I would like to comment on a couple of letters in our April edition, in “Your Chance to Sound Off” section. The first of which was a letter from Charles A. Palmer, of Pittsburgh, PA, wherein he states that he could not remove from his mind the jubilant scene at a German airfield when those German pilots landed after shooting down one of our B-17’s; one of which his brother was killed in, during WWII. I wonder if he had the occasion to view the jubilant scene our pilots and gunners displayed upon our return from those missions wherein we had shot down German fighter and bomber planes on our missions over their country. I too lost my youngest brother – who was a paratrooper - on his first jump into enemy territory (only 17 then) just a few months before the end of that war.
William Raymond (Billy) Henderson
Dec 5, 1927 - Feb 2, 1945
After flying 37 missions from the summer of 1942 to the spring of 1945 I knew, as those German airmen knew, that we were each trying to win a war we were caught up in. We flying airmen routinely were awarded Air Medals and distinguished Flying Crosses and were paid an additional 50 percent of our base pay to fly these missions; and, if I am correct, most of us volunteered for flight in combat for these added incentives. I have yet to hear that aircrews in the German Air Forces were awarded these amenities.
King Elisha Henderson
Dec 22, 1918 - Jun 15, 2006
After arriving at Frankfurt Airfield, and living in Koenigstein, about 15 miles north, I had many enjoyable times with many German folks – also some German Prisoners-of-War who had returned from Russia – and only in a very rare occasion did I encounter any Germans that carried any noticeable malice towards us Americans for the destruction we had done to their country. Even after all of these years I still communicate with a German family that I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with back then (in the fall of 1945).
So, to live with malice all of these years, towards Germans that were just doing their jobs as we were doing, would seem to me to be carrying on the same war without end; a war and hatred towards a person (or persons) who never knew of a Joe Palmer, or of a William Henderson (my younger brother).
The second interest in “your Chance to Sound Off” article is an article from Hal Susskind “My Forty-second Mission to Germany” wherein he states that the last time he saw Frankfurt it was leveled and not even one building was left standing. I can disagree with him on this since I had been there right after the war and the most outstanding building that was left standing was the entire Krupp Chemical Works. This facility had a below ground floor with rather fabulous sloping lawns with lots of shrubbery down to this first level and then with several stories more above ground along with a large auditorium building about a block away. Also, it seems like the entire barracks facilities for their workers were untouched by any bombs. These facilities served as General Ike’s headquarters and several of his other Generals had their planes parked at Frankfurt Airfield to be serviced by our troops.
I remember the railroad station (which was a large station) was leveled to the ground – as were all the bridges around the town, and many of the town’s buildings; but I also remember that there were many other buildings in the town that hadn’t been damaged by the war.
The most startling thing to me was the fact that the Krupp Chemical Buildings seemed to have not even been hit by a single bullet (much less showing any type of bomb damage). This is even more amazing since these buildings were on some of Frankfurts highest grounds and were a bright white in color. Also, since Krupp people used a lot of displaced prisoners for free labor (slaves, in other words) and were one of Germany’s prime war industries, I have often wondered if we didn’t deliberately avoid bombing these facilities.
I was all the more disturbed by the fact that just about every building around this Krupp Facility was leveled to the ground, and wondered how we, and the British, managed to accomplish such a feat without doing some damage to the Krupp Facility.
To add to this, I was troubled some years back reading an article in the news that our government was paying General Motors reparation payments for the damage we did during WWII bombing their factories in Germany where they were making even better tanks and trucks for the Nazis than they were making for America – an act the would have been treasonous for other less influential companies.
So, those of you who still have trouble trying to make friends with the German people, especially after 44 years, think about some of these things. Also, remember, we are guilty of making a lot of deals with German War Criminals to whatever advantages we sought for our benefit in those days right after (and many times during) the war.
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