John D. Bacon
home: Auburn, MI
8 AF
458 BG 752 BS
B-24 H #4128942
Combat Bombardement
target Saarbrücken
09.08.1944, 1108
crash near Trier bei Waldrach
MACR 7890
KU 2686
| P Thompson Evert Ray 1Lt O-690274 RTD | |||||
| Co Landers Jr Walter Francis 2Lt O-815932 RTD | |||||
| Nav Grayson Milton William 2Lt O-708256 | |||||
| Bom none | |||||
| Radio Beattie Jr John Hamilton TSgt 13046508 RTD | |||||
| TT Walker Daniel Greenwood SSgt 17113869 RTD | |||||
| BT Luke Walter John Sgt 35227020 RTD | |||||
| RW Bacon John Davis TSgt 36562550 RTD | |||||
| Nose Olson George La Verne Sgt 36871941 RTD | |||||
| tail Middlekauff Willard Raymond TSgt 39266462 RTD |
2. August 9, 1944 shot down over Saarbrücken
3. do not recall name of small town
4. by train
5. on foot, as I recall the camp was South of railroad + the church to the North
6. one week possible 2. Not very long
7. only a few hundred
8. do not recall
9. the camp was only one large building, all one room, secured by a single fence
10. Stalag Luft 4 by 40+8
11. I believe the camp had prisoners from other branches of service. As a crew went out each day to dig footings or trenches for building foundations not for food, as stated in letter.
12. no
Dear Mr. Geiger,
I have just received from Mr. Rose a copy of your letter dated July 25, 1997. I also know that Walter Luke has written to you.
I am enclosing a copy of 3 things, think you may be interested in the bottom one, doubt I would need to explain any of them except the dog tag which was No. 4198. With that in mind some or all of the 117 men could have had Nos in that range.
I do not think Stalag VI was ever really built. During my short stay there we lived in a building perhaps 60 to 80 feet or more long and 15 to 20 feet deep with large huge door opening to the S. Dust (?) floor and no beds or other _____ enclosed with wire fence + gates. A crew ent out each day to dig footing for the camp.
With the advance of the allied front we were moved by 40+8 to Stalag Luft IV where I remained till the Russians advanced. We left on foot in early February in groups of perhaps 200 + and slept in barns and ditches + woods moving each day weather permitting till the 2nd of May when we were freed by the British.
Hope this will be of some help to you. I plan to place some or all of what material I have in the POW museum at Andersonville, GA, after it opens in April of this year.
If you fell I can be of further help, please advice.
2nd letter of Feb. 5, 1998
Dear Roland
I enclosed pictures of dog tags. Was issued 2 by U.S. Army, now have one Germans took when they gave me POW tag. Which is really 2 when seperated. Reads STAL LUFT No 4198. It is material of _____, I stuffed it up with wire brush.
U.S. dog tags reads John D. Bacon 36562550, 3A Rowena Bacon Bentley Mich. P.
My mother was 100% German, her family name was Schmidt.
MBS- International Airport is only 5 miles from my home. It was built during WW2 to train B-24 crews. German POWs were housed here for a while and they worked in sugar beet field. The barracks are now gone. This part of Michigan is flat and good for farming, and has a lot of good German people.