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June 14, 1945
HARTINGTON— “The most wonderful thing I have ever seen was when the Stars and Stripes went up over Moosberg, Germany.”
That is the way Lt. Gerald Kathol, son of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Kathol of Hartington, described his release from the German prison camp April 29.
Lt. Kathol, a Flying Fortress pilot, returned home Monday on a 60-day leave. He looks much the same as he did when he was playing end for the Nebraska University football team in 1940-41-42, and has regained most of the sixty pounds he lost while in German prison camps.
A prisoner for seven months, Lt. Kathol was shot down over central Germany last September 27 on his second mission. His Fortress was almost blown to pieces when 200 German fighter planes jumped a group of American bombers.
Five of Lt. Kathol’s crew of nine were killed. A large caliber shell exploded in the midsection of the bomber and one shell struck it; three engines immediately burst into flames and the engines fell off. The lieutenant said his life was saved by the armor around the pilot’s compartment. He received a slight flak wound on the forehead and was slightly burned before he was able to get away from the stricken bomber.
Lt. Kathol said his plane was flying at about 23,000 feet when it was attacked. He himself bailed out at about 21,000 feet.
“I was so anxious to see if my parachute worked that I pulled the rip cord a little too soon and nearly passed out because of the lack of oxygen,” he recalled. “It seemed ages while I floated down to earth.”
Lt. Kathol got a birdseye view of the battle between the fighters and bombers as he floated down. He saw many planes catch fire, explode and plummet to earth.
He landed in a field with such force his hips were spread and his groin muscles torn loose.
About 30 German civilians immediately surrounded Lt. Kathol and one old man drew a gun and threatened to shoot him. Another struck him with a stick.
“I didn’t even feel it and it didn’t bother me a bit because I was so mighty glad to be on the ground alive,” he said.
Lt. Kathol said he was taken to a nearby town and then loaded into a truck with the dead and the dying. They traveled in the truck for six hours before reaching their destination. He was then sent to a prison camp hospital where he was treated by English doctors for six months.
Lt. Kathol was in three different prison camps. When he landed in Germany he weighed 190 pounds. His weight dropped to 148 pounds, but before he was liberated he had gained at another camp and weighed about 170 pounds when he was released.
The Hartington pilot was among the American prisoners who were forced to march about 75 miles through zero and below zero weather when they were transferred from one camp to another. He said many of the prisoners suffered extremely. Many died and those who reached their destination were semi-conscious from the cold.
