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Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 1
Thomas D. Gilbert
645 Francis Avenue
Loves Park, IL 61111
Transcribed by Elaine Carlson
Midway Village & Museum Center
6799 Guilford Road
Rockford, Illinois 61107
Phone 397 9112
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 2
Thomas D. Gilbert
___________3, [1994]. My name is Charles Nelson.
I am a volunteer with the Midway Village & Museum
Center which is cooperating in a state-wide effort to
collect oral histories from Illinois citizens that
participated in events surrounding World War II. We
are in the home of Tom Gilbert whose address is. . .
NELSON: Okay. Any special details about your
family or any special event that you would like to tell
about your family? Did they come over—Did your
parents came over from the old country?
GILBERT: My mother came over from the old
country when she was about 18.
GILBERT: 645 Francis Avenue.
NELSON: Which country.
NELSON: 645 Francis Avenue.
GILBERT: Loves Park.
NELSON: Loves Park. Okay. Mr. Gilbert is an
ex-prisoner of war in World War II. We are going to
interview him about his experiences of about 50
years ago. Can I call you Tom?
GILBERT: Mmhm.
NELSON: Okay. Let’s start out with your full name.
GILBERT: Thomas D. Gilbert.
NELSON: D?
GILBERT: Cork, Ireland. She came over and she
was still
NELSON: She met your Dad over here?
GILBERT: Yes. She had the brogue all her life.
NELSON: Okay. What was your life like just before
the war?
GILBERT: It was good. I was talking about getting
married. Going steady and then the war broke out so I
postponed that a little bit and after I went into the
service, I married my wife prior to going overseas
which was only a matter of a week.
GILBERT: D as in dog.
NELSON: Where were you born?
NELSON: Back up a little bit. Did you graduate high
school?
GILBERT: I was born here in Rockford, Illinois.
GILBERT: Yes, St. Thomas High School.
NELSON: What date?
NELSON: And what year?
GILBERT: January 19, 1921.
GILBERT: ’39.
NELSON: Can you give us your parents’ names?
Particularly your mother’s maiden name?
NELSON: Did you have a job before the war?
GILBERT: My father’s name was Louis R. Gilbert
and my mother’s name was Catherine Quirk, her
maiden name.
NELSON: Did you have any brothers or sisters?
GILBERT: I had 3 brothers and 1 sister.
NELSON: And their names?
GILBERT: The oldest was Charlie Gilbert, Louie
Gilbert and Eddie Gilbert. And then I had a sister
Aileen Gilbert.
GILBERT: Yes. I was working as a printer with
Wilson-Hall Printing Company.
NELSON: What thoughts did you have just before
the war? Did you remember news items about Hitler
and what was going on over in Europe? Do you
remember that?
GILBERT: Not too much because it didn’t seem like
there would be a war coming. My wife and I, sitting
in the theater—the lights went out and they notified
us about Pearl Harbor.
NELSON: Oh, that’s where you were on Pearl
Harbor day?
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 3
GILBERT: That’s when we first started really being
worried about the war. And when it came to being
drafted, I was one of the first they took.
GILBERT: That’s in Texas. Just across the border
from Juarez and I went through my training there and
then I was sent to Tucson, Arizona.
NELSON: Was this your basic training?
NELSON: Okay. What was your reaction to Pearl
Harbor?
GILBERT: We thought it was terrible, the same as
everybody else. But not really realizing how bad it
was, but still thought it was a terrible thing to happen.
And I felt right away that I would be into it before
long.
NELSON: Your number was coming up, in other
words, for the draft? What events led up to your entry
into the military service? How were you drafted, or
when were you drafted?
GILBERT: I was drafted about August 15th or so
and then they gave me so many days. I went into the
service on September 1, 1942.
NELSON: How about your family? What did they
think about your going into the service?
GILBERT: I hated to go, of course, and everybody
hated to see me go but it was something I had to do.
NELSON: Couldn’t get out of it.
GILBERT: No, I didn’t try to get out of it. I knew it
was something I had to do.
NELSON: When you were drafted, where did you go
for the physical?
GILBERT: I went to Chicago for the physical and
then they sent me down to Camp Grant and gave me
examinations and physicals and everything there and
then they transferred me to Jefferson Barracks in St.
Louis. I was there only a short time and they moved
me over to Scott Field in Belleville, Illinois, and they
put me into radio school there.
NELSON: How old were you at this time?
GILBERT: At that time I was 21 years old. So they
put me into radio school and then moved me out of
there when I went through the full course. I was sent
down to [Biggs] Field for training.
GILBERT: This was my Air Force training. From
there they sent me to Florida, to Buckingham Field,
for gunnery training. I had my 6 or 7 weeks of
gunnery training, maybe 2 months. And from that
point they sent me to Tucson, Arizona, and there I
met the members of the crew. They put all the crew
together and we got all acquainted and started flying
together for practice missions and so forth.
NELSON: When you were drafted, how did you end
up in the Air Force?
GILBERT: Well, after taking all the examinations
they said that was where they would place me.
NELSON: Okay. You didn’t volunteer?
GILBERT: No, I didn’t volunteer. I could have been
in the Infantry or anywhere, but that’s where
NELSON: They didn’t give you a choice.
GILBERT: No they didn’t give me a choice.
NELSON: What were you trained to do?
GILBERT: But that not given a choice, but that’s
still where I would still have wanted to be, in the Air
Corp. Everybody wanted to get in the Air Force.
NELSON: What were you trained to do?
GILBERT: Radio operator.
NELSON: Can you tell us something about your
training?
GILBERT: Well, we had to go to class and learn
everything about the radio, Morse code, and all the
different types of equipment we would have to use on
the plane. And we went through about 6 to 8 week
course in that. And then we had to go from there into
a training period where we flew on the airplane and
made all the different communications with the
ground and other airplanes and so forth so we would
be prepared to go into battle.
NELSON: Where is that at?
NELSON: Was there a unit designation in your
training.
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 4
GILBERT: Not a unit. No.
NELSON: Just training? Did you enjoy this training?
Did you think it was adequate?
GILBERT: I enjoyed it, yes. I think they gave us
plenty of education. They gave us plenty of time to
learn. Our training period was pretty short. In fact we
were used as an emergency crew to go overseas
immediately to fill in for a mission over there that
was going to take place August 1st at the Ploesti
airfield.
NELSON: That was ’42?
GILBERT: ’43. August 1st, 1943. It made me leave
quicker. I was actually on my honeymoon at the time
and they came right into the hotel with the MPs and
said I had to go immediately back to camp. They took
me back to camp and told me I was going to leave for
overseas, but not where. I had to go back and get my
wife and put her on a train and send her home and
then I came back with the MPs and they put me on a
plane. They outfitted me for real cold weather, heavy
underwear, heavy clothing.
NELSON: This was in Arizona?
GILBERT: This was in Lincoln, Nebraska, where
we got together for moving out. So we figured we
were going to Alaska or somewhere and we got on
the train and started going East and we went to Maine
and then across to Scotland and they
GILBERT: By ship or by plane?
GILBERT: By plane. They took all our clothing
from us and gave us summer clothing. Then I went to
Africa. They moved me back to London, back to
Africa, back to London and then back to Africa and
then I got to the air base just in time when they called
for—they were going to Polaski [Ploesti] the next
day.
NELSON: What unit was this?
GILBERT: I was in the 93rd Bomb Group. It was
called Feds Flying Circus. It usually started as a
group of 6 performers and they would put an end
toTed Timberlake was the commander. He later
headed the Veterans Administration. He headed the
VA for maybe 10 years—15 years maybe. So the
flight was ready to take off and all of a sudden they
called for Sergeant Gilbert. I went to the headquarters
and they said I was going to fly on that mission with
another group. Somebody on the crew that I was
replacing refused to fly.
NELSON: This was in Africa?
GILBERT: This was in Africa. Libya. Benghazi,
Libya.
NELSON: This was your first mission?
GILBERT: That was my first mission. The toughest
worst mission I ever made and it was a mission
where we took 174 airplanes over 1200 miles in and
1200 miles back and we lost over half of them.
NELSON: Do you remember the date?
GILBERT: August 1st, 1943. We got up at 3 o’clock
in the morning and we took off from Africa and
bombed the target.
NELSON: Were these B24s?
GILBERT: B24 heavy bombers. My airplane hit one
of the cables of the balloons—that held the
balloons—we were flying only 20 feet off the
ground.
NELSON: Were these barrage balloon?
GILBERT: My plane was flying about 20 feet off
the ground.
NELSON: How about anti-aircraft?
GILBERT: There was still anti-aircraft, but we were
too low. They were shooting at us with every kind of
gun you can think of from the ground. We were right
on the ground and stayed there until we left the
target. Then after bombing the entire oil fields we
headed right straight back individually. We never
went with the group. We all took off by ourselves and
headed back. On my airplane we had about 3 dead
and we had to throw out equipment to make the plane
lighter because we didn’t have enough fuel to get all
the way back.
NELSON: Did you prepare to bail out?
GILBERT: No. I didn’t even carry a parachute.
They didn’t want to carry the weight. So we were
flying just off the ground all the way back so the
fighters that were coming at us couldn’t go under us
and shoot. We had over 250 bullet holes in the
airplane so you can imagine how we were shot at.
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 5
But we did make it back. We hit our airfield and we
just ran out of fuel as we hit the field. I was injured. I
was shot in the left leg and back and so forth.
NELSON: At that time.
