Middle East Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 22, 1944, Cairo, Egypt                                September 1944 yen of f september 1944 american and Allied shot Down Over Bulgaria in including on Plesti Oil have been repatriated to their units from a bulgarian pow brought but of the Balkans one of the great of courage and fortitude of american officers and 170 enlisted plus 24 Allied evacuated to flown to a base in and have now gone Back to their be sent Home before Are put m Walter Smith Oisa ranking Allied Pri held at Camp j 1 ii Eastern told a ferns und stripes reporters Hiow his men lived on half rations Lor enduring beatings and gun butt treatment Ait the hands of pro Naii bulgarian officers before the government took the a Lumen which had been prisoners of War for periods ranging from three weeks to 18 was released after the situation grew tense late in and pressure was put on bulgarian authorities by with outside they moved out of Shumen on a train just hours before rus troops arrived to take Over the City on everybody was beaten Pilot of a Sofia in a raid last v he related How he ordered his Crew bail out Over the yugoslav bulgarian and then was forced to Parachute to safety him self just before his ship crashed in the picked up immediately by bul Garian who were every where Smith said he was and then carried to Shu men to be nearly everybody was beaten when he first said the at As ranking Allied Smith took com Mand and organized the were just like a regular army he there was an an executive a top up and fatigue and even an s2 whose Job was to bribe the prison guards to smuggle in among things bulgarian no medical care crowded As Many As 50 men in a with no medical care for the men were subjected to gruelling hardships and the Mono Tony of Complete isolation the world for Many they were put on half Width three slices of bread a plus a soup which was said to be Beans ground with some wounded men of the Camp received care at dysentery was general among the men at one time or and Many broke out with Only one stove in a room during cold weather last a Rule had to be passed that no Man could get closer to the stove than so that standing room and warmth would be provided for a greater prison had Black Market Smith arrived at some improvements were made i the diet and living Condi toward the Smith was provided by the bulgarians with a plane and Pilot to visit several trained officers being the ones who were hard to contend the Balkan situation More i arranged to go to see several with some outside we manage to get the men on a train for feast on i Chow a division of russians moved in he Day the train they quietly took Over the City in the afternoon and went to sleep that when the repatriated men Arri Ved at a Middle East the first thing most of them asked for was i food and ice i like a luxury Smith morale at Shumen was the Smith con All along the filth and poor diet were the worst aspects of the Situa Tion he the bulgarians tried at first to prevent us from having any con tact with the outside How you could get anything done there with some of the bulgarians sup plied us with extra writing and even cot mews of invasion we heard about the Allied land ing in Normandy two Days after it but on june a bul Garian officer told us he heard it want fur after the russians began to press on there was con riots in and the City was in utter the attitude of tile Bulgari toward us then we began to get better and some of the soldiers even started saluting ame rican officers in the All along the bulgarian people had been fairly the nazi commandant was particularly Tough and he said he was going to break the spirit of the i think they broke his cooperation of every Man in the Camp was and i have nothing but Praise for the Way they handled Many of the men have decorations and unit citations awaiting them when they get Back to their old requesting that pm supplies be temporal eos comedy and special provided for the command ant arranged for a Vendor to come up from town and sell Tihe boys such items As razor tooth shaving soap and Tho Highway robbery this Jesse James on horse As he was called by the american found that he had stepped unexpectedly into Gold with no he could ask and get exorbitant prices for his inferior razor Blades were a bar of Lye soap was 50 a Small bar of chocolate was the men figure that Jesse cleared at least at their As company activities expand the men instituted an a fruit Corpora Tion and a pm corporation with corresponding organizations for both officers and enlisted men the food was procured from the meager officers George Paschal acting of a Middle East hos Pital where some of the repatriated men were described their reaction to the unaccustomed comforts of Hospital some of the boys complained that they  sleep because the Beds were too he i think they get their biggest thrill when they saw the wac patients in the one of them remarked that it gave him a new lease on tired and but overjoyed at their new these men were the first of the 329 Ahmed airmen to reach they left to John Laptewicz of Raymond Loanes of Edward Ambrosini of Brooklyn John Orona of Andrew Klopchin of and Gerald Sasser of pro most of the group have several Hundred dollars Back