Friend or Foe?

In the previous post, the importance of Jim Hoel’s dog tag was mentioned. The tag had his home address on it which was not the norm, but an apparent mistake. It generated, however, a miraculous “reunion” of sorts.

While the prisoners were for the moment freed from solitary confinement and enjoying their first few minutes simply talking to other friends and Allies, a German soldier walked out of a little shack or office that was adjacent to the area where the men were talking and enjoying a smoke. As he got closer, Jim saw that he was a German Corporal.

"Is Lieutenant Hoel here?" the Corporal asked.

"Yea, that's me," Jim replied. Bear in mind that Jim and the others had just been interrogated by the best of the Germans. Jim was wary and he hadn’t told them anything. Though they tried every trick in the world, Jim finally understood what they were doing. So anyway, here, he simply said "That's me," and left it at that.

The German Corporal said, "Well, would you come over here? I'd like to talk to you."

So the two young men went over in a corner by themselves and the Corporal said, "I see in the office from your dog tag records that you live in Evanston, Illinois.

"That's right." Jim said cautiously.

"I'm from Evanston also." And Jim thought, "What the hell are these Germans up to anyway?" Jim figured this was another trick.

Jim asked the Corporal a series of questions about intersections and parks and locations of places in Evanston, where Jim and, allegedly, this German solider were both raised. The Corporal got every question right and Jim thought, “These guys are good!”

Finally, Jim tried to trick him and asked, “Do you remember the ice cream store at the corner Main Street and Hinman Avenue?” The Corporal said yes of course he did. “When you walked in,” Jim went on, “and you turned to your right to the fountain you…”

“No, no,” the Corporal interrupted, “You turned to the left,” which was correct of course.

Jim was stunned. Convinced now that this was no trick, Jim, incredulously asked “What on earth are you doing here?”

The young German Corporal went on to explain that he really grow up in Evanston and that he was a citizen of the United States, but prior to that was a citizen of Germany, thus a dual citizen. The European rule of citizenship at that time was, if you became a citizen of another country, you still remained a citizen of your country of origin.

As a citizen of the United States in 1938, the young man, my father’s age, was offered (as a lot of German-Americans were) a "free" vacation from Hitler to come back to the “fatherland” to see their relatives.

The young “Evanstonian” took the vacation and when he stepped off the boat he was greeted by the German military who told him "Welcome, you're a nice good German citizen”. With that, he was "conscripted" into the German army. That happened to a good many people, as Jim understood it.

Otherwise, both of these young men would likely still be fighting in the War, but on the same side. On the other hand, circumstances could have placed them yards apart, each with a “duty” to kill the other.

The first section of the poem “Brothers” written by Wayne Benson about the Civil War reads:

The sounds of rolling thunder fills the air of the nation,
A cry of despair comes from the founders of this creation
A family against family, brother against brother;
For a war has begun, a war like no other.

Jim has never forgot this encounter though he never saw the German Corporal again.

The Dulag Luft Interrogation

Jim Hoel’s interrogation center was called "Durchgangslager der Luftwaffe" or "Transit Camp of the Luftwaffe". Eventually, it came to be called "Dulag Luft" by the Allied airmen who “passed” thought it. Nearly all captured airmen went through the Dulag Luft where they were held for indeterminate periods in solitary confinement and subject to a sophisticated German interrogation process. There is an excellent website that has gathered information about POWs and includes a link to “The Interrogators” which describes in powerful detail the role this “transit stop”, played in the War. The site is called “Stalug Luft I Online” and can be located at http://www.merkki.com. It has also been added as a permanent link to our Blog.

An important point to remember is that, Jim and the other B-26 Marauder airmen brought to Dulag Luft, were the very first prisoners from a B-26 ever to arrive at the site. The first European B-26 mission was conducted on May 14, 1943. Every plane made it back from that mission. The May 17, 1943 mission was very different, all but one of the eleven planes were shot down and Jim’s B-26 Marauder was one of the first. It was therefore very important for the German interrogators to learn as much as they could about these planes and their strategies and tactics.

After days of solitary confinement for Jim, people started coming in. The first was a very nice guy. He was in a German uniform with a red cross on his sleeve and he said he was sure that Jim was concerned about his parents and that if he were in Jim’s position, he would be concerned also. He said that they wanted to notify Jim’s parents just as soon as possible that he was a prisoner of war and not “missing in action”. So he said, "Just fill out this form and then I'll take it and I can notify your parents immediately." Well, Jim and the others were under strict orders to give only their name, rank and serial number. (Jim adds that early on in the war some of the men got dog tags and he doesn’t know if it was a mistake or not, but anyway, the tag had Jim’s home address on it. That will come into play later in an extraordinary way.).

Jim filled out his name, rank and serial number and put the pen down and the German said, "I've got to have more information." Then he started quizzing Jim, "Where were you flying from? How many planes were there in your formation?" Jim said he could say no more. "Well," he said, "I'll try to do what I can, but without that information I'm not sure I can get this information through to your parents." And with that, he left. He was a nice guy, but he left Jim wondering if his folks would ever find out that he was a prisoner of war. That was the whole name of the game - just get your mind going.

They served Jim the same old boiled potatoes and hard dark bread and "ersatz" coffee. That was about the extent of his food, with a bowl of soup occasionally. The third day a Gestapo-type officer entered. He was just a tough and mean guy. He said, "Now, there's some information I want from you. I want to know where you were flying from." He asked Jim a lot of questions and after receiving no answers said, "Never mind, you don't have to answer any of them. I have the answers to all of those things anyway." And Jim thought, "Ha, the wise acre."

Another day or so went by and in came the same Gestapo officer. He said, "I know you were flying out of Bury Saint Edmond and I asked you where you took your training and I know you took it in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I know you left for overseas from West Palm Beach, Florida. We have all that information, so I don't need any information from you."

But he kept coming back to, "What kind of formation were you flying in?" And obviously, that was what they were trying to find out because they had never, to this point, interrogated anyone from a B-26. Jim didn't tell him and that was the end of that. The Red Cross worker came in a couple of times again and talked to Jim and he was always quite nice. Jim and the others were there about seven days.

At the end of seven days of solitary confinement, Jim was taken out and met again with his compatriots, including the P47 fighter pilot. They were taken to an area outside of the building, sort of a little rendezvous point. There they were met with maybe 25 or 30 British officers, American officers and guys that had been interned the same way that they had been. They were all waiting there now to go on to a permanent prison camp or so they thought.