GILBERT: Yes, at that time. So they took me in to
the hospital right away and cut all the flack out of me
and sent me back to my
NELSON: How long were you in the hospital?
GILBERT: I was in the hospital and had the flack
cut out about 2 hours.
NELSON: And then they sent you back where?
GILBERT: Well, we were coming in at different
times. So, as one group went through and dropped
everything, another group came through in the same
area as the bombs were blowing up and they were
only 50-60 feet off the ground, so they got the brunt
of it.
NELSON: So you lost that one?
GILBERT: We lost a lot that way. My group, even
though we were one of the first groups through, we
lost our lead plane with our Commander, Colonel
Baker. He got a Congressional Medal of Honor. And
we also lost, oh maybe, ¾ of our group. We went out
with about 26 airplanes and probably lost 20 or them.
And that was 10 men aboard each plane.
NELSON: Did the Russians attack this field, too?
GILBERT: To my group. But I still had a lot of
flack in me, because it was coming out for years. The
wounds were all flack wounds, not bullet wounds.
But I was just full of it. When I took my boot off, I
turned it upside down and blood poured out like
you’d pour it out of a bucket. We were in the air for
1200 miles and that was bleeding all that time.
NELSON: How about the rest of them? You said
there were 3 dead.
GILBERT: The pilot made it back and the co-pilot. I
was in the back of the plane where we had all the
damage. The whole airplane was shot up. When we
opened the doors to come out of the airplane, blood
just rolled out onto the ground. There was blood all
over.
NELSON: Can you remember the unit for the
record?
GILBERT: I was in the 330th Bomb Squadron of the
93rd Bomb Group. I was in the 2nd air wing.
NELSON: How do you think that raid performed?
And what were the results?
GILBERT: They told me it destroyed the oil wells.
We hit it perfectly as far as knocking out everything,
although there was an error by one group that went
in. One group went through and dropped bombs and
they went through another group’s area. We were set
up with 5 groups going through hitting 5 different
areas.
NELSON: Spread out?
GILBERT: Prior to us going over we were told at
our briefing that the Russians took a group of
airplanes over to bomb it and they lost all their
airplanes. In fact at our briefing, we were taken out in
an area away from the rest of the group—the 93rd
Bomb Group—for those that weren’t flying, so that
we were isolated from them, and they told us when
we go on this mission, Colonel Baker made the
statement that “we may lose every one of you”, he
said. He said, “This is actually—we may none of us
come back, but we’ll accomplish what will end the
war” and so it didn’t make you feel too good.
NELSON: That was my next question. How did you
feel about that?
GILBERT: He himself was killed in that raid and his
whole crew went down. In fact, his crew, as we were
going into the target, he was right in front of me and
he got hit and there was a building there—a big
munitions building and he steered his plain right into
the building and it exploded and took the whole thing
out. We were so low the guys couldn’t parachute out
of an airplane. And all the way back from there to
Libya, I could see these airplanes shot down one at a
time. They were all [trying], burning. I must have
seen two of them hit the ground and blow up and they
were all spread out all over.
NELSON: Did you see anybody bail out?
GILBERT: Nobody could bail out. I have seen guys
bail out and hit the ground. Parachutes wouldn’t
open. When you’re that low you couldn’t bail out. In
our airplane, we didn’t even carry parachutes. So it
wouldn’t do any good to bail out anyway, but there
were some planes that did.
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 6
NELSON: After you got back and your leg patched
up, did you ever think you ever wanted to go back?
GILBERT: Yeah, we were going into the target and
got hit by a rocket and knocked an engine out.
NELSON: Do you remember what date it was?
GILBERT: No and that scared the heck out of me. I
was scared to death.
NELSON: Now after you got patched up and got
back to your unit, how soon was it that you went out
on another one.
GILBERT: We went out 8 days later.
NELSON: In the same area?
GILBERT: No, we bombed a field in Bari, Italy. We
hit And 15 days later we were supposed to hit
[Tojo] Italy and on the way to it, we got hit and so we
had to abort and as we were aborting we dropped all
our bombs into the sea. But we went down and we
landed in a Sicilian air field and it was for fighter
planes and a B24—it didn’t seem possible we could
land on it—but we did and we were all bogged down
in the sand and everything. So the war was—the
Americans were coming in and the Germans were
leaving right where we landed. So we left our plane
and got into the fields and hid. Destroyed our bomb
sights and everything. The next day the Americans
were already in, so we went back to the camp where
the plane was. We had the engines repaired. This was
an army group and they put big trucks on our wheels
and pulled us out of the sand and then we lined up
and they were betting we would never make it out of
the field. It was impossible they thought, but we did.
We just barely made it out and got back to our base
the next day. So they were getting ready to send back
that we were missing in action. So we were only
about 2 days before we got back to our base in Libya.
NELSON: How many missions did you fly in all?
GILBERT: Well, actually just the 4.
NELSON: One to Romania, one to 2 to Italy ?
GILBERT: There was one to Tolesti, one to Bari,
another one to [Tojo] and one to England. We were
bombing an airfield and then we were shot down.
After the [Tojo] mission, we were all moved to
England and I flew out of England, one mission,
which made 5 missions. Made one mission and then
we came back and then I made another mission and
got shot down.
NELSON: Your last one, hmm?
GILBERT: It was September 15, 1943 at 8:30 in the
evening.
NELSON: No doubt of it.
GILBERT: What happened was. It was a very
strange thing. Prior to that the Germans used to
capture American B24s, put their own crews in them
and then go into a group and after they got in the
group, shoot the group up. And that happened a few
times. So after we got hit, we were on fire in one
engine. At that time, the bombardier and the
navigator bailed out. We made a turn
NELSON: Were they supposed to bail out?
GILBERT: Yeah, we were on fire. We were going
to go down, the pilot was trying to we were
heading to the channel. You could see the channel
right in front of us. We were setting here and the
channel right here. Our group had hit the target and
were on our way back, but we started [folding] into
our group, which was a “no no.” You were absolutely
not supposed to do it. The pilot
NELSON: So you were on your own after that?
GILBERT: So when we were on fire and it was
8:30—it was dark, or getting dark. They saw us
coming in, so every airplane in our group opened fire
on us and they just shot the dickens out of us thinking
we were an enemy group. Planes coming in we
lost an engine so we didn’t drop our bombs, we had
to make a turn to go back. They went on through, hit
the target and they started back. They were traveling
faster than we were so as they came through here, we
tried to join them and they just shot There was no
way we could have gotten back. We would have went
down anyway, but that had to kill a lot of our guys.
NELSON: Did you have any radio communication
with them?
GILBERT: Yeah, but at the time we lost our
oxygen, we lost out radio
NELSON: This was high altitude flying?
GILBERT: Mmhm, we were at 18,000 feet and they
sent one man back to tell us we had to get on oxygen
bottles because our oxygen was knocked out. We
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 7
didn’t know it but you don’t act correct then. So he
didn’t get a chance to tell us until we noticed the bell
went off to tell us to bail out. Well, where we go out,
there’s a door about so big that we keep the gun in,
the radio operator sometimes they go back and use
that gun. Well, the airplane was solid fire. It was on
fire from the front. It was like a blow torch, so I went
back to grab the gun, to take the gun out of the hatch,
so we could lift the hatch up so we could jump out.
Well, what happened is, I had burnt my hands clear
off. In fact from there on down
NELSON: From right above your wrist?
GILBERT: From here on down. It just sizzled when
I grabbed the gun. The gun was red hot. So, anyway,
one of the guys ran to the window and dropped. His
name was Howells. He lives in Florida now.
NELSON: Dropped out?
GILBERT: Dropped on the ground. He couldn’t
quite make the window. So I picked him up and
threw him out the window. Then I got ready to jump
out the window just as the airplane blew up. I was
really half way out the window when the airplane
blew up.
NELSON: So that kind of helped you.
GILBERT: Yeah. We had 6000 pounds of bombs
aboard. They were incendiary bombs.
NELSON: So you were actually blown out of the
plane?
GILBERT: Yeah. I was blown out of the plane.
NELSON: You were knocked unconscious?
GILBERT: I hit something that broke my left leg. I
don’t know if that was when it happened or not. I hit
the ground. But I threw the parachute on one side. I
only had it hooked on one side. You’re supposed to
hook it here and here and it open up from the front.
Well, I hooked it on this side. There was just one
buckle holding it but I went out the airplane and on
the way down there were so many fighters and they
kept firing at me, so then I lay limp in the parachute
so I looked dead. My parachute was on fire. It was
simmering you know. I was going down awfully fast
so when I hit the ground that was probably when I
broke my leg, my foot. So then with my I
managed to cover up the parachute and I started
walking.
NELSON: Did you know where you were?
GILBERT: I was in [Evette] France. And a guy
came out of a farm and asked me something and I
said, “I’m Americanish”. So he took me to a—I was
walking on my broken foot.
NELSON: Was this a Frenchman?
GILBERT: A Frenchman. So he took me down the
street to a house where 2 old ladies were in there and
he told them that I was an American. They prayed
over me and threw holy water and everything on me,
but I didn’t know much that was going on because I
was shot in the back and I had a couple other
wounds. In my head—I had one here.
NELSON: Right beside your forehead?
GILBERT: Can you see it?
NELSON: Oh, yeah.
GILBERT: And I had 2 hip long fragments
NELSON: On your right side.
