[Annotator's Note: This clip starts midsentence.] Joseph O'Donnell and some others were told that they will get them when they want them. They went back to work. O'Donnell was mad because he was 18 and just out of high school, walking around his hometown with guys in uniform and he was a young guy. After a while, he said he did not care if they took him or not. He was making good money. In February 1943 he was drafted. He went to Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: Fort Dix, New Jersey] and then Miami Beach [Annotator's Note: Miami Beach, Florida] for basic training. He went to Denver, Colorado and Kingman, Arizona for aerial gunnery school. He had only ever seen airplanes when they flew over him. He got sick on his flight. A B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] is not flushed out. It was 102 degrees and dirty. They were shooting at a tow target. He got sick cleaning up his own mess from being sick. He was told if he threw up two more times, he would be put out of the program. They told him to grab some toast and put it in his pocket. He would eat a piece of toast when he started to feel sick. He graduated and went to Salt Lake City [Annotator's Note: Salt Lake City, Utah] and met up with the ground crew. He was the ball turret gunner. He was in more danger there than when he was in the prisoner of war camp. In South Dakota, the door came off, but you cannot fall out. Once, when flying a B-17 for aerial gunnery, there was suddenly oil on his turret window. The top turret gunner had fired into their own engine.

Joseph O'Donnell was told he was going overseas by Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship]. Usually the crews flew over. His outfit refused and were called together. They were told that they would give them another stripe [Annotator's Note: promotion] now if they went by ship so they agreed to go. They went first to Brindisi [Annotator's Note: Brindisi, Italy], then Foggia [Annotator's Note: Foggia, Italy], and then to their base [Annotator's Note: Tortorella Airfield, Foggia, Italy]. When flying, the ground crew would ready the ship at night. Part of O'Donnell's job was to count the bombs when they went out. There were usually ten. They were flying to Weiner Neustadt [Annotator's Note: Weiner Neustadt, Austria], near Vienna [Annotator's Note: Vienna, Austria]. He counted only nine bombs, one was hung-up. The bombardier was O'Donnell's boss. He came back and they went down to the six inch wide catwalk. The bombardier was telling him to come across to him and O'Donnell said "no"; three times. O'Donnell motioned to the bombardier as to how to release the bomb and it worked. The bombardier yelled at him after they landed. On their 13th mission [Annotator's Note: on 10 May 1944], they were shot down near Weiner Neustadt. Just after the bombs dropped, O'Donnell heard two flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] bursts hit. Then he heard to bail out [Annotator's Note: bombers were equipped with a bail out alarm]. His position was the waist door. Their plane was old. The right waist gunner did not know how to open the door. They were at 25,000 feet. O'Donnell had no oxygen then as he had come from the ball turret. The handle came off and the door did not open. The plane began the crash dive, causing O'Donnell to roll over the rail, but he got out. The waist gunner did not get out and was killed. The pilot parachuted out but was hit by flak and killed. Eight of ten made it.

Being off of oxygen, you go into hypoxia after three minutes. Joseph O'Donnell pulled his ripcord right away and went unconscious. When he came to, an Me-109 [Annotator's Note: German Messerschmitt Bf-109 fighter aircraft] was flying around him. In the beginning of the war, pilots used to shoot them coming down. Göring [Annotator's Note: German Reichsmarschall Hermann Wilhelm Göring, or Goering, commanded the German Air Force and was second only to Adolf Hitler in the Nazi chain of command] must have put out an order that stopped that. O'Donnell fell into a big briar patch that ripped his helmet and gloves off. He heard children laughing and giggling. There were three kids who could speak English. He had two packs of cigarettes. He lit one and one kid asked for one for his poppa. O'Donnell had an escape kit that contained silk parachutes [Annotator's Note: he means maps], two chocolate bars, two granola bars, a rubber bag with pills for purifying water, a sewing kit, and 49 dollars. It was a mountainous area. Around four o'clock in the afternoon, he was tired. He only knew he was in Austria. He picked out a big tree to sleep against. It drizzled all night. He started out again and came to a road. He turned and saw a log tower with a small house. He jumped into the woods. He came to a scrub-oak area he had to crawl through. He heard chopping and saw a woodsman. He got closer and a deer was looking him right in the face; it ran away. He soon came across the fawn. O'Donnell ran off after it and made it across without being seen. He came to a field that had a big clump of brush in the center. He took one step out and a Ju-88 [Annotator's Note: German Junkers Ju-88 multirole combat aircraft] went over. The pilot was looking down and smiling at him. O'Donnell ran to the bushes. He stepped out again, and a German was standing there wearing a swastika. The German asked him "essen?" [Annotator's Note: "essen" is the German term for "eat"]. O'Donnell knew there must be others around. There were ten German soldiers with rifles aimed at him.