After all of those days of being alone, having nobody to talk with, Jim can’t express the joy of meeting all of those guys and talking with them. Incidentally, they had cigarettes, so they all had a cigarette for the first time in a long time. They had some chocolate bars out of Red Cross parcels. They had something to eat.

It was absolutely like a party.


Tomorrow – An Unlikely Reunion

The Road to Interrogation

After three days in the Amsterdam jail cells, Jim Hoel and the other three B-26 Marauder survivors were taken into a room and joined by a fifth man, a British P47 pilot who had also been shot down on May 17, 1943. The five men were incarcerated there alone until six German guards entered. These guards were Luftwaffe (meaning air corps), not SS guards and they all had rifles and two of them had potato mashers, which were hand grenades with big wooden handles on them, crossed in their belts.

Jim and the others sat around the edge of the room with a table in the middle and in came an officer and he had a package in his pocket. He opened up the package and which was full of paper containers of gunpowder. The enlisted men then stood up, took off their potato mashers, went over to the table, opened them up, and put in a charge of the explosive powder (dynamite perhaps). They then put the potato mashers back in their belts. Jim was sure this was to arm them so that if they needed to use them, they would; but on the other hand, Jim thought it was to leave a good psychological impression on the Allied airmen to let them know that that the Germans were not fooling at all.

With that, they put the five prisoners in a truck and took them to the railroad station. In May of 1943, there had been little or no bomb damage done anywhere in this area. It was a beautiful spring day. They were taken into a typical European train with the long hallway all the way down one side of the train and then compartments off of that; each compartment probably held six people. Jim and the other prisoners occupied, with the guards, two of the compartments.

The train trip ran from Amsterdam, Holland, down the Rhine River to Frankfurt, Germany, and it was an absolutely beautiful, gorgeous trip. There had been no bombing of any kind along the Rhine River. From this vantage point, one wouldn't have know there was a war going on. (Much later, at the end of the War, Jim travelled this route in the other direction and the region was devastated and unrecognizable from the subsequent bombing.)

The train stopped at Cologne for some time and there seemed to be a lot of commotion in the railroad yards; a great deal of confusion; many people moving around and shouting. It turned out that the previous night, the RAF had bombed Cologne and hit it pretty hard. The men were told that one of the bombs hit the back of the cathedral at Cologne and did severe damage which the Allies claimed never said happened, but in truth, Jim believed it had been hit.

As they were waiting, the German guards who had traveled with Jim and the other prisoners, seemed to relax, undo their belts and weren't as attentive to the airmen as they had been before. Jim figured the reason for was that the Germans knew they would have no way or nowhere to go if they tried to escape now.

About that time, while the train was parked in the "marshaling" yards of Cologne, an SS officer (SS stands for Schutzstaffel which literally means 'protective squadron') came into the compartment. Jim can’t remember what his rank was, but from the minute he entered he was mad and he was mean.

He saw the relaxed way these guards were guarding the airmen and he started sailing into them. He got all of the men, Germans and Allies alike, to stand up, get out in this long train corridor and berated the whole group up one side and down the other. Jim gathered that he was just mad because of the bombing the night before and he was going to take it out on somebody.

Jim was standing next to him and hadn't had a bath for a few days; hadn't combed his hair; and hadn't shaved, so Jim didn't suppose he looked very respectable. At any rate, the SS officer was spit and polish in dress, and as he was waving his arms around, he hit Jim's jacket and suddenly stopped and stood dead still. He looked at the sleeve of his uniform that had brushed against Jim and he brushed it off just as though he had just touched a pig or something or other. And with that, he took a swing at Jim and knocked him down in the aisle.

Jim was pretty mad at this point, pent up with frustration from the crash, the loss of his friends and the last three days in captivity and he didn't know what he was going to do; but one of the guards who was standing right there put his foot out so that Jim couldn't get back anywhere near the SS officer. Jim believes that this guard knew that if Jim had approached him, the SS officer would likely have pulled out his pistol and killed Jim on the spot.

They continued down this beautiful trip until they arrived in Frankfurt, Germany, and this time were placed in the central "gulag", where again, the now five airmen were isolated; each one put in an individual cell. This place was really a jail, and it was pretty sophisticated. If they had to use the bathroom, they pulled a little cord and a guard would come to the door and escort them to the latrine, never saying a word. Nobody talked to us at all.

Eventually, Germans of all ranks began coming in one at a time to Jim’s cell and the interrogation process began.

Tomorrow – The Interrogations

An Apology to Readers About Comments

The site hosting this blog will be down for awhile today so I wanted to clear up a question I received via email from a number of readers. Each email told me that they were unable to leave comments to the Posts at the link at the bottom of each daily Post that says "Comments". I, being a relative novice at this process, discovered yesterday that I had inadvertently limited the ability to leave comments to only registered subscribers to or followers of the "War Watch" blog.

This has now been changed and anyone can leave a comment to any post whether the most recent or any past post which you can find by scrolling down the main page or in the Archives Section in the right hand column.

We encourage comments for several reasons. First, we would love to have input from others who were involved in any phase of World War II, and particularly from those men or family members of the men who flew in B-26 Marauders; were involved in the May 14, 1943 or May 17, 1943 Ijmuiden Missions; or spent time in Stalug Luft III or any other Stalug Luft prisoner of war camp. We would even welcome the opportunity to post your own personal recollections of a specific event. Simply make that request in the Comment section we will contact you.

Second, as we work our way through he volumes of letters home from my father, the German and American documents "tracking" his journey through the War and the resource material we have received from many helpful sources, particularly from Michael E. Smith at http://www.b26.com/, we want to make certain we correct any errors that we may make.

Finally, we would love to have ideas about any particular part of our father's story that you would like learn or hear more about.

Thank you all for your patience. We appreciate your interest in and support of "War Watch". If you still have problems leaving comments please email us directly at rickhoel@yahoo.com.

Tomorrow - Interrogation

Jail in Amsterdam

Sometime later, now it was early evening on May 17, 1943, Jim Hoel and the other three B-26 Marauder survivors were put in another truck which drove right into the heart of Amsterdam into what Jim considered to be the largest public building in the middle of Amsterdam. There, they were all put in jail cells in a basement.

