Thomas Bondola was born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania in July 1923 and has lived in the same neighborhood all his life except for his time in the service. He had two brothers and two sisters. His father was a steel worker at Bethlehem Steel who worked two or three days a week during the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States] until the Golden Gate Bridge [Annotator’s Note: the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California] was constructed. His workweek filled up as much of the steel for the bridge was from the mill where he worked. Many of the men in the neighborhood obtained work with Bethlehem at that time. Bondola started working part-time in a fruit market when he was 16 years old. He graduated in 1941 and went to work at Jacobs Aircraft. He worked there until he was drafted into the Army in February 1943. After his service, he worked at Bethlehem Steel for 30 years. Jacobs Aircraft had two plants in Pottstown. Both produced aircraft engines. One made engines for trainers and the other for combat aircraft. His parents were immigrants who had lived through World War 1 so they understood but took it hard when Bondola was drafted. It was especially difficult because Bondola was put into an infantry outfit. The best that could be done was bless himself and ask for help [Annotator’s Note: he laughs].

Thomas Bondola received his training with a regiment in his division [Annotator’s Note: 26th Infantry Division, no regiment specified]. It began at Camp Blanding in Florida. Next was Camp Gordon in Georgia. He was then trained at Camp Campbell in Kentucky. Finally, he was trained at Fort Jackson in South Carolina before being sent to Camp Shanks in New York which was his camp of embarkation for overseas deployment. Duration at each camp was usually three to four months. His outfit was on Tennessee Maneuvers between Camp Campbell and Fort Jackson. He was well trained for combat in Europe. It had been difficult, but he was young and strong and did it for his country and family. It turned out all right. He arrived in Cherbourg [Annotator’s Note: Cherbourg, France in September 1944 with the 26th Infantry Division]. Traversing France but bypassing Paris, his division went into combat. He was captured in a town called Rodalbe [Annotator’s Note: in the Moncourt area of northeast France in October 1944]. His unit had dug in near a small town called Saint Martin. The next day after further preparations, the Germans counterattacked. The assault lasted a day or so, by which time the Americans ran out of ammunition. With men injured, the lieutenant in charge opted to surrender. Word of mouth delivered the order down to Bondola to give up. The Germans had said that the Americans were surrounded. Bondola felt he had no chance since he was surrounded and ammunition was low. His outfit was too far ahead of any supporting troops. If they could have held out longer, they might have made it. After disassembling their weapons and getting rid of components, the troops were gathered up and marched to Limburg, Germany. They were identified, classified and photographed. The only word his parents received was that he was missing in action and nothing else. Prior to being captured, the Germans had shelled the American positions at varying intervals. There were tree bursts [Annotator’s Note: artillery rounds that explode in the trees above the defended positions. Tree shards as well as shrapnel raining down result in injuries to troops below.]. He was in action and then captured after midnight. The enemy used tanks to subdue the Americans. Bondola handled the situation by pulling together with the other troops in a fashion similar to when someone died. Religion helped him as he prayed to God every day and night. A German lieutenant told him that his war was over, but Bondola realized he still had to walk out of there. Bondola was a gunner on a 60mm mortar [Annotator's Note: M2 60mm mortar]. He had two men each carrying six rounds in their sandwich vest for his weapon. Bondola carried four rounds plus the 60 pound mortar gun and four rounds That was in addition to his personal equipment. The squad was short of men so the mortar team had a helper assigned to them. The added man went for additional ammunition, but never returned. The team ran out of mortar shells and bullets. The weapons were disassembled and thrown away after the lieutenant ordered a surrender. The troops were lined up and marched for a day or so to Limburg, Germany. He was interrogated there and then sent to Neubrandenburg [Annotator’s Note: Neubrandenburg, Germany] where he was interviewed again. He was then sent to an airfield work camp.