pay and some of the officers will get As much As in a Lump sum to officers were paid from to a while enlisted men got 810 a month through red yank guts defeats firing squad ruse one of the most harrowing experiences was suffered by Charles red a gunner on Smiths a easy going North had been questioned futilely for hours on end until the infuriated bulgar officer ordered that he be red was marched backed up against a Wall and even though he expected the Roar of the firing squads rifles at any he remained he did not even know that it was Only a when they realized that to would Only Tell his and serial he was marched Back to he has More guts than any Man i Over said where he found other american airmen who were downed in the Plesti raid the Day one was Ned who had received machine gun Bullet Plesti vet saw to death trailing flaming chutes in a weakened condition after As a prisoner of War in 1st Georgo h i Man of is taken from a at a Middle lilt air before being sent to a pro in the first Day of August in a Fleet of american Libra tors swarmed across the Mediterranean and delivered the first devastating attack on the oilfields of to the outside that famed Plesti raid and the deluge that followed Are yesterdays head but for Many american air such As Stanley Horine of los tin Plesti raid marked the pause of because he did not Homo and now repatriated and on his Way Home sifter thirteen months of imprisonment in two bulgarian pow the Boyish 19 year old sergeant feels that he has into Daylight fuck out of the sole survivor Stan was years old a Young Tail gunner on a and the Plesti raid was the biggest thing that had Ever happened to after the plane dropped its eggs on the it made a clean getaway and was heading for the Hills of Serbia when suddenly at tacked by a swarm of me100 they blasted the hell of of the got the Pilot and co Pilot and when Stan jumped thru the escape the plane was spinning earthward in As he floated he could see the other boys leaving the burning plane but their chutes were afire and did not he the sole survivor of his 1 was burned pretty badly about my face and he and rather after i i could see the plane burning about two Miles 1 wanted to Over to it but i  make gets Gestapo workout Horine figures that he was downed East of Nis since he a taken directly to Sofia on the same upon they delivered him to the Gestapo Headquarters and a five hour ordeal of intense interrogation was the Ger mans did not manhandle him Dur ing the questioning although they refused to feed he was also forced to sit at rigid attention Dur ing bombardment of he was then taken to a Hospital wounds in tone leg and had received no medical during his first Twenty four hours of Cap live near int when the men left the they were interned with othe american prisoners in a Small Pri son Camp near the Camp was located in a nest of ammunition Sheds and Horine says the really sweated out the subsequent bombing raid on expecting to be blasted into bits during each but bombing raids were few throughout August and september and because of the Bulga Rian excluding the violently were reasonably he they were held in Thi Camp until october 24 when b24s roared Over Sofia and plastered the Railroad on the next night the prisoners were herded into a cattle car coach and transported to a Camp near Shumen in up per thus began the torturous win the commandant of the Camp was a sofian whose Home had completely demolished by an Al lied the Days that followed were endless nightmares of cold and scarecrow clothes Many men their tattered clothes were the ones Ihetu came Down there were insufficient thin blankets and wooden shelves that served As life was a Nightmare of hunger and cold and frostbite and chilblains and dysentery and lice and and bed dreams of steaks and Apple pie and ice and there was not even an adequate Supply of water daily for the 300 they issued about 100 cigarettes a they were a cheap bulgarian and harsh but they were cigarettes under Julian Darlington of who was in command until Smith arrived in the men organized themselves and assigned to regular including and latrine the including the willingly lid work for the company but they refused As prisoners of to work outside the then the commandant promised them a re Ward of extra rations Fiany work they did for the Hope of extra food crumbles with Visconte of extra a few jumped at the Chance and went up into the mountains to help erect Telegraph their anticipated Reward consisted of one third of a boiled egg and on half of u piece of so that ended february Lgth was a big Day for the the enlisted men were paid their monthly for the first it seemed like a Fortune to the boys who had been supple menting their starvation diet jul rationed smokes by Selling watches Joe Turley headed the Ems egg bargained for the which averaged six for 50 Leba about 50 cents and dispensed them to the gis who were Lucky enough to have a few on you order your egg either rain or boiled and Joe would deliver it Joe did not mind boiling As part of his but if you preferred your egg that was a private pro the fruit under Andrew was a popular Concession when summer came and fruit was Tho epitome of internment was reached when Stan Horine managed to As semble a Little sugar and a