GILBERT: But they were shells. They were
shooting at me from the airplane. They hit me 3 or 4
times. They couldn’t talk English so they finally got a
little girl about 9 or 10 years old. She could talk
English. She came in. They had me in a rocking chair
all covered up. She said, “We have to turn you over
to the Germans, because you are going to die tonight
and they will bury you where your family can find
you.” That’s what she told me.
NELSON: A little girl.
GILBERT: About 9 or 10 years old. I can remember
that. Then the Germans came and I had a 45 in my
they grabbed that and they grabbed everything they
could on me and threw me into a truck.
NELSON: Back up a little bit. Any of the other crew
members?
GILBERT: I didn’t know what happened to them.
NELSON: Never met them on the ground or saw any
of them?
GILBERT: After they threw me in the truck they
took me down to an ambulance and in the ambulance
there were 3 other guys, now I knew one was
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 8
Howells, the guy I threw out. Everybody was
groaning and I didn’t know who the other 2 were. But
we were the only ones shot down that day so they had
to be my crew. So, then they took me into an
interrogation center and in the interrogation center
they asked me who I was and who my co-pilot was
and everything and they kept hitting my hands, you
know. They were slapping my hands because they
were hurting so bad, I’d pass out. I would come to
and pass out.
Tape 1 - Part 2
train depot. I was laying on the floor and I looked
up and people were walking by and guys were around
and I passed out again. The next thing they did, they
picked me up in a gunny sack, took me on a train and
threw me in a corner and I woke up and went out and
woke up and went out and the next thing I knew, I
was in a hospital and they put me in this ____?_____
Hospital in Paris, France, and that’s where I was for 4
months but also ended up in there, one of my crew
members, 2 of them were in there but I didn’t know
one of them was in there for about 3 months. The
first one I knew was in there after I had been there a
month.
NELSON: What was his name?
GILBERT: Walker was one, Joe Walker and the
other fellow was Clarence House. In there I was
totally blind. I couldn’t see. I was all shot up. My
face was slit all the way across came down and
took my nose half off I was torn apart. So they had
a surgeon from Vienna, Austria, who went through
that St. Louis Jesuit Hospital.
NELSON: Oh, here in the States?
GILBERT: They brought him out of Vienna and he
did the plastic surgery on me. My whole face was
rebuilt. My nose was completely rebuilt, but I was
unconscious most of the time but when I came to,
they put me in a bathroom with a tube of water. They
would soak me in it because I was burned all over
and they had sheets over the mirrors. Every time I
went in, they had sheets over the mirrors, but one
time I went in and the sheet fell down and I looked at
myself and I dang near died. I couldn’t believe it.
NELSON: Is that why they had the sheets?
GILBERT: Yeah, so then I—I had no idea what I
looked like.
NELSON: Your feeling after that changed?
GILBERT: So then—well, after I was in there about
3 months, I got gangrene in my hands. It’s all
gangrene—all back there. After 50 years it’s still bad.
They told me they were going to take me up to the
operating room and cut both hands off at this point.
NELSON: Right above the wrist?
GILBERT: Yeah, about 3 inches above the wrist. I
was ready for it.
NELSON: You were ready for it.
GILBERT: So they took me up and laid me on the
table, started running around the table getting ready.
All of a sudden a voice came over—bomb nearby.
NELSON: This was in Paris?
GILBERT: American Air Force.
NELSON: This was in Paris?
GILBERT: Yes, in Paris. And geez I tell you.
Buildings wereglass was broken out of the
windows, tables were moved around and they started
cussing at me and said they were going to work on
their own people first and they took me back down to
the room. Well, when I was in the room, there was an
old (I thought she was old at the time) nun and she
came over and she brought over a pan of water and it
was yellow with herbs, like tin, and she would take
my hands, and she kept this up for 2 days and then
about 4 days later, the doctors came down again and
said they wanted to take my hands off. They looked
and said, “There’s no gangrene.” There wasn’t any.
They said they would watch it and that was the end of
it. From there on, nothing.
NELSON: Your hands recovered.
GILBERT: I am really so fortunate that that air force
hit nearby.
NELSON: Do you remember the name of the nun or
any of the people
GILBERT: No, I don’t remember. She was real
good to us, but guards had to come into the room
when she came in. I was on the 8th floor of the
hospital and each room had bars on the steel doors
and a guard would stand outside of the door looking
in through the opening. He was always there. And
when someone came in to work on us, they would
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 9
come in with them, so we were never able to talk to
each other and so when they would take us to the
bathroom or something, they would stay right with
you and bring you back.
NELSON: Did you know any of the other members
were there in the hospital?
GILBERT: Shortly, I knew House was there, but I
didn’t know Walker was there until a couple or 3
months later, and I never did get to see him, but I
knew he was there.
GILBERT: Other fliers. Those who were shot down
and the people just hung them by their feet, or
testicles and I had to see that. And there were 4
guards on us and they marched us on through—so
when we were on the airplane, when we had to go to
the toilet, we did it right there—but they took us to
where there 10 stalls and the maintenance man would
open the door and a person would walk in and do
what they had to do and they would walk out and the
next person would go in, but when they put us in
there, they left the doors open and it was terrible.
NELSON: They had to keep track of you.
NELSON: You were there 4 months you said.
GILBERT: I was actually shot down September
15th. They took me in there about the 17th maybe and
December 20th they moved me out of there.
NELSON: That was in ’43?
GILBERT: Mmhm, ’43. They moved me out of
there and Walker. The other guy was still there. They
took us down to the train depot in Paris and I was still
so weak and bleeding. I was still bleeding from my
hands, bleeding from my head.
NELSON: They didn’t make you walk, did they?
GILBERT: Yeah. They had 4 guards on us—2 of us.
When we got to the train and all of a sudden, the
commander in the train came running up to us.
Hoffman, a captain, and he took a swing and knocked
us both down and stomped on us and kicked us. The
4 guards just standing there watching. He kicked us,
he half killed us.
GILBERT: Yeah. So then they put us back on the
train to go again. Then they put us on another train
and took us to Frankfort on the train and they put us
into an interrogation center. Well, when I got in the
interrogation center, they put me down about 3
floors. Way down. They opened this door up and the
floor was all dirt with a stool in the corner. Couldn’t
see out and mice running all over the floor and I’m
bleeding like everything. So they throw me in this
corner and I’m setting there with my hands like this
and I hear a squeaking and the mice and everything,
all bloody. I just about went crazy. So then they took
me out of there and asked me who my co-pilot was
and I wouldn’t tell them nothing. So they took me
down to the room and put a chain around this wrist
and a chain around this wrist and put me over a hook.
NELSON: Put you over a hook?
GILBERT: Yeah, with my feet that far off the
ground.
NELSON: About a foot off the ground?
NELSON: Just because you were Americans.
GILBERT: Yeah. So the guards put us on the train
and he came walking down the aisle again after we
were in the train, cussing at us like everything and
one of the guards said, “You gotta kind of not feel
bad toward him because last night the American air
force bombed Hamburg and killed his whole family,
and he hates Americans like you wouldn’t.” So we
were really scared of him all the way and I thought he
was going to attack us any time. But they took us
from there through Hamburg and the train had to stop
and we had to get out and be marched through
Hamburg and in Hamburg you could see Americans
were hanging from telephone poles.
NELSON: Other fliers you mean?
GILBERT: Yeah and let me stay there, and I passed
out. And when they took me down, I just laid there. I
was in the most pain you can imagine. So I passed
out again and ended up in this darn cell again. So
they called me up to the major’s office about 5
times—Hoffman—and asked me who my co-pilot
was and I said I wouldn’t tell you so he went over
and said, “I’ll show you how smart you are.” He went
over to a book case where there were a bunch of
bound books. He pulled one out and said, “You were
in the 93rd bomb group. Your crew was this, you went
to school here, a whole history on us. Crews that
hadn’t even been shot down yet, they had the whole
history on them. So then he said they were going to
shoot me the next morning. They were right outside.
They were shooting somebody every morning. So
they took me out there and I was standing there and
they came up again and they said, “We are going to
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 10
tell you one more time. Who was your co-pilot?” I
said, “I’m not saying. Just shoot me.” I felt like
that barracks into a hospital barracks, so I was in the
hospital barracks the rest of the time.
NELSON: You were ready to get this over with.
NELSON: Was the hospital barracks in the same
location?
GILBERT: He marched me out of there and put me
on a street car. Took me to the end of town, put me
on a train and there I met with other American
prisoners and _____?_____.
NELSON: Did you ever wonder why they kept
asking who your co-pilot was?
GILBERT: I think what happened was I didn’t know
it at the time, I borrowed a parachute when I—It was
one of the officers who briefed us on everything and
they thought he was with us probably. I found that
out later. They just thought he was with us. So they
put me in a prison camp.
NELSON: Now where was that?
GILBERT: Austria, Stalag 17B.
NELSON: After they put you on a street car? They
shipped you
GILBERT: They put me on a train. I met these other
prisoners. Then we stopped and picked up a few
more prisoners and a few more. They put us in box
cars and when they took us into the camp, they
marched us all the way from _____?_____ Austria up
a winding road to where the prison camp was. It was
about 5 miles.
NELSON: Was it in the Alps, or not?
GILBERT: It was in Stalag 17, Austria. Right where
_____?_____ was. It was on a plateau. And then they
got us outside of the big door and they made us strip
and we could smell gas and we heard about it but we
didn’t know much about it but we figured we were
going into a gas chamber now, so they put us in the
door. Geez, I tell you, they run through a hot shower,
there were about 30 feet of showers into the other
side. Now, this was December 24. And then they
took and shaved our heads and gave us different
clothes and took us to our barracks where we were
assigned. And that was our first day in the prison
camp.
