Ord resident shares memories of experiences as a prisoner of war
By Gretchen Fowler
ORD -- As the country recognizes its veterans today and those veterans look back on what they went through, Sam Gailey of Ord will be sharing his story with a younger generation.
The tales Gailey will tell to elementary students in Ord on this Veterans Day are tales of his time as a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II.
"It wasn't as easy as it might have looked," Gailey said of the missions that he and other members of the Army Air Force were expected to complete.
A certain number of missions had to be completed and a certain number of points accrued before a person could be discharged from the military. Gailey said some men were captured and made prisoners of war on their first mission. He was captured on his sixth.
Gailey joined the military in July of 1942, at the age of 21. He was the tail gunner on a B-17 flying missions over Germany when his plane went down on Oct. 28, 1944.
The date is one that's embedded into Gailey's mind.
After the aircraft was hit, one motor was ruined and gas and smoke were coming out of the plane. The bombardier was killed by shrapnel, and while the pilot was cut below the left ear and bleeding badly, Gailey thought his crew would make it back to England.
Unbeknownst to Gailey, who was at the back of the plane, the pilot bailed out, as did all the others on board.
"I didn't think I had enough nerve to use a parachute at that time, but it brought me to my senses and I did use it," Gailey said, remembering that he tumbled out of the plane like a piece of paper being thrown from a car at 50 miles per hour.
Because the others had jumped before him, Gailey was separated from his crew when he landed on the ground. He could see a small camp on the ground before landing and said, "The name of the game was to try to cover your parachute."
The idea then was to escape into timber -- but Gailey never got that chance.
As he was finishing hiding his parachute, Gailey looked up to see a German civilian with a rifle. Three soldiers came in Gailey's direction, and he was taken to a POW camp where his six-and-a-half-month ordeal would begin.
Housed at various camps and transferred from city to city, Gailey eventually met up with other members of his crew who had been captured. They were given coffee and water to drink, small amounts of soup and potatoes and rations of oleo, Spam, powdered milk, instant coffee and cigarettes.
Prior to Christmas, Gailey and other POWs decided to conserve what food and rations they had so they could "have a bash" for Christmas. Rations of plum pudding from the English Red Cross provided an extra holiday bonus.
Instructed to give only his name, rank and serial number, Gailey refused to give the Germans information when interrogated. Each day for about a week, he would be taken in for interrogation and then placed back into his isolated cell when he wouldn't talk.
Gailey said some men died as POWs, due to poor nutrition, and every one of the POWs lost weight. There were times when Gailey wondered if he would ever make it back home, but he said he always had hope.
The POWs were allowed to write one postcard and four very short letters each month. Gailey's parents in Pennsylvania received some of his letters and sent letters back to him, which he never saw.
After six and a half months as a POW, Gailey was allowed to return to the United States, where he accrued the points needed to be discharged. He was discharged from the service in about November 1945, and thinking back to the first time he was reunited with his parents, he said, "It was a great reunion."
"It was really great to get back and see that they were OK, and I'm sure they were glad to see I was OK."
ŠThe Grand Island Independent