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The Second World War left many scars on many
people for a variety of reasons. Some of those people refuse to talk about
their experiences, as remembering such times proves to be too painful.
Others have a desire to share their stories with the younger generations,
perhaps in order to teach, or to just simply remember.
Dave Morey, a
resident of Torrington since 1951, is known to be the last surviving
prisoner of war survivor in Goshen County. His story began on the sixth of
June 1942, when he was sworn into service in Denver.
(I had planned on
joining the Air Force Cadet program after two years of college,¦ Dave
said. (I took the cadet test in Grand Junction, and my first duty was at
Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Missouri.¦
Sept. 17 saw Dave
piloting a new B-17 overseas, and he found his station in Italy on Oct.
10.
(I wasn¦t worried or scared,¦ said Dave¦s wife, Eva, of the time
when Dave was sent overseas. (Bad things can never happen to you.¦
Dave
was only in Italy for about 10 days when, during his second flying
mission, Dave¦s plane met enemy fire.
(It was a mission on Piltzon,
Czechoslovakia, and we flew on two engines back to the Alps mountains,¦
Dave said. (That¦s where we bailed, in the middle of the
mountains.¦
There were 10 men on Dave¦s plane, and all bailed to land
somewhere in the Alps. Dave, at first believing he was caught up in a
tree, was able to uncross his legs and fall to the safety of ground.
(I
broke my leg,¦ Dave said. (I thought it was a bad sprain at first, but I¦m
no doc.¦
After three days of walking, Dave was caught on the border of
Switzerland, Italy and Austria.
(It was a math teacher from one of
Hitler¦s Jugend camp for young boys,¦ Dave said. (Many people wondered why
I didn¦t shoot the person who spotted me, and it turns out that it was one
of the young boys. He told his teacher, and the teacher came out and told
me to halt. I probably could have shot the teacher, but I couldn¦t see
shooting the kids. I also think I was running quite a fever at the time,
to be walking right through that place at 10 in the
morning.¦
Ironically, two of the other men in Dave¦s original crew,
though he never saw them after the plane went down, were caught in the
same vicinity on the same day.
After being handed off to a soldier,
Dave was walked almost all the way back down the direction he¦d come.
After part of the way, Dave¦s guard gave up walking and they caught a
lumber wagon to complete their journey.
(I was taken by train to
Innsvruck, Austria, where two of us from the crew were on the first floor
of the prison,¦ Dave recalled. (After a few days we ended up north, and
caught up with the other eight.¦
Dave was then taken by ambulance to
Yunich, and then was sent to a hospital, or lazzerette, to recuperate.
His recuperation period was not to last very long, as the Battle of
the Bulge occurred two to three months after his arrival and all the beds
in the lazzerette were needed.
(They pushed everyone out who could
walk,¦ Dave said. (I guess I sort of could.¦
The soldiers were sent to
interrogation, where Dave spent an unknown number of days in solitary.
They were then sent by the carload to a Prisoner of War camp in Barth,
Germany.
(There were 12,000 of us there,¦ Dave said. (About 2,500 of
the inmates were Austrian, and the rest were American.¦
Due to his
higher rank in the military, Dave was not required to complete any tasks
or hold any duties during his time in POW camp.
(We just were supposed
to follow the rules,¦ Dave said. (Lesser men were used for labor, and we
were just stuck there.¦
At the time he was shot down, his wife received
a telegram from the military informing her that her husband was (Missing
in Action.¦
(I was staying with my folks while he was overseas,¦ Eva
said. (The man with the telegram went next door first v he was afraid I¦d
be by myself. People were good back then.¦
Dave was in the POW camp for
a total of five months. Eventually the military did send word to Eva that
her husband was alive, and that he was a prisoner of war.
(We were cold
and hungry, as we were right on the edge of the Barth Sea,¦ Dave said. (We
had what we had on our backs, and the Red Cross did work for us. They gave
each of us a wool blanket, and a sack of straw for us to put together for
a mattress.¦
Dave recalled that there were only two bales of straw for
24 men, who had to use their mattresses to sleep on slabs that were made
of the first slice off a log.
(We stayed in barracks, and when they
were full they housed 200 men,¦ Dave said. (The youngest was 18, and the
oldest men were 25 or 27. I was considered one of the older men, since I
was 24.¦
A 10-foot barbed wire fence that had other wire running
parallel within the walls, which Dave deemed to be (nasty looking stuff,¦
surrounded the compound of the camp. Six towers with two guards in each
held lights to sweep the entire camp all through the night.