It was an old building and these cells looked like the old gulags of torture days. Each was a concrete cell in itself and had a massive steel door. Each prisoner was placed in an individual cell, again, so they couldn't talk with each other. They hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast. In the room was a bed (just a wooden bench) and a chair and a window way up on a wall with some bars on it that you couldn't get to anyway. They spent their first night in captivity in this Amsterdam jail.

Jim and the others stayed in this jail for 3 days. During this period, all they knew was that their B-26 Marauder had gone down and that their turret gunner and tail gunner had either been killed prior to the time that it went down or killed in the crash. It is still Jim’s belief that with all the fire that hit their Marauder, the rear end of the airplane probably drew most of the heavy fire and they probably were killed or wounded prior to the crash landing in the Maas River.

They had no idea what had happened to the rest of the squadron, except for Colonel Stillman’s lead plane, and they all assumed that all on board his B-26 were killed in the crash. This was the only crash they witnessed before they went down. As far as Jim and the other three were concerned, maybe all of the other B-26 Marauders on the 450th and 452nd Squadrons were back at the base, safe and sound.

Meals consisted of a piece of dark bread in the morning with a cup of ersatz (Jim thought, correctly, that meant “fake”) coffee. (During the War, "ersatz" became a frequently used pejorative description used by the thousands of U.S., British, and other English-speaking soldiers, primarily airmen, who were captured and placed in POW camps. POWs were served Ersatzkaffee or “substitute” coffee by their German guards, who had no real coffee to offer. Obviously, this substitute drink, a Getreidekaffee or "grain coffee", was not a favorite of the POWs, who missed their real coffee.). At noon, Jim and the others were served a bowl of watery soup and at night, another piece of bread.

One day, a German guard brought a fish to Jim, five or six inches long, on a plate with a little sauce next to it. The fish had been cleaned (the insides taken out), but it hadn't been cooked in any way. So the guard sat it down at Jim’s door and he saw that Jim didn't seem to know what to do with it, so he opened the door. (Food was typically slid under the door in a little slot in the door of his cell.). The guard who seemed like a nice guy stepped in and without a word, he picked the fish up and dipped it in this little sauce and then went as if to bite and to chew it. When he left, Jim picked up the raw fish and ate it as shown. It wasn't too bad at all.

During these first few days, Jim’s parents had probably received news of the May 17, 1943 322nd Group’s May 17 Ijmuiden Mission disaster but had no idea whether Jim was dead or alive. Jim’s first chance to write something home was on May 21, 1943 when he arrived at Staling Luft III. He wrote a brief note on a type of post card with the word “Kriegsgefangenenlager” at the top left, which means prisoner of war camp. Jim’s message home was brief:

Dear Folks – I hope you haven’t worried too much about my welfare. We met up with a bit of bad luck but I’m most thankful to say I’m O.K. now. We have been put in a German camp where we will evidently be held for the duration. As soon as I find out how you can write I will let you know. All my love, Jim.

It appears this post card was mailed on May 29, 1943. It is not clear when Omer and Olive Hoel, Jim’s parents received it.

A Glimpse of Freedom

As described in Jim Hoel’s letter to his mother written during the late evening of May 16, 1943, it hardly seemed as if a war was been fought as he rode his bike through the English countryside appreciating the beauty of the English garden in the early summer. Our father always created beautiful gardens in our yard as we grew up and his love for our gardens perhaps originated in these peaceful settings. He also wrote that he expected the Axis to crumble soon. He was optimistic, but unfortunately he was wrong. The next day, May 17, 1943, Jim was a captured airman after his B-26 Marauder was shot down. Sitting on the banks of the Maas River he had no idea what would happen next

Three of four hours later a small pickup truck with a canvas top on it backed up to the German "gun emplacement" and again, Jim had no idea what was going on. The four survivors from the B-26 Marauder were then summoned. Four guards from the truck came over. They had rifles drawn and they pointed to all four of the men to get into the truck, which they did.

The four Marauders sat in the truck, on the inside, with the four guards toward the back, and started driving someplace but at that point they didn't know where. Wherever Jim and the others were, it was clear that it was a rush hour because all around the truck (it had to be Amsterdam or a suburb) were bicycles, just dozens and dozens of bicycles. They were all workers evidently travelling home from work. The four Americans would occasionally, when the guards were looking out in back, give a “thumbs up” to this Amsterdam crowd and they would all wave and shout and cheer. Eventually, the German guards knew something was going on, so they stopped that in a hurry by turning around and threatening Jim and the others.

They were taken to what appeared to be some type of police headquarters. It was a stucco building and the Marauders were taken to the second floor into a room with three guards sitting there and holding them at bay.

One of the guards took one of the Jim’s crew out of the room. Jim had no idea where he was taken and the German guards still wouldn't let the Americans talk to each other. The first airman didn’t return. A little while later, the second guard took a second airman out of the room and they didn't come back. Still later, the third guard took another airman away, leaving Jim alone in the small room.

In an instant, Jim recalled what little escape training he had received. An RAF flying officer had given the Americans a short briefing on what happens. And all of a sudden, it dawned on Jim, that he had said, "The only and best time to escape is immediately when you've been captured". To this point Jim and the others had no opportunity to escape - until now. Jim then recalled that the RAF officer had also said, "The only other time is just any time after you've been captured whenever you see a good opportunity. But do it before you get into Germany because once you get into Germany, you're literally locked in a German prison and chances to escape diminish dramatically.”

All of a sudden it dawned on Jim and he walked over to the window in this second story building with the idea that he might just drop himself out of the window and take off. He looked down and there was a cobblestone street down below and rather than being just a second story, it was a high, high second story and he thought, "Well, I might drop myself down there and might break an ankle or something or other."

Before Jim had any chance to make up his mind one way or the other, the door opened and he turned around. One of the guards had returned, saw Jim standing by the window evidently looking like he was going to do something. The German guard got very nervous and he pointed his gun at Jim. Jim thought he was going to shoot him and put his hands up and said, "No, no, no." And at that point, Jim didn't know who was the most nervous, the German guard or him. At any rate, Jim sat down and that was the end of that.

The next opportunity for escape would not occur until much later with the carefully engineered and constructed tunnels at Stalug Luft III.

