LOVELAND’S ESCAPE from XVII-B

By Glenn Loveland

Loveland and four other American prisoners of war escaped through the fence behind the latrine in his compound at STALAG XVII-B in the fall of 1943.

Glenn went to the rendezvous point that the group had previously agreed upon. This was a spot beneath a small bridge on the road in Krems. He hid under the bridge had heard footsteps of guard walking overhead of their way towards the city. He was to meet there with the rest of the group and they would make their way to the city of Krems where they would seek help to continue on their way to freedom.

There were Frenchman working under forced labor in the city and some of them would help escapees their travels. Glen didn’t find any more of the group at this bridge and did not see any of them until years later. He had cigarettes but no food and he didn’t smoke. He had traded his shoes for the cigarettes and so had to walk in the wood clogs that slowed him down in walking. He had a pair of coveralls on which he had a POW number on them.

After he waited at the bridge for considerable length of time, Glenn decided to walk towards Krems under the cover of darkness. As he sneaked his way along in the city, he spotted three Frenchman. He stopped and started an attempt at communicating with them. He persisted in his gesturing and the Frenchman gave him some other clothes and proceeded to walk toward the house where they lived. One gave him a scarf and another a hat because he needed something to cover his baldhead. One of the men’s names was Aime Fournier. Glenn wrote his name and address on the back of a photograph of himself and gave it to Alime.

The men asking what his escape plan was and he told them that he didn’t have any. So they told him that he should make his way to Hungary because it was neutral. They also gave him a sweater to wear and he started walking on his way.

It wasn’t long after this that Glenn spotted a bicycle that he decided to steal so that he could move faster and easier. He was racing along looking for the border crossing and saw another road that led to a gate. As he was making his way to the gate, he spotted a group of Hitler-youth kids. He rode by them and waved toward them and then went through the gate.

Glenn had another scare in another Austrian town where he was discouraged, hungry and tired. He was actually ready to surrender because he just couldn’t continue in his physical condition. He went to a house where he asked for food. The woman in house said that her little girl would lead him up the street to a place where he could get some help. It turned out that it was a house of the town constable. Glenn told constable that he was a French worker and wanted to go to the next town. The Austrian listened to his story and asked if he had any papers and Glenn admitted that he didn’t have any. Finally Glenn told the man the truth and said he was American that had been at Stalag XVII-B prison camp. The constable was really surprised grabbed his gun and then called his wife forward because she had lived in Cleveland USA and she spoke very good English.

They told him that he was only about three miles to the border. They put him in a small prison and he was a showpiece for the young children, as they wanted to see the American flier, (a Chicago gangster). The wife did give him help as she gave him a small shovel and a knapsack with food and he dug his way out of the prison and he made his way across the border.

He wasn’t in Hungary for along before the authorities picked him out as a political prisoner. In fact they though he was a German agent. He was put in a minimum-security camp where high ranking Polish officers were with their wives and families. An American pilot named Richard Bridges from Fort Wayne, Indiana joined him. They stayed there for some time and the Poles came to them and said they would set an underground route to get the Americans out.

The Americans were given papers showing them to be deaf mutes and they left separately with the Polish escorts and went through Budapest. While they were there, they attended and saw a Nazi propaganda film showing American planes being shot down.

A week later they came to the Drava River where a boatman was supposed to ferry them across to Yugoslavia, the boat man betrayed them and the Hungarian police were waiting for then so that they had to return to a castle prison in Hungary. Germans quickly occupied this prison and they transferred them to a prison in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

The American bombers bombed in Belgrade while he was in this prison and the bombs actually killed about half of the people in the camp. The camp was filled with a lot of prisoners and most of them were Italians. Bridges and Loveland hid in one of the bomb craters until nightfall and then made their escape. They made their way to the countryside and discovered a shepherd who took then to a small village.

The shepherd took them inside a building where they saw a bunch of real mean rough bunch of guys. The shepherds told these people that they were Americans and the guys grabbed them and kissed them on both cheeks. It turned out that the guys were Tito partisans so they were real happy to see them.

The partisans set a message to Italy and an American C47 was flown into a makeshift runway outside of Zagreb. The plane was heavily loaded and it started out at the extreme end of the runway worthy engines were revved up and the plane proceeded to use the entire available runway. Bridges told Loveland that he didn’t think the plane was going to get them off but fortunately he was wrong. and the plane struggled into the air.

Glenn arrived at Bari, Italy on July 21,1944. It was 13 months since the day that he had been captured. Glenn often remembered the three Frenchman that had helped him and wondered if they had survived the war. He was extremely grateful for their help. Glenn made his way back to his unit in England.