The officer led me through the village to an upstairs office. In this walk several men offered me cigarettes. Soon I had more than I could smoke, so I saved them for later--a major error, it turned out. Moments later, a smallish but rotund German Major entered the room. This was the German Headquarters for controlling the local territory. Whenever addressing the major, the officer bowed and fawned. When the major turned his back to leave the room, the officer lifted his boot with a kicking motion and drew his hand across his neck simulating a throat being cut.
[ Insertion: Added information regarding the above travel]
In summer, 1997, I happily recieved an invitation to come to a special event in the Czech Republic as a guest of a group of WWII air warfare enthusiasts to participate in ceremonies commemorating September 11th, 1944 battle I have described. The Co-Directors were of an age to be Grandchildren of our WWII generation, it seemed to me. This is a whole different story , except to add that the border-crossing village is named Liblin, and the mayor's house was in Vranov. I revisited these places and also the Flakschule in Pilzen as the guest of the museum association sponsoring the ceremonies at Kovarska.
[Now continuing the story]
Captured
The Major came back, found a book on the shelf and read what must have been a German Army Manual on what to do with a captured flyer. (I had told my escort that I was an American pilot.) Next, he phoned to report my capture to some higher official. Within an hour, my officer escorted me by electric tram to Pilzen, a major city possessing a large two-tiered prison. Booked in, photographed, finger-printed, etc., I was finaly escorted into a cell. I immediatly crawled into the bunk and slept until sometime next morning when a guard awoke me. He took me to a wall in the main hallway and like a dozen or so others standing there, made me stand three feet away and lean on the wall. I never understood the point of it. Every time I looked around or moved, the guard got quite upset. Eventually, stiff and bored, I was taken into a office and the official behind the desk had all my extra cigarettes and the rabbit in front of him. He demanded who had given them to me, and of course, I knew that my escort would be in big trouble whatever I said. I repeatedly told him I had no idea who gave the cigarettes to me but that I had taken the rabbit from a farm. All that was true but didn't satisfy the officer. He pulled out a small pistol and threatened to shoot me. Somehow, I couldn't believe that he would.
Around noon a German Luftwaffe Sergeant appeared to take me to a military headquarters in the city somewhere. Again, we traveled by streetcar. It was a large building, housing anti-aircraft personnel. Sitting in an office waiting for my escort's orders to be preparred, a lady secretary asked when I had last eaten. I said it had been ten days. She kindly went to a kitchen somewhere and returned with a large bowl of thick hot potato soup, delicious beyond description.
With paperwork in order, my escort then drew the rations he had been authorized--bier in a flask, sausage, cheese and bread in a paper sack. Setting out on our journey again on the streetcar, we went to the Pilzen train station, and boarded. The time was mid-afternoon. We entered a compartment that could hold six, but were its only occupants. I still possesed my roasted rabbit, and at the sign-language bidding of the Sergeant, was not displeased to toss it into the next ravine we crossed. As a descendant of a German family who had imigrated to the Volga River region of Russia in 1766, then to America 100 years later, I happily munched away on his wurst, kase, brot and thirstily quaffed his bier.
We "talked" about our experiences. He had survived three years on the Eastern (Russian) Front, been wounded, etc. Battle fatigue had finally overcome him. He was sent home on light-duty status. My name had given my captures a clue to my German-Russian backround. He kept asking how I, of German heritage, could be so crass as to fight against the German people. I was a "Terror-flieger"--terror-flyer, responsible for the death of innocent German citizens in untold numbers of bombing and strafing raids. It likely was fortunate that my German was unable to cope with all his questions and comments. We gave up any further conversational efforts.