Thomas Bondola was held with about 150 other prisoners in a compound surrounded by barbed wire fencing [Annotator’s Note: as a M2 60mm mortarman with the 26th Infantry Division, he had been captured by the Germans in northeast France in October 1944 and held in a prisoner of war (POW) camp near Rechlin, Germany where German Luftwaffe test sites were established]. Guard posts were on each corner of the compound. Guards were posted at the main gate. It was a regular POW camp. His barracks was a dingy, old barn. He had anticipated better living conditions but instead lived like a dog or a pig. The POWs there before had helped to build the airfield, but left the building in a poor state. There were no showers but about a dozen sinks with cold water where the prisoners could wash. There was nothing to eat and only one thin blanket for the winter. He worked with a pick and shovel all day long, and in the winter, he had to shovel snow. It was no picnic. All the POWs were in one building broken up into rooms with potbelly stoves that burned cow flops [Annotator’s Note: dried cow dung]. At the end of the seven or eight hour workday, the inmates marched by a forest where they recovered wood to burn for heat that night. The workday was limited by the sunlight available. Discipline was maintained by the fact that the guards had the rifles [Annotator’s Note: he laughs]. It was no place to start an argument. The Americans had a good guy as an interpreter. He was the intermediate between the Germans and the prisoners. The inmates learned of the war’s progress from a captured, downed Allied pilot who brought them up to date on the towns being bombed. Some of the prisoners could understand a bit of German and could glean news. The bombers flew east with their bomb loads and returned without them [Annotator’s Note: he smiles]. He got an idea of the way things were going from watching what was transpiring. Every day was spent tired and hungry. Food consisted of 16 ounces of potato soup with rutabagas and a slice of bread for lunch. Dinner was tea with a piece of bread. He was 150 pounds after the POW camp at 22 years old, the same weight as at the time of his interview. Men mostly got along, but some flipped their wig. Two men tried to escape but were captured and shot. The remaining POWs were brought out of the barracks with machine guns being positioned. The inmates thought they were finished. The escapees were recaptured and shot so the situation was over. The progress of the war could be ascertained by the aircraft flying overhead and refugees and soldiers headed away. It was amazing that all the soldiers were wearing Red Cross armbands. They thought that would provide immunity to them. The camp guards treated the Americans well. They were mainly from the Russian front and had been beaten up badly. They were anxious to learn the English language. Bondola’s lesson learned was not to go to war. He might be caught. He did learn to do his job and what happens is just another day as long as he got up the next day. He had it nice even with outhouses because they still existed in the 1930s and 1940s in the United States. He thought every day that he might not survive. He was grateful for survival each day [Annotator’s Note: he makes the sign of the cross]. He is sympathetic to the war wounded of today and how they have to survive. That is not a war. Opposing forces waste bullets firing without aiming over and next to their protective walls. Bondola’s outfit set up positions like opposing an invasion by the enemy. On May 3rd [Annotator’s Note: 3 May 1945], he was liberated. He saw a neighbor he had graduated with in the group that liberated him. Bondola’s camp was near an airstrip where German jet planes were based. The field was well guarded with antiaircraft weapons. It had been designed for jets. One plane that flew off the field had a single jet engine on the fuselage with double tails [Annotator’s Note: Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger “People’s Fighter” or “Salamander” German jet fighter]. Manufacturing facilities were underground below the hangers. Jets were available to the Germans in later 1944 and into 1945. It was the first aircraft of that type that Bondola had actually seen. The airfield was well groomed and shaped like the letter D. At the end, was the taxi-way and hanger locations. The POW compound was near the takeoff location. At the war’s end, the Germans were using bombers with a fighter piggybacked on top to attack Allied positions in France and England. The fighter would release the bomber for its suicidal bomb run. A canal near the PW compound was used to ship supplies to the airfield. Prisoners were used to muscle the supplies to a dingy for transport. Only the two guys who tried to escape did not survive. They were shot because they wore German military boots. That resulted in them being executed.

Thomas Bondola was happy on the day of liberation [Annotator’s Note: his prison of war (POW) camp was liberated on 3 May 1945]. The freed former prisoners of war were running around the town of Schwerin [Annotator’s Note: Schwerin, Germany is 68 miles from the airfield at Rechlin, Germany where German jet fighters were tested and based, and where Bondola’s POW camp was located] until MPs [Annotator’s Note: military police] rounded them up and put them in a building where they were separated by Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey groups. They were fed and treated in a temporary manner. One of the guys who liberated him was from his neighborhood. He could tell the war was over observing the refugees fleeing he area. He ran into a couple of Russian soldiers and knew it was over. The German guards had fled. The inmates was taken to an airfield in Hildesheim, Germany. The C-47s [Annotator’s Note: Douglas C-47 transport aircraft] flew them to Reims, France where the celebration was still going on. Bondola celebrated along with them. He was issued new clothes and was transported to Camp Lucky Strike [Annotator's Note: one of the transit and rehabilitation camps in France named after popular cigarette brands] outside of Le Havre. After a week or two, he saw General Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] who gave the order to get him and his fellow former POWs back to the States as quickly as possible. Bondola stayed in tents and had good food at Camp Lucky Strike. An escalator took the men from a hill down to the town of Le Havre. He wrote home as soon as he could to say he was free. He landed at Camp Shanks in New York and stayed for a couple of days. After filling out some info paperwork, he was sent to Fort Dix [Annotator’s Note: Fort Dix, New Jersey] and was given furlough papers to return home for a 90 day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. He was met at the station by a friend. Afterward, he was ordered to Asheville, North Carolina for rehabilitation. Following three months there, he was discharged in November 1945. There were some bumps and bruises, but it was a nice trip. His family and neighbors were so happy to see him home. He was in wonderment. Everything turned out all right. The big moment was when the war in Japan was over [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. There was a big parade and celebration. The next day the sun came up, and he had to go to work. People working in the war production factories were laid off, and veterans were given their jobs back. Bondola was on the 52-20 program [Annotator's Note: a government-funded program that paid unemployed veterans 20 dollars per week for 52 weeks] and then got a job with Bethlehem Steel. He earned 20 dollars a week for 52 weeks. It was his best job ever. The war taught him not to have another war unless necessary. War is killing people compared to blowing up buildings today. Bondola survived the war and has a son as a result [Annotator’s Note: he smiles]. He learned not to worry about things because they were not going to go his way anyway [Annotator’s Note: he smiles]. He always had his faith. He had to take what came his way and make the best of it. He worries about politicians getting people in trouble. That was the case in manufacturing where they do not know the details. He does not understand the news media not thinking of the country. They cover up politicians stealing money from the country. Others would be put in jail right away.