A Letter Home

(A personal note - Perhaps nine years ago, my wife Pam, worked with my father to tape his story. She also went through volumes of American and German documents and an unbelievable amount of letters home from my father before and during his years as a POW. Pam did this because her father’s health was failing and she had done the same with him, recording his life for future
generations. Pam feels that everyone’s life has a story to tell. The fact that all of these documents recording my father’s war years exist today is a tribute to my father's mother, Olive Hoel, who kept every conceivable record. Today, I received from my father the two very large binders of these documents and letters that Pam had organized and I was overwhelmed reading through even a small amount of the documents, particularly the letters home from my father at age 22. As I said at the beginning, I am not certain how this story will evolve but hopefully it will be told now more through my father's own words during the War. Today’s post is simply the letter sent from my father to his mother on May 16, 1943, the day before his B-26 was shot down. It is clear that my father had no idea what was to occur the very next day.)

May 16, 1943

Dear Mother,

The last couple days have been so beautiful outside all the time; so this is the reason for such few letters. We have also found a little action and will continue in it now and then. Things are much as we expected them for which we are glad. And now we are mighty proud of our B-26’s. Your papers probably carried an account of the “un-named” medium bombers who struck with much success the other day.

I suppose to-night you are all sitting about with Mil (my father’s sister, Milnore, who was a WAVE in the service), if she got home for her leave as you said she would. I am quite confident I won't be too long over here. The whole Axis program is meeting with less and less success each day. Soon they will be up against the wall just as their forces were in Africa.

This morning it hardly seemed as if a war was being fought. The sun was out so nice I took a long bike ride on some of the smaller roads. Everyone seemed so cheerful as I met them working about their houses. The country side is just beautiful this time of year. Flowers seemed to grow everywhere and all mixed together to give a beautiful picture. I only saw one car the whole time I was out, and quite oddly enough it was an American Jeep. This afternoon we got back to work and I flew a couple hours leading some new navigators in a formation. As I expected they were lost 10 minutes from the field and they couldn't locate themselves on the map. For us it is quite easy now and we can spend a little more time on such trips sightseeing.

I'm sure the more flying Grant (My father’s cousin) does in a B-24 the less he will like it. There is no support to it and I would dread the thought now climbing up to 20 or 30 thousand feet every time I went on a mission. They have to contend with the cold and the use of oxygen. Everyone of the B-17 or B-24 boys I've talked with wish they could be transferred to B- 26’s. None of us liked them at first but now wouldn't trade for anything.

How are you folks holding up with the rationing? I don't imagine you are starving. We had a dance in the officer's club last night and one of the girls I was dancing with said my hair was turning gray at the temples. I became alarmed so I ran into the boy's room and looked - quite to my relief I found it was just blond. I guess I haven't changed any from last September except that I'm little fatter.

My hut has a door at either end and in this weather we keep both of them open. One is not more than 15 feet from the main highway so people riding by can look right in. I mention this because just a few minutes ago a whole family came peddling their bikes by. I heard the man say to the kids “See, that's where the American soldiers sleep.”

Ken Tulpin wrote the other day. He said he was getting along okay but thought he'd have to spend the summer out there. I guess he's put on a lot of weight which he certainly could use. I have a few other letters I'd like to write tonight so we'll close this now.

Love,

Jim

Twelve hours later my father's B-26 was shot down , 40 of his squadron friends were killed and Jim Hoel's life changed forever.

Origins

Please click on the slide show under "Related Links" titled MARGRATEN Netherlands American Cemetery Slide Show . It is a moving tribute to my father's recent visit with my brother Gil to find the graves of our father's fellow airmen and friends lost during the War.

As Jim and the three other crewmen sat for those three or four hours on the shores of the Maas Canal, Jim doesn’t specifically recall all that went through his mind. After all, that was 66 years ago. Soon Jim and the others would be loaded onto trucks and transferred to an interrogation point. Jim did think of his parents, Omer and Olive Hoel, living in Evanston, Illinois, and worried about them receiving the “missing in action” telegram and how long it would be before they learned that he had survived, if he did.

Jim might have thought of his grand-father, Olaf Hoel, the first of our family to set foot on these shores in July of 1868. Born in Tonset, Norway in 1841, Olaf was the eighth of ten children and he had come through New York Harbor, no less excited, I’m sure, than my father, when many years later, he was to return from the War, through the Harbor.

Starting with the invasion of Norway three years earlier on April, 9, 194o, the country remained under both the military occupation of German forces and civil rule of a German commissioner. Norway’s occupation by Nazi Germany ended on May 18, 1945, after the surrender of German forces in Europe. This period of occupation had a significant impact on Norwegian society, and it was years until Norway considered itself as having passed on and into the "post-war era."

Olaf Hoel made his way to the Midwest, where on July 16, 1876, he was ordained a minister at Washington Prairie near Decorah, Iowa. In August of that year, Olaf moved to Canby, Minnesota where he became the Pastor for the St. Stephens Congregation of Canby. For the next 36 years, he served this congregation and was the “area’s pioneer pastor” as well. Reverend Hoel eventually served 11 churches in his circuit ministry and was increasingly called upon to minister to Norwegian settlers spread over a wider and wider area. In a 1928 letter, Reverend Hoel describes the challenges of a circuit ministry:

“The parishioners were found in a radius of seventy miles, so a great deal of traveling had to be done. This we did with a pony and a little open buggy. There were no roads, but by aid of a compass we were able to find our way over the prairies. By starting at daybreak, we often did not reach our destination until in the middle of the night. Many were the times the way had to be fought through prairie fires and snowstorms......We speak of tiresome rides nowadays, but few can imagine how tedious and lonesome the trips over the prairie were – no roads and seldom, if ever, meeting a person on an entire trip.”

On August 19, 1876, Olaf Hoel married Mary Lund of Canby. They brought 8 children into the world, the youngest of whom was Omer, Jim's father. The children were born before Olaf moved to Canby but it was in Canby that Reverend and Mary Hoel have left a legacy that my family cherishes today. Mary’s brothers built a home and sold it to Olaf in 1903. As described at the time, it was “one of the best resident properties in Canby and had, without a doubt, the finest surroundings.” The “49 day wonder” Victorian home was built in 1891 and eventually enlivened with decorative balconies, a turret and gingerbread trim. The home remained in the family for the next half century and when finally sold went somewhat into disrepair.

