News

WW II POWs visit Academy

  • Published
  • By Amber Baillie
  • Academy Public Affairs
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  As retired Maj. Edward Horn passed through the McDermott Library here this week during a World War II prisoners of war reunion, he stopped to shake cadets' hands because, as he said, "they are the future."

Over a dozen POWs held at Stalag Luft III, a camp in Sagan (now Zagan), Poland, that housed captured Airmen from 1942-1945, visited the Academy with their families Aug. 28 and viewed manuscripts of former Stalag Luft III POWs, assembled with the help of Brig. Gen. A.P. Clark, former Academy superintendent and Stalag Luft III POW, and attended a history discussion.

"There were 10,000 people in this camp," Horn said. "There were about 8,500 Americans. Now for this reunion, there are only 15 of us."

Stalag Luft III was one of six camps operated by the Luftwaffe, the aerial warfare branch of the German armed forces, during WWII.

Horn, a resident of West Palm Beach, Fla., spent 11 months as a POW and was freed in 1945. He said he shares his POW experience with high school and college students to provide a first-hand account of life and liberation at Stalag Luft III.

"We are in our 90s and will be gone soon," he said. "I was liberated by Gen. George Patton's Third Army. Then I signed up for the Air Force Reserve, went to college and became an aeronautical engineer. I spent 30 years at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, (Ohio), as an engineer."

Ninety-three- year-old retired Lt. Col. Alexander Jefferson, also a Stalag Luft III POW and Tuskegee Airmen, was assigned to the 332nd Fighter Group during World War WII.
"I'm a survivor," he said. "What I remember most about liberation day was the exuberance. "God, it was fantastic."

The POWs also attended a discussion on joint bomber operations during World War II hosted by the Academy's History Department. This lecture is also given to cadets in History 100, a core course here.

"One of the objectives of the class is to get these cadets to think critically," said Lt. Col. Nathan Watanabe, course director of History 368-World War II. "We want thinking, fighting leaders in our Air Force."

According to Dr. Mary Elizabeth Ruwell, the chief of Special Collections here, Clark donated his private collections to the Academy. She said about 120 other collections have been received here, all dealing with the POW experience in WW II.

"The POWs, their sons, daughters and other family members, came to see the manuscripts and listen to a history department lecture that talked about the impact of aerial bombing during WWII," she said. "For some, especially children of POWs, it was very emotional as they saw drawings, scrapbooks and documents that their parents had created in the 1940's but had never discussed."

Jefferson wrote a book on his experiences titled, "Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman and POW."

Stalag Luft III is best known for its two prisoner escapes orchestrated through tunneling, inspiring the films "The Great Escape" (1963) and "The Wooden Horse" (1950).