Robert G. Hansell
Robert G. Hansell , interviewed by Nancy McK Smith, Russell McKnight & Karen Seiko
NMcKS: Let’s start with your name, date and where we are.
RGS: My name is Robert G. Hansell the date is September12, 1998 and we’re at the Hilton Hotel in the city of Tucson.
NMcKS: About what were your dates of service in the Air Corps.
RGH: I was inducted into the National Guard in 1940 in Kansas City, Missouri, and in December we were called to active duty. I went from Kansas City by train to Little Rock, Arkansas, then to Camp Robertson. There I stayed for a year doing the engineering work. The war broke out and we moved out to California. We spent several nights on the beach. We had no ammunition and we had no flashlights. We walked up and down the beach - supposedly watching and listening for Jap invaders to come to California. Yep. Over 50% of the company didn’t fall out the next day because their feet were full of sores from the sand. Now this is the truth. We moved to Camp San Louis Obispo in January of 1942 and were there for a month. The 35th Infantry Division was broken up and sent to Camp Ord, California, to fill in the 27th Infantry Division. In March of 1942 we sailed for Hawaii and we got down there as engineers.
In 1943 I applied for Aviation Cadets, was accepted and got back to California in April of 1943. From there I went to Santa Ana, California, as an Aviation Cadet. I went through the adaptability rating for military aircraft. It was a test that everybody took. We were all rated as bombardiers and navigators. There were two men in our group who did not agree with the rating. They finally demanded and got to see the base commander. He talked to them and said, “We process thousands of men here every day and you two are misrated?” The first guy spoke up and said, “Colonel, I got my discharge from the RCA. I was a lead pilot and I’ve got credit for 2 kills”. The Colonel said, “Oh my goodness.” The other man says, “Colonel, here’s my log book with United Airlines and I’m a DC3 pilot.” So the two were made First Lieutenants the next day and sent off as Instructor Pilots.
Anyway I went to the Squadron and started my training. After that I went to Las Vegas and completed gunnery school. From there I went to Victorville, California, for bombardier school. As we stepped off the train, the officer in charge of our organization lined us up and said, “I want to tell you few things about the camp.” He went through his orientation and one man said, “can I ask a question?” He said “sure”. This man says, “Lieutenant, when do we have time to study?” The Officer says, “you’re not here to study. You’re here to graduate.”
I finished my training and I went home to Kansas City, Missouri, and I married a lady I had known for years. After our honeymoon I went to Salt Lake City. From Salt Lake City I went to Ardmore, Oklahoma, and since I was a bombardier, a 2nd Lieutenant, I was placed on a crew. From there we went by train to Kearney, NB and were formed into a composite group. We were taken to the East Coast and put on a British freighter. It actually was a reefer ship - refrigerator ship - from Argentina. In the bottom of the hold they had frozen beef hides. As I said, we were a composite group with about 100 officers. We had one Major in charge of us. Of course, the Major had a room. We didn’t have rooms. We slept on the fantail of the ship. At 8 o’clock in the morning we woke up and left the fantail so they could put out breakfast. At 10 o’clock we could return. Then at 2 o’clock we had to go back off the fantail so they could put out supper. Those were the two meals we had. We slept in hammocks on the trip. We were supposed to be officers but we were outside on the fantail of the ship - it was a little chilly at the time.
We got to England and there we were assigned to the 95th Bomb Group We had finished our phase training (about 3 months) in Ardmore for the B-17 - dropped bombs and that sort of thing. When we got over to England they gave us some more training. We didn’t drop any bombs, but we toodled around the British area so that the pilot could get familiar with where the beacons were. When the pilot took off on a mission he would go to the beacon and circle that beacon until the plane got to the assigned altitude. I don’t remember the first mission, but I do know that I flew four and 3/4 missions. On the 3/4 mission we went to Leipzig. The formation I was in decided not to drop the bombs. We went around the city of Leipzig, turned around and went back. On the first trip over the city, we lost one engine. When you lose an engine with a full load of bombs you just don’t stay with the formation. We followed them but the second time around we lost another engine. Cook was falling farther and farther behind and I got on the phone and said, “Dick, let’s drop the bombs and go.” He said “No, Bob, I’m going to go to Leipzig.” I hit the salvo lever and dropped the bombs right then. We closed the bombay doors and headed back for England as a single unit. No German fighters came to shoot at us or anything like that. We got over Holland and the two remaining engines stopped flying. We had been told by the pilot that he didn’t know whether the gas was going to last. We were at 7000 feet, so all ten men jumped out. The pilot put the airplane on automatic and that airplane went down and it landed pretty good.