But in 1976, the town of Canby recognized the potential and looked “into the possibility of starting a Canby Museum” with the Lund-Hoel House. The town purchased the home and over the years to follow was able to retrieve, from members of the Lund and Hoel families, most of the items and furnishings that were in the home at the turn of the century, including Olaf's Bible and his daughter Nella Hoel's “prized Everett upright piano.” Eventually, the home looked as it had when Olaf’s family first resided there.

The “Lund-Hoel House” is now a museum on the National Register of Historic Homes. In 1991, Jim’s father, Omer, the last remaining child of Olaf and 97 years old at the time, visited Canby to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Lund-Hoel House. After walking through the home and directing the rearrangement of furniture so that it was “the way it was then,” Omer sat under a broad chestnut tree in the back yard surrounded by most of the residents of Canby and told stories of his life in this home.

As Omer, my grandfather, spoke, I glanced over at my father who used to run around the stone fence surrounding the home when he was a boy and I thought of the challenges that my great grandfather, grandfather and father had survived and overcome so that I could be there that day. I was reminded then, and often since my father’s watch appeared, of a quote I heard once from a now forgotten source, “You’ll never untangle the circumstances that brought you to this moment.” Perhaps not, but how fortunate we are for those things like the discovery of my father’s watch and the Lund-Hoel House that keep looping us back to the past so that we might discover stories that enrich our lives and strengthen us today.

Jim was born in Canby on September 2, 1922 and moved to Evanston, Illinois in 1932 where he remained until he entered the War.

Tomorrow – Moving into the German Prison of War System

MARGRATEN

(A clearer version of the Margraten slide show can also be seen at "Related Links")

Slide show of Jim Hoel's visit to the Netherlands American Cemetery on April 15, 2005. He was escorted by his son, Gil and two Dutchmen, John and Dennis Prooi (father and son). John grew up in Rozenburg, the village where Jim's B26 ditched in 1943. John and his son had researched where each of Jim's fallen comrades were buried amongst the 8,302 grave sites of American soldiers. The group went to each site during the visit to pay their respects.

A Personal Note

I have received a surprising number of emails from people around the globe who have thanked me for this Blog. Most of these responses have been from people who never had the chance to know their fathers who died in the War or from people, much like me, who took their father's World War II experiences for granted while growing up and raising their own families. Their fathers passed on before they had the chance to truly understand their experiences and lessons learned during the War.

As I responded to a very thoughtful email today, I explained how very lucky I am that my father is alive today at 87, and of course lucky to be here myself. Had a few things gone differently on May 17, 1943, I would not be here today. I am also getting to know my father so much better these days, visualizing as I write, his life at 22 years old.

I mentioned in an earlier post, in passing, that as my father was sitting with is back to the bulkhead, bracing for the crash, he was not afraid. I asked him today what was the basis of that sense of acceptance, was it a faith in God, a surrender to the inevitable or something else. He didn't have an easy answer. My father is a much too humble man to suggest that bravery was an explanation.

He finally said that he never believed there was any way to survive a B-26 crash. As will be described in later posts, many B-26 airplanes crashed during training in the United States and over seas and my father had never seen one person survive one of those crashes. My father, I believe, simply accepted his inevitable fate. This forces me to look deep into my own heart and wonder how I would have responded in these circumstances.

The certainty in his mind of his impending death, forced some form of acceptance and as he says "I was at peace." He told me, as many have said before, "My entire life in 30 seconds or so flashed before my eyes, from a young boy to the present." As I mentioned earlier, his only true regrets were the telegrams his parents would soon receive, the first, a "missing in action" message, and later "killed in action."

My father always stresses that the real heroes were those who never returned and as you can imagine he gets very emotional these days as he recalls all the friends and true heroes who died so young.

As I explained today in response to one of many emails, I have been sitting on my father's tapes, documents and pictures for much too long. I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to write this story with my father today.

It is ironic perhaps that this was my father's first time in Europe. A short distance to the north, The Hoel family had left Norway, and made the hard journey with my great-grandfather, Olaf Hoel, to Minnesota in the late 1800's. I will talk about that tomorrow and the many struggles my father's earlier generations experienced that perhaps contributed to my father's courage that day.

There are so many stories to follow that I get impatient to tell them all right now. I will give you a glimpse of one that occurred just following my father's interrogations by the Germans. Hearing that one of the prisoners, my father, was from Evanston, Illinois, a young German soldier who had not been involved in the interrogation asked his superiors if he might have a word with Second Lieutenant Hoel.

It turns out that my father and this now German soldier, both 22 years of age, had grown up in the same neighborhood in Evanston, Illinois. As the result of a cruel "invitation" to "Dual Citizens", young German men living in the United States, who still retained their German citizenship, were a few years earlier invited to take a free vacation to their homeland. Shortly after arrival they were "conscripted" into the German army and unable to return home.

The ironies of war.

Interlude

I have thought often about what my father thought about during the three or four hours that he sat looking over the Mass River. I have talked with him almost every day during our writing and he has told me that he doesn’t specifically recall just what went through his mind during those hours.

I have also thought about where I was at that age and the relatively easy life I enjoyed in college. I have wondered, how I would have responded to the situation my father, and many others faced on March 17, 1943. I have no answers.

I spoke with my father today who told me some more stories of the men who did not return that day. My father is supportive and very helpful in sending me letters and other documents that offer a glimpse of the struggles he and others went through during the coming two or three years but he added that he hesitates to ask anyone to focus on one man’s story, particularly after he returned to Europe several year ago, with my brother Gil, to the site where he was captured on the shore of the Maas Canal.

During that trip with Gil, my father returned to the cemeteries, to find the graves of those who lost their lives at such a young age on March 17, 1943. It took awhile, into the early evening, but my father found the graves of the two gunners in his B-26 who were lost that day. Their bodies had washed ashore days later, miles away from the spot their plane went down. He also found the graves of most of the men who were lost during his mission that day, save for those whose bodies were never found.

“It’s hard,” my father says, “to think that any one story of a survivor is important enough to tell with all of the white crosses I saw that day, and that I know stand alone today all over the world.”

I am very fortunate to be able to talk with my father about his life at this time and as I write his story, I seem to better appreciate a simple fact – the struggles I have today, with economic conditions mostly, are far less difficult and, much easier to bear, when I think of the much greater challenges that prior generations have had to face.

My father talks often and very emotionally, about the young men who did not return. Though not on my father’s mission that day, a friend lost his life one day later, on March 18, 1943, and was one of the ten airmen in the “Mighty 8th” who received the Medal of Honor.