NELSON: The day before Christmas.
GILBERT: So, then I was so bad I couldn’t do
anything with my hands, so then they put me from
GILBERT: Oh yeah, it was a big barracks—16, 17,
18, 19, 20. Ours was instead of a bunch of people in
there, we had probably 40 on each side and the other
ones probably had a 100 and some.
NELSON: Being in the hospital barracks you had
more room.
GILBERT: Well, it was not much different except
that everybody in there had lost legs, or arms, or
broken backs, or broken pelvises. They couldn’t
move around. A lot of broken backs, a lot of broken
pelvises because when they jumped out of the
airplanes, if the straps were too tight they split ya
and we had a lot of broken pelvises. We had a lot of
them missing legs and I was burned and couldn’t
move my hands at all.
NELSON: How did you manage?
GILBERT: Well, usually I had somebody help me.
Help get my clothes on.
NELSON: Did you know any of the other prisoners
by name?
GILBERT: We get together every once in a while
yet.
NELSON: Could you name some of them for the
record?
GILBERT: Yeah. We had a Don Williams who lives
in Arizona now. He used to do the most for me.
Button on my pants, we didn’t have zippers then.
Carried the food and that. And later when I got better,
I had a guy with a broken back and I used to bring his
food to him. [Brass] soup it was mostly. There would
be a big vat about so big and we had tin cups or
whatever you could get. We’d get in line and dip that
out. You’d look into it and there’d be all kinds of
maggots swimming around in it so you’d almost have
to go in a dark corner because it was so full of
maggots.
NELSON: You didn’t want to see what you were
eating.
GILBERT: Once in a while they’d throw in a potato
in this big vat. Otherwise it was just hot water. Kind
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 11
of a [brass] soup. Once in a while there’d be a few
rutabagas. You didn’t find any because they were cut
up, but there were always the maggots.
NELSON: Did you have any bread?
GILBERT: Every day they’d give us a slice of black
bread. The bread that was partly sawdust, you know.
Every day we got a slice of that. And for breakfast,
we’d get a little water, and for supper a little soup
and you had to go to the faucet to get water, and you
only had so long.
GILBERT: That movie was made about the same
barracks I was in. That was made from that camp,
except the story was completely different. The
Germans shipped the spy out.
NELSON: So it actually happened?
GILBERT: Not exactly that way. They shipped him
out the last minute.
NELSON: To some other camp, I suppose.
NELSON: At a certain time I suppose?
GILBERT: Mmhm. Everybody would line up and
put their cup under it.
NELSON: How about the latrine?
GILBERT: We had latrines in front of each barracks
with about 4 holes. And then they had another
building with a bunch of them but there were rats in
the bottom and you were scared to sit on them
because there were rats all over the bottom.
NELSON: Did they allow you to go any time, or was
there a specified time?
GILBERT: You could go any time in your barracks
but you couldn’t leave your barracks. There were 4
stools in there but you couldn’t go outside of your
barracks to go to that one after certain times. And
then usually, if there was a big rainstorm or
something, they would have a roll call on us. We had
roll calls every morning and 2 or 3 times during the
day.
NELSON: Was that for checking for missing?
GILBERT: Yeah. And to agitate, and also for
checking your barracks while you were out there.
NELSON: Can you describe the physical layout of
the camp?
GILBERT: Well, probably to German areas,
because he was an American posing as an American,
but he was born in this country.
NELSON: He was a spy? How about receiving mail
or Red Cross parcels. Can you tell me about that?
GILBERT: I was in there one year. I got about 3
letters that were all marked up; blacked out, so you
couldn’t tell what was going on. One parcel post, but
that came after I left. I left word that anything that
came for me was given to this House, a guy in my
group and he said he got it and everything was
punched and he said you couldn’t eat nothing. They
had put a bayonet in it and mixed it all up. He said
they couldn’t get nothing out of it.
NELSON: So really the Red Cross didn’t
GILBERT: We got parcels, but we had to split it and
sometimes the Germans would bayonet everything so
you didn’t get—but everybody was skinny, but
everybody had a fat little belly. We were skinny, but
we had pot bellies.
NELSON: How about doctors?
GILBERT: We had one American doctor that
would—
NELSON: Was he a prisoner, too?
GILBERT: What I do remember was it was all
fenced in and a road down the middle and then we
had about 10 barracks on one side of the road and 10
barracks on the other side of the road. Then on this
side on one side we had [rushes] etc. But the fence
was a double fence between us and the barracks were
all set on down, all numbered 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 up to
39 or 40. So there were probably 30 barracks.
NELSON: You mentioned it started at 17. Did they
name a movie after that?
GILBERT: He was a prisoner, too. His name was
[Mangaster]. He handled everybody. And then we
had some volunteers that worked in hospitals that
helped out. But we didn’t get any equipment or
nothing. We didn’t get any tools or anything. For
instance, we had one guy have an appendicitis and it
was going to break and the Germans wouldn’t do
nothing so we had to lay him on the floor, hold him
down and one of the group cut it open with a pen
knife and took the appendix out and then sewed him
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 12
up with a needle and thread. And they didn’t have
anything to give him to put him out or nothing. They
just held him down. He came out of it all right.
NELSON: A couple of other questions here now.
How about laundry facilities?
GILBERT: No. None.
NELSON: There wasn’t any?
GILBERT: No.
NELSON: How about toilet paper?
GILBERT: We didn’t have toilet paper either but
one thing we did get through the Red Cross
was—they used to send cigarettes and we would
use the paper off of that and we would use anything
we could find, but there was no toilet paper.
NELSON: How many men died or were killed in the
camp?
GILBERT: Well, I think there were only a couple
who died in the camp.
NELSON: Were they too badly injured or sick?
GILBERT: They were sick. There was sickness. But
we had one guy when we were being released, come
back under repatriation. He was in the camp. He was
kind of crazy, you know. So he got out of the camp
and went through the gate, because we were going to
be sent back to the United States anyway. That’s
when we had our repatriation. The worst injured were
traded for Germans. Well, on the way out, the guard
yelled for him to stop and he just kept walking and
instead of going down to get him, they shot him. So
he was killed and we had a funeral for him there.
NELSON: Was he buried there?
GILBERT: Buried there, right there.
NELSON: In the camp?
GILBERT: Mmhm. I don’t know what they did with
the body later.
NELSON: Do you remember his name?
GILBERT: No, I don’t. I got pictures of it and
everything.
NELSON: How about clothing and blankets and so
forth.
GILBERT: Well, we shared a blanket. Of course
when I was in the hospital there I had a blanket
myself but the rest shared. For the mattresses, they’d
give you a gunny sack, a big one, a great big one,
then they would have a big pile of hay and you would
fill your own gunny sack _____?_____. And you’d
fill that up and sleep on that, but everybody had lice
and everything and then the beds were just 4 big
stakes with a floor and
NELSON: Double high?
GILBERT: Double high and there were 4 on top and
4 on the bottom. 2 and 2 and 2 and 2.
NELSON: How about clothing? Did they provide?
GILBERT: No. Clothing they gave us when we
went in, but the clothing we got when we left—we
couldn’t use
NELSON: Was that your own?
GILBERT: No. The clothing was what they
captured. And you might be wearing—I wore English
trousers and English shoes and I had an American
shirt and I had an Italian jacket. Everybody was that
way. Some had American stuff, some had this and
that. Some had leather jackets, some didn’t. Just
whatever they gave you from what they took off of
dead soldiers.
NELSON: How about recreation?
GILBERT: Well, behind our camp we had a big
track—one half mile, no not one half a mile, a quarter
of a mile maybe and all we did was walk around that.
NELSON: With guards watching?
GILBERT: Guards were in their towers. They didn’t
bother about us there because we were completely
surrounded by guard towers.
NELSON: That was the only athletic
GILBERT: Some of the guys tried to play baseball
or something, making a ball out of a cap. Not
baseball, but football. Fill a cap up
NELSON: Keep in shape?
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 13
GILBERT: Outside of that there was nothing to do.
dates. Really the only thing we had on those days was
special masses or something.
NELSON: Any book to read or anything like that?
Tape 2 - Part 1
GILBERT: They did give us some books. They had
kind of a library with some books, but not too many.
NELSON: How about religious services?
GILBERT: We had Father King. He was from Iowa.
And the Americans built kind of a chapel. And he’d
have Catholic services at certain time, then he’d have
Protestant, then he’d have Jewish. He’d handle it all.
NELSON: You had Jewish prisoners?
GILBERT: Yeah.
NELSON: Did the Germans treat them any
different?
GILBERT: Terrible. They always treated the Jewish
extremely bad. They treated those with a German
name real bad. Like I had one of my crew members, a
tail gunner, name was Walther, Joe Walther and they
made it Walter and that’s a strong German name and
boy! They actually treated them as traitors.
NELSON: Today is March 7, 1996. My name is
Charles Nelson. I am a volunteer with the Midway
Village in Rockford, Illinois. I am interviewing
Thomas Gilbert, 645 Francis Avenue in Loves Park,
Illinois. Mr. Gilbert is an ex-prisoner of war—World
War II. We are going to interview him about his
experiences of 53 years ago. Tom, would you please
start by introducing yourself to us?
GILBERT: My name is Thomas D. Gilbert of 645
Francis Avenue in Loves Park, Illinois. I have been a
resident of the Rockford area all my life.
NELSON: Okay. We would also like to have the
names of each of your parents.
