James Siracuse was born in Upper Manhattan [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] in 1920. He was raised there. He moved to New Jersey when he was 18 years old. He entered the service in 1942 when he was 22 years old. Since he was born into the Depression it was not as traumatic for him. As a kid he did not feel the effects of it, but he saw the effects. Siracuse was one of six kids. He lived in a six story apartment. They lived on the top floor. He had an unusual childhood. When he was a two years old, his father ran into a health specialist and became a health fanatic. Siracuse's father had a fenced in garden on the outskirts of Manhattan, at that time the wooded area came right up to the city. Siracuse lived outside, roaming around the garden for the first few years of his life. He was given the name, the Tarzan of Manhattan. Siracuse used to be embarrassed by all of the people who came and saw him. The first cooked food Siracuse had that he could remember came when he was 12. Up until that point everything he ate was raw or uncooked. It was a very unique childhood because of how his father brought him up. His father was an immigrant from Italy who worked for a movie projection company. His entire life was dedicated towards making sure his family was provided for and that everyone was healthy. Siracuse worked when he was in high school for a dry cleaning company. Tips were very scarce. He was working for a company called Western Electric. It was a wartime plant. They were building things for the war. He also worked for a jewelry company in New York making 12 dollars a week. This was a job he had before Western Electric. Siracuse netted 49 dollars his first week on the job, a small fortune in those days. The following week he was going to resign because they put him in a cellar for work. It was not the most desirable job in the world.

James Siracuse worked in the cellar at Western Electric for awhile. The boss never came down so he could horse around a little bit. One day however, he was working and he saw the boss. The boss ended up calling Siracuse to his office the next day and gave him a transfer. Siracuse volunteered for the Army Air Corps after working for a year and a half. When he was eight years old he was playing touch football in his neighborhood street. All of a sudden he heard a noise in the sky. It was an airplane. He had never seen an airplane before so he and his buddies started jumping up and down. Siracuse told himself on that day that he was going to fly one day. Sixteen years later he was going down in flames over enemy territory. Siracuse trained in Montgomery at Maxwell field. His primary training was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. His basic training was under the Army. The primary training was under a contract with a civilian air group in Tuscaloosa. Siracuse enjoyed his training in Tuscaloosa. When he went to basic in Arkansas it was under the Army. His instructor was the worst SOB in the service. Every day he went up in the sky, Siracuse got yelled at by the instructor. It was a dual control aircraft, much like how driver's education cars are today. The instructor was borderline abusive. After a few days Siracuse thought he was going to resign from the Air Corps. He actually wrote a letter to his parents but he never sent it. One day the instructor was overly abusive. Siracuse turned around and stared straight through him, getting his point across that he was irritated. That confrontation helped strengthen his resolve and he eventually passed his basic training. Advanced training was in Selma, Alabama. His instructor was a British RAF [Annotator’'s Note: Royal Air Force] pilot. It was a joy to fly with him. He did his first flight in a B-19. It was a bi-plane with an open cockpit. He had never been off of the ground before. He was looking around at everything from the air for the first time and he was absolutely enthralled. Siracuse had a roommate who he thought was crazy. This roommate almost got Siracuse killed. They used to take a trip to Birmingham from Tuscaloosa for the weekend. His roommate Don drove a station wagon.

One day before James Siracuse got to fly solo, one of his instructors showed him a maneuver that he said he should not do by himself. It was an inverted spin. Siracuse enjoyed the spin and was warned not to do it on his own. The next day he went solo and had to try it. He got it into a spin eventually and the blood started rushing into his head. His log book came out from underneath the seat and pages were flying. He tried to get it out of the spin but was having trouble. He remembered that Don [Annotator’'s Note: his flight school roommate] had said that when it was in a spin the plane will fly itself. As soon as he let go of everything, the plane fixed itself and he was level. In advanced training Siracuse flew a Cessna. They would go up about a thousand feet and cut the power off, drop a parachute out, and try to catch the parachute in a loop. When he had the mean instructor, he had other challenges as well. One of these challenges was a night mission. They had to fly to Memphis, and then Jackson, Tennessee, and then back to Blytheville, Arkansas. There was a storm in Memphis that night that cost the lives of three pilots. Siracuse was low on fuel because of the issue he was having with his flaps. He tried to locate something to navigate by in the dark. To his left in the distance, he saw some lights he recognized. He was able to locate the base and realized he had flown past it. He was able to land before he ran out of gas. He was glad to hit the ground. Siracuse had some practice missions near and around Lake Charles, Louisiana. They were training in Oklahoma City first, but then they switched to Lake Charles.

