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Montville Vets... Their Story Hjalmar Johansson was one of these kids who made model airplanes. One of these was the German ME-109 (the Messerschmitt) which he "admired as a beautiful sleek fighter plane." Little did he know at the time that as a 19 year old nose gunner in a B-24 Liberator, he would face these aircraft in battle. Johansson could have walked straight out of the movie Stalag 17. In November 1944, Johansson flew his first and last mission over southern Austria. They encountered ME-109s. "The wings lit up and suddenly (it looked like) an ugly, hairy spider which I had to destroy." Their plane was hit and they flew on eastward toward Russia with one engine out and the plane partially on fire. When it became apparent the plane was going down, the crew parachuted, Johansson landing in a back yard in farm country, scaring an old woman who lived on the property. The local police were notified and Johansson was arrested, kept in solitary confinement for three days and "interrogated rigorously". He said he was scared but answered with "name, rank and serial number, that's all you'll get." It was mental abuse rather than physical Johansson said but followed this by saying they were kept in total darkness. "No food, no heat, no blankets, no water." After interrogation, Johansson was shipped "with a lot of others" to Wetzlar Prison Camp where word reached them that the allied troops were closing in on the Rhine. Food was meager, their warm flying clothes were taken away and they were issued "remnants of clothing. I had a Canadian jacket." The food was a subsistence diet which they ate with a spoon out of a cup, two implements they kept with them at all times. Johansson weighed 150 pounds when he entered captivity, 110 when he emerged. They did receive Red Cross packages, but their own prisoner governing body "skimmed off the best." Johansson did not smoke, so he traded cigarettes for food. He learned to relish German black bread which he said never got stale no matter how long you kept it, and it was substantial. "It got to a point where black bread tasted like chocolate cake." In February 1945, Johansson had "one of the worst experiences." He and 44 other prisoners, "some of them badly wounded," were transported by boxcar. The trip took 7 days. Half the car held the prisoners, the other their 7 German guards. The American prisoners were jammed in "literally like sardines," Johansson said. They took turns standing and sitting. They had no water, no toilet facilities: "We had a couple of cardboard boxes". When they reached Berlin they were left locked in the cars and told that the English were going to bomb the city. They did and the car rocked with the explosions. "No one was hurt but it was a frightening experience." Their destination was 25 miles south of Berlin: Stalag IA - an "all purpose concentration camp built in the 30's" Johansson said. "It was ugly and primitive" and held between 4000 and 10, 000 prisoners. Russians, Americans were kept in different compounds. Their camp had a marvelous underground. "We would get news bulletins from the British compounds." The British had built a "clandestine radio." Even the Americans did not know where it was. The Russian troops came through and liberated the camp in March 1945 only to put up the barbed wire again. Their plan was to trade Russian prisoners of war, located in another area for the American prisoners. The Russian prisoners in Stalag IA were liberated by their own armies, given "a chunk of bread, a rifle and a half of sausage" and "off they went to kill Germans in Berlin. They had the motivation," Johansson said. The liberators came in calling the prisoners Amcrikanski and "giving us bottles of vodka. My stomach was not up to that," Johansson said. When the second line Russian troops came in they took over the camp and put the barbed wire back up. "We were now literally prisoners again. I knew the cold war had started before anyone else did," Johansson said. Johansson still has his thumb print, prison record data and dog tags. He kept a diary while he was held prisoner written on the back of cigarette packet papers with a pencil he had sewn into the lapel of the coat he was wearing. They took all writing tools away from them. He still has the diary. We literally cut down the barbed wire and marched out in formation." The Russians fired over their heads but did them no real harm. They made it to the American zone where they finally got rid of "fleas and lice which was another form of torture" for the prisoners. Johansson said he was proud to fight in the war and "would have been disappointed if I didn't go" but he has kept "no real animosity for the Germans." Years later he made business trips to Germany and they would ask him if he had visited there before. He would reply, wryly, "Yes". They were momentarily ill at ease when they found out he had been a POW. |
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