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By Al Zdon
After evading capture for over three months in Belgium and France during World War II, Bill Cupp's real adventure began.
It included death threats, a wild journey on a truck
through German towns, stopping for a tourist attraction, and seven months in one of the most feared prisoner-of-war camps in Europe. It concluded with a 500-mile walk across Germany to freedom.
Cupp
was a ball-turret gunner on a B-24 Liberator that was shot down over Belgium in June 1944.
His war-time service had begun back in 1942 when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps.
William L. Cupp had
grown up on a farm near Tipton, Iowa. He had graduated from high school in 1941, and was ready to enlist in the Army immediately after Pearl Harbor in December of that year. "I told my folks I was going,
but they said I was too young. I was 17 at the time."
Instead he got a job as at a defense plant in Clinton, and was quickly promoted to inspector when they found out he could read blueprints.
Cupp
took a test to get into the Army Air Corps in late spring of 1942, and he signed up in July. His interest in aviation went back to the farm where the Post Office had placed an emergency landing field
that Cupp's father watched over. Cupp wanted to be a pilot.
Although he was signed up and eager to go, the Army made Cupp wait seven more months before finally calling him up in January of 1943. He
was sent to air cadet screening and then pre-flight school in San Antonio. At Uvalde, Texas, he began flight school on PT-19s.
"I was doing all right until my instructor was assigned somewhere else. I
was given another instructor, but in the end I washed out. There were a lot of washouts."
After basic training at Wichita Falls, Cupp was sent to Tindall Air Force Base in Florida for aerial gunnery
school. "I passed the test to become a navigator, but it looked like the school would take forever. I was anxious to get going."
After a stop in Utah, where the air crews were being formed, Cupp was
send back to Texas at El Paso where the crews were trained to work together.
"We were flying the B-24 Ds, and most of these planes were not in really good shape. There was usually a fire coming out of
one engine or another. On our first few flights, the radio operator couldn't reach the radio because he was always wearing his parachute on his chest. He was scared to death. Eventually, they transferred
him to the mail room on base. The bombardier also got into some sort of trouble, and he was shipped out."
The crew of 10 finally began to mesh together, and Cupp volunteered to be the ball turret
gunner, traditionally one of the most dangerous jobs on the plane. The turret was suspended beneath the Liberator. It could be retracted into the airplane for landings and takeoffs.
"I didn't want
any of the other guys in there. I didn't trust them. Besides I was smaller than some of the guys."
Still, the accommodations were not very comfy. "You sit with your knees up all the way, and the gun
site between your knees. After eight or nine hours, it gets pretty uncomfortable. And there was no way you could get a parachute inside the turret. Believe me, I spent hours trying to figure out a way to
do it."
The turret's gun was connected to an information center aboard the plane, a primitive computer that allowed the gun to automatically compensate for the fast-moving targets. "It was very
sophisticated for its day."
The airmen wore suits that had electrical warming devices sewn into the linings. "It could get to 40 below zero at high altitude. The original suits, they called the blue
bunny suits, kept your seat and your back hot, but your feet got cold. We got the new kind overseas, there was much more even heat."
As the training period ended, the crew was given a new B-24
to fly overseas. Fuel stops were made at Syracuse, New Hampshire, Labrador and Iceland. The Iceland stage was almost the last trip for the new crew.
"The Germans had stolen our radio channel for our
fix on the base in Iceland, and they were sending out bad information from Norway. By the time we figured it out, we were a hundred miles or more off course. We didn't have enough gas to go back, and our
navigator was given the job of finding out where we were. He found one star to get a fix on. He was able to get us to the base, but one of our engines had run out of gas before we landed."
Several
other crews did not make it and were never heard from again. "It gave us a little confidence in our navigator."
The crew brought its new B-24 to Debach, England, on the east coast near Ipswitch, where
they landed on a brand, new airfield. "It was kind of difficult airstrip to land on. There were two burned wrecks along the runway to greet us as we came in."
