Finally the day came when we all looked westward and saw the formation of planes coming in. What a beautiful sight! One by one they peeled off and landed at the nearby Barth airport. We all picked up what ever personal things we had and marched about three miles to the field. The pilots could stay up front in the radio compartment and flight deck, while the rest had to sit in the bomb bay or waist. We even got the chance to take over the controls and fly the plane.

This was a treat for some guys who were captured back in 1942 or 1943 and hadn't been in this position for quite a while. The planes didn't fly in formation on the way to Camp Lucky Strike in France, so we flew over the Rhine Valley at about 1000 feet to get a good look at the ruins that our bombs had made in the industrial heart of Germany. We even saw the bridge at Remagen that was left standing. The towns of the Rhine Valley were almost completely demolished. It's a wonder that Germany lasted as long as it did without the benefit of the greater part of the war production. First we knocked it down and then we paid to build it back up through the Marshall Plan after the war.

We landed somewhere in France and were loaded on flatbed semi trucks to go to the camp. Driving through the countryside, one didn’t see any evidence of war. But when we drove through the town of Duren, things were very different. As we stood on the trucks we were elevated so that we could see for a long way. As far as we could see, the city was gone. As they say, not one brick upon another. We could see men with horse‐ drawn carts trying to clean up the mess, whereas in Germany they were cleaning up with large pieces of modern equipment.

This showed the difference between the two countries as far as modern conveniences were concerned. This destruction of cities was evident everywhere we went. We flyboys had never seen this side of war to such a great extent. Of course, I had been through the streets of Berlin, but that was one of the main targets of the air war. These towns we saw just small and medium sized, and no one expected the destruction to cover so many places. We had seen our bombs drop from 20,000 feet or higher without realizing the damage we caused below. Sure we studied the aerial photos of the bomb drops after missions, but this was different. We were right there driving through the devastation, seeing first hand the results of precision bombing. We Americans are fortunate not to have suffered the effects of this type bombardment. Maybe some of us wouldn't be too cordial either to downed flyers if our homes and families were destroyed by bombing.

We finally arrived at the camp and what a camp it was! We hadn’t slept in tents at any time during our time in service. Now, after spending most of our life in barracks, even in prison camp, here we were in that type sleeping arrangement. I guess it didn't bother us too much as the weather was great and we were going back to the USA in a short time. This was only one of three camps set up for processing all military personnel before shipping home. There must have been at least 10,000 former POWs there. Prisoners were the first to arrive as the army wanted to ship us home first. After we were processed, the regular army personnel were next. By that time we were long gone.

We spent about a month in camp awaiting our orders to leave. Some of the guys, the more adventurous types, took off to see Paris about 90 miles away. We were warned that our ship would soon be at LeHarve port of debarkation, and if we were not around we would miss it and have to wait another month in camp. To me the rewards of seeing Paris didn't compare to missing that boat! I was still a little weak so I slept quite a bit during that month. One time when I was sleeping a friend poked his head into out tent to tell me something. The burns around my eyes must have kept my eyelids open abit and when he saw those open lids with only the whites of the eyeball showing, he thought I was dead. We had a laugh about this later, but at the time, he didn’t think it was very funny. We did walk around the nearby countryside and saw how the French farmers worked their fields with some antiquated machinery.

The announcement that our ship was finally in the harbor was received with great excitement. We were told that we would board the following day so we better be ready. They didn’t need to tell us to be ready—we had been ready for a month! Again, we were driven through the countryside on flatbed trucks. We went through the town of Rouen and saw the beautiful cathedral still completely intact. All around it was a mess from the various times it was under attack. One sees this and wonders if it was still there due to our precision bombing or by an act of God. You don’t have to wonder very long about this.

We arrived at LeHarve and again what a mess! The Germans bombed it when they captured France; the 8th Air Force and the RAF bombed the submarine pens of the Germans when they occupied it, and finally just prior to D-Day it received heavy shelling from the ships offshore. Most of the submarine pens were still in good shape. Those walls must have been about 12 feet thick, so all that bombing and shelling didn’t knock them out. But the rest of the city was in ruins. It was almost as bad as the town of Duren.

We boarded the Liberty ship that was to take us home and found out that RHIP didn't mean much once the war was over line. As I said before, we officers, were served our food in luxury going over to Europe in the highly decorated dining room. Now, we stood in line with our trays and let the servers load our tray with beans, potatoes, com, etc. all at once. We had to stand while eating too. I guess we didn’t care very much either as long as the ship was pointed West. The decks were filled during the day with men laying around, sleeping or trying to get tan. We were crowded in during the day. It took seven days to get home. We arrived at the port of Norfolk, Virginia about June 26, 1945