camps named after popular cigarette brands used to rehabilitate American prisoners of war before they were sent home], Camp Wings, for breakfast. In Colbert's memory, the breakfast at Camp Wings was one of the most enjoyable he had ever eaten. After breakfast, Colbert and his comrades were taken by truck to Camp Lucky Strike, one of the largest of the cigarette camps, where the men had medical evaluations. Colbert was immediately admitted to the hospital at Camp Lucky Strike after a doctor recognized that he suffered from Yellow Jaundice as his skin and eyes were tinted yellowish in color. Colbert spent ten days in the hospital at Camp Lucky Strike being treated with penicillin until he overcame the illness. On Mother's Day of 1945, Colbert sent a wire to his mother from the hospital that informed her that he was getting ready to leave Europe from home, although he kept his hospitalization out of the wire. While in camp, Colbert ran into a man who had been in his training company at Camp Fannin, Texas. During their conversation, Colbert realized that had he not broken his foot during the last week of basic training and been delayed in deployment, he might have been sent to Italy, where his friend was captured within a week and spent nine months in German captivity. After Colbert was processed and registered again at Camp Lucky Strike, he went to the docks in La Havre where he boarded the John Ericsson, a troop transport. The ship dropped anchor for a time in Southampton, England before joining up with a convoy to cross the Atlantic back to the United States. An Atlantic storm slowed the journey, but the ship arrived in New York on 29 May 1945. Colbert sent another wire home to his family in New York and then was sent to Camp Shanks, New York where he was told that he would be processed and shipped home within 24 hours. Sure enough, Colbert was on a train back to Texas the next morning and soon arrived in San Antonio, Texas for further processing. Colbert was granted some back pay and given a 60 day medical furlough from the Army. He went downtown, bought a bus ticket back to his hometown, called his house and spoke with his family for the first time in months and informed them that he would be home the next day. He arrived in Electra, Texas on 2 June 1945 to a welcoming crowd from his church congregation. Colbert saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time when his ship arrived in New York on 29 May. On the morning of 29 May, the men were instructed to pack their gear and get organized because they were to be on deck when the ship pulled into New York for a large public display. Sure enough, when the ship entered the harbor, the men lined the deck as the ship passed the Statue of Liberty amid a group of fire department boats shooting their hoses into the air in celebration. Colbert spent his medical leave from the Army at home eating his mother's cooking and regaining his strength, but after it was over, he reported to Fort Sam Houston for processing. He was then sent to Camp Fannin, Texas where he was discharged with the rank of corporal on 28 November 1945.

When Hugh Colbert was discharged from the US Army in November 1945 his father insisted that he take advantage of the GI Bill and go to college. Until the fall term started the next year, however, Colbert worked in the oil fields, which was a great experience for him. He attended North Texas University and graduated with an accounting degree in May 1950. Colbert struggled to find a job after graduation, however, until he lined up an interview with an oil company and impressed the higher ups there with his oilfield experience. He went to work as a district clerk for the oil company in July 1950. He worked there for 18 years before being transferred to the accounting department in the company's home office in 1968. After the war, Colbert struggled with war nightmares and some symptoms of PTSD [Annotator's Note: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder], but he was never diagnosed with a disorder or told how to treat it. Instead, his family helped him suppress the memories of the war as they figured he did not want to discuss his war experience at all. Colbert wished he could have opened up to his family about his experiences during the war and feels that doing so might have helped him cope with the stress. He never suffered from survivor's guilt, however, and did not have much trouble transitioning from military to civilian life again. Colbert feels that his six week medical furlough from the Army once he returned home helped him transition from military to civilian life before his discharge. Colbert's most memorable experience from World War 2 was surviving the intense American bombing of Koblenz, Germany when he was held there as a prisoner of the Germans. In Colbert's view, World War 2 made him more appreciative of his life at home, his upbringing, his family, and even simple things like cornbread or a glass of water. Colbert was drafted into the Army and never really wanted to go to war, but he knew it was his responsibility to go and his place to fight. He even got a six month deferment from the Army to work for a full year at a newspaper, but that deferment helped Colbert become ready to go fight and helped him mature into a soldier more easily than he would had he been drafted earlier in his life. Colbert feels that The National World War II Museum serves a great purpose and feels that the history of the war must be taught to future generations. Colbert openly shares his experiences from the war to anyone who listens, especially young people.