Cupp and his crew were assigned to the
861st Bomb Squadron, 493rd Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force. It was May of 1944, just a month before the D-Day landing. They spent the next few weeks flying practice missions over Scotland and other
friendly places.
Their first mission was on D-Day, but instead of their new B-24 the crew was assigned an older version. "It was a real junker. The guns were limp from being fired too many times. When
it flew, the tail didn't line up with the nose."
Worse than that, the bombing mission had to be aborted because the target was locked in with heavy cloud cover. The only good news was the chance to
have a bird's eye view of the world's largest invasion. "It looked like you could walk across the English Channel on all those ships. There were so many of them."
The second mission was even worse.
"We got another junky plane and we were over Holland and the oxygen supply started to malfunction. After the bombardier fell asleep, the pilot said, 'Well, we can't do that,' and we came back. It was so
embarrassing."
The third and last mission again featured another "veteran" plane called Won Long Hop. "The ground crew guys told us that the plane was supposed to have been sent to the salvage
yard that day, but instead we were flying it."
The good news was that the crew finally got to drop its bombs. The bad news was that the squadron leader decided to go around again and see how they had
done.
The first run over the target — an airfield in Belgium— at 20,000 feet found the B- 24s above the cloud cover. A second run at 12,000 put them right over the target and the payload was released.
Because there were no enemy aircraft around, the pilot had ordered the ball turret retracted so the plane could make more speed. Cupp was sitting next to his turret listening to the radio traffic.
On
the bombing run, the plane had been struck by flak and the number one engine was hit and put out of action. The pilot was also slightly injured.
"I could look down after the run and see the bombs make
a perfect pattern on the runway below. But then the squadron leader said, 'Let's go back and see what we did.' So here we are flying basically the same pattern over the target for the third time. The
German gunners were good to begin with. They just shot the dickens out of us."
This time the rickety plane lost its fuel tank for the number four engine, and now the air power was down to two engines.
"We couldn't keep up with the rest of the planes, so we just headed straight for the coast. That may or may not have been a good idea."
The plane was hit again by flak as it traveled over occupied
Belgium. "The pilot was doing a good job of manhandling that big behemoth. I went up to the cockpit, and I could see the sweat marks coming right through his leather flight jacket."
The pilot tried
some evasive action, but by the time the navigator could figure out where they were, they were flying over another German air base and they were besieged with flak again. The tail gunner was sprayed with
plexiglass as the rear of the plane was shattered. One of the tail rudders was blown off.
"By this time there were holes all over the plane. You could hear the whistling as the air blew through
the plane. Even with all that, we were still hoping to get to the coast."
The crew dumped everything it could out of the bomb bay, including all the guns and ammunition. But still the plane was losing
its fight to stay in the air.
"The pilot said we had two choices. We could stay with him, or we could parachute out. All nine of us chose to bail out. I put on my heavier shoes and strapped on my
parachute. By this time the plane was at about a 45 degree angle, and there was some thought about whether it was safe to jump out of the bomb bay. I was wondering, 'Do I want to do that?' Then the other
two engines conked out and the plane went into a steeper dive. I just said, 'Oh,' and I stepped out."
Afraid of having his parachute observed, Cupp free fell as long as he thought he could. "It was
actually quite peaceful for a change. The roar was gone. There was no more firing."
As he entered a cloud bank at about 1,200 feet, he pulled the rip cord. "I didn't know that I was upside down, and
when the chute came out it flipped me around and really gave me a jolt."
A group of trees was coming up from below at a rapid speed. Cupp hit a tree, bounced into the air, and then hit the ground like
a ton of bricks. "I didn't have the strength to pull down my parachute from the tree. It would be a beacon to any German observers, but I didn't care. I got out of my flight suit, and I saw a fellow
coming at me waving. I wasn't sure what to do, so I hid myself in the field. When I looked back, my parachute was gone."
A couple of farm workers waved Cupp to a nearby farm home and there he found
two other members of his crew. The farm wife gave him a large bottle of beer, and all three men changed into civilian clothes that were provided by the farmers. Then it was out the back door, and into a
wheat field for the night.
