UPL 23394
IMAGETwo of the three German pilots who joined a visit of the 100th Bomb Group Foundation to England in the early 1990s. 'The guy on the left flew a Focke Wulf 190D on New Year's Day 1945 (Operation Bodenplatte) when the Luftwaffe attempted to knock out the Allied air force on the ground in Europe. He was shot down into captivity. He told me that his parents knew nothing of what had happened to him, and presumed he was killed in action. That was until the 8th May 1945 when the war ended, the Third Reich ceased to exist, and his parents next-door neighbour knocked on their door and told them their son was safe in allied captivity. When asked how they knew, they said they had clandestinely listened to the BBC broadcasts for months, and heard his name on a list of PoWs that the BBC announced regularly. But they were too scared to tell his parents in case it was discovered they were listening to the BBC, and would have suffered dire consequences as a result. Such was the fear those ordinary people lived under - something we cannot even begin to imagine.'
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- Site type: USAAF heritage site