Cpl. Vincent A. Maniscalco
United States Army 42nd Infantry Division
from:San Francisco, Ca.
I just discovered yesterday that my father, Vincent Maniscalco had written a record of his capture by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. When he got home he was ordered to destroy his "diary". He left it with his sister when he went to the store and she copied what she could of it before he got back. Nobody knew it existed except his sister and her children & grandchildren! It's not much, but it is in his words and it is precious to us. He was imprisoned at Stalag 4B in Muhlberg, Germany. So, this is Vincent Maniscalco’s account of his capture & imprisonment as a POW of Germany from Jan 9 to April 23 1945. As copied in haste by his sister, Marianna Maniscalco, after he was ordered to burn any documentation referencing his time as a POW.
"I left the U.S. with the 42nd Div. on the 25th of November. We landed at France on the 8th of Dec. We moved North until we got to Hatten, where we relieved the 36th div. The pill boxes & fox holes were all facing the town, which was our first mistake - the enemy came from the other way. We were given 2 grenades each and a box of .03 ammunition which was the second mistake, we ran out of grenades and had to take two men from firing to load M-1 clips - So we didn’t have the ammo. The 3rd mistake was telling us to stay at our positions and to hold it at all cost. The Jerrys took us with tanks. That’s how nearly a whole battalion was captured on the 9th of January 1945.
When we walked out of our pill box, we saw over 100 tanks. The Jerrys took us about a mile behind hi lines, and searched us. The guy that searched me, took my pen, smokes and a D-bar I had. From there we must have walked 10 miles in the cold wind and snow, where we were questioned & searched again. This time they took everything but my watch.
We were then taken a few miles further back to wait for transportation to the P.W. camp. We were staying in an old warehouse, there was no food, I had to sell my watch to a Jerry guard for 5 loaves of bread. We were finally taken out of the warehouse and put on box cars, 49 men to a car- there was no room to sit or lay down - we had to ride for 4 days & nights. We thought when we finally got to camp we would be put in a warm hut, but, it was worse than ever, there was no hut, we slept on the floor and no running water, there was a well outside by the latrine but we figured that's what was giving the GIs dysentery.
We had had very little food and our clothes were not warm enough. We were moved out of this compound and moved to the main compound where we received a little better treatment - we got Red Cross parcels once in a while, but there not enough food in them for 2 men, we got them about every 2 or 3 weeks, when the smokes ran out, we sold what little clothes we had to get a few smokes, sometimes we smoke tea leaves which didn’t taste so good.
I was very glad when I saw the Russians Army pull into camp on the 23rd of April. I know how it feels to starve and to crave a smoke and I’ll never go hungry again. When we were freed the men took off for town and did a little looting, they came back with pigs, cows, chickens, rabbits, flour, jam, fruit, spuds, sugar, & wheat, nearly everything a man could eat. Chuck went into town (almost 5 miles) and got 70 lbs of sugar, he got as far as the gate with it and the guard took it all away but 10 lbs. That wasn’t so good.
May 4th. We are in Reisa waiting for transportation to the American lines. We pulled out of Muhlberg on May 2. The Russians are treating us pretty good.
May 7th. We are still in Riesa, eating is pretty good, getting 3 meals a day we hope to get out of here May 9th."
That's all we have. I'm grateful we have it.