GILBERT: My father was Lewis R. Gilbert. My
mother was Kathleen Quirk Gilbert.
NELSON: Did you have any brothers or sisters?
GILBERT: I have three brothers and one sister. Two
brothers have passed away and I have a brother still
alive and my sister, Aileen.
NELSON: Did you attend any religious services?
GILBERT: Oh yeah, I did every day.
NELSON: How about special holidays, like
Christmas? Not necessarily religious services, but
what did you do on the holidays—like the 4th of July
and Christmas.
GILBERT: Like Easter and all that, we tried to do
things, like at Christmas we put sticks up there and
with gauze, we made decorations.
NELSON: For a Christmas tree?
GILBERT: Yeah and things like that.
NELSON: But it was all things you found around
there, makeshift
GILBERT: Yeah.
NELSON: How about the 4th of July?
GILBERT: No. They would dispense with that.
Nothing. Really Easter went through. None of them
NELSON: Are there any other details about your
parents or your family that you would like to give at
this time?
GILBERT: Well, my parents were residents of the
city of Rockford. Dad was in business for many years
as a salesman selling auto supply parts. He had trucks
on the road delivering these parts in different areas
and he was a very successful salesman.
NELSON: I see. What was life like for you before
the war? Where were you and what were you doing?
In school, or at work?
GILBERT: Before the war, of course, I went
through high school at St. Thomas and then I took my
first job at Wilson-Hall Printing Company which I
was being used as a truck driver delivering different
printing materials and also ran a press for the printing
company.
NELSON: Do you remember about how much
money you made?
GILBERT: I made $27.00 a week.
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 14
NELSON: Okay. That was off the cuff. I was just
curious. What thoughts did you have about the war
before the United States became directly involved in
the conflict?
GILBERT: Well, I read all the articles, but I wasn’t
expecting us to get into it and I wasn’t really
concerned. I was more concerned with running
around with my wife at that time. I wasn’t engaged to
her yet but we were close boy and girl friend.
NELSON: Did you hear of the December 7, 1941,
radio announcement about the bombing of Pearl
Harbor by the Japanese? If so, where were you at the
time and what were you doing at the time? And what
was your reaction and response to those around you?
GILBERT: Well, at the time my wife and I and my
brother and his girlfriend went up to Janesville,
Wisconsin. We were watching a movie. They stopped
the movie all of a sudden and made the
announcement that Pearl Harbor had been bombed
and war had been declared. So it shocked everyone in
the theater. It shocked us all. We were dumb founded
to think that it wouldn’t be long before I would be
right in the service.
NELSON: Had you formed any prior opinion or
developed any feeling about what had been taking
place in Europe or Asia?
GILBERT: Just as a kid 19 or 20 years old would.
We weren’t too well informed.
NELSON: All right. Do you recall reading
newspaper accounts or seeing news reels of German
aggression in Europe?
GILBERT: I watched a lot of new reels, yeah, and
so forth. At that time the news was real good as far as
the theaters were concerned.
NELSON: I must apologize for the electrical fade
out at the beginning of this interview, so I will repeat
the first introduction portion of it. Today is May 7,
1996. My name is Charles Nelson. I am a volunteer
with the Midway Museum which is coordinating with
the state-wide effort to collect oral histories from
Illinois citizens who participated in the momentous
events surrounding World War II. We are at the
home of Tom Gilbert who lives at 645 Francis
Avenue, Loves Park, Illinois. Mr. Gilbert is an
ex-prisoner of war of World War II. We are going to
interview him about those experiences of 53 years
ago. Thank you.
GILBERT: We thought we would get near Lincoln,
Nebraska. That was where my base was and believe
it or not, I was planning on a two weeks furlough.
When I got there, I was there 2 days and they came
and told me that I had to immediately get back to
camp. They were going to ship me overseas, so my
wife was sent back to Rockford.
NELSON: A short honeymoon.
GILBERT: A short honeymoon. My wife was sent
home and I went on to England.
NELSON: What were you trained to do?
GILBERT: I was trained to be a radio operator on a
heavy bomber, a B24.
NELSON: And a gunner.
GILBERT: And a gunner.
NELSON: How did you react to this training?
GILBERT: I enjoyed the training. We had a good
training and I thought it was something I would like
to do.
NELSON: Did you have any knowledge of Hitler’s
speeches, ideas or actions?
NELSON: Did you have any special memories of
this time? Any special things?
GILBERT: I didn’t have too much, no.
GILBERT: I don’t remember. It was pretty much all
training. Getting prepared.
NELSON: What events led up to your entry into
military service?
GILBERT: Well, they had a draft. And when they
pulled the names out, I was one of the very first they
pulled, so
NELSON: Which theater of war did you serve and
how did you get there?
GILBERT: Well, I flew from Maine to England and
then I was sent from England to Scotland and we
weren’t quite assigned yet and when I got to Scotland
they decided to send us to Africa. So I went to
Benghazi, Africa, and the day I arrived to Benghazi
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 15
(add to page 5 of 1st interview) they put me as a
volunteer on the first mission which went to Trieste.
GILBERT: Well, I never saw the crew after that,
that I was with.
NELSON: That was your first mission?
NELSON: I mean going back while you were in the
airplane. Did they have to take care of you?
GILBERT: That was a tough mission.
NELSON: (Inaudible)
GILBERT: I was shot in the left leg up the side
of my leg and foot and back. I received the Purple
Heart for that and I received the Distinguished Flying
Cross.
NELSON: Do you recall what your emotions or
thoughts were at that time about being involved in
that mission?
GILBERT: My mind was on the mission.
Everything looked good until I saw the plane along
side of me drop into the sea and blow up. And we
were flying about 20 feet off the ground. We had to
go 1200 miles to the target and 1200 miles back. So
we were just over the tree tops all the way in and I
thought it all looked interesting and then I realized all
of a sudden, these guys were shooting at us. We went
into that target and all hell broke loose. It was the
worst experience I ever had in my life. I was hit
several times and we made the trip back and we were
throwing things into the sea so that we wouldn’t have
the weight on the airplane.
NELSON: Did you lose any engines?
GILBERT: We didn’t lose an engine, but we were
low on fuel. We were flying back all by ourselves.
We weren’t in a group coming back. Everybody flew
back by themselves and they were dropping into the
sea. But when we hit our base at Benghazi the one
engine went out as we hit the base and they said we
only had enough gas for another 5 or 10 minutes.
GILBERT: No. We were shot at all the way back
until we got to the coast. We had fighter planes
coming in from every angle, so we were at our guns
at all times.
NELSON: Okay. Can we go into when and where
you were captured? You were on another mission?
What was that?
GILBERT: That was the fifth mission.
NELSON: Was there anything that happened on the
2, 3 or 4 missions?
GILBERT: No.
NELSON: Now we are going into mission #5. Can
you tell me about this mission?
GILBERT: This mission was one when we were
supposed to go in and bomb an airfield near Paris.
We started into the airfield. We got a short distance
from it and a JU88 lopped a bomb at us and knocked
our #3 engine.
NELSON: They got up above you and dropped a
bomb?
GILBERT: Yeah, on that mission.
GILBERT: Yeah, they got above us and lopped a
bomb at us, a rocket on us. So we aborted and started
back. We were doing pretty good and all of a sudden
our group came back from hitting the target. They
were flying to our right. Our pilot decided to fold in
on them so that we could get protection from them
going back, because we did think we could make it
over the channel. The pilot said he was folding in.
The co-pilot told me later he ordered the pilot not to
go in, but the pilot wouldn’t pay any attention to him.
The rule was at that time, that when you’re alone,
don’t fold into your group because they will shoot at
you because they don’t know if you are the enemy or
not in a stolen airplane. So we did fold in and as we
did, our group opened up 100% on us. They just blew
us all apart.
NELSON: And you were injured. How did they treat
you?
NELSON: What about your markings on your tail.
Couldn’t they tell who you were?
NELSON: Well, now, you were injured on
_____?_____. What did your crew do to you? Were
there any other injuries?
GILBERT: Yeah we had about four deaths.
NELSON: On that mission?
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 16
GILBERT: Apparently one guy started shooting and
they all started. But we were wrong. Our pilot was
wrong in going back into our own group. We should
have tried to go over the channel by ourselves. The
co-pilot was very upset by it. But the pilot was killed
on that mission.
NELSON: Okay. When they were shooting at you,
what happened after that?
GILBERT: Well, they were shooting at us. Our
bomb bay was full of incendiary bombs and they
blew up. As they blew up, I was just trying to go out
the window. I first tried to pull the gun(?) on the
escape hatch and it was red hot so I was burned
completely. Just sizzled so I couldn’t get out there so
as I headed to the side window. One of our gunners
had fallen in front of the window. I picked him up
and threw him out the window and I went right out
behind him. He was unconscious when I threw him
out, but he did live. I don’t know how he pulled his
chute but it was pulled.
NELSON: Were you injured at all besides burning
your hands?
GILBERT: I had bullet wounds in my head—see,
I’ve got one right here. And I had third degree burns
on my face, my hands. Then I had a bullet through
my ankle and so forth. What happened was, when I
bailed out, going through the air and as you looked
ahead, you could see a fighter plane coming in on me
so as we came in, he opened fire on me and that’s
how I was hit. So then I made off I was dead lying in
the chute. He made a couple more passes and then
took off. So that’s where I received the bullet wound.
NELSON: Tell us about the events that led up to
your capture.