A German officer who could speak English took Joseph O'Donnell into a barn. The officer started asking him questions. He had a Luger [Annotator's Note: German P08 Luger 9mm semi-automatic pistol] that he hit O'Donnell in the ear with. O'Donnell said he would still not tell him anything. The officer asked him for his maps. O'Donnell refused. [Annotator's Note: O'Donnell references a book that calls him "the arrogant airman"]. O'Donnell told him to let him go and he would give him the maps. The officer told him that if he did, the Hungarian farmers just over the border would pitchfork him to death. A soldier who spoke English came and took him to a big German truck. The German driver explained his rifle was for O'Donnell's protection from the civilians. He was taken to Weiner Neustadt [Annotator's Note: Weiner Neustadt, Austria]. He had just bombed it, and he could see the destroyed railroad tracks. He heard shouting and curse words along with his name. Other guys had been shot down and were there. His five other crew members were there. They moved out after a day or so and he saw that the railroad tracks had been fixed. They went into Vienna [Annotator's Note: Vienna, Austria] to the train station. 60 of them were shoved into a 40 and eight boxcar [Annotator's Note: 40 and eight refers European railroad boxcars which could accommodate 40 standing men or eight standing horses]. A soldier hit O'Donnell in the back with his gun, dislocating four disks and damaging his neck. They traveled to Frankfurt am Main [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt am Main, Germany] to another interrogation center [Annotator's Note: Dulag Luft Prisoner of War transit camp and interrogation center near Frankfurt am Main, Germany]. They did get a meal. They were separated and put on boxcars again to Stalag Luft IV [Annotator's Note: in Tychowo, Poland], about 600 miles away.

[Annotator's Note: Joseph O'Donnell was a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft IV near Gross Tychow, Pomerania, now Tychowo, Poland, and took part in the Black March in February 1945. This clip begins with O'DOnnell showing the route on a map to the interviewer.] O'Donnell has been asked to compare his march to the Bataan Death March [Annotator's Note: forced march of American and Filipino prisoners following the fall of the Bataan Peninsula in April 1942]. He says those prisoners walked 80 miles in eight days, and he walked 600 miles in 86 days. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer backs him up to ask about being on a train and then backs him up to Frankfurt am Main, Germany to talk about his being taken to the camp.] Back in Frankfurt, he was interrogated for a day or so. They were told to fill out some paperwork for the Red Cross, but another man ripped them all up. They were put on box cars. The officers went to Stalag Luft III [Annotator's Note: in Zagan, Poland], the enlisted men to Stalag Luft IV, which opened on 14 May 1944. He was shot down on 10 May 1944. They were kept outside the camp for hours with no water or food. In the camp, their bunk beds were two high. They had a mattress made of twisted paper and filled with shaved wood. After a few days, it turns to dust. They got a Red Cross parcel. They took the parcel, cut it up, and put it in the top bunk to keep the dust from falling below. The crackers they got were put in water to soak. They had a stove. They would put the wet cracker on the stove and toast it. There were supposed to be 16 men per room, and they had 33. There about 100 Russians in a separate camp. They had an indoor, night latrine and an outside latrine. The Russians would clean out the waste pit. [Annotator's Note: O'Donnell describes the entire process in detail and laughs about German ingenuity.] They had roll call twice a day and were lined up by fives. The prisoners had ways of messing with the counts.

