The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

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231678 PFC. Paul E. Warner US Army from:Baltimore, MD These are the reminisces of my Uncle Paul Warner as transcribed by his daughter Paula. Sadly Uncle Paul left us in 2007 but in the years just prior to his passing he had begun to speak of his time during the war. When I found the name of the camp he had been held at, I also came upon this wonderful site and with Paula's permission I share Uncle Paul's memories with you here. Paul was drafted in 1943 at the age of 18. After basic training at Fort McClellan, Alabama he was assigned to the motor pool as a mechanic, and later assigned as a munitions bearer. In the later part of 1944 Paul was shipped to England, and eventually to Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. By this time he had been assigned to a mortar crew, and though untrained had learned quickly. During this time his unit was captured by the Germans and taken by truck to a railway station and loaded into a cattle car. They were given no food or water for the three days on route to Stalag 4B. While in the camp, he said they were normally given one bowl of potato soup each day, but on occasion they collected dandelions and made soup from them. He spoke of the German's working them in a factory, making ceramic tiles of some sort. Paul and several others would stack the tiles onto a conveyor belt, and he said that they found a way to stack the tiles so that they would eventually fall over on their own and break. When they woke up one day to find that the German's had abandoned the camp, he and several of his buddies took off together, eventually finding themselves in a small town in Czechoslovakia. The Russians were moving through the area at the time and Paul and the men he was with were nearly shot by a patrol because some of their clothing was from German uniforms. Luckily one of those with Paul spoke Polish as did one of the Russians and they were able to explain that they were Americans. They stayed in the town with a woman and her two daughters, Paul said they would steal food and share it with the women, until they were able to locate the American lines and rejoin them. Upon being returned to the United States, Paul spent the remainder of his enlistment at Fort Meade in Maryland. Kory L. Andrew Add to this record.  Related Content: Stalag 4B Prisoner of War Camp Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.