(We were
not to leave our barracks after 8 p.m.,¦ Dave said. (And when there was an
air raid, either during the day or at night, we had to pull back curtains
across the windows.¦
One of the men Dave knew from the camp had marked
off each day to keep a sort of calendar during their time in captivity.
When the marking for May 15 came, the Russian army also came to liberate
the camp.
(We were hostages for a little over a few weeks,¦ Dave said.
(First they thought about marching us to the Black Sea and changing the
Americans $1,000 for each of us. They finally decided to use us just for
hostages.¦
During his time in the POW camp, Dave¦s appearance changed
dramatically as he dropped from 170 pounds to less than 100
pounds.
(Food was rough for the Germans, too,¦ Dave said. (Some of the
time we had black bread, that had some sawdust in it, and white bread was
known as ¦cake.¦¦
Dave recalled the meat that the prisoners were given
once, and he described it as the (wildest¦ meat, by both look and taste.
The meat actually turned out to be that of a wolf.
After liberation,
the prisoners were loaded onto B-17¦s, 30 to each plane. They were flown
to a location in France, where the prisoners went through de-licing and
debriefing.
(We weren¦t there too long,¦ Dave said. (We were fed and
given clothing, since they didn¦t want lice spreading. We had hot showers
to ensure that.¦
Dave eventually boarded a boat bound for the United
States, and arrived at a naval base in Hampton, Va.
(They sent us to
New Mexico and to Colorado,¦ Dave said. (I was sent to Fort Logan in
Denver.¦
Dave was overseas for many months, from Sept. 25 until the
middle of June the following year.
(I didn¦t see him after he left
until he got off the train in Denver,¦ Eva said. (He came back much, much
thinner, and he had a mustache.¦
(She didn¦t care much for that,¦ Dave
added.
Dave remembered that he actually ate better in the hospital than
in the POW camp.
(We actually got apple dumplings once a week,¦ Dave
said.
Dave was actually released from the hospital in March 1948, from
Fitzsimmons, Colo. He was also awarded the Purple Heart, among a variety
of other honors earned during his time of service. It took nearly 20 years
for Dave to regain the weight he lost during his time as a POW, mostly
because of an internal complication.
After returning to the United
States, Dave worked on the railroad for a few years, and then returned to
college to be a teacher. He worked as a science and math teacher in Hawk
Springs, Huntley, and put in the chemistry program at Eastern Wyoming
College.
Dave¦s many memories are too numerous to mention, though a few
of them do stand out distinctly to him.
(I found out what it was like
to want to kill someone,¦ Dave said. (I was put on a truck, and a sleeve
leaned out to help me. That sleeve had an Air Force patch on it, and I
thought that someone had taken one of my crew¦s jackets. I wanted to jerk
him off and kill him until this voice said, ¦Let me help you, Lieutenant.¦
That was no German.¦
Dave also recalled he and his barrack mates¦
desire to find a louse. During a day that was anywhere near warm, he and
his friends would attempt to find a louse.
(If you found one, the room
would get a shower,¦ Dave said. (If you found two, you could trade it to
another room for cigarettes.¦
Dave¦s B-17, the (Shadrack,¦ was found a
few years ago within the melting glaciers in the Alps. The plane was
salvaged, and many pieces and artifacts from it are now on display in a
museum in Innsbruck, Austria. Dave was also able to purchase a print
commissioned by Boeing of many B-17¦s, the Shadrack included, during
Boeing¦s 50th Anniversary celebration in Seattle.
On Aug. 7, Dave and
Eva traveled to the Cheyenne Vet Center where Dave, along with two other
Goshen County residents Dan Schwab and Fred Huckfeldt, were recognized
during the Purple Heart Recognition Day.
(I just want people to know
that there was a war, and it was big,¦ Dave said. (It is unbelievable what
war was like. You have no idea what it is like to have a door slam behind
you.¦
Dave acknowledged that it was hard to explain what his experience
was really like, as it was one of those things that no one can understand
if they haven¦t been there. He did have some words of advice for today¦s
soldiers, even those currently serving in the war in Iraq.
(Hold in
there and do your job,¦ Dave said. (It¦s the best way to get
out.
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