The plane had been shot down near Lusinnes, Belgium, about 40 miles west of Brussels.
Cupp learned later that the pilot stayed with the plane as he tried to maneuver it
over a church and village. He tried to parachute much too late and was killed. The local priest finished the mass he was saying at the church the pilot had saved, and then went out and gave the American
his last rights.
In the next few days, Cupp and the others were dispersed around the countryside by the Belgian underground, the Comet. In a house that Cupp was brought to, the woman of the house
kissed him and wept. "I didn't know much about the European tradition of kissing. I was pretty impressed."
He stayed three weeks in the house, passing as a member of the family. On one occasion, at 5
in the morning, the household was awakened by a heavy pounding on the door. It was the Gestapo.
"I was in bed in my green Army underwear. Out the back door I went. We had been making hay in the barn,
and I dove into it. I could hear a lot of loud voices. The Germans questioned why there were unmade beds in the house, but the housewife told them that the men had gone off to a neighboring farm to work
very early.
"A soldier came and poked a pitchfork around the hay pile I was in, but I was down about 12 feet. It did make me a little nervous, though. And the hay made me scratchy."
Cupp spent the
next three days in a field while the Germans continued their sweep of the area.
"The Belgian people were so brave. They would have been shot instantly if they were caught. But they were determined to
make it awkward for the Germans."
The ultimate goal for the evaders was to reach Spain or Switzerland, and there were several underground lines set up to guide the men, mainly American air crewmen, to
safety.
With the help of the guides, Cupp made his way south to the French border. The last hurdle on getting across the border was solved with one of the resistance fighters, a young woman, flirted
with guards while Cupp and Robert Donahue, the crew's navigator, slipped into France.
Aboard a train, the two enjoyed the ride. "We had just walked about 50 miles, so we were pretty sore. We stuck out
feet out the window."
In the small town of Aniche, the two Americans had lost their escort of resistance fighters. "We didn't know what to do, so we went into a church, and, when the service was over,
we planned to approach the priest and ask him for help."
The navigator was in another part of the church, and when he came out, in his farm clothing, one of the local boys yelled, "Robber." "We
weren't dressed right for church, and so we made people suspicious."
The two airmen fled down the street, and when a German with a gun approached them and asked where the robbers were, they pointed in
a different direction. As they hustled down the dirt road leading out of town, they heard a rattling sound behind them, and they turned around to find that the priest had followed them on his bicycle.
The priest directed them to another town, but as they walked through the town all the townspeople stood in the doorways and watched them pass. "It was spooky, because nobody said anything. We said,
'Let's get the heck out of this town.' We were just going past the last house, and it was getting pretty dark and we heard a voice say, 'I wouldn't go that way if I were you.' We asked why and he said,
'There's lots of Germans down that way.'"
In the end, the Americans were invited inside a house and given bread and jam and milk. They spent the night in a haystack, and headed south again the next
day.
South of Amiens, they hitched a ride on a truck, and when they climbed in, they found they were sharing it with a German soldier. "It was raining, and we just pulled our jackets over our heads.
In the end it was probably good he was there, because other Germans inspected the truck, but when they saw the soldier, they just left us alone."
Later, as they walked along a road, they were stopped
by a German who got out of small car. He had a boy with him as an interpreter. During the course of the interview, the German became suspicious and pulled out his pistol. "We told him we were walking to
the nearby airbase to find work. He asked me if I had any papers, and I said of course I did. I reached into my pocket, but before I could get anything out, he just said okay, and he drove off. All I had
in my pocket were a bunch of maps."
That night they ended up at a farm. "We had gone about two days without sleeping. They gave us some beef sandwiches, and I fell asleep with my head in my plate."
Cupp said that they still had their survival gear with them, but the money the Army had given them was of such large denominations that they were afraid to try and spend it anywhere. Nearly all the food
they got along the way had to be begged or borrowed.
After about four days at a farm, the French resistance showed up. There had been problems with Germans infiltrating the escape and evasion system,
and so the resistance member grilled them at length to be sure they were really American air crewmen. He also took their dog tags.
