Morton Golin

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Airman's captors: Gestapo, hunger

U.S. Army Air Corps veteran Morton Golin, a navigator on a B-24 bomber, was captured on his 22nd birthday and spent nine months as a POW during World War II.

Golin, stationed at an air base in Foggia, Italy, took off on a mission to the Blechhammer oil refineries in Gleiwitz, Germany on Aug. 7, 1944. He planned to spend the next day, his birthday, with his older brother Norm Golin, who finagled a three-day pass from his air base in Naples, Italy. Golin let his brother know the approximate time he'd be returning. He said he would be on the flight line waiting for me, Golin said. What a wait he had in store.

Golin and his crew made the bomb drop under heavy enemy fire. After turning to start the flight home, the crew felt several loud thumps and shouts on the intercom from the waist gunners that the plane had been hit. Losing altitude, the plane limped homeward for about the next half-hour alone and out of formation. With gasoline pouring into the waist section of the damaged aircraft, Golin and the other officers decided to get everyone out before the plane blew up and killed everyone aboard.

Golin, as navigator, took over, informing the crew of their approximate location, altitude and reminded everyone about their survival kit, which included, a hard chocolate bar, beautiful maps printed on silk and American money $50 which was worthless where they were going, he said. Everyone wished the others well and we prepared to abandon ship, Golin said.

Golin was in the nose section of the plane with the gunner. Golin opened the nose wheel doors and jumped. He didn't make it far. His parachute harness caught on the door pins. Golin was unable to get back up inside the plane or release himself from the pins. The gunner pulled him back into the plane, saving his life. I bailed out again, dropping feet-first into Nazi Germany, Golin said.

Soon after he hit the ground, some Czechoslovakians helped Gollin hide out and warned him to only travel at night on the long trek to the closest Allies the Russian front lines about 150 miles away. Golin, too antsy to sleep during the day, decided to take his chances and walked during the daylight hours. Although wearing civilian clothes the Czechs had given him, he was spotted and arrested by the Gestapo.

Golin underwent questioning at Gestapo headquarters I had four different interrogations in four different cities over the next three weeks, he said. At a Gestapo headquarters in Kattowitz, Germany, he went through the same interrogation, only offering his name, rank and serial number and refusing to answer all other questions. They handcuffed me, blindfolded me and escorted me to a cell in their basement, Golin said. The 15-by-15-foot concrete-floored basement, which he described as dungeon-like,' contained nothing more than a wooden bench about a yard wide as the bed, with a sloping wooden pillow on one end.

Golin was eventually shipped off to Stalag Luft III, where the Red Cross parcels were reduced by the Germans from one parcel per man per week to one-half per man per week. I soon learned what hunger was, he said. In no time, all I and everyone else could and did think about was food. It dominated every waking hour and was the topic of almost every conversation.

Late in January of 1945 in what was said to be the coldest winter Germany had experienced in 50 years, the entire camp was made to evacuate and marched west to avoid being liberated by the Russians, he said. I made a serious tactical error before the march started and took a new pair of boots from a storehouse the Germans let us ransack. The shoes were the wrong size, making each step an agonizing one. That problem together with the snow and bitter cold gave me and everyone else I knew frostbite, he said.

After about a four-day march, the men were loaded into cramped railroad boxcars for a trip to Stalag VIIA near Moosburg, Germany. We must have had a hundred men in each car and all one could do was stand, he said. A great many of the prisoners had dysentery and the several-day trip to the new camp was indescribably horrendous.

At the new camp, Stalag VIIA, there were no Red Cross parcels. We existed solely on German staples, mostly kohlrabi (German turnip), he said. Happily, we were only there until April 29, 1945 when Patton's Third Army liberated us.

2nd Lt Morton Golin was assigned to the 459th BG 756th Squadron.
Military Occupational Specialty (MOS): Navigator.

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