[Annotator's Note: James Siracuse served in the USAAF as an A-20 pilot in the 669th Bombardment Squadron, 416th Bombardment Group, 9th Air Force and flew combat missions in the European Theater of Operations.] The people who were members of Lake Charles [Annotator's Note: Louisiana] Country Club were very hospitable to the servicemen. They always had parties and different functions for the soldiers. On a flight to San Antonio, Siracuse and his buddy stole a crate of gin. When they got back to Lake Charles they went to a party they were invited to and spiked the punch with a bottle of gin. The debutantes got really drunk and were acting outrageous. He and his buddy were blackballed from the country club from that point on. One time Siracuse was flying by himself and he saw a man in a rowboat fishing in a river. He climbed to about 5,000 feet and did a nose dive right at him. He pulled up and banked over the river and realized the man had bailed out of the boat and was swimming for his life. One night, Siracuse was flying to Houston. There was a night game going on at a stadium. He flew down and buzzed the stadium. Siracuse characterizes himself as a hell raiser. He was able to get away with these hijinks because they were unnumbered planes. He was flying A-20's [Annotator's Note: Douglas A-20 Havoc light bomber] by this time. He went overseas on a ship. He was stationed in Laurel, Mississippi. After that he went to Camp Shanks, New York to be shipped overseas. On his way to New York, he lost every dollar he had in a poker game. Siracuse went to New York with a nurse one night who he had become friends with. He and the nurse went to a high level night club in New York. They asked for the check hoping it was not more than 19 dollars because that was all the money they had. The waiter looked at the couple and said, "No charge." They went to another club, and there was no charge. They ended up going to three or four night clubs and no one charged them because he was in uniform. For ten days at Camp Shanks, Siracuse would drive home because they were allowed off of the base from four in the afternoon until six the following morning. His home was only 50 miles away so he would eat with his parents. He had no idea when he was leaving, he did not even have a chance to say goodbye. They disembarked on a French luxury liner. He borrowed five dollars from one of the guys on the trip over and won a bunch of money in poker. He landed in Scotland. They were then taken to Braintree, England which was 50 miles northeast of London. Siracuse was in the 416th Bomb Group, 669th Squadron. He and the other A-20 pilots were charged with taking out the V-1 and V-2 missiles and the unmanned bombs that were being launched at England. Their job was to get rid of these nests in Northern France. Most of his missions were in Northern France.

The twenty-first and the twenty-second missions stick out in James Siracuse's mind. On the twenty-first mission, Siracuse dropped his bombs right as one of his engines was shot out. He dropped from the formation as the rest of them returned and hobbled along by himself in enemy territory. They got to the English Channel and at that point his gunner called out enemy planes at five o'clock. Siracuse looked back and saw about five enemy fighters closing in on him. His plane was in a steady decline but the planes were getting closer and closer. He was terrified. One of the German Messerschmitt Me-109s pulled right up next to him. He tipped his wings and Siracuse realized that they were British planes. They escorted Siracuse back to base. Siracuse experienced flak on nearly all of his missions. Sometimes the flak would be a lot heavier than other missions. He had assigned targets that he had to hit but they had secondary targets, such as factories, that they would hit as well. Siracuse never had fighter escorts. The A-20s [Annotator's Note: Douglas A-20 Havoc light bomber] were originally designed to fly near the deck [Annotator's Note: just above the ground]. There were some problems initially where Germans were able to shoot the A-20 out of the air with hand held weapons. Siracuse flew very low, sometimes below tree level. They would skip bomb. Skip bombing involved letting their bombs loose and letting them skip along the ground to their target. They started losing a lot of planes because they were flying at such a low level, so they switched to a safer altitude of 20,000 feet. Siracuse never suffered a wounded crew member. Most of the damage he ever received was on his twenty-first and twenty-second missions. Siracuse was in London for the weekend and immediately when he got back he was told he had a mission to go on. The General had sent down orders to knock out a huge ammunition train in France. They took off early that morning to knock it out, but the flak was too intense and they dropped their bombs on an alternate target. When the General heard that he was ballistic and told them to go back and finish the job. Siracuse got lumped into the second mission. They were to fly at one that afternoon. There were 36 planes. Siracuse was number four in the formation, behind the lead plane. Enemy fire typically focused on the lead plane.

