Shot down over Germany: Waking up a prisoner of war

Part 3

“English or American?” came a voice from behind.

The next moment, Lloyd Smith Sr. was surrounded by three civilian men with long World War I vintage rifles. The men appeared to be in a haze and moving in slow motion.

“American,” Lloyd answered.

Two of the men were older and a younger man leaned over and patted Lloyd’s clothing.

“Pistole, pistole?” he asked with a thick German accent.

Lloyd did not understand him.

“No pistol,” Lloyd responded after repeated questioning.

He could hear the great disappointment in their German comments.

All of the crew on his B-24 were issued .45-caliber Colt semi-automatic pistols. As the oldest member of the crew at age 32, Lloyd was the only one who did not carry the firearm in a shoulder holster on their missions.

Lloyd figured that “it would be a good way to get killed if forced down in enemy territory.” Starting “a one man war” with one clip would be a big mistake.

Two of the men picked Lloyd up and put his arms around their shoulders.

Lloyd looked down at his leather flight suit and saw that it was covered with blood. It was at that point he realized he was injured. Then everything went black again.

When Lloyd opened his eyes he was on a couch in an old German house. A woman in her mid-30s appeared over him.

“For you the war is over,” she said in English with an English accent as she cleaned his face.

“She told me that her home was in America but she had been visiting in Germany when the war broke out and had been unable to return home. I had thought that I was in Austria, but she informed me that I was in southern Germany,” he said. “An old doctor spent considerable time cleaning and bandaging the wounds to my nose and face. I was suffering from shock, so he covered me with blankets and made me as comfortable as possible.”

When Lloyd jumped from the B-24, the plane was in a steep descent at high speed. When he pushed off from his seated position, the slipstream caught him and his head hit the bottom of the plane and the rear lip of aluminum skin of the bomb bay. The 3/16-inch thick aluminum cut the bridge of his nose back to his face. His forehead was also scraped raw. His blackouts were caused by a loss of blood and the concussion.

A few minutes later, the German military came to get their prisoner.

“Two Luftwasse personnel in a German version of our Jeep came to pick me up,” he said. “We had only gone a short distance when I became very ill to my stomach. I tapped the driver on the shoulder and made motions that I needed to vomit. He quickly stopped and I got out before anything happened.”

“Gute, gute,” the men kept saying.

“We then traveled to a number of different locations picking up members of our crew,” Smith continued. “We were taken to Luftwasse training, where we met the remaining members of our crew except S/Sgt. Wojeck.”

The Germans later confirmed that he had been killed in the crash.

Lt. Melvin S. Krasnow, the regular co-pilot of that crew, told the men years later that if he were on board that day he would have tried to make it to Switzerland. He was promoted to captain toward the end of his missions.

Lloyd always felt bad that he jumped before Wojeck bailed out. When Lt. Flannery motioned for him to jump, he assumed that he was the last one on board. In hindsight, he later realized that Wojeck would have followed Flannery out because there was no way to pass each other in the narrow crawlway below the cockpit.

The crew thought that Wojeck, a very large man, had gotten his harness caught on the framework of the diving aircraft.

When Lloyd’s brother, Francis Smith, arrived back at the base in Italy, he went to his brother’s tent to retrieve his personal belongings. He was depressed after seeing the bomber leave the formation and two men bail out of the ship. Lt. Krasnow, their co-pilot who did not fly that day, met Francis at the crew’s tent and had a few of Lloyd’s belongings. The items of value had already been stolen by “scavengers.” Lt. Krasnow told Francis who probably had his brother’s belongings. The scavengers were thieves who heard what planes were shot down and descended upon that crew’s tent and took everything they wanted.

Francis, still dressed in his flight gear, went to the tent of the suspected thief. He requested his brother’s items. The man denied having them. Francis drew his pistol, cocked the hammer back and pointed it between the man’s eyes. Lloyd’s belongings were immediately produced.

“After each mission, the chaplain gave each of the crew members a shot of whiskey,” Lloyd remembered. “Everyone would down theirs, but I poured mine into a bottle to celebrate at the end of my missions. Someone had a good time with that bottle.”

Lloyd T. Smith lives in the Mat-Su Borough. Contact him at news@frontiersman.com.