Afterword

Dick passed away on January 8, 2005 at the age of 88. Among his many community involvements, he was a charter member of the Oaklawn Rotary Club in 1971. He had a perfect attendance and received the Paul Harris Fellow award for his service. He became a charter member of Hot Springs Golf and Country Club in 1956. He and Nita played golf up into their eighties. They were both avid University of Arkansas Razorback fans. He was a long-time member of the First United Methodist Church where he served on the board of stewards. He was an avid hunter and fisherman and a member of the National Wildlife Society and Ducks Unlimited. Although he never flew an airplane after the war, he owned a ski boat with large turquoise fins, which he “flew” across the lake when he took me and my sister water skiing. He learned to snow skiing at the age of 62. His motto was: “It would nice if everyone did something for someone else every day.” 

He continued to be interviewed by the newspapers and community and family members about his World War II experiences. The top photo appeared in a “Hot Springs Sentinel Record” article titled, “3 Former American POWs Count Their Blessing on This Holiday,” on December 25, 1959. The lower article, which includes his good friend, Dub Newman, appeared in the same publication on May 8, 1995 - Victory in Europe Day (and my sister's birthday).

Nita passed away on December 14, 2006 at the age of 86. She and my father had been married 63 years. She worked as bookkeeper for Oaklawn Hardware for 29 years. She also was a long-time member of First United Methodist Church where she was a member of the Ellis-Patterson Circle and Altar Guild. She was active in the Pilot Club, Junior Auxiliary, Progressive Club and Nitecappers. She was an avid reader and played bridge right up until the end.

They were know as “Pops” and “Nita” to their two daughters, Dixie Kline and Nitalynn Sigman; sons-in-law, Richard Kline and Bruce Sigman; and five grandchildren, Will Lee, Liberty Lee, Annabel Johnson, Matthew Harvey, and Laurel Smith. They are probably smiling down now on their great grandchildren: Garrett Lee, Elliott Johnson, Charlie Johnson, Wells Harvey, Caroline Harvey, Ollie Smith and “Soon to be here” Smith.

With their strong faith in God as an example to us, my father and mother taught us to always be kind to other people and to have courage in the face of adversity. They believed each day is a gift and should be enjoyed to the fullest. Theirs were lives well-lived for their faith, their family and their country.

Freedom and Peace

What have I learned through this exciting, but emotional journey through my parents’ World War II experiences? First of all, miracles seemed to have appeared around every corner. Wandering through my father’s papers has brought continued surprises and a deeper understanding of what my parents went through. They endured so that we can have freedom today.

During this adventure, I learned of Linda Kolb Lesniewski (whom we met at Red’s funeral). Her father, Marcus Kolb, had been in the same barracks as Red McCrocklin. He had not been wounded in the war, but suffered afterward just the same with alcoholism. He said after every mission, the Army Air Corps encouraged them to get drunk so they would forget. So she grew up knowing a sad side of her father. After he passed away, Linda was able to connect with Red and learn more about what kind of man her father really was. Red told her that he was a good soldier and helped keep morale up when times were bad.

In 1998, Linda visited Barth, Germany. She went to the museum and learned it was closed, but she was able to get Helga’s contact information. Linda put Red in contact with Helga and through this, Grete Koch was able to connect with Red. We are grateful to Linda for these connections that later greatly enriched our visit to Barth.

Here are some of her comments (which she posted online) upon her return from Barth:

“I marveled at the turn of exhilaration as I reflected on the experience of the village, idyllic; the sky blue; the breeze; the birds, at their best; the Baltic, calm; the forest, lush. How could the area be so inviting? My black and white mental images encased themselves with cement, barbed wire and bleakness. I felt confusion of changing mental images coupled with the conflicting emotions of exhilaration  and exhaustion.

“Three months have passed. I’ve purposely delayed putting my thoughts and experiences on paper. I also waited to see the recently released Spielberg movie, 'Saving Private Ryan,' a graphic depiction of the invasion of France during WWII. I wanted the horror and desolation of lives to be fresh on my heart as I wrote. . .

