By Amaani Lyle
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 30, 2014 – Eight U.S. Army Air Force
Airmen who were interned at Wauwillermoos, Switzerland seven decades ago were
finally honored with the Prisoner of War Medal today.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III presented
the awards to seven surviving men who in 1943-44 were “barely old enough to
grow facial hair,” Welsh said, while flying bombing missions into the heart of
Nazi Germany, fully aware of the fear and peril awaiting them, when they were
shot down over Switzerland.
“During that time period, for these men and their bomber
crewmates, the chance of surviving a combat tour without being shot down,
captured or killed, was about 25 percent – a one in four chance of survival,”
Welsh noted. Aircraft loss rates of 30-50 percent he said, were not uncommon on
missions against the most well-defended targets.
“It’s the kind of courage we read about in books, that
people make movies about and that these humble, grateful survivors praise on
their fallen comrades but rarely seem to recognize in themselves,” Welsh said.
“But make no mistake about it – these men have that kind of courage.”
But the courage of these eight men, Welsh recounted, wasn’t
limited to the skies over Western Europe. “Each of them has a story about a
mission that didn’t go well, about a day when he and his crew were the ones who
didn’t return, about a day when his aircraft was either shot down or damaged so
badly that they had to crash land in Switzerland.”
Today’s ceremony came about as the result of nearly 15 years
of effort by U.S. Army Maj. Dwight S. Mears, an Iraq war veteran and an
assistant professor of history at West Point, to learn more about his late
grandfather, Army Air Force Lt. George W. Mears who was captured after his B-17
Superball was shot down in 1944.
“My grandfather was wounded, his controls were shot away and
he lost two engines, but he managed to fly the crippled bomber to Zurich, where
the entire crew was interned,” Mears wrote.
Because Switzerland was neutral during the war, the
Americans were not allowed to leave the country but many, including the eight
survivors wanted to get back into the fight or return home, Welsh explained.
“For those who tried to escape and were caught, the punishment was severe.”
They were captured and interned with the very basest
criminals in Swiss society, Welsh said. “They slept on lice-infested straw,
sewage and waste overflowed in many of the common areas; many prisoners became
very sick and there was no medical treatment available.”
There was, however, solitary confinement, starvation and
mental terror, the general added. And after the war, many of the survivors
carried the secrets of the horrors they endured.
Switzerland’s neutrality rendered internees ineligible for
the POW medal because existing law required captivity by a belligerent in a
declared conflict, or alternately captivity by “foreign armed forces hostile to
the United States,” Mears wrote.
Congress passed an amendment to the FY2013 defense bill that
allowed the Wauwilermoos airmen to be considered for the medal. The Air Force
agreed that these airmen deserved recognition for their sacrifices while trying
to reach Allied lines in France.
“They served each other and our country proudly; they saved
a world and they inspired a nation,” Welsh said.
Award recipients were:
Retired Lt. Col. James I. Misuraca
Retired Maj. James V. Moran
1st Lt. Paul J. Gambaiana
1st Lt. James F. Mahon
Tech. Sgt. Alva H. Moss
Staff Sgt. John M. Fox
Sergeant William G. Blackburn
Sergeant George E. Thursby
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