On March 18, 1943, Jack W. Mathis, 21 years old at the time, was lead bombardier on a mission over Germany. The lead bombardier's role in these missions was critical. He was responsible for directing the bombing of the entire squadron.

I will let the Medal of Honor Citation speak for itself:

Medal of Honor Citation

Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Corps, 359th Bomber Squadron, 303d Bomber Group. Place and date: Over Vegesack, Germany, March 18, 1943. Entered service at: San Angelo, Tex. Born: September 25, 1921, San Angelo, Tex. G.O. No.: 38, July 12, 1943.

Citation:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy over Vegesack, Germany, on March 18, 1943. 1st Lt. Mathis, as leading bombardier of his squadron, flying through intense and accurate antiaircraft fire, was just starting his bomb run, upon which the entire squadron depended for accurate bombing, when he was hit by the enemy antiaircraft fire. His right arm was shattered above the elbow, a large wound was torn in his side and abdomen, and he was knocked from his bomb sight to the rear of the bombardier's compartment. Realizing that the success of the mission depended upon him, 1st Lt. Mathis, by sheer determination and willpower, though mortally wounded, dragged himself back to his sights, released his bombs, then died at his post of duty. As the result of this action the airplanes of his bombardment squadron placed their bombs directly upon the assigned target for a perfect attack against the enemy. 1st Lt. Mathis' undaunted bravery has been a great inspiration to the officers and men of his unit.

Jack's brother Mark was on base when the plane carrying his brother's body landed after the mission. At his own request, Mark Mathis was transferred into Jack Mathis' crew to replace him as bombardier. When the crew completed its tour of duty, Mark Mathis stayed in combat and was killed in action over the North Sea in May 1943.

Alone

As Jim and the other three survivors started swimming slowly to the shore, they had no idea of the extent of the tragedy of the May 17 Ijmuiden Mission. They had seen, just before their B-26 Marauder was forced to ditch, the lead plane in the Squadron piloted by “Moose” Stillman, snap roll and crash upside down into a sand dune and knew that none of the six crewman on that B-26 could have survived. (Some time later, when Jim and the others were official prisoners of war at the Stalug Luft III camp, Moose miraculously walked in one day and his first words to the entire group of prisoners, many of whom thought they were seeing a ghost, were, “Who’s the son-of-a-bitch who’s been spreading the word that I’m dead.”)

Later that day at the Bury Saint Edmonds base in England, all anxiously awaited the return of their bombers. The Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) had been 1250. No word had been received when the ETA came and went and intense apprehension spread throughout the base. Shortly after the ETA, a listening post of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) reported that they had intercepted a German radio transmission confirming that two B-26 bombers had been shot down and crashed in the North Sea. These bombers were attempting to return home from the target. At 1330, no planes had returned and it became obvious that all were lost, ten out of the eleven B-26 bombers that set out that day had been shot down. One of the eleven had turned back before crossing the coast and made it safely home on one engine. Forty of the sixty airmen in those ten planes lost their lives that day.

But Jim and the others knew nothing of this of course. It was a long and tiring swim in the wide Maas Canal and as they approached the shore, they saw standing along a steep embankment 50 or maybe 75 German soldiers with their rifles all drawn. As the survivors pulled themselves up on the bank, standing in front of them was a very good looking and surprisingly nice young German officer wearing what Jim guessed was his summer dress uniform because it was a white coat. In fact, he was immaculately dressed. With his gun pointed at them, he said, "I think for you gentlemen, the war is over." What was going to happen now, they didn't know, but for the moment they were just thankful to be alive.

It turns out that this phrase, “I think for you the war is over”, was taught to German soldiers and used regularly when capturing American or British soldiers. The Mighty 8th Air Force Museum in Savannah, Georgia has created a full scale replica of one of the Stalug Luft prisoner of war quarters, which were originally intended to house eight prisoners. These quarters accommodated four times that number toward the latter stages of the War. Over the arched entry way to this Museum display, this German “Welcome” phrase is inscribed.

Jim and the others crawled up the bank and were guided over to a position where the German’s had placed defensive guns right along the canal. There must have been eight or ten 20-millimeter guns at that one location. The airmen began to understand at that point, looking at these guns, what they had run into in the air.

The four airmen were divided and told to sit along the bank about 40 feet from each other. They were kept apart so they couldn't talk to each other and perhaps develop some plan of escape though that would have been impossible. Likely, they also didn’t want Jim and the others to discuss any common approaches to the interrogations which were soon to follow.

It was now about noon. It was a sunny day in May, and yet the air was still a little cool and the water in the canal had been frigid, so they all remained cold. Though the German soldiers were intent on keeping the airmen apart, the soldiers in the unit stationed at this point were nice enough to come out and give each one of the men a blanket that they wrapped around themselves; and there they sat wondering, "Okay, what happens next?" Despite the outward civility of the German soldiers, for all the airmen knew, they could at any moment be shot in the back of the head.

They sat like this, each alone in his own thoughts and fears, for three or four hours, perhaps grateful to be alive, but saddened looking at the Mass Canal where two of their friends remained and who would never return. They still had no idea how many friends had been lost that day

The "Ditch"

There has been a great deal written about the ill-fated May 17, 1943 Ijmuiden Mission which was named after the target that day, a power plant in Holland. None of the 11 B-26 Marauders from the 450th and 452nd Squadrons of the 322nd Bomber Group returned that day.

More on this later but it is important to note that this mission was an exact repeat of the very first mission in Europe by the 322nd flown three days earlier on May 14th. Reconnaissance photos had apparently shown that the bombs from the Marauders had missed their target on that date, though there is still dispute to this day on this point. Unbeknown to Jim Hoel who was to fly in his first Mission on May 17, the 322nd Group Commander, Colonel Robert M. "Moose" Stillman, who had led the misson on the 14th, argued vehemently with higher command that repeating the mission three days later with the Germans now precisely prepared, was a suicide mission. His pleas were denied but despite this, Stillman still insisted on leading the May 17th Mission.

Robert F. Freeman, in his book, B-26 Marauder At War, quoted this exchange just before the 450th and 452nd Squadrons of Marauders were to take off on May 17th:

"For Stillman, convinced the mission was sheer folly, yet determined in his duty to personally see the target hit this time, it was a dispirited departure from the intelligence section. Von Kolnitz said "Cheerio" as Stillman was leaving. 'No, it's good-bye', the commander responded. Ignoring the prophesy Von Kolnitz said, 'I'll see you at one-o'clock.' 'It's good-bye' repeated Stillman and walked out."