GILBERT: Well, as I was going through the air, my
parachute was all on fire because it was all
simmering, so I was going through the air pretty fast
and I was trying to fold it so I could go faster then let
it open up again, as we were taught we should do, but
my hands were all burned and my skin came off like
a glove, so I couldn’t do it, so when I hit the ground,
I tried to bury the chute as best I could and I finally
walked (with a broken ankle) to a farm house and
they took me to another home with 2 old ladies in it
and they were in the underground. Well, I was so
badly burned and so badly shot up, they called a little
girl over. The little girl was about 8 or 9 years old
and she could talk English. And she told me I was so
badly injured, I was going to die and they would bury
me, I mean the Germans would bury me so my
family could find me so they were going to turn me
over to the Germans. So I laid there and finally the
Germans came in with a truck and they picked me up
and threw me into the bottom of the truck and drove
me to a small hospital. When they got me to the small
hospital, they threw me on a table and started
slapping my hands and face and asked me who my
co-pilot was. I just said my name, rank and serial
number and they continued to slap me around until I
passed out. The next thing I knew they were moving
me to a hospital in Paris. They put me on a train in a
gunny sack and laid me in the aisle. People walking
up and down looking at me and I’m totally burned
and bleeding and everything. When I got to the
hospital they had the doctor come from Vienna to do
plastic surgery on my face, but they didn’t work on
my hands, but I did get to a point in there where they
ordered that my hands would be cut off because they
had gangrene in both of them. Well, when I was
taken up to the operating room in the hospital in
Paris, our air force hit nearby and bombs were
dropping all around so they took me out of the room
and called me all kinds of names and said they
weren’t going to work on me, they were going to
work on their own people. They put me back down
into my room. There was an old nun, she must have
been real old. She came in with a pan of herbs, kind
of yellow beans in hot water. She soaked my hands
for two days, day and night, and when they came
back to get me in about four days later to cut my
hands off, the gangrene was almost all gone so they
didn’t cut my hands off. I was very fortunate there.
NELSON: The Lord was on your side.
GILBERT: That’s right. So then from that point on I
was taken—after being in the hospital three
months—they marched me through to my prison
camp. Not a prison camp
NELSON: How about your ankle? Did that heal up?
GILBERT: Oh, yeah, that healed up.
NELSON: So you could walk?
GILBERT: Oh, yeah, after three months, I could
walk because I was in bed all that time. They took me
into the interrogation camp. Well, on the way to the
interrogation camp they took me through Hamburg.
Hamburg was bombed the night before and we were
surprised because when the other guy and I, my crew
member who was with me when we were put on the
train, the train commander came back and started
beating us up in front of the guards. We had 4 guards.
He just beat the heck out of us. We were finally put
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 17
on the train. The guards told us later the reason he
was so mad and beat us up so bad was the fact that
his whole family was wiped out the night before
when our Air Force hit Hamburg. So you could
understand. So as we got to Hamburg the train had to
stop because the tracks were all torn up, so we had to
walk through to get to the other end.
NELSON: What time of year was this?
GILBERT: This was December 20th.
NELSON: So it was cold?
GILBERT: It was cold.
NELSON: Snow?
GILBERT: No, no snow and as far as—we had
diarrhea and everything. They wouldn’t let us go to
the toilet. They just made us go in our clothes. They
wouldn’t feed us. So we were about three days there
where we just stunk.
rank and serial number. So they took me into another
room, tied a chain around this wrist and a chain
around this wrist, hung me up with my feet about a
foot off the ground and left me there for 17 hours.
NELSON: Oh my gosh.
GILBERT: So when they took me down—cut me
down, I just about died I was so bad, but then they
threw me into this room again with the mice and
everything running around. I just about went crazy. I
mean they were squeaking all over and I couldn’t eat
because they would put the pan under the door and
they would crawl into the pan. I tell you, it was a
terrible thing. So finally they threatened that they
were going to shoot me if I didn’t tell them who my
co-pilot was and so I said “shoot me.” I didn’t care. I
said, “Just shoot me.” So they took me on a street car
and put me on a train to Stalag 17.
NELSON: What about your other crew member that
was with you? What happened to him?
NELSON: Just miserable.
GILBERT: He went another direction.
GILBERT: Just stunk. And when they took us into
the—through Hamburg, believe this or not—it was a
hard to thing to see. They had captured some of our
flyers and had nailed them to telephone poles and
hanging from telephone poles and the people were
trying to get to us, the other guy and I, and the guards
were holding them off with their guns and finally we
got onto the train and went on to the next stop, which
then, they took us into a place where they were
interrogating. What they did with me—they put me
into a cell way down the bottom of this place. There
was—some place on the Rhine. It was a city.
NELSON: Did you see him after that?
GILBERT: Later. They had him another time. But
when we got to Stalag 17, we were both in the
same
NELSON: So you were put on a street car and where
did they take you—to Stalag 17?
GILBERT: They took me to a train. They put me on
a train and on that train there were about 30 other
prisoners and we were all together as prisoners—30
or 40 prisoners.
NELSON: Cologne? Lenz?
GILBERT: No. Anyway they took me down in the
basement, threw me into this cell. On the floor was
just a lot of straw and under the door was just a little
thing where they threw the food under. But there was
mice screeching all over the place. I was bleeding
from the head. I was bleeding from the hands. I was
bleeding all over.
NELSON: From the beating you took from that guy?
GILBERT: No, I was still bleeding
NELSON: From your injuries?
GILBERT: Yeah. I was still bleeding. So the first
thing they did was try to question me. I said name,
NELSON: You were probably in worse shape than
the others.
GILBERT: No. there were one legged—and guys
with arms off and broken backs. It was pretty bad. I
was the worst as far as—I couldn’t dress myself. I
couldn’t use my fingers. I couldn’t work my hands. I
couldn’t do anything for myself. So then we went
from there into Stalag and that was [Krems], Austria.
The minute we got to [Krems], Austria, we came up
this long hill to the camp that was on the top of the
hill and all we could smell was gas and some of the
people were yelling, “Gas ’em, gas ’em.” Stuff like
that. When we got up there, we smelled gas. What
they made us do, was take our clothes off and then
run us through the building, but it was hot water
coming down and we had to run through that shower.
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 18
Then they took our clothes and run it through a
de-lousing—that was the gas we smelled.
NELSON: What was sanitation like in the POW
camp in which you lived? Did you have a central
latrine?
NELSON: Scared you for a while?
GILBERT: Yeah. Then they made us wait out in a
field and they gave us our clothes and we went in and
was put in the camp. The camp had barracks that
held—each bed carried 16 people.
NELSON: How was the food at that camp?
GILBERT: Well, the food was— well in the
morning, you would have hot water and then at noon
you might get [grass] soup with maybe a bone in it.
You didn’t know if it was a dead horse or what. And
then at night you’d get hot water and [grass] soup
again. And then we would get—every day we would
get one piece of hard bread—sawdust bread. And
then we did get parcels about once a month, but they
would be stood up, and there would be nothing in it
of course and then the camp would use it to have
a—make soup and stuff.
NELSON: Did you get any Red Cross parcels or
anything like that?
GILBERT: That was just what I said. About once a
month. But we had to share them. There wasn’t one
parcel to a person.
NELSON: Well, as you said, they came once a
month. How were they distributed then?
GILBERT: Well, the camp leader would break it up.
Maybe just divide it. The Germans would put their
bayonets through a lot of the stuff.
NELSON: What was the reason for that?
GILBERT: I don’t know. That’s what they did.
NELSON: How were they shared per man?
GILBERT: About once a month. It was about one
for 6 people.
NELSON: And what were the contents of these
packages?
GILBERT: Well, we never really knew because the
camp leader was handling it all. But I knew there had
to be B-bar. We got about one B-bar per month. We
got beans, powdered milk. But they used that
themselves.
GILBERT: In front of each barracks we had about
four seats that just went into the ground and there
were rats and everything down there. And then we
had one for the whole camp with about 20 or 30
seats, but we didn’t have any toilet paper or anything.
We used anything we could get, straw or
NELSON: What type of water supply did they have?
GILBERT: They had water where they would turn it
on a couple of times a day which only gave you a
chance to get a cup of water if you could make it.
NELSON: So you couldn’t take a shower or
anything like that?
GILBERT: No. About once a month—
NELSON: How about your laundry?
GILBERT: We couldn’t do that. About once a
month they’d take you up and shave your head and
run you through that shower.
NELSON: How about hospitals, doctors. Were there
medical facilities available? If so, how were the sick
and wounded cared for? Did men become sick or
injured in camp? Was there any dysentery?
GILBERT: There was a lot of dysentery. But we had
some die from it. But we had one barracks; part of it
was used for the doctor and some guys that
volunteered to assist. We had in thereI was in there
for a time and I had guys with one leg, guys with
broken backs. A lot of them with broken pelvises. A
lot of them got broken pelvises because they went
down in parachutes and that split them. They weren’t
wearing a check chute probably. They were wearing
seat chutes. We had blind and all that.
NELSON: You said that some people died. How
were they buried?
GILBERT: We don’t know.
NELSON: What did they do for clothing or
blankets?
GILBERT: Each one of us was given a blanket and
we were given a mattress that you had to fill up with
straw. It was a gunny sack that you filled up with
straw, but it was full of lice and everything.
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 19
NELSON: Were there any recreation facilities
available to you such as books to read, athletic
equipment or rooms for gatherings or plays or
religious services?
GILBERT: The guys themselves did put on plays
and set their own plays up. Also in back of the
barracks we had about a half mile track that we made
ourselves just walking around, which we would walk
around all day long.
