234078 PFC. Frank Pecoraro US Army 29th Division Frank Pecoraro was captured outside St. Lo after securing a crossroad without resistance. His captain thought they should go in further but by doing so they were cut off and surrounded. He was in a foxhole with his buddy waiting for dark when a sniper shot his friend with the bullet whizing past his chest. He was captured by the regular German army not the SS.
Eventually they were sent to Stalag 4 by railway (he described them as cattle cars with many soldiers getting sick from rain water seeping into the cars as it was mixed with soot from the train). He lost weight down to about 120 to 130 lbs (usually he was around 180 but he wasn't sick bargaining saw dust bread for cigarettes and chocolate from his Red Cross package.
He worked a work detail clearing streets in Dresden after the bombings. He took a fellow GI named Hans under his wing as Hans would eat all his Red Cross package at one time making a sort of stew and then complaining it was all gone. My father would hold Han's package giving it out so it would last. My father remembers a waste food container being upend and a mob of POW'ss swarmed in. And, a vivid story of a GI being shot by the commander of the camp after refusing to say Hiel Hitler and then spitting on the commander who then took out his Luger and shot him in the head.
Food was difficult but on Christmas the Germans gave them some horse meat and potatoes. He said toward the end of his confinement the Germans didn't have much food either. One day a guard handed him his gun and said I am now your prisoner as he didn't want to be taken by the Russian army.
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