James Siracuse was waiting to board the plane [Annotator's Note: for his 22nd mission]. One of his gunners said that he hoped they make it back early because he had a date waiting for him. At that moment, Siracuse felt a strange, heavy feeling come over him that felt like a warning. It was a premonition that they were not going to come back from the mission. They took off and as they approached the target the flak began to intensify. Every couple of seconds they would change direction to avoid some of the flak. As they got near the target they had to form up in a bomb run formation; that was when they were the most vulnerable because they all flew in a straight line to drop their bombs. When they lined up straight, Siracuse got hit in the tail, and then a piece of flak hit his right engine. There was a huge fire, which threatened a drop tank full of fuel on the right wing. Siracuse gave the order for his gunners to bail out. He stayed in formation to drop the bombs on his target. As he tried to lower his flaps for landing, he could not because his hydraulic fluid had burned out. He had to maintain a speed of 200 miles per hour so that his plane did not stall out and crash. Siracuse jettisoned his canopy and stood up but the force of the wind knocked him back in his seat. He tried to stand up against the wind but he could not. He sat back and gave up; he knew it was all over. He thought of his parents and how they would suffer so he decided to try it again. He crouched on the seat, turned backwards, grabbed the side of the cock pit and forced himself out. When he jumped, the tail clipped his ankle. Siracuse pulled the rip cord and when the chute opened he felt like he was being pulled apart. Then there was eerie calm. There was an orchard below him. Each tree in the orchard had a six foot high wooden post supporting the tree. Siracuse landed between two stakes. He rolled up his chute and buried it under some leaves and began to walk towards a patch of woods. From behind Siracuse heard the clatter of a machine gun. There was a hailstorm of bullets coming by him but nothing touched him. He raised his hands and two Germans on a three wheeled motorcycle captured him. He was then sent to their field headquarters. The first thing they wanted to know was when the invasion was going to take place. A German soldier with a hand held machine gun came up to Siracuse and started yelling and screaming at him. The man put the machine gun on Siracuse's temple. He was sure his brains were about to be blown out.

James Siracuse could hear the ammunition train he bombed exploding in the distance. Every time there was an explosion the German interrogating him would become more and more angry. Siracuse had the bright idea to smile back at the German who was yelling at him. The German was surprised and stopped harassing him. The next incident was on his way to a prison camp. He was on a train with a bunch of other captured airmen. They stopped in Frankfurt. They let about 100 of the captured men off the train to stretch. The townspeople began to gather and screamed and spit and cussed at the captured airmen. One of the captured airmen was of German decent and could understand what the crowd wanted. The crowd wanted the Germans to turn the captured Americans over so they could lynch them. After awhile, the guards told them to follow them back into an underground area underneath the trains; they waited three hours for their next train. He read later that Hitler [Annotator's Note: German Dictator Adolf Hitler] gave an order allowing captured airmen to be turned over to the locals. Siracuse met his gunners, but not until after the war. The townspeople were very angry during that scene at the train station. Siracuse ended up in Zagań at Stalag Luft III-A. He had no idea that the Great Escape [Annotator's Note: a famous prisoner escape attempt that took place on March 24-25, 1944] had even taken place at Stalag Luft III. He was very hungry when he got to the camp. He feels that there is no worse torture than being hungry. He was in a state of panic because he was so hungry. Some of the prisoners who were already there gave the incoming prisoners some food. The Germans gave the men rations from Red Cross parcels. A lot of the food was either powdered, condensed, or some variety of instant food. The prisoners decided that they were going to save the raisins they got for a year and make wine around Christmas time. That is exactly what happened. The Germans were wondering why everyone was drunk. After that there were no more raisins. The Germans gave the prisoners some cabbage every once in awhile. Siracuse was always hungry. They would have recipes for different meals of the day. They were not allowed to grow their own food. They were able to partake in different sporting activities. They had baseball equipment and played softball sometimes. They kept in shape by taking walks around the compound.

