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| John Blanck |
| Blanck Introduction |
John Blanck (ASN 42104261) served with Co F 179th, 45th Infantry in Italy and France from July to November 1944. In November 1944 he was captured by the Germans near Wissenbourg France. He was a POW in Germany until May 7, 1945.
According to his separation papers he spent:
The history of his service
Communication From the Army December 15, 1944 Telegram On December 15, 1944 Alice received the following telegram from the US Government, address 12 Cooper Place, Weehawken: THE SECRETARY OF WAR DESIRES ME TO EXPRESS HIS DEEP REGRET THAT YOUR HUSBAND PRIVATE JOHN J BLANCK HAD BEEN REPORTED MISS IN ACTION SINCE TWENTY EIGTH NOVEMBER IN FRANCE IF FURTHER DETAILS OR OTHER INFORMATION ARE RECEIVED YOU WILL BE PROMPTLY NOTIFIED March 9, 1945 Letter In early March 1945 Alice received a letter, dated March 9, from the War Department stating that John's whereabouts was still unknown but that "A report has now, been received, however, which states that on 28 November, Private Blanck was acting in the capacity of rifleman with a company in a defensive position near Wissenbourg, France. An enemy tank and three half-tracks attacked from the north and overran that part of the company area occupied by your husband's platoon, continuing the raid for about ten minutes. It was following this action that your husband's absence was noted, but a search of the area failed to disclose any trace of Private Blanck. March 21, 1945 Telegram On March 21, 1945, three months after the first telegram, Alice received a second telegram from the Adjutant General, address 12 Cooper Place, Weehawken. BASED ON INFORMATION RECEIVED THROUGH THE PROVOST MARSHAL GENERAL RECORDS OF THE WAR DEPARTMENT HAVE BEEN AMENDED TO SHOW YOUR HUSBAND PRIVATE JOHN L BLANCK A PRISONER OF WAR OF THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT ANDY FURTHER INFORMATION RECEIVED WILL BE FURNISHED BY THE PROVOST MARSHAL GENERAL Discharge Papers August 17, 1945 On August 17, 1945 John received an Honorable Discharge from the Army. He was discharged from Ft Dix New Jersey. This document listed him in Co F 179th Infantry and says his date of active service was February 4, 1944. He entered the service in Newark, New Jersey. It gives the following information pertaining to his service over seas:
Miscellaneous information from the military papers.
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Letter from the War Claims Commission March 1951 In a letter from the War Claims Commission in Washington, D.C. dated March 21, 1951 and addressed to John Joseph Blanck, 260 Standish Avenue, Hackensack, John was awarded $162.00 "to cover the period imprisonment and/or internment, etc. of yourself from 28 November 1944 to 8 May 1945".
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A Prisoner of War
John spoke little about his experiences in the war. However, he did talk to me about it a bit as the result of an incident that occurred in August 1968. Tom and I were visiting John and Alice at their home in Hackensack during the Democratic Convention of August 1968. John and I were watching the convention and related activities on TV. Alice and Tom were already in bed. There was a confrontation between National Guard, Police, and anti war protesters in which the National Guard and Police ended up clubbing some of the anti war protesters. See Jo Freedman.com for details and photos. John had fallen asleep before the broadcast ended at midnight. When I went to shake him a little to tell him it was time to go to bed he started to hit me with his fists and kick me with his feet. I, of course, started screaming, which woke him up. When he realized what he had done he was mortified. The scenes of the confrontation in Chicago had brought on war dreams. This was not an isolated occurrence. Apparently he suffered from such dreams for years but the only other witness had been Alice. By way of apology for hitting me he spoke to me a bit about his capture. He told me he was asleep when his group was surrounded and taken by the Germans. He and the men he was with had become separated from the other American troops. They had not had much rest or food and were low on ammunition. Apparently the person or persons who were supposed to be on guard had also fallen asleep, so the group was completely taken by surprise. Upon wakening he realized what was happening and tried uselessly to fight off his captors. He did not say anything about the transportation to the POW camp. However, other POWs have told the story of their capture and numerous personal accounts of capture and incarceration can be found on line. They all tell of being jammed into "40 by 8" unheated, windowless boxcars. Space was so tight that some men stood while other squatted between their legs. No one could lie down. The sick or injured were given the preference of being able to squat. Little food was provided. Water was not always provided. Occasionally the prisoners were allowed out of the boxcars to scoop up snow. When water was provided, the water pails also served as toilets. Alternatively, the soldier's helmets were used for the same purposes. Sometimes an icicle was within reach to provide some hydration. Dysentery was rampant. The trip to the POW camp took days or weeks. The trains were frequently sidetracked as supply trains went by. They were also fired upon by U.S. and British planes trying to stop the movement of German supplies (There was no way of knowing there were American prisoners of war on board). Death rates from dehydration, untreated wounds, and the Allied bombings were high and the dead were simply thrown off the train along the side of the track. Sometimes after a few days the train would stop and the men would be provide with some food, generally black bread and watery soup. John was captured near Wissembourgh on the French /German boarder on November 28, 1944. He was processed three days later in Limburg am Lahn (Stammlager XII A, Limburg (Lahn)). Enlisted men and officers were separated. The camp was located near the village of Limburg am Lahn. He was issued German POW dog tags with the number 311261. It is not know how long he was in the camp at Limburg. However it was most likely a few days to a week based on other accounts and the fact that one of the soldiers on a list with him was captured at least two days after he was. From Limburg he was transported east to Stalag IV B near Muhlberg. In December 1944 other POWs who made the same journey from Limburg am Lahn to Stalag IV B said that the trip took eight days and seven nights. He never mentioned how many other soldiers were captured with him. However, the records from the National Archives for World War II Prisoners of War (which are online) indicate that 28 soldiers of the 179th were captured on November 28, 1944.