“Even though my nose was stuffed and my eyes washed with tears, my conclusion remained unchanged. The Lord had transposed my response from anguish and remorse over Dad’s imprisonment to one of 'Thanksgiving.' I see the period of imprisonment as part of God’s provision and care. I was moved beyond the fear, despair, hunger, loneliness and uncertainty of the camp to see a type of crude oasis. I could see that God rescued Dad from flak-filled skies and deposited him in a remote northern area – a reprieve with a chapel, a library, and a potbellied stove. Through the barbed wire, he viewed the church’s steeple to the southeast, the blue Baltic to the northeast and the Black Forest to the northwest.”

I too believe that my father’s imprisonment protected him from harm till the end of the war.

I’d like to conclude with another part of the December 30, 1944 letter Captain George S. Wuchinich (who was the liaison between the Office of Strategic Services [OSS - the precursor to the CIA] and the Yugoslav Partisans) wrote to Palmer Lerum’s mother after he passed away:

“Whatever I say or whatever I do will not soften the loss that is yours. Over there we fight even though some of us must die because we have seen and know what our fate and that of our country if those devils could win. They are without heart or kindness. All of us want to live and fight, but death is better than slavery. We were born free me and we want to live that way and fight that way. We want to make our country a better place in which to live and to help make it a better world in which there are men as free as ourselves. We are winning and let us hope that we can fashion a peace that will be worldwide and one that will keep faith and trust with the dead of whom Palmer is now a representative.”

Our father survived a horrendous war, but we enjoy freedom because of him and many others like him. And all of our family are here today because of his courage -- as well many miracles. I often think of April 2, 1944 and his jumping out of that burning plane. Always be grateful for our freedom and, in the midst of these perilous times, never stop hoping for peace in the world

The Never Ending Story

In the fall of 2014, I received an email from Chris Geringer, the grandson of Warren Stuckey, the right waist gunner on board “The Miss Zeke.” He said, “My grandfather evaded capture, and I have all his wartime items that were saved . . . Last year I made contact with a guy in Croatia that found the crash site.” Among his grandfather’s papers was the serial number of “The Miss Zeke” (42-52276). You can see “The Miss Zeke” here complete with the “art” on the side and its original crew – not my father’s crew.

Chris went on to say, “My grandfather got the Distinguished Flying Cross metal for getting the tail gunner (Palmer Lerum), left waist gunner (Herman Lipkin), and ball turret gunner (Chester Eide) out of the plane before he jumped. The tail gunner was unconscious and missing part of one leg and the left waist gunner was wounded badly in the jaw and leg. The ball turret was jammed, and the gunner could not get out. My grandfather was working on getting the ball turret gunner out when a ME-109 (German plane) attacked and a machine gun round hit the oxygen bottle above him exploding and wounding him in the process.” 

“The guy in Croatia” is Radovan Zivanovic who has spent the last 14 years researching crashed planes in his country. With the help of friends, he has found crash sites from about 65-70 planes, including “The Miss Zeke.” He has also connected with living crew members or their families; collected a lot of stories; and even found human remains from two B-24 crew members and one German pilot.

In 2009, he found the “Miss Zeke” crash site near the village of Gorinci near Generalski Stol. He found enough pieces to conclude it was a B-24. The plane was like every other; scrapped by locals. They used parts for different things or sold metal to a scrap yard. Eyewitnesses told Radovan that the plane crashed in the spring of 1944 (April 2) and that some of the crew were saved by partisans, some were captured, and one member (Dennis King) was found dead in the plane. He was buried in the local cemetery, and after the war exhumed.

He also found MACR (missing air crew reports) documents from the Croatian Army for April 2, 1944 that said two 4-engine bombers crashed near Generalski Stol. He ruled out the other plane and concluded that 42-52276 had the one that crashed near Gorinci west of Generalski Stol. 

This spring Radovan mailed Chris some parts of “The Miss Zeke,” and he sent a piece on to me and my sister. It was a strange feeling to be holding the piece of the plane my father had flown.

