The Day the American Flag Flew Over Moosburg

Stalag VII was liberated on April 29, 1945. This Nazi Flag was torn down from top of city hall in Moosburg, Germany and replaced with an American Flag on that same day. It was signed by over 100 POWs and returned to the United States by the 303rd Bomb Group's Angelo P. Petix. The Petix family donated the flag to the Mighty Eighth AF Museum in Pooler, GA
If you or a family member signed this flag, please contact us. (The website has a link to super-size the flag and check the signatures on it close-up)

Message written on the captured flag by Maj. Andrew S. Low, Jr. 453rd Bomb Group.

An interesting story about the liberation of Moosburg is found here http://www.303rdbg.com/pow-moosburg-flag.html

Thanks to Marilyn Walton for this story idea.

The 87-Day Winter POW Death March--Lest We Forget

A photo taken by a clandestine camera on the forced march.

Young 390th Bomb Group Ball Turret Gunner Delbert Lambson had the misfortune not only to be shot down, but also to become a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft IV in East Prussia. Even then, his troubles were not over. In February 1945, the Germans decided to evacuate the camp of 6,000 prisoners to prevent the POWs from falling into the hands of the advancing Russians. For the next 87 days, thousands of Allied prisoners would be fighting for their lives against cold, disease, and hopelessness as they covered 600 miles on foot.

It was one of the coldest winters on record. Limited to a diet of only 700 calories a day, and marching many miles a day, the men began to weaken. Typhus, dysentary, pneumonia, diptheria, and pellagra ravaged the weakened marchers. Frostbite was also a terrible problem, resulting in many amputations later. Men slept wherever their guards put them. Sometimes, they were lucky enough to be sheltered in a barn. Often, they slept on the frozen ground.

On May 2, 1945, the weary POWs met Allied forces near Hamburg. They had covered more than 600 miles in 87 days. Of those who started on the march, about 1,500 perished from disease, starvation, or at the hands of German guards while attempting to escape. In terms of percentage of mortality, it came very close to the Bataan Death March.

Much of the above account is from survivor George W. Guderley.

Prisoner of War Memorial at Stalag Luft IV, in what used to be East Prussia but is now Poland.


For more information about this death march, go tohttp://www.b24.net/pow/march.htm