Tape 2 - Part 3
GILBERT: Well, we had a Kertenbaum—a guy
named Kertenbaum was the camp commander. He
lived in Iowa. He now lives in Tucson, Arizona. He
was the commander and then we had the escape
group and they had the fellows who would go to the
Germans to fight our causes. Go-betweens. It worked
out pretty good.
NELSON: Were there anybody who collaborated
with the Germans that you knew of?
GILBERT: I don’t really know of anybody that did.
No.
then another fence. So there was no way you could
have any conversation. We could see them.
NELSON: What was a typical day like? What time
did you get up?
GILBERT: We’d get up pretty early in the morning.
They’d wake us up and we had to be outside and
have a roll call. This was day light. Every person had
to be out there. Then they’d go in and check the
barracks. They’d call you off one at a time, check
your dog tags. You had to call your prisoner of war
number. Mine was (? German numbers). That was
one hundred five twenty. That was my number and
they would check that off. By the time you go
through all those code numbers, a couple hours went
by. Then they would let you go to your barracks. And
then at noon again they would check you off again,
not every noon, and then every night again they
would do it. And if you had a big rain storm or
something, they would call you out sure as the devil
and do it.
NELSON: Was there any effort to try to lead a
normal life whatever that might have been?
GILBERT: No.
GILBERT: No. You couldn’t because they had spies
in the camp. They were prisoners themselves and
they were always trying to run things down and
giving false information about New York being
bombed and Chicago being wiped out. The Germans
had wiped them out. Things like that.
NELSON: What were the guards like?
NELSON: They were Americans?
NELSON: Were there any compulsory exercise
programs?
GILBERT: Well, we had one guard. A guy named
Schultz. He was trying to be real nice to us. In fact
they used the same guy, trying to be real nice to us.
He checked the guys every day. He always tried to be
real nice. He would bring things in to trade and he
was always trying to get information out of the men.
Outside of that the guards didn’t have anything to do
with us. They wouldn’t talk to us?
GILBERT: They posed as Americans. We know
they were quite a few of them. We didn’t know who
they were. Everybody had a hard time knowing who
they could trust and who they couldn’t and the
Germans wanted to keep it that way.
NELSON: How about military discipline?
NELSON: Did you talk to them?
GILBERT: They were all prisoners there and you
did what they told you to and that was it.
GILBERT: We weren’t allowed to. They wouldn’t
talk to you. The only one you could was Schultz and
that was his job. The other guards wouldn’t even talk
to you. Wouldn’t say a word.
NELSON: I mean within the camp. Did you observe
rank or not?
NELSON: Did you have any contact with any of
these others—say the Russians?
GILBERT: No. The fence was a whole row of fence,
then tin cans, then another fence, then tin cans and
GILBERT: No, in fact we didn’t even know who
was what rank. We just knew everybody by their last
name. That’s all you knew. And we were all
sergeants or staff sergeants and so forth. Nobody
under sergeant.
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 20
NELSON: They separated you then. There was no
lower rank.
GILBERT: There was nobody under that.
NELSON: You mentioned earlier about the gas
chambers. You had heard about them?
GILBERT: Just rumors and that’s all—from other
Americans and one time we had one guard tell us if
we didn’t do what they told us to, we were going to
go to the gas chamber, but they didn’t tell us anything
about it.
NELSON: How about work detail? Did they give
you anything to do?
GILBERT: Well, according to the Geneva
Convention, they couldn’t work sergeants. They had
to volunteer. If you didn’t volunteer, they couldn’t
work you. But they did get volunteers in some cases
where they said they wanted to use them for
something. Then they would get them out of the
camp. Guys wanted to get out of camp and then they
ended up—one time a group volunteered and they
sent them out to pick up dead bodies and throw on
trucks. Those guys never volunteered again.
NELSON: Do you remember any other guys who
volunteered for work detail?
GILBERT: No. The guys themselves decided within
the camp. Say the guy was a school teacher some
place, they would set up classes and teach English or
whatever was their specialty. And there were guys
who were barbers in private life and they tried to be
barbers. And they always seemed to have straight
razors—they managed to get them someplace—and
they would shave you dry—didn’t have soap or
nothing. The Germans wouldn’t let you grow
beards—so much lice and stuff you know. That’s
why they shaved our heads they said too. But it was
also because if you escaped they would be able to
pick you up.
NELSON: Did you ever have any contact with
civilians?
GILBERT: No. I marched one time to get my eyes
checked. The civilians were kind of scared of you.
They never wanted to get near you.
NELSON: Were there any escape attempts while you
were there?
GILBERT: We had one guy that got away about 3
times. They called him Frenchie. He lived in
Milwaukee. He'd be gone about a week and they’d
bring him back and throw him in the dungeon.
NELSON: That was his punishment? Solitary?
GILBERT: Solitary. He did it about 3 times, but
they always caught him. I really don’t know anybody
that got away and stayed away. They always brought
them back. We were in a bad place to get away. We
were up on that plateau and we weren’t close to
anything.
NELSON: What was the terrain—forests?
GILBERT: No, it was just a flat plateau, no trees or
anything. In the winter time, boy it was cold. What
we used to do—you know we had these barracks, we
tried to start little fires to keep warm. The guys would
take shingles off the outside and boards to burn.
When summertime came the barracks were almost
torn apart. We’d tear a board off the side because it
was cold up there.
NELSON: Did you have little furnaces?
GILBERT: Just open air fires. They had little
furnaces parts and everybody would gather around,
but there were so many in the barracks that that kept
it warm too. You get a barracks with two ends with
140 in each end and you’re all close together and
sleeping 8 in each bed.
NELSON: How long was each bed?
GILBERT: I’d say the barracks were 100 feet long.
And probably 40 feet wide. Maybe 120 feet long and
40 feet wide.
NELSON: Towards the end of the war were you
repatriated?
GILBERT: Well, after a certain period of time, the
Swedish government, not Swiss, sent doctors in there
to examine everybody that was badly injured and we
probably had about 120 that were badly injured, real
bad, but they still didn’t take but about 20% of those
that were the very worst and those that really couldn’t
take care of themselves and I was one of those. They
took about 20 of us out of there and put us on a
freight train, a box car, and they took us through
Nuremberg just as Nuremberg was bombed by the
American Air Force and we had to stay in the box
cars while everybody went for cover. So every time
there was an air raid, they would lock us in the box
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 21
car and one time we were all thirsty and we couldn’t
drink nothing so the train commander got jugs of
water from the train, the steam you know. Boy,
everybody got sick after that, but everybody had a
little drink of water.
NELSON: It was hot water?
GILBERT: Yeah, hot water, but it was from the
train engine, you know. Everybody was sick.
Everybody had the runs. It was terrible. But then they
took us to [Stattos] Germany [possibly Sassnitz?].
They took the train we were on and they put it on the
ferry and we went over to [Trelleborg] Sweden and
when we got over there, the Germans turned us to the
American Allies. We got on this [Trelleborg] Ferry
and well, nobody was safe even then because we
were still in their waters, but when we got over to
[Trelleborg] and when we got over there, we met the
American Red Cross and they took us on trains there
to [Gothenburg] and we were in [Gothenburg] a short
time and then they put us on the Gripsholm. That was
a luxury liner.
NELSON: Did you have any worries about your
wife and family?
GILBERT: Oh yeah, everybody did. We heard a lot
of rumors in the camp. That was what those spies
were doing. They would say they heard your wife got
married again and all that kind of thing. That your
wife had a couple of kids. They would tell us all
kinds of stuff. They told me—one of the guys came
up and said, “I was with your brother in the 393 rd
Bomb Group.” Well I didn’t know what group he
was with and he said, “He was killed.” He said, “His
name was Louie Gilbert.” Well, my brother was over
there but he was in a B17 Group and wasn’t
anywhere near the 393rd group. They told me that just
toAlways doing something like that and a couple
times that Rockford was a machine tool center and
Rockford was just bombed, killed all kinds of people
and they would tell you stuff like that. And we
thought it was true. We had no way of knowing it
wasn’t. And you’d get reports on the radio. The
Germans would make up all kinds of reports.
NELSON: You did have a radio then?
They took us from there to Liverpool and on to New
York. Into the channel and then on.
NELSON: Do you remember when that was?
GILBERT: That had to be about August 23 or 24th.
NELSON: 1944?
GILBERT: 1944.
GILBERT: Just what they would have on their post.
They would only give us German songs and stuff.
Every once in a while they would announce that New
York was bombed again and that kind of stuff. But
we did have one radio that the Americans had put
together. Every night one guy went around to each
barracks and told you what was news on the radio.
And all we ever heard was the Germans were in
Stalingrad, and they got beat back and they were in
and they were out and stuff like that.
NELSON: From Liverpool you went back to the
United States?
NELSON: It was all German news?
GILBERT: From Liverpool we went right into New
York, Staten Island.
GILBERT: Yeah. We didn’t hear anything on that
radio about what was happening in the U. S.
NELSON: By ship?
NELSON: Okay. When you got back to the U. S.
what happened?
GILBERT: By ship. But I know when we got on the
Gripsholm. There were only about 127 of us on it.
We all had our nice rooms and we were treated real
good. They took us out that first night and had a steak
dinner and we all got sick. We couldn’t stand that
steak. We all got sick. Everybody.
NELSON: What were your feelings at that time?
GILBERT: I could get only think of ice cream and
getting home and ice cream and cake.
