Five WWII Airmen Who Refused to Leave Each Other Behind

We were shot down on our 10th mission. We had already bombed our target, and we were attacked by a large formation of Ju 88s, Bf 109s and Fw 190s. We got hit in our right fuel tank, and it caught fire. Our plane was burning and exploding for 20 minutes, and the explosions kept getting louder and louder until one last explosion blew the right wingtip off. I came down with my parachute like a ton of bricks. The German pilot had radioed ahead, so ground troops had a perfect circle formed right where I was coming down.

Les Schrenk, 1943 in Sheppard Field - Wichita Falls, TX. Schrenk joined the U.S. Army Air Forces on his 19th birthday in 1942 and flew with the Eighth Air Force’s 92nd Bomb Group, 327th Squadron.

Courtesy Les Schrenk

I spent six months in a prison camp called Stalag Luft IV, in Poland. When the Russians advanced, the Germans marched us from Poland to Germany over the next 86 days. We had one blanket for five people. During the night, five of us slept next to each other, sometimes in a farmer’s barn, sometimes in a snow-covered field. The people I shared a blanket with were Neil Byers, Frank Fox, Pete Guastella and Bill Harman. All but Frank Fox were part of my B-17 flight crew.

I made very close friends with them during the march because we relied on each other’s warmth to stay alive. It was winter, and the guys on the outside of the blanket didn’t quite get covered. So to be fair, we shuffled back and forth under the blanket during the night. ​The death march started in Poland and ended up in a little town near Hamburg. We were so far gone by the end that we could barely put one foot in front of the other. I was 185 pounds when I got shot down, and I was 93 pounds when I was liberated.

I kept in touch with those guys and visited them over the years. Years after the war, I even became friends with the German pilot who shot down our B-17. But those men I shared a blanket with were the closest ones. They’ve all since passed away. I’m the only one left.

Staff Sergeant Les Schrenk, 102, joined the U.S. Army Air Forces on his 19th birthday in 1942 and flew with the Eighth Air Force’s 92nd Bomb Group, 327th Squadron. On February 22, 1944, his B 17 bomber Pot o’ Gold was shot down and he became a POW in what became a death march. He later worked as a warehouse supervisor and is now retired in Bloomington, Minnesota.