[Annotator's Note: Joseph O'Donnell was a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft IV near Gross Tychow, Pomerania, now Tychowo, Poland.] They [Annotator's Note: the Allied prisoners of war] were not allowed to escape; the Allies sent out a memo. They were too far away to get anywhere. The Germans did not know that. After the Great Escape [Annotator's Note: mass escape of 76 prisoners from Stalag Luft III in Sagan, Poland on 24 and 25 March 1944], the Germans took slats out of each bed because the escapees had used bed slats in their tunnel. They had what they called a goon which was a guard who would go into every barracks to check up on them. They would keep a guy at the window 24 hours a day who would yell out "goons up". A guard asked what it meant, and they told him it was a Disney character. The camp was run as a Democracy. There was a camp leader who had a translator. They had lager [Annotator's Note: camp] leaders, barracks leaders, and room leaders. Everything was communicated by word of mouth. [Annotator's Note: O'Donnell talks about getting rotten limburger cheese.] The leaders were elected. O'Donnell was in charge of the sports equipment. They finally formed a baseball team. They made their first baseball. The guards brought them wood for a bat. The first game, the ball came apart. They were told they were getting ice skates. They cleared an area and pumped water into it. It froze overnight but the Germans decided not to give them the skates. Morale in the camp was pretty good. There was always a guard with them. They put on plays. There was always a fist fight going on. They would stop the fight and give them boxing gloves. There was no tunneling because it was all sand. The only way out was through, under, or over a fence. They would pound a stake in the ground near a guard tower and pretend to be listening and talking to someone underground. The next thing, a big piece of machinery would come in to check for a tunnel. O'Donnell says the guards in the air camps [Annotator's Note: "Luft" camps for airmen], as compared to the guards in the non-air camps, lived up to the Geneva Convention as best they could. Some guys did not smoke so they would trade their chocolate and cigarettes for eggs. Only certain guards would trade. The main officers were afraid of escapes. They did not want to be sent to the Russian front.

[Annotator's Note: Joseph O'Donnell was a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft IV near Gross Tychow, Pomerania, now Tychowo, Poland. The tapes breaks, and restarts mid-sentence.] When you got to a camp, what you wanted was water and food that was inside the camp. They got news of how the war was going. In some cases, they knew more than the guards did. They had a map that some guards would look at. The British had a radio but were in a separate area. They thought the Russians were going to liberate them. The Germans did not want that. Some escapees had made it to the Russians, and they gave them guns and put them back in the fight. They left the camp on 6 February 1945. They were told about a week in advance to get ready to go. They made knapsacks they could fill with their possessions. They practiced walking to get used to the weight of the pack. The YMCA [Annotator's Note: Young Men's Christian Association] sent them gloves, scarves, hats, and shoes. His shoes were too small but he walked 600 miles in them. He had 14 blisters and still has bad feet. They were marched out in groups of about 200. The groups kept getting smaller and smaller due to being split up and sent to different areas. A lot of the towns had cobblestone streets. Once in a while, an SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] or Gestapo [Annotator's Note: German Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police; abbreviated Gestapo] person would run into the town ahead of them. The women would come out and hit the men with brooms and canes. Not all Germans were Nazis or supported the war. One woman was only hitting their knapsacks and when the guard was out of view, took bread out of her clothes and gave it to the men.

[Annotator's Note: Joseph O'Donnell was a prisoner on the Black March in February 1945.] One officer guard got them together and told them he would shoot to kill anyone who attempted to escape. One day, O'Donnell was deathly sick. It was raining. He sat down by the side of the road and told himself he was not walking another step. The rumor was that there was a Gestapo [Annotator's Note: German Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police; abbreviated Gestapo] at the end of each line that would shoot the stragglers. He did not care and thought he would be better off. Two men picked him up, helped him finish, and took him in a barn. They got his clothes dry, got him coffee and a potato, and he felt pretty good. The next day was bright. Everybody was scrounging for food. A slave labor girl about 14 or 15, had a bright silver pail. The girl could speak a little English and a prisoner said he would carry it for her. It was mash for the pigs. He took it into the barn and fed it to what they called "the sick-ins". Anything they got went to these men first. The Germans gave them no provisions. The girl started crying. She said they were proud Americans and yet they were stealing food from the pigs. She did not think proud Americans did that. The farmer came out with a shotgun. Later on, the little girl parted the curtains and gave them the "V for victory" sign [Annotator's Note: holding the index finger and middle finger in the shape of a "V"]. O'Donnell then told himself to start acting like a proud American. From then on in, it gave him a lift.

