After the War

This is an article written by my father, King Elisha Henderson, for the "Hell's Angels Newsletter" in July, 1989:

I would like to comment on a couple of letters in the “Your Chance to Sound Off” section of your April edition.  The first letter was written by Mr. Palmer of Pittsburgh, PA, who had lost his brother, Joe Palmer, in a B-17 during the war.  In the letter, Mr. Palmer states that he could not remove from his mind, the jubilant scene at a German airfield when the German pilots had just returned from shooting down one of our B-17’s.  I wonder if Mr. Palmer ever had the occasion to view the jubilation our pilots and gunners displayed when we shot down German fighters and bombers.

Within weeks after the war ended in Europe I was sent to Chartres and then Beauvais, France for a couple of months and then to Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany.  In France, being able to speak German, I was able to serve as interpreter for our Prisoners-of-War and through them, learned that they, like myself, were just as anxious for the war to end so that they could get back to what was left of their country and to their wives, parents, and loved ones.

After arriving in Germany, I was bivouacked in Koenigstein about 15 miles north of Frankfurt Airfield.  I had some very enjoyable times with many German folks and some German Prisoners-of-War who had returned from Russia and only rarely did I encounter Germans who carried any noticeable malice towards 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 1949.

I too lost my youngest brother, William Henderson, just a few months before the end of the war, but to live with malice all of these years, towards Germans that were just doing their jobs as we were doing ours, would seem to be continuing the war without end; a war directed towards people who never knew Joe Palmer or William Henderson.  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. 

The second letter in “your Chance to Sound Off” section was written by Hal Susskind and titled “My Forty-second Mission to Germany” wherein he states that the last time he saw Frankfurt it was leveled to the ground with not even one building left standing.  I must disagree with him on this since I was there right after the war.

Frankfurt, Germany at wars end

I remember the railroad 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 had not been damaged at all.

The most prominent building left standing was the entire Krupp Chemical Works.  Also, it seems like the entire barracks facilities for their workers was untouched.  These facilities served as General Ike’s headquarters for a while.  The most startling thing to me was the fact that the Krupp Chemical Buildings seemed to have survived without a scratch!  It seemed like the entire complex had 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 Frankfurt’s highest ground and were a bright white in color.  I was all the more surprised by the fact that just about every building around the Krupp Facility had been 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.