World War II
Prisoner of War
(POW)

This report is about my grandfather, George North, Sr. and his experiences in World War II. It is based on a personal interview and a report my uncle did for a college history class.

World War II was a global military conflict which was the most devastating war in human history. It began in 1939 as a European conflict between Germany and a Great Britain - French coalition, but widened to include most of the world.

In October 1940, America had not yet entered the war, and a military draft had just begun. My grandfather was drafted at age twenty-three on August 22, 1941. He was not anxious to go but, no one was very anxious to go to war.

At 8 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japanese carrier-based airplanes struck Pearl Harbor. They sank four U.S. battleships and damaged four more. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II on December 8, 1941.

At the time the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, my grandfather stationed at Camp Croft in South Carolina. When the news came he was sitting in a lobby of a hotel. It was three years before they sent him to fight in combat.

In August 1944, my grandfather was sent to Naples, Italy to fight in the war. He was assigned to the 351st Infantry Battalion. He was only in combat for a few months before he was captured by the Germans. A German Paratrooper put a machine pistol through a window in a farm house and hollered "COMRADE" to my grandfather, meaning do you want to surrender. He did not have much choice but to surrender or get killed. He surrendered with about 60 other soldiers.

After being captured the Germans marched them day and night, and they had nothing to eat. They marched to northern Italy where they were shoved into boxcars and taken through the Alps to Germany.

In the boxcar there was little room to sit. Most of the prisoners had to stand up. My grandfather found a spot in the back of the car so he could lean on the wall. There was a big wooden container on the opposite side of the car which was used as a bathroom. They would stop the train and throw in bread for food.

My grandfather was taken to Stalag 7A, a prison camp near Mooseberg, Germany outside of Munich where he stayed for about six months until the war ended. There was three or four thousand prisoners in the building. The camp let in Red Cross parcels and let them write letters. Everybody in the camp had a blower to recook the food. They used wood from town to heat the blower.

Everyday the Germans would send details into the town to work for the civilians. They mostly cleaned bricks, and they would get a meal and a chance to get wood.

Four or five days before the American troops came through, they could hear artillery fire in the distance. When the troops got closer the German guards ran away.

When the war was over, my grandfather was sent to Rheams, France to a hospital with a bad cold. Then he went to London and waited four weeks for transportation home. My grandfather was discharged for the Army in November 1945.

Taylor is 11 years old and a student at Kehoe France School in Metairie.