Jim knew none of this when his plane went down on May 17th though there were general feelings of gloom amongst the airmen that morning sensing they would meet stiffer resistance.

Jim's B-26 hadn't been over the coast long (maybe only a few minutes) when it became apparent that there was some kind of trouble. When the pilot called for him to "Go back and see what's the matter with the radio operator," Jim was sitting in the nose of the airplane. When Jim got to the radio operator, he didn't know whether he had been hit by flack though it didn't appear so. He might have been jostled some way or other, but he was sort of wide-eyed, and standing up in the radio navigating compartment. Jim sat him down in his radio seat and strapped him in, and about that time, the pilot said, "Standby, I think we're going to ditch (meaning in the water)."

With that, Jim reached up and opened the hatch on top of the airplane and the radio compartment and then sat down with his back to the bulkhead between the pilots' compartment and where he was sitting in the radio navigating compartment. The training that Jim and the others had gone through taught the tail gunner and the turret gunner, when they heard on their earphones that that they were going to crash or prepare for an emergency landing, they were to come walking through the 2 bomb bay doors and each of them sit, one between Jim's legs and the other between the radio operator's, all with their backs to the front of the airplane so that they could take the blow of the crash as they hit.

But the gunners never came through. Jim felt that they had plenty of time to do it. He's always thought that. But they never showed up. And about that time, the airplane hit the water.

Another rule in landing was, when you hit the water in a crash landing, don't ever stand upright because chances are that there will be a "skip" that you will hit the water and skip a little bit and then you are going to hit the water with the second blow which is going to be devastating and the final stop of the airplane.

Jim didn't stand up for the simple reason that he was sitting, waiting for the second blow. It seemed like an hour-it might have been a few seconds. At any rate, there wasn't a second. When the Marauder hit the water, it was nosed right and stopped immediately. As a result, Jim was immediately almost over his head sitting in water, but as he started to get up, he couldn't. There was something that seemed to be in front of him and he ran his hands around whatever it was. it was a 500-pound bomb that had come through the bulkhead and was sitting there on something, but it was not sitting on Jim's legs. It was just in front of him, and luckily he was able to slide out from under it.

By now, Jim was up to his neck in water standing up, while the radio operator, was standing in the hatchway going out. He was hollering something about his foot being caught. Jim knew that if he didn't get out, Jim wasn't either, so he wrapped his arms around his legs and gave the radio operator a tremendous boost up and that loosened his foot from whatever it was caught in. The radio operator went sailing out and Jim was immediately behind him.

Jim's May West (the emergency vest worn on your chest) had 2 compartments to it--one on each side and each one of them had a carbon dioxide bottle. For some reason or other, one of Jim's compartments was inoperable. It probably had small flack holes in it and when he pulled the tubes, it wouldn't hold air so there he was. Jim had gotten his heavy chest protector off, but he couldn't get the leg ones off, and he was about to sink. Just then the radio operator started wrapping his arms around Jim and he realized that he hadn't pulled his Mae West, so Jim reached down and pulled both the carbon dioxide bottles on the operator's vest and that was enough to sustain and hold both of them afloat.

They were in this huge, wide, straight canal and it seemed clear that the squadron had missed its planned landfall considerably. They had no idea what this was or where they were. In later years Jim learned that it was known as the "Nieuwe Waterweg River". It is a wide, wide shipping canal that runs adjacent to the Rhine River into the North Sea.

By this time it appeared the Marauder had completely disappeared. Here they were, the two of them floating, but as they looked around they saw the tail section of the airplane floating right straight up (standing straight up in the air) and what evidently had happened was that when the plane hit the water, the force was so great that it broke the airplane in two parts. Jim guessed that the first half was from the turret gunner's area forward, and that the front part of the airplane hit the water and just kept going down. The tail section without that much of the fuselage stood up and in doing so was sort of floating because it had air in it. But it was sinking fast and they could only watch it go down.

The two of them thought they were the only two alive when suddenly with a bang on their bottoms the copilot popped up. He was choking a little bit because he had been under water for quite some time. But he seemed all right and said "I'm fine." Then a couple of seconds later, the pilot of the airplane burst to the surface and he was just absolutely choking to death. They all looked at him and they said, "My God, you've been under water so long, come over here, let's help you some way or other." They then noticed that the steel helmet that he had on, when we hit in the crash, was pushed way back on his head so the strap under his chin was choking him. The other three reached up and undid the strap and with that he was still coughing a lot, but he was okay. Four of the six crewman were alive floating in the Nieuwe Waterweg River.

The four survivors started swimming slowly to the shore on their right.

A Flood of Memories

A number of years ago, on a Veteran’s Day, my father, was asked to talk to our church in Chicago about his experiences during World War II. I sat with my family in the front row amidst a number of other veterans and their families, most in their 70’s and 80’s. In front of us on the floor sat the congregation’s youngest members, children ranging in ages from 4 to 10.

This was before my father was reunited with his watch but I had heard many of my father’s story about his wartime experiences before and I confess that too often that day and on other days of worship, my mind wandered to the afternoon’s activities in my yard and my plans for the coming week. Unfortunately, I’m certain that many of my friends with busy lives were also at least partly pre-occupied with next Thursday or some upcoming event that was so very important.

But as I looked to my immediate left and right and to the floor before me, I couldn’t help but notice that the very young and the very old, those nearer to the entry and exit ramps of life, were immersed in my father’s tale. I thought for a moment about one of my father’s admirable traits, the ability to focus on what was in front of him at any given point in time and appreciate each moment for what it is. Perhaps this is because, as a result of his experiences, he feels in part that every new day is a true gift for him, one more that others won’t ever have; one more that he came so close to missing. Maybe he feels he owes it to those who didn’t return from the war to live each day as best he can and worry less about next week or month or year.

All of us in the congregation were brought back to the moment as my father finished his talk by describing his return from the war and sailing into New York Harbor past the Statute of Liberty. We joined him as he fought back tears explaining how that national symbol was so important to him, at that moment in 1945, because it represented something that at one point in his life he thought he might never experience again, freedom. Tears streamed from the faces of those around me who had also fought and known those who died in World War II. The children were transfixed as they pictured the image in their minds. And the rest of us, for a brief time at least, let the importance of next week’s business slip away.