When it was time to head south again, they were put in a panel truck
with a blanket thrown over them. It turned out that their two escorts were mechanics at the German air base in the town, and they drove the truck right through the base, saying hello to all the Germans
and fellow workers. They passed through two guard stations along the way.
Cupp and the navigator stayed on a local farm for a month. "There were a lot of Germans retreating through that farm, and we
could hear the bombardment in the distance."
It was time to leave again, and the two decided to try and reach the American lines which were not far away by this time. Unfortunately, to get there, they
had to go through the German lines.
"We spent the night in a haystack, and we walked in the dark through a bombed out German airbase. We kept falling into the craters."
The next day, they worked
their way through the German lines in the rain. "There were lots of German soldiers everywhere, but everybody looks the same in the rain. We were doing okay, but then the sun came out, and there we were.
There was no place to hide. A guy in a machine gun next sent a bullet our way, and we decided we'd better stay."
They were 200 yards from the American lines.
The two were apprehended and taken in
for a very intense questioning. This time, no one was buying their story that they were Belgians looking for work in the war factories.
The future looked grim for Cupp and Donahue. "They told us that
we were not in a good place, and that it was time to shoot us. They stood us up at the edge of a woods and put a hood over our heads. They started saying, 'Ready... aim...'"
"I yelled, 'Wait, we're
Americans,' and the officer ordered the men to halt. After that everybody became friendly. They offered us candy and cigarettes. Well, not everybody was friendly."
Americans caught in civilian clothes
are liable to shot as spies, and Cupp had foreseen a problem after the resistance had taken their dog tags. They begged to get them back, but instead were given a set from other soldiers. "Mine said I
was Sergeant Green. I had to tell the interrogator that I really was an American soldier, but that I wasn't Sergeant Green. It was pretty hard to explain. They were pretty sure that we were two
observation pilots that had been shot down."
"Some people took us, and tried to do us harm. They worked us over a little bit." As a final bit of convincing, the Germans put Cupp and Donahue on the
front of a Jeep and drove it straight at a wall, hitting the brakes only the very last second. "I didn't know I could hold onto a Jeep like that, but I did. They must have done it 20 or 30 times."
The
interrogators finally decided to bring the two Americans to the German command post at Pontoise, and took them there, still clinging to the front of the Jeep while they zig-zagged all the way.
It
didn't get much better at Pontoise as Cupp and his comrade were interrogated separately. "They asked me something about Essen. I thought they meant the city, and I said, 'No we didn't bomb Essen.' Later
I found out he was just asking me if I wanted something to eat."
Apparently unsatisfied with the results of the questioning, the officer began to assemble a firing squad and after a while had 11 men
gathered in the headquarters. "They were having a tough time finding enough people to shoot us. Everybody had cleared out."
Just as the firing squad was ready to go, though, American shells began to
rain down on the German HQ, and plaster was falling from the ceiling. The firing squad quickly dispersed.
Cupp and the navigator were loaded on a truck heading away from the fighting, and over the
next few days the truck was strafed 28 times. Cupp kept count. "The driver got to be pretty good at hiding between buildings when we heard the planes coming. One time, though, we were heading down a road
and an American tank was heading right for us. The driver took to the ditches and we got away. I was thinking it would be nice to be captured, but I didn't know if I'd be alive when it happened."
The
truck traveled up into Belgium, and Cupp thought he had a good chance of escaping when they neared Brussels. "Everything looked good. All I had to do was wait until everybody fell asleep and then just
walk away from the truck. Unfortunately, I fell asleep with them."
The two were shut up in a prison inside a former abbey for the night, and the next day the truck began heading east again. "Along the
way we pulled off the road so that the two guards could see one of the local tourist attractions."
As the truck headed away from the fighting, it began to pick up German soldiers who were fleeing the
collapsing front lines. A new guard was put in charge of the two prisoners, and he called Cupp and Donahue "Isadore" because he assumed all Americans were Jews.
The truck sped on into Germany, and the
guards attempted to unload their prisoner burden at a local air base.
