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Show NORTH COUNTY NEWSPAPERS Page 3 Landing as a POW Editor's note: This is the ninth story in a series about Lindon resident Ray Matheny. Matheny, in shock from having just parachuted from his badlv damaged B-l7into a German canal (only two of the crew of 10 have survived), is being escorted by an elderly German farmer to a German home. Thursday. February 2. 2006 veteran see pieces of my airplane on the ground and on the roofs of houses. Then I see two girls, probably about 15 or 16 years old (I was 18 at the U time), so I make the farmer stop. I reach into my flight suit, take out my comb, and comb my hair. Of aD the foolish things to do! Here all my companions have been killed, I've been through the most horrible experience of my life, I'm barely alive, yet I'm so vain that I stop and comb my hair in front of those girls. But I have a full head of wavy hair the style then. I hadnt fol-. fol-. lowed military rules to keep my hair short. The girls are pointing at the pieces of the airplane and yelling, "Kaput! Kaput." I'm bleeding from the forehead. fore-head. I suppose the girls are still laughing about that incident. I'm taken to a house, where I'm met by an Italian noncommissioned noncom-missioned officer, who escorts me inside the house. The lady of the house comes in, off ers me a chair, and stokes up the fire in the little pot-bellied stove I'm shivering, wet from the icy-cold water of the canal It's now about 12:30 in the afternoon I haven't been there 15 minutes when she comes in and asks me to have lunch with the family. I respectfully decline I cant think about eating at the time. So the Italian soldier and I si by the stove. He's speaking Italian and I'm speaking street Spanish, and we get along quite well. He'd been wounded badly in North Africa, so was sent to northern Germany to pick up prisoners, I assume. I can see into the kitchen, and behind the kitchen table are photographs pho-tographs of the men of the family, fam-ily, all in uniform, now off to war someplace. Part of the several things in my escape kit, which fit into the upper up-per left pocket of my flight suit, includes several thousand French francs and German Reichmarks. I offer the Italian the German money, but he refuses it. "Oh, no, no," he says. He makes it known to me that if he is caught with such money, he would be in deep trouble. So we sit and take turns throwing the bills into the fire a most delightful de-lightful experience, by the way, to be able to burn money. The news comes on the radio, in German, French and English. The news is that 60 allied bomb ers have been shot down over Kiel that day by the glorious Luftwaffe. (I think the records show that maybe five were lost.) I laugh out loud, and I'm sure the family understands why. About six in the evening, the lady comes in and asks me to have dinner with the family. I sit down at the table with a young boy and girl, and another woman who appears on the scene. W have potatoes and cabbage, cab-bage, soup, ersatz coffee and black bread, with strawberry jam. It's not elaborate, but it's good food something to warm my stomach. The family is very kind. The Italian returns to his billet, leaving me alone with the family. About 10 o'clock that evening, the Italian returns with a German Hauptmann (captain), who gives his respects to the family: "H&L, Hitler,'" and that sort of thing. He's a very handsome man, dressed in an immaculate uniform uni-form riding breeches, highly polished black boots up past his calves, the image of militarism, authority and arrogance. I ignore him. He keeps looking at a large portrait in a glass-covered frame, twisting his face back and forth. I realize that he is admiring his reflection in the glass. He has paid me no attention at all. but as he passes by me on the way to the door, he waves his two fingers at me and sort of whistles as if he is calling a dog. When you're a prisoner, you do what you're told. I get up and follow him to a German 6x6 truck, where I find myself with six other American airmen. This truck has been going around the countryside picking up downed flyers. - I Next week: Ray undergoes interrogations on his way to a POW camp. These excerpts from local veterans are courtesy of the Orem Heritage Committee. Complete stories of the veterans will eventually be put on the Orem City Web site, www.orem.org. Readers aware of any veterans who have written about their military service are asked to arrange to have these archives in the Veterans History Project, Library of Congress. Phone Don Norton (225-8050) on how to do this. 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