Escape from Camp OFlag 64
by Captain Billy Bingham, 34th Inf. Div.
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by Captain Billy Bingham, 34th Inf. Div.
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The peak occupancy, in the winter of 1944, of Oflag 64, Szubim, Poland was 2000 officers. We were
terribly overcrowded for the facility - sleeping in bunks three deep on nothing but straw or saw
dust mattresses. We had used our own bed boards (slats) for digging tunnels. Some of us had no
more than 3 slats to support the flimsy straw or sawdust mattresses.
All of us remember the chronic hunger when food was our chief preoccupation. The Germans gave
us about 700 calories per day, and we would have starved to death had it not been for the Red Cross
parcels which we received once a month. During the fall of 1944, the Germans claimed the box car
carrying the parcels was bombed.
The Germans moved us from our camp. The reason for which I found out later while reading G-2
reports. Himmler and Hitler had decided to move all Prisoners of War back to Berlin to shoot them
and let them go down as a monument to the Third Reich.
The trek to Berlin through knee deep snow was scheduled to take some 6 weeks on foot. No food
was provided by the Germans except that taken by the Poles to feed us. The trick being to find a
Pole with any food. At this stage of the war, the Poles had no food. The Germans did manage to
supply each POW one loaf of black bread for the trip.
On our first night out, it snowed and temperatures dropped to 20 degrees below zero. We were
nearing a barn in a small village where we were going to spend the night. The German guard
bringing up the rear of the column moved up to speak to another guard. At that moment, Capt.
Bob Kroll grabbed and pulled me into a small opening between the houses until the column had
slowly moved on.
A Polish man gave us the 'thumbs-up sign' and motioned to us to follow him. He spoke a little
German, but no English. We followed him and he hid us. It was already dark, and we were fixing
to move on somewhere. We were in totally unfamiliar surroundings. Both of us had decided that
our friendly Pole was going to turn us in to get an extra loaf of bread, a typical German bribe.
Had the Germans found us, no doubt, they would have shot us for escaping.
This Polish man moved us, that night, about 2 miles and arranged for us to sleep in a barn with some
livestock. The heat from their bodies was a great welcome. The next morning another friendly Pole
brought us a cup of warm sweet milk and a piece of German black bread with hog lard spread on top,
and was it good!
The Polish underground would move us 4 or 5 miles each night and manage to give us enough food
to keep body and soul together. We would sleep in barns. The Poles had little food. Cabbage soup,
when we could get it, was a delicacy.
All HELL broke loose after the Yalta Conference. When Roosevelt and Churchill gave half of Poland
to the Russians to keep them in the war, the Poles abandoned us. When we asked for food at some
peasant's hut, they would run us off or sick the dogs on us.
It was during this period, with absolutely no help from the Poles, that I thought we would surely
starve to death. But HOPE is the last thing to die in a human being. I think it was Shakespeare
who said, "The miserable hath no medicine but only HOPE."
At night, we had no choice but to find and enter a barn where there were some cows. I would
spend most of the nights petting the cows so they would let us milk them in the morning. By
drinking milk and eating barley (cow feed) with rat turds mixed with the barley, which we never
separated, we were able to survive.
One snowy, wintry day, Rob and I were walking along a secondary dirt road which was used by the
refugees fleeing from Russia. I met a Polish woman who had an 8 or 10 year old girl. The little girl's
feet and face were frost bitten, and she looked like she couldn't go much further. I reached into my
pocket which was filled with barley and rat turds. The little girl thought I was a Russian dressed as
I was with a long Polish overcoat on. She took the barley and said, "spaseba" in Russian (thank you).
I don't think she could have survived one more than a day at the most.
During several days that winter, some 900 to 1000 officers and enlisted men escaped from camps in
the Polish area. Only 120 of us got back. Most were shot by the Russians as they slept in hay stacks
to escape the cold. Some Poles told me never to take shelter in a hay stack, and I never did.
I was apprehended by the Russians and placed in a refugee camp near Rembertov, Poland, along with
a number of Czechnic Slavs, natives of the Balkland. Some 1500 of us refugees, both men and women,
slept together in a two story building. The facility had no running water. It was cold as hell. The
building had no heat. We all slept together on the floors, strewn with straw, crowding together to
keep warm.
The Russians did bring us a few bags of barley (kasha) and dumped the bags over the barbed wire
fence. No organization what so ever. The strong men took the barley. I was reminded of what
General Sherman once said about war, "God is on the side of those that have the moistest." I have
always believed this.
A few days later a Russian Commissar (political) Major, who could speak some English, came into the
Rembertov camp. He gave Captain Kroll and me a 'dressing down' about how unkempt we were. He
said we didn't look like officers. The only uniform I had on then was an old woolen army shirt and
old WWI Ukrainian breeches with only one wrapped legging. We hadn't shaved in over 3 months.
We slept in barns and were covered with cow manure.
The Russian Commissar Major gave us a hand written slip of paper saying we could ride any trans-
portation going beck to Russia. The problem with that was that the Russians we showed the paper to
couldn't read, and they wouldn't admit it.
Going on through Russia, our condition didn't improve any. We lived by stealing and selling the extra
shirts we had stolen. When we finally reached the Black Sea, we hit another obstacle.
There were a couple of British ships docked at Odessa, but how were we to get on one. I spotted a
young Ensign on the bridge of one ship. We called up to him that we were escaped POWs (American
Officers) and could we come aboard? His reply was, "Sure, if the Russians don't stop you." I thought
for sure he would send an escort to welcome us aboard. We looked so much like the Russian stevedores
that no one stopped us. We walked right up the gang plank and had a terrible time finding the young
Ensign who had told us to come aboard.