“My grandfather Warren Stuckey (right waist gunner) and Claude 'Red' McCrocklin (bombardier) were friends before the war,” said Chris. “Claude had dated my grandfather’s sister. He joined the Army Air Corps before my grandfather and was an officer. As an officer he had the ability to request specific people for the airplane crew. When my grandfather joined the Army Air Corps, his sister wrote Claude and asked him to get her little brother on the airplane with him and keep him safe. My grandfather passed away in 1995. I got to know Claude after that . . . I talked with him on his 90^th birthday.” Here are Warren and Red in later years. 

Chris told me story about my father: “When I was a kid my grandfather told me a story about when they were in training. He said one day the pilot, assuming your Dad, told him to grab his parachute and come with him. Apparently there was some discussion the night before at the Officers’ club, and a bet was made that you could not pull the wings off a Stearman in flight.  If you don’t already know, a Stearman is a biplane they used to tow the target socks for gunnery practice. The pilot told him they were going to give it a try. The plan was to climb high above the base, place the plane in as steep of dive as possible, and the pilot told my grandfather when he feel the stick coming back he was supposed to grab on and pull as hard and fast as he could. My grandfather said they did exactly that. He said they both pulled on the stick as hard as they could, and when they woke up, they were just flying in a nice circle both wings still attached.” This sounds like something my father would do.

“The Miss Zeke” crew parachuted out at different times which helps explain why some were captured and some were saved by the Yugoslav Partisans. Although Palmer Lerum was found by the Partisans, he later died of pneumonia and infection in a Yugoslav Partisan Military hospital (below is a photograph provide by Radovan of his funeral in Yugoslavia). In a letter to his mother, (which Chris shared with me from among his grandfather’s papers) the American officer, Captain George S. Wuchinich, describes the battle that downed “The Miss Zeke”:

“I was in the country where Palmer was shot down, and he parachuted a few hundred yards from where I was watching the air battle in the skies. You know, by now, that he jumped on to land controlled by the Yugoslav Partisans, and I was the officer in charge of the American Mission where he fell. The sky battle was furious, and it was not all one sided. One Messerschmidt came down out of the fight roaring over our heads and flew so low that it disappeared in to the horizon. We saw one chute from the bomber billow out and realized he was going to drop close by. There was no fear of Germans closing in to gather the flier since we were well in the middle of liberated territory. The battle took place at about 17,000 feet, and the bomber went on.

“This lone jumper gradually came closer, and we saw he was about to land only a few hundred feet from us on a hillside. Several Partisans began a race across the ground toward him, but were outstripped by a second lieutenant from the Russian Mission. The lieutenant immediately looked over Palmer and found he had been shot in the knee. The battle in the sky had been rugged, and Palmer was dazed from the shock. Before the blood could begin to flow the lieutenant had stripped of his shirt and tore it into strips for a tourniquet. Within a matter of minutes, he was brought down to us from the hill, in a stretcher, and a cart was hitched to take him to a Partisan military hospital. Partisan nurses made him comfortable in the cart, and I talked to him so that he could gain assurance from an American officer. He was in a strange country among people who spoke a strange tongue, and I knew that hearing me speak would give him confidence and also a feeling that Uncle Sam had not left him in a lurch.” Thank God for these partisans.

This map above, provided Radovan, shows where World War II plane wreckages were found. “The Miss Zeke” crash site is circled in red. Below is a current map of the area. The plane was found directly southwest of Zagreb, Croatia.  

Visiting Red

When we returned home from Germany in the fall of 2013, my sister Nitalynn and I traveled to Shreveport, Louisiana, to visit Red McCrocklin in person. He was 92 then. He and his friend Ruth greeted us warmly. It was the first time that I had actually met him, but I felt like I knew him. At that time, he was the last living member of my father’s B-24 crew.

It was obvious from our conversations that Red (we learned that some people called him Claude and some people called him “Red” – for his red hair) really loved our father. They seemed to have developed a strong bond during and after their war experiences. Red entertained us with a lot of stories about our father, and he told those stories as if they had happened yesterday.

Red said one time my father was standing up on a pole in the prison camp cussing at the German guards. Remember that Dick had a habit of salty language so my sister and I could just hear our father going on and on. Red had to go out and coax him down, telling him that he was going to get shot. Red was only 23 and my father was 28, but I think that Red felt protective of my father. Zemke, in his book, said that loathing for the Germans increased after several fatal shootings of prisoners by the guards in March 1945, and “for the most part, goon baiting took the form of threats and insults to those guards who, not understanding English, were oblivious to what was being said. ‘You Nazi bastard, your corpse will soon be floating in the Baltic,’ might sound like a friendly salutation if said with a smile.”

