Ken's Story

Ken's Story
As told by his widow,
Gloria (Hoye) Erhard,
To their daughter,
Jacquelyn (Erhard) Bean

Kenneth Lynn Erhard was born and raised in Curwensville, Clearfield County, Pennsylvania to a poor, but hard-working family. He was the third child born to Ernest and Berva Miller Erhard. When Ken was about six years old, his father left home, never to return, leaving their mother to raise her family of five children alone. The older children were expected to go to work and help support the family. Ken worked at various jobs - from running errands to chopping wood - anything to bring home money for the family.

In the winter, after school and chores were done, and off the job, he and other children would play hockey on the frozen Susquehanna River, and in the spring when the ice began to break, time on the river was spent jumping from one ice floe to another. Needless to say, there were many a mishap, and unfortunate ones would go home soaking wet to receive the much deserved spanking for engaging in such dangerous frolics. Of course, the spankings only deterred them until the next time! Long summer days were spent flying homemade box kites on "the hill."

As Ken was an independent and rather adventurous young man, he attempted several times to enlist in the military, but was always turned down because of his age. He was finally accepted in late November 1941 at the age of 19. He wanted to be in the Corps of Engineers, but after a battery of tests, he was placed in the Army Air Corps and consequently was sent to Keesler Field, Biloxi, Mississippi. He was there when the bombing of Pearl Harbor was announced on the radio. He became proficient in armament and was sent to Bendix School in Gary, Indiana. He came back as an instructor in 50 caliber machine guns (NOTE: it was said that he could put a gun back into place blindfolded). He was not a "regular" flyer; more or less an auxiliary when a crew was short-handed, and he was always a left waist-gunner.

From Keesler Field, he was sent to Barksdale Field in Bossier City, Louisiana with the newly formed 44th Bomb Group. While at Barksdale, Ken volunteered to go sub-hunting in the Gulf of Mexico, not only for the flying experience, but to use the machine guns.

From Barksdale Field, the 44th Group was sent to Will Rogers Field, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ken was only there a short while before leaving for Port of Embarkation in New York. The 44th Bomb Group boarded the Queen Mary and took a 5-day zig-zag course to avoid the U-boats, which were on the prowl, and were known as "The Wolf Pack." The Queen Mary landed at Firth o' Clyde, Scotland¹ and troops were sent overland to Shipdham, England.

Besides maintaining armament, Ken went on flying missions. On one of the missions, there was a write-up in the Stars and Stripes listing the crew members' names of the Miss Dianne and of the missions her crew had been on ("she" had been a very busy lady!).

Early in the morning of 8 March 1943, Ken was about to go on his 13th mission over enemy territory. He had had a premonition he would not come back and told several of his friends, "See ya at the end of the war." His buddies told him, "Hell, Kenny Boy, if you feel that way, report for sick call." Of course, he refused, and Miss Dianne was the lead plane of the 16 bombers (B-24s) set out to bomb the marshalling yards at Rouen, France. Enemy ME-109s came out of the sun's glare and met head-on with the B-24s. Witnesses say, "at least 30 enemy fighters jumped them." Miss Dianne was mortally wounded, catching fire. Several crewmen died instantly. Ken helped 3 of his crewmen (Iris Wyer, Deane Devars, and Lt. Gross) put on their parachutes and pushed them out of the crippled plane. As he was parachuting down, he saw another chute not far from him -- all the while being shot at. Ken didn't know that he had been injured until much later.

As he landed, German soldiers surrounded him and he heard someone call his name. Ken elbowed his way through the soldiers and saw that it was Lt. Gross calling for him. The Lieutenant was fatally injured, his body nearly shot in half. He requested that Ken take his watch and "give it to my mother, and tell her I love her." Before the exchange could be made, the watch was snatched away by a German soldier. The Lieutenant died in the arms of a 20-year-old.

Ken was marched to a barn to await transport, and it was there that Ken was able to examine his own wounds -- finding that his face, neck and upper chest had been burned when the oxygen mask had caught fire. He also had flak wounds on the nape of his neck and legs. After a long wait, he was taken to a hospital, manned by French doctors, and were supervised by German ones. The French doctor that treated Ken whispered to him, "Watch your boots!" The doctor was quickly admonished by one of the Germans with a harsh, "No talking!"

An unknown salve was administered to Ken's painful burns and the worst of the flak wounds were treated, with the minor ones left alone. Ken was then escorted to a train depot, surrounded by 4-6 guards. From there he was taken to an interrogation center, and held in isolation for 10 days where he underwent grueling interrogations. One particular day, Ken was slow in giving his name, rank and serial number and the guard stuck his face just inches from Ken's. Ken spat in the guard's face, and promptly found himself sprawled on the floor, having been hit in the jaw with the guard's rifle butt.

Ken soon found out how vast and mighty the German spy rings were -- they had Ken's complete 201 (Personnel) File: his family history, hometown, church, school, former occupation, his mother's maiden name, his brothers and sister, etc. The questions put to him were for verification purposes only, except for wanting to know the movement of troops, targets, etc.

He was told by his captors, "You are a traitor to the Vaterland! Sign the papers and you will see your family again. You will be given special privileges. You will be given fresh clothing and you'll be able to get your mail." Ken politely told his interrogators where they could go.

After his stay in the Interrogation Camp, Ken was taken by train to Stalag VII-A in Moosburg, Germany and there he met other Americans, some of whom he remained friends with for the rest of his life. In September of 1943, Ken was transported to yet another POW camp, this time to Krems, Austria to Stalag XVII-B.