few apples from which he created an Apple on a Home made Stone oven the pm corporation was headed by Robert food was Ever Foremost in the mens minds and every Leba could be scraped up went for that precious about once a the officers and enlisted men held their own to emcee of these intimate reviews was Doc better known the Bob mope of docs Forte was a rambling which never failed to Lay pm in the Smiths blackface and Gui tar act was a favorite and weekly i the piece de resistance of the Shumen was a solid sending band of the Jonas the guitars were its Only legitimate instruments but n homemade assorted Bot jugs and pans milked of their musical Quality by Zeal if singing was also the boys All love Sefe her standing there that was their bed Check prank pinochle and poker were played with a deck of cards which had been improvised from the tops of cigarette that became something of a problem says Thomas Judd of want Ion 3 before you knew every card in the Damn deck and not Only but everybody else in the knew exactly which card you were get kind of after lights out at the favorite game was outsmarting their bulgarian guards which the boys say seemed unable to think for when the guard would Home through the darkened room to pass up and Down the counting the men on both the shelves and the a few gis would sneak Over to the other Side of the room and thus have themselves counted the poor guard was always astounded to Fiffis himself with extra Pri he never figured it on the 8th of september the men were told that they were none of them will forget that stars and Middle East breathless it was the dreams of a lifetime rolled into private Uso featuring one comic opera follows unsuccessful prison break by four officers four american officers were witnesses to a comic opera performance put on with All the theatricals by the commandant of the pow Camp at bul they we rent exactly willing spectators As they had just hauled up before the commandant following a prison break that didst pay o Thomas a goo looking 21yearold Pilot who carries scar that starts Over his right rationed by Selling watches and disappears into his and any other valuables Uhn hair As a could be mustered to this time and throughout their Impi some officers who were paid fairly regularly had been dividing with Tho enlisted after months of complaining and to Henry Wise of Cape the Only negro member of the prison Camp he be came a prisoner of War after his p51 developed engine trouble and he bailed out Over thick memo of his last dogfight near was the Leader of the ame rican quartet whose escape from the Camp lasted exactly 10 Minu the others Robert Patrick and Joseph on Short end As evening fell on the night of the said every thing was set except the order in which we were to go Over the Fen another officer pulled four straws out of a mattress and we each took i had the first pick and came up with the shortcut we bolted the Fence undetected and dropped into a nearby Ravin for after a ten minute we crawled out of the underbrush right at the feet of the biggest bulgarian guard in the he whistle was echoed by a score of others who came up to surround we were then taken to the commandants office where we saw the bulgarian equivalent of Serio comedy demonstrated by an cd i Judd described the commandant As tearing up and Down the fuming and frothing and tearing his hair All of the time Assum ing a most offended shouting Over and Over again that diving into that cd Chow with a Grin is George cafe of some of those imaginary menus the prisoners amused themselves with at Camp Shumen Are now a he  understand How ame rican officers could show such Lack of appreciation for the Many Fine comforts with which he had provided bowled Over by pow Box towards the end of judds ten months of incarceration at Sha the first and Only pow or every inquiry that was made concerning pow packages received the same answer that the train carrying the packages had been bombed by Al lied describing the Judd said one Day a huge Box was hauled into the Camp on an it looked As big As a piano Box and we could visualize tins and of even Kra tons would have been imagine our Surprise when we opened the Box to find a Complete with records two Gui tars of All 40 pairs of Bowling the were the most Welcome gift of a new hero at the same Camp with Judd was Hubert Renner of weeping Tail gunner and sole survivor of a which was crashed and downed by the then leading bulgarian the Bui who made the Pilot a natio Nal say that he drove Bis crippled plane into the american Craft in a heroic sacrifice of his Renner reports that it was More Likely a burst of bullets crippled the controls of his plane or bad v now the bulgarians have a new National concluded As our evacuation train through bulgarian the station platforms were thronged with shouting peasants wearing red rosettes and waving red they thought we were a red array troop f Cebee ice Cream and these expos moved in to kill a few cups of it at Hie casual Center left to Richard Kendig of be Dill of John Courtney of Robert Lfeo tre of and Crummey of being served by Young of Wae Farber of dug into we pay of clothing left to cd regatta of inward of Brooklyn Peter Langer mow John of Stanley Horino of it stars and staff Hotot Fey