Red told us the story of their bailing out of “The Miss Zeke.” With the intercom out, Red, standing in the clear plastic bubble nose of the bomber, looked back at Dick and signaled they should bail out by pulling his finger across his throat. At first Dick was adamant that he was going to fly the plane back to base. But then a bullet went whizzing by his head, and fortunately he decided it was time to bail.

Red said that when they were in Camp Lucky Strike, there was a lot of conflict between the white soldiers and the African-American soldiers. During the course of the war, the status of the Blacks has changed considerable. So when they arrived at Camp Lucky Strike, many of the Black soldiers were handling the delousing, and this caused a lot of trouble. Eisenhower, in his talk to the camp, had to tell the men that times were different now and that they better get used to it.

We were grateful that we made that visit. Soon after that, Red fell ill and never recovered. His nephew Mark Armstrong, and his friend Ruth, who had been his archaeology field secretary, took care of him as well as his son, Will D. McCrocklin.

Red told us not one day went by that he didn’t think about his war experiences. He teared up several times; they haunted him till the day he died. Mark Armstrong said, in Red's book, “Combat and Capture,” said, “Like so many veterans, the demons of war never fully let go, and the war continues in the mind.”

Claude “Red” McCrocklin passed away on October 18, 2014 at the age of 93. He had been a cattle buyer after the war and, after he retired, then took up archaeology, recording over 600 sites in Louisiana. In World War II, he received the Air Medal with 1 Oak Leaf Cluster and the European, African, Middle East campaign medal with three bronze stars. After the war,  he flew with the reserves at Barksdale Air Force, and in later years, he gave talks about his war experience to new air force trainees there. Several soldiers from the base attended came to his funeral.

Nitalynn and I traveled the funeral in Shreveport and met his son, his nephew and all of his family. They knew who our father was. It was a very emotional experience as we listened to stories about “Uncle Red.” We also met Linda Lesniewski and bonded over our experience as being daughters of World War II prisoners of war and especially the miracle of their survival.

As my mother said about Red, “He was something else!” We are grateful that he looked after our father.

The War in Europe is Over: Setting Foot on American Soil

Here is my parents’ perspective on the end of the war and Dick’s return to the United States:

Dick: The war was over on May 8, 1945. The Germans ran off, and it wasn’t but a few days that the Russians came in. That camp was out on a kind of peninsula. When the Germans left, the (Allied) camp commander put a hard line across the peninsula to keep the native Germans from coming in over there because they wanted to get away from them damn Russians. We had a guard we called Henry, the Butcher. He had been a butcher in Brooklyn, New York. The daughter (Grete Koch) came to the states where Ol’ Red had met her.

Nita:  When they liberated them over there, Red took up with the Germans. He can speak it (German) and he knows a lot of them. He’s something else!

Dick: We were there two weeks after we heard the war was over. We hollered when we heard the news. We were all happy. Some guys just took off (Zemke said that when they flew the prisoners out of Barth, there were about 600 prisoners not accounted for). Red got mixed up with a guard duty outfit. I worked down there a couple or three days. Red got involved in it pretty good - the people who did the security for the camp. The Americans were guarding against the Germans. Of course, the camp commander and his crew were negotiating with the people to come in and get us, and it took them some time since at the time it was then Russian-held territory. So they had to make arrangements to let them come in there and get us.

Nita:  It was really a bad time for me in that I hadn’t heard from him. All the camps had been released. It was in the paper about all the people in the war were coming home, but I never heard from him. Then, one Sunday morning, I was getting ready for church. A postman knocked on the door with a letter from him. Hot Springs was small enough then, and during the war everyone knew everyone. It was a letter (from him) from Paris, France. We announced it in church.

Dick: They flew us down to a French town. All I remember was there was a big cathedral, but not the name. They trucked us into Camp Lucky Strike. It was out in the country. That camp was fairly close to La Harve. But there wasn’t nothing there. La Harve was the most devastated place I’ve ever seen. Man, it was horrible. So we got on a ship at La Harve and docked in Boston.