I broke my ankle when I hit the ground. The Dutch people came out and put me on a bicycle and took me to a house. They gave me a sandwich and then I took my other boot off (I had taken my first boot off out in the field) - my foot was swelling. Then they said they had to call an ambulance. When the ambulance showed up, the doctor onboard said, “how do you know your ankle is broken?” I reached down, twisted my ankle and kind of turned it 90 degrees. The doctor said, “Yes, I think it is broken.” They took me to a hospital, set my ankle and I stayed in the hospital in Amsterdam, Holland, from roughly the first of June until the first of September.
There’s one story about the hospital in Amsterdam that’s a little bit different. It’s not referring to POWs, fighting or anything like that. I had a steel piece on my cast so I was able to walk. Put one foot down and walk on the steel piece. I walked down to the facility when it was necessary. They didn’t have one in the hospital room. There were 2 Englishmen and an American airman in the room with me. The other American would get up and walk down to the facility also, but the two Englishmen couldn’t go because they were all tussled up and couldn’t get out of bed. Close to the facility there was an operating room. As I walked down one time I saw a man go into the operating room kitchen. I followed him and he just turned around and looked at me - didn’t say anything. He opened the refrigerator door and he pulled out some eels and I saw some beer. When he left I got myself a handful of eels and about three bottles of beer. I put the beer inside my hospital jacket and in the other hand I held the eels. When I walked back in the room we had eels and beer. Later, I took the bottles back.
About the first of September I was on a hospital car going from Amsterdam to Frankfurt. We stopped in the town of Oberursel which was close to Frankfurt and we got on a bus. There were about 4 or 5 men on the hospital car. We got on one of those German buses that had a woodburning stove outside that created butane gas which drove the engine. As we were going up the hill, the German guard says, “I’m from Chicago, where are you from?” I didn’t say anything but one guy spoke up and said “I’m from Chicago too.” The German said that he graduated from such and such high school in such and such year. The American asked where the high school was located. The German told him and the man from Chicago started interrogating the German to find out if he really was from Chicago. The German guard had dates and places that you had to have gone through, you know, and lived in Chicago. Finally the American asks, “ Buddy, why are you in a German uniform? ”
German: “ Did you ever go out to the race track?” American: “Yeah, why?” “Did you ever bet on the wrong horse?” is what the German said. Now that’s a true story. (Chuckles.)
I got off and went to a casualty clearing station, then I was moved to another casualty clearing station and I was put on a train - not a sleeping car - it was wooden chairs. A man with a towel around his neck got on this train with me. I don’t remember if his name was Jefferson or Macon but he was black and he was part of Colonel Davis’ P51 outfit. He told me that he’d been shot down several days before he got to the camp. He told them he had a stiff neck and they gave him a towel to wrap around his neck. He sat on the train for 2 or 3 days. There were facilities on the train for us to take care of ourselves. We didn’t have any food though. When he got to the base camp at Stalag Luft 3 he walked into their infirmary and was told him to go over to the hospital where they had American PWs. They X-rayed his neck at the hospital and put a cast on it. That man had sat without moving his neck for I don’t how many days. I don’t know how bad the break was, but I do remember that he did wear a cast on his neck for about 2 or 3 months at least. I’ve seen the man at the Stalag Luft 3 reunions over a period of years. I think he became the Superintendent of Schools in Detroit.
We got t o Stalag Luft 3 - that’s the place where the “Great Escape” took place. I wasn’t part of it. I didn’t get to Stalag Luft 3 until some time in September of 44. The Russians got fairly close to us there in the camp and the Germans said, “Everybody who can walk, get ready we’re going to leave.” They moved us out around midnight. I had a stiff ankle and it needed - not surgery - but care of some kind. They said that people in my condition who didn’t think they could make it, could ride a train. So we got in a cattle car. The train was composed of all POWs. They loaded us in the train and the German guard stood down at the car and he stuck his rifle up like that and one of the men in the car picked up the rifle and laid it aside. Then two men put their hands down and we picked that German up and put him in the car. This was you might say a grandpa German. He was an older man, I think he was what you would call the German Home Guard. I don’t know whether he was 60 or 70 but he had a German uniform on and supposedly he was our guard. We went through various towns in the train and naturally when your in a train for 4 days, there are some things you’ve got to do. What you did, you just stuck it out the door and did it. As far as sleeping, we all slept sitting up in the car. It was kind of cold . We didn’t have too many warm clothes.
They stopped the train someplace and they put a black POW on in my car. This man was a P-51 pilot. He got up in the car and the guard told him to sit next to me. Everyone in the car had gotten a Red Cross parcel. Inside this Red Cross parcel there were some biscuits and some strawberry jam. I opened up the can of Spam and took care of it. I looked at his man, his name was McDaniel, and I said, “Are you hungry?” He said, “Yes I am.” I said, “ I’ve got some strawberry jam and some crackers.” He ate them. He went on with us to Nuremberg.