In one instant, on May 17, 1943, my father’s life changed forever. He was 22 years old at the time and on his first mission. He describes this day best in his own words.

The Nieuwe Waterweg River, Holland - May 17, 1943, 10:55 AM

Our B-26 Marauder was flying less than 50 feet above the North Sea to avoid German radar. At this altitude things happened fast at over 200 miles an hour. As our plane passed over the Dutch coast what looked like a massive 4th of July fireworks show loomed before us. Ahead to the left, our lead plane was hit and in an instant was gone, snap rolling and crashing upside down into a sand dune. The shock of my friends’ certain deaths swept over me but a burst of tracers brought me back to our own problems.

Our radio operator, was shouting and our pilot frantically yelled for me, the plane’s bombardier-navigator, to find out what was happening in the rear of the plane. I crawled back from the nose and an enormous blast stunned me as flak ripped into the side of the plane.

The pilot shouted for us to get ready for a crash landing. I quickly strapped our radio operator into his seat, opened the ceiling escape hatch and fell to the floor bracing my back against the pilot’s bulkhead. I didn’t know of a single survivor from any B-26 crash. Yet I felt strangely peaceful. My only regret was for my parents, as I pictured them receiving the inevitable “missing in action” and, later, “killed in action” notices.

The plane smashed into the Nieuwe Waterweg River at 250 miles an hour and split in half on impact. The front section sank like a submarine in a few seconds and I was underwater. I was underwater but able to stand on the plane’s floor and push our radio operator out of the hatch ahead of me. We struggled to the surface for air. In a moment, our pilot and co-pilot burst to the surface and the four of us swam towards shore. Our turret and tail gunners never made it out of the Marauder.

When we reached the river’s bank, a young German officer was waiting. He pointed his rifle at us and in perfect English stated the obvious, “For you I think the war is over.” On a hill behind us twenty more German soldiers pointed their weapons at us. We had no idea what would happen next. I glanced at my wrist to check the time but my watch was gone.

Evanston, Illinois, USA - August 27, 2003, 6:30 AM

The ringing woke me at 6:30 am. At 82 years old, I wasn’t usually up at this hour. I reached for the telephone and fumbled with the receiver, “Hello.” “Is this Jim Hoel?” the distinctly British voice asked expectantly. “Yes,” I replied, confused. “Did you fly in a Marauder airplane in the war?” I again said yes though I hadn’t thought about the Marauder for some time. “We’ve got your watch,” the caller said excitedly. I was ready to hang up and go back to sleep but asked “Just what watch are you talking about?” My watch was sitting on my bed stand. “The one you lost when your airplane crashed in 1943.” I was stunned. All of a sudden, 1943 seemed like yesterday.

A Matter of Time

Growing up in the 1950’s, my brother Gil, sister Kim and I were all aware of my father’s experiences as a bombardier/navigator in a B-26 Marauder during World War II, the crash of his plane in the Maas River near Amsterdam and his subsequent life as a prisoner of war in Stalug Luft III, the camp which was the genesis of “The Great Escape.” However, my father never talked much about his experiences. As children, the War seemed like ancient history and a closed book. And I believe that my father and many other veterans were not particularly interested in opening that book. America had been victorious, the country seemed more unified than at any other time I have seen since and families were excited about capturing the American Dream which seemed to be available like never before.

On August 27, 2003, my father and our family were in different ways invited and compelled to return to my father’s war memories and it has changed each of us in different ways. I’ll let the events of that day speak for themselves through the story that appeared and was picked up by news outlets throughout the world:

Watch Survives WW II, Follows Him Home

ASSOCIATED PRESS, EVANSTON, Ill. - Jim Hoel is glad to have his watch back, even though it had stopped working since he last saw it during World War II. The last time he remembers wearing the old Gallet chronometer was on May 17, 1943, the day he used it while navigating a B-26 Marauder before the bomber was forced to ditch in a canal in the Netherlands. He knows he no longer had the elaborate watch when he arrived at a German prisoner-of-war camp a few days later.

The watch arrived at his home last week in a package sent from England by a truck driver, Peter Cooper, 56, who found it in the possession of an elderly neighbor in the village of Kirton, 75 miles northeast of London.

"It’s just eerie, isn't it? That was 60 years ago. I've sort of got gooseflesh," Hoel, 82, told the Chicago Tribune.

Cooper said the neighbor, "Tiny" Baxter, 89, told him his mother had given it to him."Whether she found it or it was given to her, I do not know," Baxter, a retired carpenter, said in a telephone interview.

The watch, an enlistment present from the bank where Hoel worked before the war, had his name and Evanston address on the back. Cooper was able to track him down at his new address using the Internet and friends who had contacts in the United States. He persuaded his neighbor to give the watch to him so he could forward it to Hoel.

Hoel said the B-26 was one of a flight of 10 that encountered heavy antiaircraft fire while en route to bomb a power plant near Amsterdam. He and three others of the plane's six crewmen survived. He spent the next two years in German POW camps.

At the time my father's plane went down, his bomber group was part of the “Mighty 8th Air Force” and my family and I have been gathering information about my father’s experiences ever since. I’ve written several stories about specific aspects of my father’s experiences and I am trying to design a book, but I have continually, and willingly, been distracted by the individual and fascinating “little” stories of courage, struggle and survival that have captured my heart as I gather material not only about the watch “reunion”, but my father's life in the Stalug Luft III POW camp, the brutal “Death March” of POW’s in January 1945, his eventual liberation and his trip back to the site of his crash several years ago with my brother Gil where he was welcomed by the entire town as a hero.

My father also had the opportunity to visit the graves of those in his crew who did not survive. Pictures of my father, during his recent trip “back”, standing on the spot where he swam to the shore of the Nieuwe Waterweg River between Rozenburg and Maassluisin, Holland after his plane went down, are personally very powerful to me.

I frankly don’t yet know how this blog will evolve. My hope is to tell my father’s entire fascinating story of war and also to add stories and memories from my family and from those who shared my father’s experiences both during the War and since his reunion with his watch, many in Europe who helped organize my father’s trip back to the Nieuwe Waterweg River and honored him while he was there.

On a technical note, the story will be told in part in my father’s own words. When I tell his story, I’ll refer to my father as Jim Hoel.