World War II Veteran Ray Maloney was a P-47 pilot who was shot down over enemy territory and was taken to the Prisoner Of War Camp “Stalag Luft III”, in Zagan, Poland, which was run by the Luftwaffe. This was the same camp which served as the inspiration for the movie “The Great Escape”.
What was life like in that POW camp on a day to day basis? what kinds of things did you doto pass the time? and what kinda kept you going?
Well, first of all there was a mention when we started talking Paul being a prisoner war is a degrading, humiliating, kind of experience and its not something that I am proud of it didn’t take any skill or specialty to get captured and because I didn’t finish my tour and a lot of my friends did and a lot of my friends were killed.
I always felt guilty about then, and I could tell by talking to other people in the camp they had the same feeling that its a terrible guilt feeling that you are not helping at this point even though your instructions are when your captured you are still military, you are still US army and your responsibility is do what you can to confuse, confound, and aggravate the enemy as much as you can.
