Foreword to the story of an American airman shot down over Czechoslovakia during WWII

I was a navigator on a B-24J "Liberator" ("35", 44-41016, translator's note) of the USAAF based in Cerignola, Italy, from October 1, 1944 to December 17, 1944, when our bomber was shot down in combat with German fighters over Czechoslovakia. Our crew of ten was on our tenth mission, targeting the refinery at Blechhammer in the Oder Valley north of the Czechoslovak border. When our plane was hit, I was miraculously freed and parachuted to the ground. That began an attempt to escape from the Germans with the hope of finding Czech partisans. Our intention was to join them and continue fighting or escape to friendly territory, even though we knew the nearest Russian lines were hundreds of miles away. Before Christmas 1944 I surrendered to the Germans and as a prisoner of war spent the rest of the war (5 months) in the German prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft I. (Barth, Germany) on the Baltic Sea. The Germans abandoned the camp on May 1, 1945; we were evacuated by aircraft from behind Russian lines to camp Lucky Strike in France, then by ship back to the United States in mid-June 1945. When we were released — liberated from Stalag Luft I. and later from Camp Lucky Strike — we wrote a report about our fateful mission on December 17, 1944, and the events that followed until my capture and internment in the German POW camp. At the time it was written only for my family so I wouldn't have to repeat the story over and over. When it happened I was 19 years old, and I celebrated my twentieth birthday in a German prisoner-of-war camp.

This is the original story as written many years ago.

Thomas W. Qualman

Lieutenant, Navigator, USAAF

15th Air Force, 49th Bombardment Wing

461st Bombardment Group, 765th Bombardment Squadron