RAYMOND L. McKEE, SR.
Patriot, Chapter 1919
(ARMY AIR
FORCES, WWII, Europe)
Article
Oct 2000
Ray McKee
is an Army Air Forces veteran and an Ex-POW who, for an extended period,
endured tremendous torture and mental cruelty in addition to his painful
FLAK and bomb wounds that went untreated for many days between his capture
and the time he reached the relative safety of a German STALAG, POW camp.
At one of our chapter monthly breakfasts he related a small part of that
experience which we share with you here, told in his own words.
“On March 18, 1944, I was the bombardier
for Lt Magneson's B17 in the 429th Bomb Squadron, 2nd Bomb Group, 5th Bomb
Wing, of the 15th Air Force at Foggia, Italy. The bombing
mission that day was to hit military installations at Villarba in the
Italian Alps of NE Italy. Our plane was badly damaged by FLAK over Trieste
and Udine, and then riddled by German fighter planes. It was obvious that we
were going down. We had taken a hit from a FLAK burst to my left that had
put numerous wounds in my side, but I was able to jump from the forward
hatch of the aircraft. My chute opened normally and at first I thought I
was going to gently float down to safety. But then, a German ME-109
fighter made a firing pass at me and the burst from its guns put holes in my
parachute canopy that speeded up my descent. I came in hard but landed in
the middle of a deep snowbank and that probably saved me from further
serious injury. I crawled out of the snowbank with great
difficulty, dragged myself to a sunny spot on the mountain, and collapsed
into unconsciousness.
German SS Troops were surrounding me
when I regained consciousness. They prodded me up, and beat me as I slipped
and slid downhill to a farmhouse. When we reached the open area of the
farmyard, they stood me up in front of a fence, lined up 10 yards
from me and aimed their rifles at me. There was no doubt in my mind that I
was only seconds away from being shot, but, just then the farmwife sent her
son up to me with a glass of milk. This embarrassed the German troops and
after some brief indecision they moved me on down to a village where, among
other abuse, I was bayoneted in the stomach (permanent damage to the
duodenum is still a major medical problem for me today). From there a car
took me to the rail station in Trieste, Italy. American bombers were
approaching overhead so my guards hastily locked me up in the switching
house and headed for the bomb shelter, leaving me alone there to be a part
of the target as the railyard was about to be bombed. I managed to turn
over two heavy concrete benches and then lay down between them and covered
up as best I could. The bombardment was terrifying. Bombs completely
blasted away the switch house. I lay exposed in the wreckage, open to the
sky, but; there was no danger of my escaping. I was stunned,
semi-conscious, totally deafened, and barely able to see; all in addition to
having some new fragmentation wounds. The SS came back for me with a
vengeance, as if the bombing was part of my doing. Angry to find me still
alive, they beat me again.
Later, I was moved from Trieste to the
SS Headquarters in Verona. The next morning after my arrival in Verona, at
about 9AM, I was taken before a judge in a courtroom. He sentenced me to be
shot the next morning! I then had all day to think about it, and naturally
did not sleep at all that night. It was a most terrible feeling, knowing
that I was about to be executed. They came for me the next morning, but not
to be shot. They immediately put me through a series of interrogations and
brutal torture. They knocked out several of my jaw teeth and damn near
blinded my left eye. Finally an Italian military doctor (Major) gave me
medical treatment for the first time. He removed 65 fragments from the FLAK
and bombing. It was amazing how much better I felt next day
Later, a guard of SS troops took me on a
train headed for Germany. As we neared Munich the U.S. Air Force began a
bombing strike on the railyard (is this beginning to sound familiar?). Our
train held up overnight outside Munich because of the bombing. The train
started out again next morning and continued on to Berlin. Coming
into Berlin, I could see the bodies of Allied air crewmen, still in their
flying suits, hanged from the streetlamp posts. I remember counting sixteen
airmen hanging, but; those were just the ones that I could see from my side
of the railcar and I couldn’t see very far from the train. We pulled into
the Berlin station just as (you guessed it) a bombing strike came in on the
railyard (I was 3 for 3). The guards tied me up and left me outside in the
open. Then, they went into the bomb shelter. Again the bombing was
terrific, indescribable, all I can say is I was incredibly lucky to still be
alive when it was over. The Germans urgently wanted to get through Berlin.
We re-boarded the train quickly and headed north. Without further
incident, I was soon in the relative security in a POW Camp, a STALAG near
Barth, Germany.
At long last, I received good attention
to my wounds, which soon healed, thank God! But, it was only one slice of
sawdust bread per day and everything else Ersatz! I weighed no more than 100
lbs by the time Soviet troops overran the area in 1945.
As soon as we came under
their control, the Soviets ordered us to march to the Russian interior. If
that had happened, in all probability none of us would have ever been heard
from again. In desperation, we managed to send out a radio message
informing the U.S. Forces about the urgency of our situation. Our message
was received and acknowledged. General Jimmy Doolittle acted immediately,
and without clearance, ordered in the planes that flew all of us American
POW's out of there to freedom in Le Havre, France.” |