In all, 97 prisoners from various divisions were captured on 28 November 1944 and sent to camp 006 including Frank Don Diego and John Blanck from the 179th. On the back of the scrap of paper from when he was processed in the camp at Limburg there are six names: J Blanck, F Don Diago, E Cataldi, J Cando, E Dahl, and Craft (no initial).
The camp listed as #006 by the National Archives was known as Muhlberg Sachen Stalag IV B. The camp was located outside of the town of Muhlberg on the Elbe river about 75/80 miles south of Berlin and about 32 miles north west of Dresden. It was both a permanent camp and a "lager" camp (transit work camp). In addition to Americans there were prisoners from all of the Allied Forces in Europe. Crews of enlisted men were sent from the camp to work details in the surrounding area including German Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. The Geneva Convention allowed "that enlisted men were required to perform whatever labor they asked and able to do, so long as it was not dangerous and did not support the German war effort" (Wikipeida.org) In general the camps were divided into compounds that were separated by barbed wire. Each compound contained several barracks which held upward to 40 men sleeping in tiered bunks. By December 1944, there were 4,500 Americans in Stalag IVB . Half again as many are reported to have passed through on their way to other camps. The increase in the numbers of the POWs was in part the result of the Battle of the Bulge of December 1944 when over 23,554 Americans were captured. While he was officially listed by the US Government in Stalag IV B John spent at least part of his time in Oflag IV A in Hohnstein/Bad Schandau in the mountains near the Czech boarder. Camp Life John sometimes spoke of numbers of fellow prisoners who died, mostly of malnutrition. He said the main form of nutrition was "soup", which he described as a few potato skins floating in some water. Other POW talk of barley "coffee", dark bread made with sawdust, and an occasional piece of cheese. The only meat ever mentioned was horse meat sometimes served in the soup. John said in his diary on May 7th: "horse meat is the only meat we have had in the last few months". He also said: "I haven't had a vegetable in 6 months."
John's rations did included two cigarettes a day. John credited his survival to the fact that he did not smoke and was able to trade his cigarettes for "food". When he was induced in the service in February 1944 he weighed 155 pounds. By May 1945 he weighted 86 pounds. Towards the end of the war life in the camps became harder as the numbers of prisoners increased and the Germans did not have even enough food for themselves. Upon arrival at the camp, prisoners were given a shower and their clothes were deloused. This was the last shower most of them had until liberation. The only water available was cold and given the fidget temperatures in the camps in the winter of 1944/45 no one seems to have cared much for washing in icy water. There were no towels and no clean clothes to change into. Prisoners wore the same clothes (including socks and underwear) from the time of their capture (if not before) until their liberation in May 1945. John mentions getting a change of underwear and socks on May 9th, the first change he had in six months. The prisoners were housed in unlit, unheated wooden barracks frequently with dirt floors. The prisoners slept in bunk beds, three levels high. Mattresses were of straw or saw dust or did not exist. Other prisoners tell of sleeping on straw on the floor. Frequently the men slept together in a group in order to share body heat during the freezing winter nights. Blankets seem to have been in short supply. Frost bitten toes and feet were a chronic problem. The winter of 1944/45 was one of the coldest on record in Europe. The cold did nothing to deter the lice, fleas and other vermin. Almost everyone suffered from dysentery necessitating frequent trips to the outdoor open latrine during the day or the hole in the corner of the barracks at night. There were no such luxuries as toilet paper. Non commissioned soldiers were sent on work details outside the camp. Some from Stalag IV B were sent to Dresden. While away from the camp the work details were housed in barns and warehouses. Apparently work detail had its pluses and minuses. While men on work details were supposed to get additional rations, it was not enough nourishment and it was difficult to do hard physical labor on the meager amount of calories they received. On the other hand there was some hope of obtaining additional food through the generosity of the local Germans or by stealing bits of this and that, mostly potatoes which were eaten raw. John said in his diary: ".....the German had pushed me around for 6 months. Shoving coal in weather below zero and using their bayonets on us not to mention starving." I believe that this indicates that he was on a work detail. One person assigned to Stalag IV B talks of working in the coal mines in Oberrobblingen, Saxony.
