Recollections of a ten year old

By: Member Gunter Peters

It was a beautiful and sunny, but cold morning during March 1945 in the small town of Nienburg at the Weser River in Northern Germany. WWII was nearing its end, and we were used to living under full and constant air raid alarms, since Nienburg, a ‘Wehrmacht” garrison town was located smack in the middle of the Allied bomber access corridors.

Suddenly the noise of an approaching American “Mustang” could be heard, followed by short bursts of machine gun fire, as it strafed the main street of the town. It had been the third day in the row of strafing by what appeared to be the same “Mustang”. On the previous two days, three young boys had been shot dead and the feelings of anger, frustration and helplessness among the populace ran high. But wait, the familiar outline and noise of a ”Messerschmitt” came into view as it was diving down from its ambush position high in the sky.

During the ensuing dogfight the “Mustang” was shot down and the pilot bailed out. His parachute could be seen for miles, and peasants and other folks gathered from all directions, armed with pitchforks and whatever else they could find, determined to revenge the three dead boys by killing him. From his vantage spot in the sky, the pilot could clearly see the approaching and threatening crowd. Upon landing without a problem, he hastily got out of his harness, leaving his parachute where he had hit the ground and ran to a chicken farm, the only building nearby.

So far the pilot had been very lucky. First, unbeknownst to him, he had only landed several feet from a deadly quicksand area and would he have gone 400 feet further downwind, he would have landed in a swamp, equally as deadly. As he reached the chicken farm, he met the only person present, the mother of the family operating the farm. The pilot quickly bound and gagged her and tossed her into a closet. He then ran upstairs to the attic and down again to the basement in an unsuccessful attempt to find a suitable hiding place. He was in the first floor bedroom, when he heard the shouts of the approaching crowd. The beds were covered by traditional fluffy featherbeds. The pilot climbed into the bed and covered himself so neatly, it was in no way apparent someone was in it. In the meantime the crowd had searched the grounds as well as the attic and the basement, but to no avail.

The woman of the house had been liberated, of course, but she also was at a loss to explain his mysterious disappearance. By sheer coincidence, the crowd had gathered in the very bedroom, where the pilot was hidden, debating among themselves how he could have escaped.

One of the peasants noticed the woman ever so fleetingly looking at the bed. Queried, the woman remarked she thought she had made the bed a little differently that morning. The peasant then tiptoed to the head of the bed, grabbed the top of the featherbed and pulled it back, thereby disclosing the pilot. It was then that an elderly Policeman (Gendarme) in his sixties pulled his service revolver, stating that whoever would touch or harm the pilot would be shot. He added the pilot was a prisoner of war and would be taken to the nearby POW Camp, which was connected to the garrison. Thus the American Pilot owed his life to this old gentleman, for the peasants collectively would have surely killed him. Gunter Peters, 802-2026