The Luftwaffe officer was not pleased to see the Americans. "He wanted to shoot us right on the spot, right in his office. In
fact, he pulled out his gun and pointed it at us. The guards pushed us out the door, and we all ran down the hall. When we all got back to the truck, everybody started laughing. They thought it was a
great joke."
For the next couple of weeks, the guards were never able to solve their problem of what to do with the Americans. Meanwhile the truck began a cruise around Germany, dropping off the
soldiers in their hometowns. Each night, the guards would put the prisoners in the local jail, and every day the truck would head out to another German town.
The prisoners were eventually deposited in
a prison camp about 40 miles south of Berlin. Though initially put in solitary confinement, the two Americans eventually benefitted from Red Cross parcels that included food and better clothing.
The
final destination for Cupp and Donahue was Stalag Luft IV in Poland, one of the more feared prisoner of war camps in Europe. They arrived on Sept. 21, 1944, over three months after they had bailed out
over Belgium.
After six months at the prison, the sound of the Russians advancing on the German lines could be heard. But rather than abandon the camp, the German guards, on Feb. 6, 1944, began
marching the men back toward Germany.
"We marched out on the edge of the Baltic and crossed the Oder River." Cupp estimates that there were 10,000 Americans in the camp at one time, but that number
had shrunk to 8,000 by the time of the long march.
"We were very hungry. We were in bad shape when we started, but in good shape compared to what came later." The men marched and marched, clear across
Germany, staying in barns or out in the open at night.
In the end, the prisoners were marched for 504 miles until they reached a point where they could be loaded on a train where the journey
continued in a circuitous route that avoided both enemy lines.
Why did they drag the Americans clear across their country in order to surrender?
"I think they wanted us in hand so it would give
them something to negotiate with at the end. And I also think they didn't want us to turned over early because we could come back and fight against them.
"There was some speculation too that they just
intended to slaughter us."
As the war ground to a close, the Americans got new guards — Poles who had been forced to fight on the side of Germany. "They brought us to a place where the Americans had
backed up to the River Mulde as part of the agreement with the Russians at the end of the war.
"One of the guards took the ammunition out of his rifle and handed it to me. He said, 'Now march me
to the Americans.'" Cupp was happy to do so. "We came across the river. There were about a thousand of us in our group. We went one way, and the guards filed off to the side." It was April 26, 1945.
The first stop for the newly freed men was the ruins of a former flak school that had been run by the Germans. The Americans were mixed with other freed prisoners. "There were all sorts of tattered
uniforms in there, soldiers from all over eastern Europe."
There was plenty of food, though, and Cupp said he just kept eating. It was two weeks after he was freed that he finally was able to weigh
himself, and despite the food he had been eating ravenously, he still only weighed 89 lbs.
The long trip back ended in a train ride to Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis. Cupp estimates he was gaining
weight at an average of two pounds each day, and he weighed 168 lbs. by the time he got home.
He went back to the farm for a while and then enrolled at the University of Iowa where he earned both his
bachelor's and master's degrees. He completed his doctorate in sociology at the University of North Carolina.
He also married his childhood friend, Elizabeth "Penny" Penningroth, and the two had two
children, a boy and a girl. Cupp taught at Upstate Medical School in New York, at Butler University in Indiana, at St. Olaf College in Northfield, and at Kearney State in Nebraska. His academic focus was
on criminology. The Cupps moved back to Northfield after their retirement.
Cupp, now 80, has been active in the state and national ex-POW groups, and in the Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society. He
has made 10 trips to Europe, and has personally thanked many of the Belgians and French who risked their lives by helping him during the war.
With the exception of the pilot, all the other nine crew
members survived the war.
Bill Cupp's experiences have been captured in a book, A Wartime Journey, Bail- Out over Belgium in World War II. It has 454 pages with many illustrations and
photos of Cupp's extraordinary adventure. Cupp goes into much more detail in all respects of his 10 months evading capture and as a prisoner.
The book is available through Amazon.com or through
sunflower-univ-press.org. Or the book can be purchased directly through Sunflower Press by calling 1-800-258-1232.
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