While we were in Nurnburg, about a month, the British came over and bombed the city with 14,000# bombs. We stood in our barracks and we watched those bombs go off. I know exactly what an atomic explosion must be like. First we saw a flash of light then the air was drawn past us down to where the bomb was. We heard the explosion and then the air came rushing back . I have never forgotten that day.
After Nuremberg, we moved on to Moosburg. We were down there about a month and the 14th Armored came in and told us that we were liberated. Well that was Sunday the 29th day of April. The most beautiful airplane in the world that I have ever seen - the P-51 - there were about five of them, flew over the camp and slow rolled. I’ve never forgotten that.
We got on C-47s and flew to Lucky Strike. Then I got on a boat and came home. I was the third man off the boat. The first two guys were walking toward the dock and I was right behind them. There was a Red Cross stand with two ladies there. They had a sign on the stand that said “Fresh Milk & Cookies”. Those two guys in front of me threw their barracks bags to the dock and started running for the ladies. The ladies saw them and they took off running. (Laughter) One man came out and yelled, “Lady, all we want is a glass of fresh milk”. This is the truth. You can’t imagine what a glass of fresh milk was for us in those days. You just can’t imagine.
We got clothing and then we went to the mess hall and had supper. I think if you had gone to that mess hall and told the servers that you wanted a gallon of ice cream, that’s what they would have given you. There was everything imaginable on that serving line There was ham, there was beef, there was just everything. If you wanted 4 pounds of ham, all you did was tell them. They’d put the food on the plate. Well, we’re eating our dinner and this story is not meant to say that Germans are bad people - not now. I was sitting next to a Major who had been in the bag for 3 years. There was a German KP, a PW, who went through the mess hall mouthing off about Americans and calling them filthy names – dogs, pigs, other things like this. Well, the Major got up and grabbed hold of the PW and hauled off and hit him. He knocked him right through the window. Now that was the feeling of an American PW on arriving in America. A Lieutenant Colonel showed up and said, “Major, I want to talk to you. Don’t you know anything about the Geneva Convention. You don’t treat prisoners of war like that.” The major said, “Look, I speak fluent German, I understood every word that man said and I can quote you the Geneva Convention in either English or German, whichever you wish. I know everything about it. Colonel, if you don’t like what I did to that man you just say so and I’ll knock you through the window.” The Colonel turned around and walked off.
NMcKS: You landed in New York, right? What was Lucky Strike?
RGH: Yes, we landed in New York. Lucky Strike was the replacement depot in France. It was first used for a replacement depot for men coming from the States to go the front lines. Since the war was over, they used it for going home. In Lucky Strike the first thing they tell you is to take off all your clothes and throw them away. I imagine they did this to everybody. Then they told me to take a shower. We went from there to another room and they gave me a dosage of some kind - a powder all over. They made sure I wasn’t buggy. Then they told me to go take another shower. Then I was told where to get clothing. Since I was a Lieutenant, I got my clothing, I got my bars and I went to finance and they gave me a partial pay. I was told while I was at Lucky Strike that one of the men who came back with us, got his pay, and went up to the PX and spent his pay on candy. He died. This is what I was told. I don’t know the name of the man, I didn’t see it, but, as I say, I was told.
Anyway we’re in the States, we’re going home and we’re on a train. We had to stop at some town in Illinois, Indiana, someplace like that. Well, two men left the train. They went to a beer joint. All of sudden the conductor went out, waved his arm and the train started up. In those days there was an emergency stop in every car. That stop was pulled and the train - bang -stopped just like that. So the conductor went through the train, found the stop and put it up, waved his arm. The train started up again and down it came. Two men are running from the beer joint. They’ve got a case of beer. When they got on the train we had no problem. So that’s my story.
I got home and I visited with relatives for a day. I went to Kansas City and my wife was standing where I told her at the information desk at the station. When I got to her, she looked at me and then she looked away from me. I didn’t know - I thought what the heck? Finally I just looked at her, walked up to her and I said, “Lady, you want a husband?” She said , “Yes”. Then she said, “Bob?” My weight was 175 pounds when I went over. When I met my wife that day it was 110. I had 3 months leave. I ate and I had fun. That’s really about all there is to my story.