Joseph O'Donnell went to Fallingbostel, XI-B [Annotator's Note: Stalag XI-B in Fallingbostel, Germany; he arrived on 3 April 1945]. They were put on a boxcar for 33 hours in the marshalling yards. When they went into the camp, there was a big circus tent. 33,000 Russians perished there. There was a Russian that was not dressed like a prisoner who had a kohlrabi he was peeling. O'Donnell was eating the peelings. O'Donnell traded his watch for seven loaves of black bread. If you hit somebody with it, it would kill them. There were about 250 of them called out and were marched back across the Elbe River, headed north towards Denmark. One day at the end of April, the officer in charge said that they were going to shoot a cow to get meat. The order came to march while they were butchering the cow. He cut the heart out of the cow and put it in his Red Cross box. They marched to a barn. O'Donnell offered to cook and went in to boil potatoes. There was a slave labor girl there who took the heart into the house and cooked it for them. He took a slice for himself and gave the rest to the guys in the sick bay. They were all brought cans of sardines, and he thought something was wrong. They were then told to march to the end of the road to be liberated. A British column came up on 2 May 1945. The British told the men to walk into the town [Annotator's Note: Lauenberg, Germany]. There was a dairy on the way, and they got cheese and milk. There was a house that had been hit by a tank. The British were pushing around a German guard and slapping him. O'Donnell and some men went over and told the British about the Geneva Convention. They went into the house and the beds were all taken. They slept there. The next day they crossed a canal and a British truck came by and gave them a ride. They had not had a bath in well over a month. They went to Hamburg, Germany and were put in an officer's training area in a nice building. They threw all of their clothing outside and it was all burned. They got new British uniforms to wear. They were deloused and German girls gave them haircuts and shaves. The British uniform made him itchy.

[Annotator's Note: Joseph O'Donnell was liberated by British troops and taken to Hamburg, Germany in 2 May 1945.] They were taken to Celle [Annotator's Note: Celle, Germany]. They were told trucks were coming to take them to the airplanes to England. The first truck was already full, but he got on. He flew to a hangar, got tea and crumpets, and was then sent to a hospital. There was a mess hall they could go to any time. He went right there. They were told to remember that they were going to throw up if they ate too much. He started eating and then had to run out into the field and get sick. He later ate a little bit a time. He went into London [Annotator's Note: London, England] and into a pub. He got a beer and then a Canadian bought him another and another. He was staying in a hotel near a park. He started walking and then laid down in the park and fell asleep dead drunk. He felt someone kicking him. A woman was asking if he was dead. He laid there until he sobered up the next morning. He was put on a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship]. A friend was a baker on the ship, so every night he got fresh donuts and bread. He came home and found that in some areas, they [Annotator's Note: the former prisoners of war] were listed as cowards. Even to this day he hears that they just gave up. When he tells his story of being shot down, they change their opinion.

[Annotator's Note: Joseph O'Donnell was a prisoner of war in Stalag Luft IV near Gross Tychow, Pomerania, now Tychowo, Poland. The interviewer asks if they had any liquor in the camp.] One day, they came around with a pitcher of beer, but it tasted bad and they dumped it out. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer tells some stories of other prisoners of war to O'Donnell.] They did get raisins. As a kid, O'Donnell helped his father make wine from grapes and elderberry. He got a container and put sugar and raisins in. The next morning there were wine flies in it. That ended his winemaking. There was not much dysentery in the camps, but on the road there was. They went wherever they were. They would take their long johns off and hang them up to dry. They would then scrape off their messes. O'Donnell heard a lot about the numbers who died on the march. [Annotator's Note: O'Donnell references a diary by a doctor that documents a lot of it.] If you disobeyed an order, that was it. There were no warnings. One guy was shot and killed climbing in a window in the barracks. If you obeyed orders, you were better off than the guys on the front line. They heard about the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. They [Annotator's Note: the German guards] got word to the officers in charge that if they tried that, they would storm the fences and the towers and kill all of them. They did herd one section of the camp at a time behind the mess hall, to test their machine guns by shooting into the barracks. Some prisoners were moved into a new camp and they had nothing. O'Donnell would run around the barracks, throw soap and other things, over the fence, and keep running. The guard would shoot at them. He was referring to the Malmedy Massacre [Annotator's Note: massacre of 84 American prisoners of war and a Belgian female near Malmedy, Belgium on 17 December 1944] earlier, not the Battle of the Bulge. O'Donnell was in England on 8 May 1945, when the war ended [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945]. He was liberated on 2 May. He was home in July. All of his former crew members were liberated. Two of them became alcoholics. One died in an automobile accident. He never heard from any others except for one. O'Donnell went to Knoxville, Tennessee and put an ad in the paper to see if he could find his old crew members who lived there, but never heard anything.