[Annotator's Note: James Siracuse served in the USAAF as a pilot flying Douglas A-20 Havoc light bombers in the 669th Bombardment Squadron, 416th Bombardment Group, 9th Air Force, serving in the European Theater of Operations.] There were Germans running the camp [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III] who claimed they could not speak or understand English. He did not trust those Germans because they were always trying to figure out what the prisoners were plotting. The Germans knew that the American prisoners had a radio and were getting updates about the war. The Germans countered this by giving the American prisoners disinformation about the war. They would always say that the Allies were taking heavy losses. The men who were entrusted with the radio would disassemble it and hide the various pieces, so that if one piece was found the whole radio was not lost. Siracuse never saw the radio, but got news from it. The news was a huge morale boost. Siracuse's room faced the only latrine at the camp. It consisted of a long building with rows of planks on either side with holes cut into them where people could sit. The waste would be deposited into a trench. He was only 20 yards from the latrine. The flies were everywhere, big flies. Siracuse tried to pass the time killing flies. There were 15 people in each room. Men would go down the length of his barrack room twirling shirts above their heads to drive the flies away. During the summertime it was very hot. There were flies that never got out of the room. They would eat, sweat, and swat. They had a bucket they called a honey bucket. It was a horse drawn wagon with a huge bucket on the back. Someone would shovel out the trenches into the honey bucket. It did not smell good. One time a prisoner jumped into the honey bucket thinking he could escape. The man stayed in there while the digger kept pouring manure in the bucket. The man was caught at the gate. The Red Cross officials were never allowed to visit the camp. Siracuse had access to medical care. He had a case of scabies. He hated it because it itched a lot. They gave him some cream but it was marginal and did not help. The care was extremely modest. The commandant of the camp was a short guy who was very excitable. He came around every night with a flashlight and did a bed check.

[Annotator's Note: James Siracuse served in the USAAF as a pilot flying Douglas A-20 Havoc light bombers in the 669th Bombardment Squadron, 416th Bombardment Group, 9th Air Force in the European Theater of Operations.] One time a couple of guys were playing checkers but they did not have any checkers on the board [Annotator's Note: at the prisoner of war camp Stalag Luft III]. They were surrounded by prisoners watching the game. The Germans came over and were baffled by the fact that two Americans would play checkers without any pieces. The Germans walked away puzzled. On occasion someone would try to escape by jumping over the fence. None of them made it; at least to his knowledge. Siracuse never had the idea of making an escape. There was too much risk involved. At Stalag Luft III he estimates that each barrack had about 15 to 20 rooms in it. Each room had 15 prisoners. There were a lot of people there. There were all different nationalities there, all separated. Officers and enlisted men were separated as well. The officers were never forced to work for the Germans, but the enlisted men were required to work in the field. German soldiers were constantly present. They were always leveling some form of intimidation at the prisoners. Siracuse received a crusty piece of bread daily. When Siracuse was captured, the German soldier who interrogated him offered him an American cigarette and overall it was a good conversation. Out of nowhere, the German began to interrogate him. His frustration grew with the ambiguity of Siracuse's answers. The German soldier knew everything about his unit. Somehow the Germans even knew about his school record. Finally he was dismissed. The next day he left and was put on a train. In January of 1945, Siracuse and the other prisoners received the order to evacuate the camp because the Russians were closing in. It was nine o'clock at night in the middle of January and it was very cold. He was given an hour to get ready. He took what clothing he could find and grabbed as much food as he could. They got a Red Cross parcel once a week and that one parcel was divided up among eight men. It helped to sustain them. They piled what they could on their backs and got onto a dirt road. There were about 10,000 prisoners in long columns.

