My Brother Glenn A Prisoner of the Gestapo During World War II
German Secret Police
by
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After talking to Pete Peterson, who married my cousin, in Port Arthur, which is 18 miles from my home. Port Arthur is a city located on the Gulf about 18 miles due south of Beaumont. He was in the number one ship in the squadron, and I was in the number three in the low squadron. And we received three direct hits that disabled our aircraft. We had to parachute down. We were talking about it ( With Pete Peterson after the War). It is strange, you never heard the noise. I never heard the first hit on the aircraft, till this day. Pete told me that he had seen them. One hit out right wing and knocked off six to eight foot of our right wing. And one tore the nose section off right in front of the greenhouse. One hit the ball turret, below the waist. Well, we were talking the other day about it with Pete;we were having trouble transferring fuel, and I had left my engineering position, in the front, and had walked to the back to help the waist gunners try to figure out what was happening. And as I walked through these doors and closed them is when we got hit and I was blown across about 20 feet. And the tail wheel on the B-17 retracts up inside of the fuselage. The first thing I do remember was that it was quiet, it was a total quiet. I think it was the ear problem; and I was back there, and certainly don't know how I got there. But I didn't have a parachute on. And I started to get up, then, I couldn't figure why I couldn't see. Of course, trying to knock that tail wheel down with your head, it put a little gash on my head and broke some ribs. I found out later that I'd cut my side and broke my ankle. I still, to this day, never understand how I was able just to get up and get out of there and get up to my chute. I kicked the hatch and got the waist gunners all out. And looked up front, and I couldn't see anything but fire from the radio room forward, inside of the aircraft. Well, someone in the front hit the bail-out button, which is a loud alarm button. So, we all abandoned ship.
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About the Book
My brother Glenn served in the US Eighth Air Force during the Air War over Germany in 1944. His plane was shot down on his 22nd mission just inside the French Coast two days before the Landing on D-Day. He was rescued by French farmers but later was betrayed by another frenchman in Paris to the Gestapo. He was incarcerated in Buchenwald, one of the Death Camps. He survived the War and lived his life out in the Town in East Texas he grew up in. This is his Story in his words.
About the Author
This writer, at the age of eighteen, enlisted in the Regular US Navy in the summer of 1936 and served aboard battleships for four years. After the attack on Pearl Harbor this writer reenlisted and served aboard a new destroyer assigned to Destroyer Squadron 12 and was involved in the Solomon's Campaign in the Pacific.eight of the fifteen destroyers in the Squadron were sunk in the fighting.