The arrival of new prisoners was an exciting event in camp, as men would gather near the entrance to search for their missing buddies. POW's were kept in separate compounds by nationality although there seems to have been some mixing of Brit and Americans. There was also a transit compound for the work details. Some relief was obtained when Red Cross parcels arrived, although this occurred less frequently in the last 12 months as the war drew to an end. There appears to have been some minimal correspondence between loved ones in the states and the POWs. Many letter were lost only to show up once the war had ended. John clearly received at least one piece of mail that contained photos. See below. The soldiers tried to entertain themselves with plays and talks. There were small libraries of books that had arrived in Red Crosses packages. There were a number of secret homemade radios in the camp. Consequently some information on the progress of the war was passed around. Most of the conversation was about food. The nights were filled with the constant drone of Allied bombers on their way to bomb Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig. Dresden was close enough that the explosions could be heard in the camp. Work details were sent from the camp to assist in cleaning up the city after the bombing. Stalag IV A Hohnstein/Bad Schandau While the military records from the National Archives list John at camp 006, Stalag IV B Muhlberg on the Elbe River he is known to have been at Stalag IV A Holnstein (Holenstein) Bad Schandau in Sachen (also sometimes referred to as Eisterhorst). There are a number of accounts by America POWs who spent some time in Stalag VI B and then were moved to other camps including Stalag IV A. Checking some of their names on the National Archives site indicates they were, like John, designated at camp 006 (Stalag IV B Muhlberg). John certainly falls into the category of men who were given one designation by the Army but who actually spent at least part of their time in another POW camp. John received at least one letter from Alice. Among the family photos are three pictures taken in June 1944 (Tom is clearly a very young infant). On the back of all three photos in Alice's hand is "John J Blanck 311261"311261 was John's German dog tag number. Stamped on the back of all three photos is: KFG.M.Stammlager IV A Stalag IV A at Hohnstein/Bad Schandau on the German Czech boarder was about 13 miles south of Dresden in the mountains. It was a new camp in December 1944. There were eventually over a 1,000 American and 1,500 British prisoners in the camp. Over the years John said that he had been in Czechoslovakia when he was a prisoner of war. Stalag IV A was very near the Czech border and it is highly likely that he went on work details in Czechoslovakia. It appears that John was in Stalag IV A Hohnstein/Bad Schandau at the end of the war. The prisoners from Stalag IV A tell of: fear of the Russian advance, leaving the camp on May 7 in very weak physical condition still under the supervision of the German guards, marching towards the American lines along mountain roads crowded with refugees who were moving in the same direction, of bombs dropping, and strafing (spray of machine gun fire from low flying planes), and eventually being abandoned by their guards. From that point on they seem to have gone in many directions. Some going south to Prague, some going south west through Czechoslovakia and crossing the border back in to Germany closer to the American lines and others, like John and his buddies, heading for Dresden. This is a completely different story that that told by prisoners who were at Muhlberg where the Russians rather quietly took over the camp and where there was no talk of bombings, refugees, mountain roads, etc..
Excerpts from John's diary indicates indicate that they were coming from the mountains to the south and are consistent with other stories from Stalag IV A:
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| Related Web Sites To see photos of Stalag IV B Muhlberg go to Stalag IV B
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| The Photos John Received in Prison |
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| To see copies of the actual documents relating to John's military service, clink on the the copy of the Missing in Action telegram. |
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| For a transcription of the diary John kept between May 7 and June 1, 1945 click on the image of the prisoner of war. |
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| Maps relating to John's war experiences |
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| Pictures of the places relating to John's war service |
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| If you have any suggestions, corrections, information, copies of documents, or photos that you would like to share with this page, please contact me at maggie@maggieblanck.com |
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