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Pearl Harbor sent vet on his journey

Like many of his generation, Roy Livingstone saw his life changed by the attack 64 years ago: As a POW in Germany, he ended up in Stalag 17.

By TERRI BRYCE REEVES
Published December 7, 2005

	[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford]
	Roy Livingstone, 83, was a member of the Army Air Corps and flew 12 missions during World War II. In 1943, while on a mission to destroy a military factory, his plane was shot down over Bremen, Germany. He was captured by Nazi soldiers but escaped a prison train only to be recaptured. Remembering Pearl Harbor Sign our guestbook Remembering WWII

DUNEDIN - When Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor 64 years ago, Roy Livingstone was a 19-year-old student at a technical school in Connecticut.

Congress declared war the next day. Livingstone, like most of the young men at the time, responded.

"We went out and had a drink and decided to enlist," said Livingstone, now 83. "We toasted each other good luck."

He became a flight engineer and upper turret machine gunner, flying 12 missions in the Army Air Corps. In a mission over Bremen, Germany, his B-17 bomber, the Roughhouse, was shot down.

The staff sergeant would spend the next two years of his life as a prisoner of war in German prison camps, including Stalag 17, the camp made famous in the 1953 movie of the same name.

On Thursday, the Dunedin City Commission recognized the Purple Heart veteran, who was decorated for downing enemy aircraft. He was one of nearly 130,000 American POWs during World War II.

His hair is white now, and he is receiving treatment for lung cancer, but his eyes still glisten as he recalls parachuting out of a burning plane, escaping from a German prison train and posing as a girl in a romantic interlude in order to escape detection from two Nazi soldiers.

"Life is an experience," he said, "and much of it is scary."

In 1941, the United States was still recovering from the Great Depression. Its poorly equipped forces were no match for Germany's military machine.

"(Germany) had a military force like the world had never seen," said Livingstone.

He and other enlistees trained using fake wooden guns. His military pay was $21 a month.

On the morning of April 17, 1943, Livingstone and his crew were on a mission to destroy a military factory in Bremen, Germany. They had been assigned to the 306th Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force. When they departed at 4 a.m. from their base in Thurleigh, England, he recalls, English residents gathered to cheer, "Give 'em hell, Yanks."

As his squadron approached Bremen, the Roughhouse lost an engine. German fighter planes seized an opportunity to attack.

"The flak was so heavy you couldn't see a thing," Livingstone recalled. "All of a sudden I was hit and pinned against the plane."

The centrifugal force of the spinning plane was so great, none of the crew members could jump. Finally, the pilot was able to level the aircraft.

It was his first jump. When Livingstone released his chute, it hit him on the chin, dazing him.

"All I saw was the blood going up toward the clouds. In my confusion, I thought I was upside down," he said. "Suddenly, it was peaceful. I thought I was going to die and I calmly accepted it."

He landed on a plowed field, his chute caught on a fence. As he tried desperately to cut the ropes, a German soldier whacked him with the butt of his gun. Only five of the 10 crew members survived and were taken as POWs. About 40 men died that day during the mission.

Livingstone was taken by an ox-drawn cart to a camp where he was interrogated for three weeks.

In May, Livingstone found himself one of about 40 prisoners on a Nazi train to Stalag 7-A, a prison camp near Munich. It was an old European passenger train and the windows were covered with thick canvas straps, nailed down to prevent escape.

Slowly, the prisoners pulled the nails out. They planned an escape: Those healthy enough would jump, while the wounded would somehow distract the German soldiers.

The train pulled to a stop. As it began to move again, Livingstone's friend and crew mate, Bob Hansen, gave the signal: "Talley Ho!" But only Livingstone and Hansen jumped.

"It was totally black and I landed in between a hedge and barbed wire fence," Livingstone recalled. "Then all hell broke loose."

Searchlights lit up the night and Nazi soldiers began firing their rifles.

"Bob reached into the hedge and pulled me out from the barbed wire but my pants and undershorts were left behind. I was naked from the waist down," Livingstone recalled.

They ran into the woods for hours until they could go no more. There, they curled up together to keep warm and to sleep.

They were awakened the next morning by the sound of two German soldiers on a nearby bicycle path. They knew they would be seen.

"Bob rolled over on top of me. I stuck my bare leg up in the air and giggled like a girl," Livingstone said.

The Germans fell for the ruse. They laughed and left.

Though the two had escaped, they were still in grave danger. They had no weapons, food or water. And Livingstone was still half naked.

"The hunger pangs went away after a few days," he said. "We were growing weaker and started to see spots. We found a spring where we drank. We filled some old glass bottles with the water. The next morning there were a bunch of dead bugs at the bottom of the bottles."

Shortly afterward, the two discovered a chicken coop and an old pair of pants. Livingstone was thrilled to put them on, not realizing they were filled with lice and fleas.

They also found a chicken and an egg.

"We took turns sucking the egg until it was dry," said Livingstone.

They began to cook the chicken, but the flying feathers caught the attention of Germans nearby.

Frightened, the two ran, with only a bite of raw chicken in their mouths.

Fourteen days after their escape, they were captured trying to cross a bridge to get to Switzerland. Their punishment was three weeks of solitary confinement.

They lived in cold, damp darkness, eating only a potato or a piece of German bread composed mainly of sawdust, Livingstone said. The meager amounts of food were placed outside their cell door on a trough that also served as their urinal.

"During this time, I would think about my family, my fiancee (she would eventually marry someone else) and speeches made by Churchill and Roosevelt," Livingstone said. "I could only imagine how worried my family must be."

They were later moved to Stalag 7-A, where they were the only Americans in a compound with Russian prisoners.

"The (Germans) hated the Russians more than the Americans," Livingstone said. "(The Russian prisoners) weren't inoculated and died of some sort of plague. The bodies laid around for days. The place stunk of rotting flesh."

As winter approached, the soldiers battled the flu and dysentery.

Livingstone, however, remembers that Christmas as being a little different. A priest who was a prisoner started singing carols. Soon the French, Germans and English, prisoners and their captors, were all singing along, each in their own language.

"When we were all done, we applauded ourselves," he said. "For a few moments we were all united."

The following year was spent at Stalag 17-B, a prison camp in Austria.

"It wasn't quite as bad there," Livingstone said. "By that time, our troops had invaded Europe and we knew we would be freed. We mostly spent the time digging tunnels and planning escapes and that's what kept us going."

After the war, Livingstone returned to the U.S. to his family in Maine, and later started an ad agency. He became publisher of several sports magazines and retired in 1992.

Every year, he visits a church on April 17 to pray for his fallen comrades. He flies the American flag every day in front of his Dunedin home.

He has served as an officer and commander of the American Ex-Prisoners of War Service Foundation, where he is currently on the board of directors.

His first wife, Grayce, died 13 years ago. He met his current wife, Dorris, at a POW convention in 1999. He has a stepson, a stepdaughter and two stepgrandchildren.

Livingstone said he is a political independent. He wishes the country would present a united front for the military in Iraq.

"How can we sell democracy when the Republicans and Democrats are fighting all the time? We should be working together on this," he said.

"Sure, this administration has made some mistakes, but they are nothing compared to all the mistakes that were made in World War II."

[Last modified December 7, 2005, 00:34:15]