MILITARY & VETERANS AFFAIRS
NEWS RELEASE

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT:

Carol Fowler, Assistant Curator for Oral History,

National Guard Militia Museum of New Jersey,

732-974-5669

      As the long parade of World War II veterans shuffles steadily off into the sunset, their memories of that conflict resonate powerfully through the medium of oral history interviews. The National Guard Militia Museum of New Jersey (NGMMNJ) at Sea Girt is proud to be in the forefront of recording those narratives, the true raw material of history.

 

     One of the most dramatic of these accounts is that of Herman Frank of Tinton Falls, whose recent interview by Assistant Curator Carol Fowler revealed a stirring story of airborne warfare, Nazi imprisonment, winter forced marches and ultimate liberation. Frank, born in New York City in 1920, enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in 1942 and became a B-24 bomber nose gunner.

 

     In May, 1944, Herman Frank's aircraft was shot down over Yugoslavia. His plane engulfed in smoke and flames, Frank bailed out, landing in a tree and breaking his leg. Captured by local allies of the Germans, he was shipped by train to Stalag Luft III, a POW camp located in Sagan, Silesia, scene of the events later portrayed in the film “The Great Escape.” There he survived on a diet of thin gruel with bits of potato and turnip floating in it and toasted bread which seemed made of sawdust.

 

     In January, 1945, Stalag Luft III was evacuated as the Russian army closed in. With a blanket and spare socks wrapped around his body and a box of Del Monte prunes and small folding stove in his pockets, Frank, with 10,000 fellow prisoners, was marched out the gate into brutal winter weather. As British and American bombs fell all around, day and night, the prisoners staggered westward. Some were shot by guards and others collapsed and died from exposure. They ate whatever they could find and Frank used a sardine tin discarded by another soldier as a miniature frying pan to heat foraged food on his folding stove.

 

      At one point he was reduced to eating cooked grass. “It tasted marvelous,” he recalled. “I was violently sick afterwards, but when I ate it, it seemed wonderful.” Eventually he arrived at Stalag VII-A in Moosburg, Bavaria, which was liberated on April 29, 1945 by troops from the U.S. 14th Armored Division.

 

     During his imprisonment, Frank sketched barracks, guard towers and other features of Stalag Luft III, and, using a bootleg camera purchased with cigarettes, photographed the last days of his confinement and liberation at Stalag VII-A. He has preserved the sketches and photographs, along with a diary -- a remarkable and rare record of an American soldier's World War II POW experience. Discharged as disabled on October 1, 1945, Herman Frank was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal, Purple Heart, Good Conduct Medal and European African Middle Eastern Service Medal.

 

      For more details on Herman Franks' story, and others, contact the NGMMNJ Oral History Program.

Prisoners celebrate their freedom, April 1945. Photo by Herman Frank.