[Annotator's Note: James Siracuse served in the USAAF as a pilot flying Douglas A-20 Havoc light bombers in the 669th Bombardment Squadron, 416th Bombardment Group, 9th Air Force in the European Theater of Operations.] The first night was a moonlit night [Annotator's Note: the night they were forced out of Stalag Luft III]. A plane buzzed the prisoner column. There was snow everywhere. Siracuse and the prisoners scattered. At that point the Germans began to shoot at the plane and in the air to control the prisoners. The Germans thought the prisoners might run away but were convinced by a German speaking prisoner that they were only hiding from the plane. This began a 50 hour march. The Germans attempted to give the prisoners a break in some of the towns they passed through but there were too many people. Siracuse read later that the temperature was 15 degrees below zero during the march. The German soldiers would help to prod the stragglers along. If a prisoner passed out he was thrown onto a wagon. One night they got to the town of Spremberg, Germany. One night one of his buddies asked Siracuse to punch him in the mouth. Siracuse kept hitting him in the jaw. The man needed a reality reminder. Spremberg was a larger town than the other ones they had walked through. There was a destroyed pottery factory in the town. The prisoners went into the bombed out factory and passed out. The next day they were put on a freight train which took them to Moosburg. The freight trains were very small. There was straw and cattle manure on the floor of the train. Each car had two windows up in a corner. All of a sudden they heard planes overhead. Siracuse could tell by the sound that they were B-24 heavy bombers. The German soldiers took off and left the prisoners locked in the train. He felt that any minute they were going to get bombed. After awhile the planes went away, they did not drop their bombs. That was a huge relief to the prisoners. The train continued on to Moosburg. Siracuse was hoping the camp was going to be better but it turned out to be at least ten times worse than any camp they had stayed in before. The camp was full of vermin, fleas, rats, and lice. The prisoners got bit every night. Some of the men were allergic and showed severe allergic reactions. There was no latrine. They had open air, uncovered trenches for people to do their business in. In one of the camps an Air Force major had been captured; the man read the bible. He had never heard of the bible up to this point. The major told him that it was the greatest book ever written. Siracuse thought from that point on he had to get his hands on a Bible. He set out to borrow a Bible but no one had one. Finally he found a Bible and read it. He read the first page one morning and decided he was going to read it. Siracuse thought the major was an idiot for reading the Bible.

James Siracuse's wife was a Christian. She told him about the Lord and he became more interested in the story. He wound up teaching thousands of seminary students the Bible for over 30 years. One day at Moosburg, Siracuse saw three planes speeding across the horizon. He had never seen a plane that fast. No one knew what they were. The next day the planes were back, buzzing the camp. They were the German Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighters. This was a depressing moment for Siracuse because they all thought the war was going well but they feared what this new fighter might accomplish. Siracuse was enthralled by the performance the Germans were putting on. The jet plane sighting killed the prisoners' morale. One day, an advance group came down to the camp. It was a contingent from General Patton's [Annotator's Note: General George S. Patton] army. The group started a battle with the Germans. Everyone scattered and tried to find a place to hide. For three hours a battle raged on around the camp. All of a sudden there was dead silence. The Germans had disappeared and were gone. Little by little the prisoners got up and realized what was going on. There was a town nearby, and as Siracuse got up he saw the American flag being raised on the flag pole that was near the school in this small town. Everyone broke down and cried like babies. They knew they were going home. He felt deep emotion, joy, gratitude, and the anticipation of going home. By this point it was so far beyond their imaginations. The war for Siracuse was over. The prisoners were put into pickup trucks. He snuck off of the truck and hitched a ride to go find his base. He had heard that his group moved from England to France. Along the way he found out exactly where his group was. Siracuse walked onto the base unannounced and caused a huge ruckus with the guys who had missed him. It was a great reunion. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart. He also collected about 500 dollars in back pay. Siracuse was able to get one of the guys to fly them to Paris. Siracuse and his buddy walked around town and enjoyed themselves. He laid eyes on one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen at a restaurant.

