Gastonia man lives long life after year as World War II prisoner of war
Michael Barrett
Of the 11 men aboard the B-24 Liberator, Daniel Franklin Harrison was one of only five who lived after it was hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed May 10, 1944.
Somehow, he survived until Gen. George Patton's 7th Army liberated his POW camp on April 29, 1945.
After dodging death at so many turns, Harrison returned to Gastonia after World War II, where he married, raised a family and lived for many years.
But like so many of his generation, he rarely spoke of his wartime experience.
"I'd hear bits and pieces, like how they ate potatoes in the POW camp," said his daughter, Holly Harrison of Gastonia. "But not the whole thing."
Harrison died April 19, not a month shy of his 85th birthday. But his story as a soldier and a POW lives on in the photos his family still has from that time, and in an interview he gave to an interested pastor 19 years ago.
For more of this story see Sunday and Monday's Gaston Gazette or go online Saturday, Sunday or anytime after to read the whole account of Harrison's experiences as a World War II POW.
An Angel Appears
As Daniel Harrison stared down the barrel of the Luger pistol, a voice he had never heard before cut through the air.
A young Czechoslovakian woman ran toward the German officer. Speaking with the thick accent of her Eastern European homeland, the nameless angel begged for Harrison's life with three words he could make out: "Do not shoot."
Her pleas reached something inside the German, who lowered his pistol and spared Harrison, before sending him on to Frankfurt on another train.
Harrison learned only that the woman's husband was also a POW at the time. Her sympathy led her to her to fight for and save his life.
"But he never saw her again," said Harrison's daughter, Holly Harrison of Gastonia. "He never learned her name."
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Reason to hope
Harrison's parents, three older sisters and other loved ones back home had been told in May that he was missing in action. By late July, they learned he was a prisoner of war.
They still worried they might never see him again, said his older sister by two years, Mary Frances Crawford.
"But just knowing he was alive was the wonderful part," said Crawford, as her hands flipped through old photos of her brother's time in the military.
The American Red Cross had access to some POW camps, and many American soldiers were able to receive United Service Organization care packages.
The deliveries contained perks such as packs of cigarettes. But Harrison often bartered with the smokes to satisfy his sweet tooth.
"When he would get those USO care packs, he would trade the cigarettes for chocolate," said his daughter, Holly Harrison of Gastonia. "He loved chocolate."
After a point, Harrison and his family had the ability to exchange letters and postcards, though they took several weeks to deliver overseas. And Harrison's movement to different POW camps made it an imperfect way to stay in touch.
"I wrote to him about once a week," said Crawford. "But I don't think he got all of the letters."
Harrison sent a postcard to his father at one point that now rests in a scrapbook put together by his daughter. It is still as poignant as it was 64 years ago:
"Dear Daddy. I am in a Red Cross liberation hospital now. It is not far from where I was before. I am walking again with an iron brace. I take calisthenics three times a day. Three boys I was in Czechoslovakia (with) are here also. It snows often, but it isn't very cold yet. Love, Dan."
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Brink of disaster, verge of rescue
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The hospital Harrison entered in Frankfurt in September was run by captured British doctors. They performed another surgery on his leg, but neglected to give him enough anesthesia, which resulted in Harrison waking up as a brace and drill bit was boring into his leg bone.
It was "an uncomfortable event," he would later say.
Harrison and the other POWs often had to dine on German bread that was hard as a brick. And the food was brought to them in the same wagon that was used to take out trash.
Prisoners were rationed 13 ounces of food a day, and Harrison lost 35 pounds.
Allied forces had gained control in the war and were pushing further into Germany. But Harrison wasn't out of danger.
On Jan. 8, 1945, more than 1,200 American B-17 and B-24 bombers laid an assault on Frankfurt. The makeshift hospital where Harrison was being held was hit during the attack.
One bomb landed several hundred yards away from Harrison. He survived, despite being blown through a closed door into another room.
Harrison and others were moved to Nuremberg for a month, then forced to march 90 miles to Mooseberg, where 40,000 POWs were detained. They were told about President Franklin Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945, but knew that Allied troops were advancing closer every day.
On the morning of April 29, Harrison woke to find that all the German guards had fled. Gen. George Patton's 7th Army liberated 110,000 POWs from several countries in area camps that day.
Less than 24 hours later, Adolf Hitler took his own life in Berlin.
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Reunion in Gastonia
Harrison eventually was taken with other POWs to France, then to England. He had the option of flying home, but the memory of his last experience in the sky was still too vivid.
"He chose to come home on a boat," said Crawford with a laugh. "He didn't want to get on a plane."
The ship ride to Boston took 10 days, and was followed by a train trip to Fort Bragg in Fayetteville.
Harrison arrived in Gastonia so early one morning that he didn't want to disturb his parents. So he went to his sister, Rebecca, who lived down the road with her husband and young children.
Harrison's niece, Rebecca Darst of Kinston, still remembers that homecoming.
"It was the middle of the night," she said.
"Someone came to the door, and I heard my father ask who it was.
"The man said, ÔDan Harrison.'"
Later that morning, Harrison's sister and brother-in-law took him on the short ride to his home, where his parents, sisters and other loved ones were waiting.
Crawford recalls the very moment he stepped out of the car in the driveway.
"He had on his Army outfit and cap," she said with a smile. "He got out of the car.
"And we just all went around and grabbed him," she said, gesturing her arms to illustrate a fervent embrace.
Harrison would later spend several months at a veterans hospital in Columbia, S.C., as doctors tried to improve on the insufficient care his broken leg had received.
Harrison's inability to walk for so many months had affected his feet. So physicians put casts on both of his legs in an effort to straighten his toes.
It might have been the recipe for misery. But Harrison's eldest sister learned that veterans at the hospital were making the best of their predicament.
"I went to see him in Columbia," said Kathryn Brady of Raleigh. "I don't remember much about it - except that when I got there, there were a bunch of men sitting around a tub of beer.
"He seemed to be real happy," she said through laughter.
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ÊA long and fruitful life
Harrison returned to Gastonia, where he met and married his wife, Mildred Watts, in 1957. Their only child, Holly Harrison, was born in 1960.
Harrison went on to work for The Gastonia Gazette for 34 years as a linotype operator before retiring. He was preceded in death by his wife in 2002.
The injury Harrison sustained during his parachute landing in Austria would stay with him until he died April 19. Because the right leg hadn't been set correctly, it was always shorter than his left.
The characteristic forced him to only wear flat-bottomed shoes, so that an extension could be fitted to the right sole.
"He could never wear tennis shoes," remembers his daughter. "That's always something he wished he could do."
Harrison heard and saw only occasional signs of her father's time in the war through the years. On a family vacation to Gatlinburg, Tenn., when she was a little girl, one such flashback surfaced.
"A fire alarm went off and he jumped up, startled," she said. "He said it reminded him of the war."
Surviving the plane crash 64 years ago quickly earned Harrison a membership in the Caterpillar Club - an informal association of people who successfully use a parachute to bail out of a disabled aircraft.
The club's motto - "Life depends on a silken thread" - still speaks volumes to the people whose lives Harrison enriched for nearly 85 years.
"A caterpillar made the silk. Silk made the parachute," said Holly Harrison. "And the parachute saved his life.Ê