I was picked up by members of a German infantry regiment as soon as I touched the ground after bailing out of my flaming plane near St. Lo on 29 June. They took me to the nearest Luftwaffe Hq, in a farmhouse about 10 miles away to the south. I was interrogated there, and searched, but was well treated and fed. I was kept there until 8 July, when I was sent by truck to Vire with 2 American infantrymen who had been brought in as PW's shortly before.

From Vire we were marched to Alencon and put in the big PW transit camp there. There were 8 or 9 barracks full of Allied prisoners. There was little food and no sanitary facilities. The guards were slack and lots of men escaped while on work details.

I stayed there until 4 August, when I decided to make a break. About 75 men were sent that day to Sees to unload some railroad cars. With an Australian named Lyall I jumped off the truck on the way back. A Lt. Fahrenwald had escaped shortly before and the guards had been doubled. Two shots were fired at us, but we gotaway into the woods.

We stayed there for the next few days, moving around only at night and getting food from the French. We meant to head for Spain eventually. We were chased twice by German patrols but got away.

The last four days we stayed with a Frenchman in his house near St. Pierre. He was a poor farmer. We did not get his name. Finally on 13 August he came and said the U.S. troops were in the village. We went out in civ- ilian clothes and contacted the patrol. Later we were sent to 90th Div Hq in Alencon, where the G-2 talked to us, and then sent us on to XV Corps.

Everything I saw is now in U.S. hands. The airfields around Alencon were all blown up after we escaped.

Capt. Gerard W. Cote, Canadian Army, was the leader in escape activities at Alencon. He helped 35 men to escape and escaped himself, but was caught. (See E&E Report 8/170)