While we were at Camp Lucky Strike, we went up close to Belgium some place fooling around, And then we went to Paris, France. I think we went down there twice. We had to hitchhike to get there. We went to see the Follies Berge. Hell, I didn’t know what I was seeing except a bunch of half-naked women. The only time I got dysentery was in Camp Lucky Strike. Someone hadn’t washed the dishes very good. Everybody was in tents.

(Dick left LaHarve on June 14, 1945 on the liberty ship, the S.S. Mayo Brothers [named after Charles and William Mayo who went on to found the Mayo Clinic.] He arrived in Boston on June 21, 1945 and was taken to Camp Myles Standish in Taunton, Massachusetts, just south of Boston. From there he rode the train to Camp Chaffee in Fort Smith, Arkansas where Nita was waiting for him.)

Dick: From Boston where I was for two or three days, I went to Fort Chaffee in July 1945. I went on a World War I train with worn seats. Them ole’ boys in the train next to us were in nice Pullmans.  Boy, I was glad to set foot on the United States! Seemed to me we got some pay in Boston, but not much. I was able to call Nita from Boston. We had to stand in line (for the phone).

I stayed in (the Army Air Corps) until June 1947. (After I got home) I got a 90-day leave. We’re supposed to go Miami for rest and recuperation. And they changed my orders to go to San Antonio. We were eating Sunday dinner over at Mama’s (my grandmother), and the doorbell rang and that was orders to report to San Antonio (for redistribution) and that was 15 days before my 90 days were up.

Nita:  He got screwed all the way around. I went with him to San Antonio. We had a good time. It wasn’t as good as down in Florida, but put us in a nice motel. That was our R&R. (That must be where they developed their life-long love of Mexican food.)

(When Dick arrived home from Boston) We rented a house on the lake on Burchwood Bay and we stayed there about 60 days. (My Aunt Elise, my father’s sister, told me that when my father got back to Hot Springs, that my mother wisely took my father to the cottage on the lake so he could recuperate and adjust to being out of the prison camp. They kept a low profile. )

Dick:  Then (after San Antonio) we went to Albany, Georgia. I didn’t have a whole lot to do. Finally they assigned me to the post engineers. And I had signed up before that for aircraft maintenance in Illinois. I had just flat forgot that I had done that and when the orders came through, I had to go tell that colonel what the score was. He wasn’t too happy about it, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

Nita:  Then we went to Chanute Field (130 miles south of Chicago) (for aircraft maintenance school).

Dick: I remember when we went there, we were driving in snow about that deep.

Nita:  I was pregnant with Dixie, about seven months pregnant. About the time Don graduated from high school, Big Daddy and Mama (her parents – my grandparents) came and got me. I was glad to leave. It had snowed and snowed there through the winter. I was so put out. Never had an Easter with snow.

Dick: I drove back to St. Louis when you started home. I remember Big Daddy and I went to a baseball game in St. Louis too. I graduated up there, and they sent me to Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio. The orders got messed up. So they had to get those orders straight and to do that, it took time. Where I was really checking in everyday, the guy told me, come to the door, if I give you the “hi” sign, beat it, and that went on for about two weeks. I finally got those orders that sent me down to Eglin Air Force base (near Valparaiso, Florida) in a reserve training outfit.

The Future:

I was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, on August 14, 1946. Dick was finally sent to Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, where we lived for a short time, and he was assigned to the Air Reserve Training Unit as an assistant aircraft maintenance officer. On November 8, 1945, he had been promoted to 1st Lieutenant and in May 1947 to Captain. Dick left active duty on June 30, 1947, to go into the hardware business, Oaklawn Supply Co., with his brother-in-law, W.A. “Penny” Pennington. He eventually bought Pennington out. He and my mother remained in business until May 1976 when he sold the business. My sister, Nitalynn, was born on May 8, 1950 in Hot Springs. Dick joined the Air Force Reserves in 1955. He was promoted to Major, and in 1962, to Lieutenant Colonel. He retired from the reserves in July 1976.