Camp near Siegberg Germany?

[Jean Jacobson]

Christoph,

 

I am still trying to digest everything you said and sent today. I stopped doing everything else and what a list I have and it is growing. But this is so much news that I can not seem to stop going through it.

 

I ordered that book you referred to. Not sure if I ordered the right one, but we shall see. That was fascinating to hear about more red crosses on roofs.

 

The POW Bulletin also is fascinating. I am going to see if I can find others. I do not know how you found it, but very impressive! As always you turn up the most incredible things!

 

I wanted to tell you that I wrote Stolz last week. I do not know if I will hear back from him, but I gave him the news on Stang, Bower and Grappes. I also wrote the Marauder group and told them the same news on those 3 men.

 

There is a dedicated couple of gentlemen in Holland that have a Medic website. The site is www.med-dept.com/about.php. I think they call it the WW2 US Medical Research Centre. I finally sent them the names of 2 men that trained with Dad at Camp Pickett, Virginia to become Medics. That is not what Dad was supposed to be trained as - but they sent him to the wrong school!

 

Maybe tomorrow I will get to send off the forms to NARA in St. Louis.

 

Bye for now, I promise,

Jean J

[Jean Jacobson]

Christoph, I have new news! And again, thanks to your Roster list, I can verify that 9 new names that I received from NARA in Md. are part of the 467.

 

Last night I was elated to see I had a response in the mail from NARA of Md. I was not expecting to hear anything for weeks. I could not review anything in depth of what was there because it was late and so of course I could not sleep, thinking of what I had found. Today I went through it all and now will change my request to NARA of St. Louis and add these 9 names and remove some others for now.

 

NARA sent me the same report you sent me - the inspection of the Hospital and the 3 men that were already at Siegburg.

 

They sent me a deposition by a gentleman whose wounds kept him lying in bed. He refers to being at Waldbrol. More to follow on that.

 

Then there is a list of 8 men who must have been shot down and wounded. I tried finding them or family members. I thought my best chance was a gentleman that was born in 1925, he was the youngest of the 8. I just finished speaking to his son, who said he Dad passed away a few years ago. The son will put me in contact with his brother and also his Dad's brother and see what they recall. I did learn that this man had his face burned and spent time in a German hospital and then when he was able enough, they moved him.

 

He said he remembered his Dad saying that some of the guys would shave their backs because of Lice. And his Dad thought they were treated pretty fairly. His Dad was not bitter.

 

Good Night,

Jean J

[Christoph]

Hello!

This week they started digging at the Michaelsberg to find one of the tunnels to find rests of ammunition of the war:

http://www.general-anzeiger-bonn.de/region/rhein-sieg-kreis/siegburg/Keine-Spur-von-einem-Tunnel-article898991.html

but the tunnel is not found yet.

 

Christoph

[Jean Jacobson]

Christoph,

 

How interesting! You wonder if this was one of the tunnels they used as a bomb shelter. I also wonder what makes them think there is more war ammunition there. Maybe there was a story being passed around after the War. I hope no one gets hurt. It will be pretty exciting to see what they find. I wonder if it is the City of Siegburg or the Government above that is sponsoring and paying for this excavation. It will be fun to see where they did their digging whenever we actually get to come over there.

 

Still trying to get papers organized and heading to Mom's.

 

Jean J

[Christoph]

Jean,

I think they'll pay. They want to build a new building extension to the abbey above on the hill, and there was one of the 3 shelter tunnels which was closed after the war by american troops. People said that there was a lot of ammunition and weapons sunk in the tunnel, now they checked the the area with metal and other detectors and found there must be a lot of metall and some hollows in the ground. Now the bomb disposal team is at work and searching... but until now only scrap.

 

Christoph

[Jean Jacobson]

This is really exciting. To me this means that more than rumor they have some real information from folks who were once on the scene.

 

Is the digging going on down the side of the hill below the rose garden/barrack area - where the children and their parents were playing. If so, that must block traffic going up the road to the Abbey.

 

Now I was wondering if the NARA info on the 8 Stalag 6G boys was done on German stationary, since the column headings are in German, wouldn't there be an equivalent for the German soldiers that were wounded and there. Where did they get taken as the Allies got closer? And where did the Dr. and the new hospital administrator (after Theo) go and so on? Good questions for Sister E. Koch but she may not have any idea. I wonder if Otto C. could give us some guidance.

 

I am going to send this Siegburg exploration information to Harold, one of the gentlemen who fought in the Battle for Siegburg. I am so happy to have it to send to him. As always, Thank You Very Much!

 

More to follow,

Jean J

[Jean Jacobson]

Hello Again!

 

I have so many more phone calls to make to the Veterans that I know but I wanted to tell you quickly that I got in touch with the family of one of the 8 men (Bob) that are on the new list from NARA in Md.

 

I think all of these 8 men went from Siegburg to a "Dulag Luft vers." Bob went to Stalag Luft 3 and it is stamped on a lot of papers that the son has. I was taking notes down furiously as we talked and one of Bob's sons will scan some of the things and send them to me.

 

Bob's plane was shot down on 11/26/1944 and he was captured right away. His parachute was burning and he was burned on his hands and face.

 

They have a Jan. 1, 1945 letter from 6G (can't wait to see the address and letterhead.) They have another letter dated 1/8/1945 and a 3rd dated Jan. 28th, 1945. I think the one dated Feb 19th is the one that says "I arrived at this Camp day before yesterday and from what I hear this is to be our permanent camp.

 

We can identify/verify the Camp he was at because in the documents there is a letter "I was certainly happy to see General Patton's tanks come in to Camp Sunday." He also said "Now I know how a liberated POW feels to see Old Glory raised where once stood the Swastika."

 

What a perfect comment on Veteran's Day!

 

Jean J

[Christoph]

Very interesting list! A "Dulag" is a transit camp ("Durchgangslager"), "Luft" means it is managed by the Luftwaffe for air men, "vers". means "sent to". All 8 are marked as "Verw." = wounded. The Dulag Luft were used for interogation of west allied POW. I think they were sent to Wetzlar, a geocaching website with some information and old photos:

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GC17YW7&Submit6=Find

 

 

There is a text about Dulag Luft, here a english review:

http://www.perspectivia.net/content/publikationen/francia/francia-recensio/2009-4/ZG/geck_mackenzie

 

 

 

The digging at Siegburg has already stopped, they didn't find anything more

 

Christoph

[Christoph]

A Dulag Luft site in english:

http://www.b24.net/pow/dulag.htm

 

Christoph

[Jean Jacobson]

All I can say Christoph is WOW!

 

You did it again! And I am starting to understand it all a little bit more.

 

Norton was so excited about the digging. Now I must tell him it is over. Just from that conversation he said: where they went was close, it was a little to the Left, and a wall, kind of a like a cave. Every day there were air raids - Many Many Many! And they went out willingly! They may have been false alarms but they did not take a chance.

 

Do you suppose that most of those 467 people actually did make it to the hospital and then got moved out.

 

More to follow. Still have a few Vets that I could not get, and want to try again but may have to do it tomorrow. Need to get to Mom's too.

 

Thank You, as always!

Jean J