Stalag IV-B

As the day wore on, the snow kept falling; and the temperature kept getting colder and colder.  My feet began to freeze.  The lieutenant took off my boots.  He rubbed and massaged my feet.  That helped a little.   I put my boots back on and strapped them on the side.   We patiently waited until dark.  Finally it got dusky dark; and a little after that it got dark. 

While waiting all afternoon in that foxhole, the lieutenant and I had been planning what we would do.  The idea was that we were going to go back towards the town and see if we could find the rest of our company.  Little did we know that our company had been wiped out except for the few that had been captured.

As we started to get out of the hole, we suddenly heard Germans moving up from the direction where the shooting had been taking place.  We heard them coming up the road.  The Germans had hobnailed boots so we could easily hear them coming up the black top road.  They got nearer and nearer, and we got more frightened and more frightened.    We did not know which way to go, what to do, or what to say.  About that time we could hear the Germans falling off on the other side of the road from us, digging in.  We heard the entrenching tools and so forth as they were digging in for the night.  On our side of the road they were falling in as well.

About that time the man that had been shot in the head and was lying on the side of the hole, let out a scream.  I had thought he was probably dead; I did not see how he could live.  Anyway, he let out a scream and hollered. When he did, the Germans that were digging in around us wheeled and came over to where we were.  There must have been six or eight of them.

I told the lieutenant, “We'd better stand up because they are going to shoot in this hole.  We might have a chance if we stand up."  For some reason or another, he did not stand up.  I stood up, closed my eyes, and thought, "Lord, I'll see you in a little bit."