Continued....
terribly overcrowded for the facility - sleeping in bunks three deep on nothing but straw or saw
dust mattresses. We had used our own bed boards (slats) for digging tunnels. Some of us had no
more than 3 slats to support the flimsy straw or sawdust mattresses.
All of us remember the chronic hunger when food was our chief preoccupation. The Germans gave
us about 700 calories per day, and we would have starved to death had it not been for the Red Cross
parcels which we received once a month. During the fall of 1944, the Germans claimed the box car
carrying the parcels was bombed.
The Germans moved us from our camp. The reason for which I found out later while reading G-2
reports. Himmler and Hitler had decided to move all Prisoners of War back to Berlin to shoot them
and let them go down as a monument to the Third Reich.
The trek to Berlin through knee deep snow was scheduled to take some 6 weeks on foot. No food
was provided by the Germans except that taken by the Poles to feed us. The trick being to find a
Pole with any food. At this stage of the war, the Poles had no food. The Germans did manage to
supply each POW one loaf of black bread for the trip.
On our first night out, it snowed and temperatures dropped to 20 degrees below zero. We were
nearing a barn in a small village where we were going to spend the night. The German guard
bringing up the rear of the column moved up to speak to another guard. At that moment, Capt.
Bob Kroll grabbed and pulled me into a small opening between the houses until the column had
slowly moved on.
A Polish man gave us the 'thumbs-up sign' and motioned to us to follow him. He spoke a little
German, but no English. We followed him and he hid us. It was already dark, and we were fixing
to move on somewhere. We were in totally unfamiliar surroundings. Both of us had decided that
our friendly Pole was going to turn us in to get an extra loaf of bread, a typical German bribe.
Had the Germans found us, no doubt, they would have shot us for escaping.
This Polish man moved us, that night, about 2 miles and arranged for us to sleep in a barn with some
livestock. The heat from their bodies was a great welcome. The next morning another friendly Pole
brought us a cup of warm sweet milk and a piece of German black bread with hog lard spread on top,
and was it good!
The Polish underground would move us 4 or 5 miles each night and manage to give us enough food
to keep body and soul together. We would sleep in barns. The Poles had little food. Cabbage soup,
when we could get it, was a delicacy.
All HELL broke loose after the Yalta Conference. When Roosevelt and Churchill gave half of Poland
to the Russians to keep them in the war, the Poles abandoned us. When we asked for food at some
peasant's hut, they would run us off or sick the dogs on us.
It was during this period, with absolutely no help from the Poles, that I thought we would surely
starve to death. But HOPE is the last thing to die in a human being. I think it was Shakespeare
who said, "The miserable hath no medicine but only HOPE."
At night, we had no choice but to find and enter a barn where there were some cows. I would
spend most of the nights petting the cows so they would let us milk them in the morning. By
drinking milk and eating barley (cow feed) with rat turds mixed with the barley, which we never
separated, we were able to survive.
One snowy, wintry day, Rob and I were walking along a secondary dirt road which was used by the
refugees fleeing from Russia. I met a Polish woman who had an 8 or 10 year old girl. The little girl's
feet and face were frost bitten, and she looked like she couldn't go much further. I reached into my
pocket which was filled with barley and rat turds. The little girl thought I was a Russian dressed as
I was with a long Polish overcoat on. She took the barley and said, "spaseba" in Russian (thank you).
I don't think she could have survived one more than a day at the most.
During several days that winter, some 900 to 1000 officers and enlisted men escaped from camps in
the Polish area. Only 120 of us got back. Most were shot by the Russians as they slept in hay stacks
to escape the cold. Some Poles told me never to take shelter in a hay stack, and I never did.
I was apprehended by the Russians and placed in a refugee camp near Rembertov, Poland, along with
a number of Czechnic Slavs, natives of the Balkland. Some 1500 of us refugees, both men and women,
slept together in a two story building. The facility had no running water. It was cold as hell. The
building had no heat. We all slept together on the floors, strewn with straw, crowding together to
keep warm.
The Russians did bring us a few bags of barley (kasha) and dumped the bags over the barbed wire
fence. No organization what so ever. The strong men took the barley. I was reminded of what
General Sherman once said about war, "God is on the side of those that have the moistest." I have
always believed this.
A few days later a Russian Commissar (political) Major, who could speak some English, came into the
Rembertov camp. He gave Captain Kroll and me a 'dressing down' about how unkempt we were. He
said we didn't look like officers. The only uniform I had on then was an old woolen army shirt and
old WWI Ukrainian breeches with only one wrapped legging. We hadn't shaved in over 3 months.
We slept in barns and were covered with cow manure.
The Russian Commissar Major gave us a hand written slip of paper saying we could ride any trans-
portation going beck to Russia. The problem with that was that the Russians we showed the paper to
couldn't read, and they wouldn't admit it.
Going on through Russia, our condition didn't improve any. We lived by stealing and selling the extra
shirts we had stolen. When we finally reached the Black Sea, we hit another obstacle.
There were a couple of British ships docked at Odessa, but how were we to get on one. I spotted a
young Ensign on the bridge of one ship. We called up to him that we were escaped POWs (American
Officers) and could we come aboard? His reply was, "Sure, if the Russians don't stop you." I thought
for sure he would send an escort to welcome us aboard. We looked so much like the Russian stevedores
that no one stopped us. We walked right up the gang plank and had a terrible time finding the young
Ensign who had told us to come aboard.
Continued....
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