After years passed by, I got a bomb group newsletter that wanted to know about airplane 237889 right there. I wrote to Maxwell and they wrote back to me and said that was your airplane. That’s the one you flew in your last mission. I wrote back to Pete Maher and corresponded with him quite a bit. Told him about all the crew members and those things. When we went over there in 92, I wrote Pete and said I’m coming over to England and I’d like to visit you. He sent me a map of Holland and he said, “If you get on Highway 15 and drive so and so you’ll come right to my house.” That’s exactly what I did. We had a pleasant supper and he had us spend the night there. We got up the next morning and Pete said, “Bob, don’t go anyplace today.” I waited, talked to his wife, talked to my wife. Finally at noon Pete showed up. He took me to the same house in 92 that they had taken me to in June of 44. That’s where the newspaper comes in. See. That’s me and that’s the Dutch words. Pete made a translation of that. They took me to where the airplane had landed. Yeah. We had supper together and then they took me to a farmhouse that night. It seems that this farmer had two men on my crew, Shackman and the engineer. The engineer was a pickup because our engineer had gotten sick. I don’t remember the engineer’s name. I talked to Shackman on the telephone quite a few times and he told me that he had been part of the Dutch Resistance. He had put on the blue overalls of the Dutch and gone out and blown up the trains. The farmer had a room constructed on the second floor of his barn where he stored the hay for the cows - it was a dairy - and that’s where the men lived until Holland was liberated - in April of 1945, I think. That’s what my memory tells me. The war was over and the story is over. Now what questions do you want to ask me?
NMcKS: It was a wonderful story to tell.
RGH: I just raised three kids and all those things. My wife died in 1990. I married another lady and she went with me in 92 and met all those folks. We had a wonderful visit. Wonderful time.
KS: I have a question. How accurate was the portrayal in the Great Escape of day to day life?
RGH: For all practical purposes it was fairly accurate. Now I had been told - I don’t know if this is true - but I have been told that Steve McQueen riding the motorcycle was not actually part of the story. But there were 3 men who got out of the North camp and made it to freedom. Two went down a river, got to a port, got on a boat and went to either Sweden or Norway. The other man walked out and was liberated by going through Spain. The rest of the 50 men were recaptured, lined up and shot. That is true.
KS: How about day to day life? Did you have an organized escape plan while you were there - like they portray in the movie?
RGH: I was not in the organization long enough to really get involved in anything. I got there in September and they started marching in January. I was told that the commandant of the camp came to the logger and said, “I would like to know where ferret # so and so was on such and such a day.” A ferret was a man who spoke perfect English. He walked around in a pair of blue coveralls and he had a big long stick. His job was to get next to a window and hear what was being talked about inside the room. He also had a big long iron rod and he would stick that in the ground to see if there was a tunnel. Now the North Camp was English, the South/East/and West camps were American. Whenever a ferret came into the camp an American or an Englishman would follow the man around. If he got too close to a window, the man following him would go into the barracks and say “ferret”! It went right down through the barracks and they would know that there was a ferret standing outside the window. If there was anything going on inside that barracks toward escape, it was stopped. In the movie it shows a guy teaching bird calls - he was an engraver. I don’t know whether that part is true. This much I do know, there was a man made grandfather clock out of wood and it worked. In our Red Cross parcels, we got a climcan which was powdered milk. We also got Spam. The meat and potatoes came in a can that had a strip around the top to wind with a key. The strip had some solder on each end. Guys would go around picking up cans, put them on the stove and melt the solder. Then they would make a mold and make themselves a pair of wings from the bits of solder off a can. Actually, this business of - how true was the movie and what was life like in the barracks? It was pretty true. We had a radio there. When you take 10,000 men or 10,000 women for that matter and you take their skills and put them to work, you’d be surprised what you’ve got. They had watchmakers - they had a lot of different people. These people were gathered from all over the United States with only one purpose in mind and that was to be able to fly. We had jewelers, we had tailors - all things like that.
RMcK: That’s a great story, Bob, it really is.
RGH: The Great Escape was basically true. Life for the average POW would be - get up, go out side and stand your roll call. It was called an appell. The idea was that you’d stand in your logger - we were in the South compound - and the Germans would come out and count everybody. If there happened to be a man sick in his bed, someone would check to see that there was a man sick in the bed. If the count worked out all right, it was fine. I actually saw an escape attempt. I didn’t realize it at the time but there was a man walking along the perimeter of the camp. There were two wires - there was the barbed wire and then there was another wire. You were not supposed to step over into that wire. This thing with Steve McQueen throwing his baseball - somebody probably did something like that. Some of those German guards would have shot if you stepped across the wire. Me and another guy were just walking around the perimeter, just something to do. Everybody did it for exercise - something to do. As we passed one of the goon boxes - which was a guard tower, a guy started a fight over here and the goons turned and looked this way. The walker climbed under the gate. There was just enough room for him to skinny under it. He did. That night at appell we had to stand out there for a long time because there was one man missing. Of course, they picked him up a couple of days later and he went to the cooler. That was solitary confinement where you really couldn’t do anything other than sit. They had a bucket in there and they’d bring you some food. Bread and water. That was punishment. That was jail.
RMcK: We have to cut off now. I think we have someone waiting. This has been a great conversation and we really appreciate it. There’s been so much good material. I’m sure we could go on.
NMcK: I’m just going to add for the record that this has been NancyMcKnight Smith, Russell McKnight and Karen Seiko from the Legacy Committee talking to you, Bob Hansell, and we thank you very much.
RMcK: Here! Here!