The woman spoke English. James Siracuse asked if he could join her. They chatted for awhile. She was a medical student from Russia, studying in Paris. He asked her out. She informed him that she had to catch a train shortly but she would be back for the weekend. He asked if it would be alright to meet her at the train station upon her return. She obliged. Siracuse ran into some other girls that night and they walked around Paris. He went to a club with some friends and got a bottle of champagne that night. He and his small party walked around Paris all night. At about three the following afternoon, Siracuse was told he should probably get back to the airport. The girl he met was due in at 5:30. He gave up on her and went back with his buddy; he never met the girl. When Siracuse was marched from Stalag Luft III to the train station in the cold, a lot of the men had to throw away what food they had because it was too heavy. Siracuse and his buddy had a box of sugar cubes. Siracuse ended up, on his way home, on the coast of France. All he could see for what seemed like miles was rows of tents. There were thousands of people waiting to go back home. He did not want to spend six months living in a tent. He snuck off and went to an airstrip. There was a heavy bomber about to take off for England. He asked the pilot if they could bum a ride to England. All of a sudden they were heroes because people had not heard the stories yet. Ten days later he was on a ship back to New York. The journey was a long boring trip. He recalls pulling into New York Harbor and seeing the Statue of Liberty. He got down on his knees and kissed the deck of the ship, because they were finally back home. Siracuse went back to Camp Shanks. There was a man there interviewing and handling the legal paperwork for separation from service. The man offered him a ten percent bonus on his pay if he stayed in the service. He turned down the man's offer.

They were released [Annotator's Note: from the Army Air Forces]. As soon as that happened, James Siracuse phoned his parents, letting them know that he was going to be home soon. When he got home his parents had a big welcome home banner and his friends and family were there to welcome him. The entire neighborhood was there to greet him. The first thing he did when he got into the house was take his hat off. Everyone gasped because he did not have much hair left. There was a big party the next day to celebrate. Siracuse was sick that day. As everyone celebrated, he sat in bed sick. As a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] he had missed his nightlife with his girlfriend. He missed having a car, as well as being able to see his family and friends. Siracuse has never found it difficult to talk about his war experiences. One lingering effect from the war was claustrophobia. He believes this comes from his experience in the small German railroad cars he was transported around in. Aiken Hand was Siracuse's best buddy. He characterizes Hand as a jokester who everyone liked. Siracuse tried to prank him one night but it backfired on him. After the prank he went outside and noticed that there were American bombers circling above him. The planes were forming up to go bomb Germany.

After James Siracuse was shot down he lost track of his friend Petey. Siracuse ended up in Jackson, Mississippi after the war. He was walking down the street in Jackson and Petey. They ran towards each other and embraced in a big hug. Petey was one of the top salesman in the country. He sold yo-yos. Petey had a method to sell a bunch of yo-yos. He would load up the merchants and tell them his plan. The merchants would buy the yo-yos. He would also sell his yo-yos at local schools. The kids loved it. Naturally they would run home to their parents and make them buy a yo-yo. Siracuse feels that the war changed his life, but is not sure to what extent. He feels he matured quickly. He grew to appreciate his family and loved ones. Spiritually, he feels that the war did not change him a lot. He was not a model citizen by any stretch. He drank, smoked, and womanized; but no criminal activity. Siracuse was able to keep going while in camp by thinking of home and freedom. Siracuse was naive at the time, he did not know much about international affairs or the effect the war was going to have on things. He believes that World War 2 was a war that had to happen. Germany was a wicked regime and he feels that if the United States had not gotten involved in the war, then the world would have changed for the worse. Siracuse feels that World War 2 was the war of wars in terms of the technologies involved and how the war touched almost everyone on the planet. Siracuse lived in upper Manhattan for a quarter of a century without going anywhere. He believes the military had a plan to mix people up from all over the country. He learned about the world through the military. He recalls that most people who lived in Manhattan walked. The intermingling of soldiers, in Siracuse's mind, helped to make America better. The result of World War 2 was that the United States became the confirmed leader in many areas. The war gave young people a chance to educate themselves after the war with the G.I. Bill. Siracuse was able to go back to school after the war. He believes that the experiences that he and other veterans went through made them a lot more callous, and this in turn helped them in business decisions later on in life. Siracuse believes that America lost her innocence because of World War 2. He believes that it is very important that the National WWII museum exists.