GILBERT: Well, when we got back there, they let
us call our wives and that. Our wives could come out,
but we would be moved out as quick as possible and
they might not even see us. Which we were. And
they sent us to different hospitals throughout the
country. For instance with a burn center, they sent me
to O’Reilly General a burn center in Springfield,
Missouri. Then General Eisenhower gave all
decorations there. I know he came up to me and said,
“You’ve really got a fruit cake there.” I had about 6
of them he gave me.
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 22
NELSON: Can you name them now?
GILBERT: I received the Distinguished Flying
Cross, the Air Medal, the Purple Heart, the American
Theater, and the African Theater.
NELSON: And Eisenhower gave them to you?
GILBERT: Yeah, and he also gave us a letter and it
said, “Allow this soldier 90 days furlough upon his
demand at any time” which he only meant once.
When we came back, it was kind of funny. They took
me to O’Reilly General and the next morning, I said
to the captain, “I want a 90 day furlough. I want to
leave today.” He said, “You must be crazy. You’ve
been away too long.” And so I said, “I have the
letter.” He read the letter. So he took me to the
commanding officer, General Foster, and he said,
“We can’t give you a furlough.” I said, “You read the
letter.” He read it and said, “When do you want to
leave?” And I said, “This morning.” And they got a
jeep all ready; they got me all set. Took me down and
put me on the train and gave me that furlough right
then and so I was at home for 90 days.
NELSON: You came home then. That would have
been in August of ’44.
GILBERT: September of ’44.
GILBERT: Yeah. That airplane that I was in when it
went down, I went down a hundred times. Even yet I
have a nightmare and the whole thing comes back
like that. And then that other thing, thrown in that
cell bleeding and with all those mice. I just about
went crazy. And still mice bother me terrible. I can’t
even look at one. Isn’t that crazy? I can’t even look at
one.
NELSON: Were you treated at all for this, back in
the states?
GILBERT: No.
NELSON: After you got back here? Did you
recuperate? Did you get a job?
GILBERT: Yeah. I took about a month off.
NELSON: You were discharged at this time?
GILBERT: No. After the furlough. I went back and
had another couple of furloughs and then I went back
to Denver, and I was discharged from Denver. I had a
medical discharge and a regular discharge. I had the
points and everything. I had more points than
anybody at that time. I was overseas so long, so I had
plenty of points.
NELSON: What did you do after you were
discharged?
NELSON: That was home here in Rockford?
GILBERT: Yeah.
GILBERT: I went to work for Weiman Furniture
Company.
NELSON: Did you have any apprehension about
what your wife would think?
NELSON: Did you have follow-up treatments?
GILBERT: Yeah. Because she had got reports and
telegrams about how badly burned I was. She thought
I was killed in action for a long time and from there
on, she didn’t know what I looked like. She knew all
these burns. My mother and father met me in St.
Louis and then we went to Chicago and my wife met
me there. We stayed in Chicago a couple days. Then
we got notified that Rockford wanted to have a big
parade in my honor and I didn’t want it. So I
wouldn’t go back for it. So we came in without
letting anybody know. I didn’t want to meet people. I
was scared to meet people or anything. My hands
were still all bandaged up.
NELSON: Did you still at that time have
nightmares?
GILBERT: No. Right away I came up with high
blood pressure and never got over it.
NELSON: Did you get treated at a VA hospital? Did
you have anything to do with the VA?
GILBERT: Way later in life. Not right away.
NELSON: Do you have any war related disability?
GILBERT: Yeah, my hands.
NELSON: Do they bother you a lot?
GILBERT: O yeah, they do. The cold weather gets
me something terrible. Even in this kind of weather.
They can’t do anything about it. I’ve had
dermatologists back in the hospital. You see, I had
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 23
plastic surgery on my face, but not on my hands,
because I was an experimental case with the
Germans. The Germans took about four guys and
they did a different kind of plastic surgery on each
one. They had the four of us and they did different
types of plastic surgery. Of the four of us, mine was
the only one that came out. The others were all scar
tissue and their faces are solid scars yet, but they
didn’t even work on hands. That was but I was
strictly done as an experimental case with them.
NELSON: Has your attitude about war and POW life
changed over the last 50 years?
GILBERT: No. I’ll never forget it. In fact about 5 or
6 years after I got out of the prison camp, my wife
and I would be walking down the street and about
two blocks over, somebody would be having a
bonfire burning leaves and I would say to my wife,
“Dorothy, can you smell that flesh burning? That
flesh burning is something terrible.” I could just
smell it. Nobody else could smell it, but I could smell
that flesh burning—just terrible. Now I can do it, and
it doesn’t bother me, but for five years any bonfire
would make me sick, the smell of it and maybe I
wouldn’t even be close enough to smell it. I would
just see it.
NELSON: Earlier I was talking to your wife and she
said you didn’t even like to talk about your
experiences. Why do you suppose this is?
GILBERT: Well, I think one of the reasons
is—another guy and I got together and started getting
POWS together and fliers together. We’ve got 140 of
them now. Every month we have a breakfast meeting
and that’s all they do is talk about at the Atrium.
There are different ones at the table. Everybody
wants to get it off their chest. They all feel the same
way. They don’t talk to anybody outside but the fliers
get together and they talk about it. It’s really helped
everybody. Herb Healy and I were having breakfast
one morning and we decided let’s get together and
get some of the guys together. The only way you
could be in the club was you had to be overseas and
you had to have the enemy fire at you. You had to be
shot at—anti aircraft. Herb and I started that group.
NELSON: (Long pause). Some of these questions
like, “During your combat duty, did you capture any
enemy prisoners.” Some of these don’t apply. Oh, do
you remember VE Day?
GILBERT: Yeah.
NELSON: Where were you?
GILBERT: I was in the Coronado Theater.
NELSON: Gee, you were in the theater when it
started and—what was your reaction?
GILBERT: Oh, gosh, we were really happy.
Everybody was screaming, yelling and that. I was
probably happier than anybody.
NELSON: Do you remember where you were on VJ
Day?
GILBERT: Same thing. I was just about ready to be
discharged. The commanding officer in Denver, Fort
Collins, was in the hospital with me in Africa and he
recognized me and I went to his home for dinner
three or four night before VJ Day. He even let me use
his car. That’s something for a Colonel!
NELSON: How about the atom bomb? Where did
you hear about that?
GILBERT: I just thought it was a terrible thing we
had to do, I guess. But I hated to see it.
NELSON: Your opinion now—what do you think of
it?
GILBERT: I still hate to see it. It was such a terrible
thing. I hate to see people maimed like that because I
know what it is. I hate to see so many innocent
people get it. When you’re out bombing, you really
feel bad about it. You have to bomb a city, you know
there’s a lot of innocent people going to get hurt.
NELSON: Outside of dropping your bombs in the
sea, at one time you were talking about
Tape 2, Part 4
GILBERT: He didn’t know he had a flower in the
barrel of his gun. And they would do things like that.
You get a guy like Don Williams. He was always
doing something like that. It kept life interesting. One
time we watched the Russian barracks and one
Russian was on top of the barracks and the guard
would fire at him and then he would run to the other
side and the guy would run around the building and
fire at him again and he’d be just tempting the guard.
Finally he jumped off the roof and ran into the
barracks. Well, the guard had these dogs you know.
These dogs were deadly. They didn’t bother the
Germans but they did the Russians and Americans.
So he let the dog go after the guy and all of a sudden
you heard yelping and screaming. The guard ran in
�Thomas D. Gilbert——Page 24
and the Russian had killed the dog and taken all the
meat off it already.
NELSON: For food you mean.
GILBERT: Serves them right. I don’t think they
turned dogs loose after that.
NELSON: Did they turn dogs loose against the
Americans?
GILBERT: No, I didn’t see them against the
Americans. They carried them. No.
NELSON: Any other little stories?
GILBERT: I remember one time in the barracks.
These rats were this big. They were about a foot long.
They were big sons of a gun. One time all the
prisoners were chasing this rat in there. They finally
killed it. And one time a rabbit got loose in the camp
and everybody was chasing it.
NELSON: Did they catch it?
GILBERT: No. It got away.
NELSON: Ran outside the fence I suppose.
GILBERT: Yeah. It was just a crazy thing.
NELSON: Well, that about winds it up I guess, Tom.
Well, I’ve enjoyed talking to you.
GILBERT: Well, a couple of years ago I wouldn’t
have said a word.
NELSON: Well, thank you.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
World War II Veterans and their Stories
Description
An account of the resource
In the mid-1990s Midway Village Museum interviewed World War II veterans about their military experiences. The interviews were recorded on cassette tape and then transcripts were typed up. Those written transcripts are available here. In some cases parts of the interview were inaudible. These sections have been reflected with question marks or the use of square brackets around a word or phrase that is the transcriber's best guess. No audio files have been digitized.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Midway Village Museum
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Midway Village Museum
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1993-2001
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Midway Village Museum
Language
A language of the resource
English
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Charles Nelson
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Thomas D. Gilbert
Location
The location of the interview
Rockford, Illinois
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Cassette Tape
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Thomas D. Gilbert
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
March 23, 1994
Description
An account of the resource
Born January 19, 1921, Thomas D. Gilbert enlisted in the Air Force from 1942 to 1944 as radio operator. He spent time in the Nazi prisoner of war camp Stalag 17B in Austria. He died April 9, 1998.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Midway Village Museum
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Oral History
Prisoner of War
Rockford Illinois
Stalag 17B
Veterans
World War II
WW2