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Show Thursday, February 9, 2006 NORTH COUNTY NEWSPAPERS Page 17 Germans commence Matheny s interrogation Editor's note: This is the 10th in a series uhout Lindon resident resi-dent Ray Matheny. This week, Matheny relates his experiences as a German POW. German of ficers knew the "art" of interrogation "They had a lot of practice," prac-tice," Matheny explains. Initial interrogations, however, may not have been so skillful. f e come into 'Hamburg, and I am let out by a brick building. build-ing. I'm taken upstairs to the third or fourth story, where there are two other GIs. A German comes over short and poorly dressed with dark, beady eyes. I call him "Beady" to myself. He explains that he once lived in New York City for a few months, but he hardly knows English just words, no complete sentences. He has a form and wants to know my name, rank, and serial number the only information we are permitted to give. He wants to know more, but I can't understand under-stand his English. There's a stomping of boots on the stairs, and in comes a German major, all rumpled up from sleeping. He's obviously irritated. He brings Beady back to me with the form, and the major starts asking Beady questions, which Beady is supposed to ask in English. But for .the life of me, I can't understand what he is talking about. 1 finally figure out that he's asking me how old 1 am, and I answer "18." The major writes down "Achtzehn." Then he wants to know where I went to school. So I lie and tell him I got my education in New York. The major says, "Ja, Engenieurwissen" "engineer." "en-gineer." Now it looks like a game, so when Beady as"ks me the next question, I answer, "And yes, I really do like the wallpaper in my aunt's parlor." par-lor." Beady starts to translate, and the major says, "Ja, ja." Then the phone rings, before they catch on to my game and something goes wrong. I'm taken downstairs and walked to the Hamburg jail, where I'm met by a jailer, a short, stocky man, who greets me in cockney English: "Hi ya, Yank. Don't mind my accent. I lived in London for 12 years." He escorts me to a jail cell, where I find a bed of wooden planks, with one plank set at about 30 degrees for a pillow. Exhausted, I drop off to sleep instantly. Early the next morning, after breakfast, seven of us POWs are marched to the Hamburg railway station, and from there we are taken to the beautiful railway station at Frankfurt am Main. We are escorted through the station in single file, a German Ger-man soldier in front of us, one behind us. We march by a man wearing a fedora, an overcoat draped over his arm. He raises his overcoat and gives us the victory sign as we march by. That feels good! Not more than 50 feet farther, far-ther, we pass an old lady with a shawl around her shoulders. She raises the shawl and also gives us the victory sign two people, right in a row, in the Frankfurt am Main station. What a wave of confidence confi-dence comes over us, to know that somebody is friendly. We are put in an old, worn-out worn-out street car it must have been rescued from the past and taken out of town a little ways to a kind of an estate. A big sign out front reads, "Welcome. "Wel-come. We have been expecting you." We're all kind of taken aback. We are each individually escorted to a cell, this time by a German soldier who has a bayonet on his rifle. The room is maybe 10 feet long, 6 feet wide, and a bunk takes up most of the room. At the end is an electric heater, and the room is dark. Time passes slowly. A clock outside chimes every 15 minutes, min-utes, 24 hours a day. It's a good psychological weapon, because the time now passes slowly. Food is passed through a little sliding door a bowl of soup, a piece of black bread, and ersatz coffee. Then the heater comes on, and it roasts me. The heat becomes unbearable, and I strip off my clothes. Then the heat is turned off, and it gets freezing cold in the cell. Now I learn that I have company: com-pany: fleas, bedbugs and body lice. These extremes work on you. I realize that I'm being "softened up" for the real interrogation. in-terrogation. I Next week: Matheny is shocked as were many, many Americans to learn that the German officer who interrogates him has a "file" on him. It contains details of his family, schooling and training. train-ing. How did the Germans get such information? These excerpts from local veterans are courtesy of the Orem Heritage Committee. Complete stories of the veterans vet-erans will eventually be put on the Orem City Web site, www.orem.org. Readers aware of any veterans who have written uhout their military service are asked to arrange to have these archives in the Veter-uns Veter-uns History Project, Library . of Congress. 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