It was at Stalag XVII-B that Ken found his 2 missing crewmembers: Sgts. Wyer and Devars. As they had been assigned to different barracks within the prison camp, it was difficult to visit with them, so communication between the 3 men was sporadic at best. Ken was assigned to Barracks 38B upon arrival, but was moved to Barracks 15A, known as "The White House" as it housed the Man of Confidence, T/Sgt. Kenneth Kurtenbach and his staff of interpreters, typist, etc.

Life was hard for the POWs and boredom was their worst enemy. They did have a library of sorts, a class for math, English, and physical training. There was even a rag-tag orchestra of POW musicians who were forced to perform for the Germans' enjoyment. Food was very poor and scarce, even at this early stage. It was a treat to receive the acorn coffee, a thin soup, a small turnip (if they were lucky), and a small chunk of hard black bread once or twice a day. The POWs learned quickly to share the Red Cross packages with one another to get them through the days when there wasn't any food coming from their captors.

The prisoners heard about D-Day (6 June 1944) on their homemade radio sets that were kept hidden in cleverly designed places. Nearly all the POWs in the American section of the camp were flyers and they couldn't help but notice the escalated activity in the skies. Some planes flew close enough that the POWs could see the pilots, who would wigwag their wings in salute. The POWs would often get into arguments as to "what plane was that?" and "when in the hell are we going to be liberated?"

In April 1945 with the Russian Army was advancing from the east and General George Patton’s Third Army was bulldozing its way west, 4200 American prisoners were being prepared to march out of Stalag XVII-B. Ken was among the first to leave, and he was wearing the same flight suit he'd been captured in plus his beloved boots. He had his thin blanket and a few other treasures (one of which was a tin cup made from a can). The POWs were marched through the Alps in good weather, bad weather, cold, wet or both. Their trek was long and meandering as they circled one mountain completely, with the end of their journey taking them over 250 miles to Hitler's birthplace: Brannau Woods.

As food had become non-existent, the POWs scrounged the area for anything that might be remotely edible. Ken didn't go into great detail as to what they existed on, except that he did say field grasses and tree bark didn't taste all that bad and was definitely better than a soup made out of some type of rodent.

Finally, on 2 May 1945 a jeep carrying an U.S. Army Captain and Corporal drove into Camp. The Captain stood up and barked out the words that all the POWs thought they’d never hear: "YOU ARE HEREBY LIBERATED!" Those precious words didn't even have a chance to sink in as the Captain added in the same tone of voice, "Consider your selves on active duty!" It took several days to round up transportation for all of the prisoners to even get to an airfield, where they were put aboard a place and shipped to Camp Lucky Strike in France. There, the men were de-loused, able to take showers, shave, given physicals, and lightly de-briefed and were told by one doctor: "Ok… so you were a POW… So what? Forget it!"

The Army Mess did its best to help the ex-POWs learn to eat again. They were fed creamed chicken, boiled chicken, and chicken a-la-king and coddled chicken eggs. Even with the meals being so bland, many of the former prisoners over-ate and became violently ill, so they had to begin again with little or nothing to eat.

The latest rumors during this time was that the newly-liberated men were going to be sent to the Pacific as the war was not going well in that part of the world. The ex-POWs were given small partial payments so they would have a bit of spending money while still in France. In June of 1945 Ken went aboard a Liberty ship named Marine Robin², a far cry from the luxury of the Queen Mary a little over 2 years prior. Ken described the experience: "We were literally hanging from the masts!"

After a brief convalescent leave at his mother's in Curwensville, Pennsylvania Ken reported to his assigned station Camp Shanks and was sent to Miami, Florida. He stayed at one of the 3 hotels that had been taken over by the Army for POWs. In August of 1945 Ken helped celebrate the end of World War II with a blind date, who was actually blind and in Ken's words, "She was more fun than anyone would ever imagine!"

After a very brief sojourn in civilian life, Ken rejoined the U.S. Army Air Force in January 1946 and was sent to Lowery Field, Colorado. He immediately got in touch with a fellow ex-POW, Charles (Chuck) Roth of Broomfield, Colorado. While stationed there, Ken and Chuck became charter members of the newly-formed American Legion Post in Denver, so many a "Happy Hour" was spent at that bar recalling and reliving and trying to heal the wounds of their months of hell at Stalag XVII-B.

In much later years, Ken tried in vain to find Iris Wyer, Jr. from West Virginia but to no avail. Ken had bad news concerning Deane Devars from Nebraska, but did not go into detail. So the 2 young men he helped get out of the Miss Dianne were lost to him forever. Of the 3 survivors, my husband, Kenneth L. Erhard, was the last to succumb -- he died peacefully in his sleep in the morning of 21 Sep 1994. His ashes were interred in Arlington National Cemetery on 26 Oct 1994 across from the Pentagon and where airplanes (which he admired all his life) give him a fly-by every few minutes of every day.

It wasn't until a year or so after Ken's death I received word that the school children of France and the Netherlands are being taught World War II history by veterans of various countries. The veterans are highly feted by the children - almost to the point of reverence. The French government erected a marble memorial at the site where the Miss Dianne went down, in honor of the Americans who gave so much in the name of Freedom. Each crew member's name is engraved upon the memorial and is marked either "Killed In Action" (KIA) or "Prisoner of War" (POW), including that of my husband, Kenneth L. Erhard -- POW.

I sincerely hope this will help Ken's friends and family understand why Ken was the way he was, as well as clear up any misunderstandings and help the world understand why the atrocities that occurred during World War II must never be allowed to happen again.