103rd Cactus Division

 

Fredrick Foley

Thank you for posting this site.  I was in both the 382nd Field Artillery and 409th Regiment, 2nd Battalion, Company F,
Third Rifle Platoon.  My name is Fredrick Foley.  I live in Battle Ground, Washington.  I certainly invite anyone
from the 103rd to contact me.  I was captured in the Vosges Mountains, November 29, 1944 and held by the Germans
as a prisoner until the end of the War where I was liberated by the Russians in Czechoslovakia where I, and many
others from different nations, were laboring in an underground Aircraft Factory where Messer Schmidt motors were
being built.  It was an SS camp.  Fortuitously, we were moved one day before the end of the war from this camp. 
On a return trip in 1992, we found the camp again and a memorial that the Czech people had constructed to the
brutal conditions we endured in this camp.  To my great surprise, we learned from the memorial that the SS had
executed all of the remaining prisoners at this camp on the last day of the War, approximately 100 people.  We
escaped this shooting by one day.  We finally found the Americans in Pilsen after going through the Russian lines. 
We also barely escaped an order from Stalin to hold all American prisoners who, as you probably are aware, were
never retuned to America, some 25,000 boys in all
  I was in the 103rd Div., 409th Regiment, Company F and 382nd Field Artillery, 
Forward Observer.  I was captured on November 29, 1944  with three other soldiers 
in the Vosges Mountains while working through enemy lines attempting to connect 
telephone wire to a forward observer position.  Unfortunately we encountered a Company 
of Germans and after a  very brief fire fight and an escape, I returned to take a higher 
position on the hill.   I was picked up by the end of the skirmish line of the German 
Company surrounding us.   It was apparent at that time that we had encountered at 
least 100 Germans and there was no alternative except surrender.   As a result, I was 
taken to several internment and forced labor camps.  I was forced to work in a slave 
labor camp in Czechoslovakia commanded by the SS.  We were working on  Messer 
Schmidt motors in an underground aircraft factory.  Prior to this labor I worked in a slave 
labor camp in Velky Senov, then called Gross Schoenau in Czechoslovakia, very close to 
the German border.  I was only thirty or forty miles from Dresden while at this camp, 
during the infamous firebombing, which we could both see and feel from this distance.  
The concussion was so great that we had to open up the  windows in the shoddy 
barracks they had given us to keep the glass from breaking.  We were liberated by 
the Russians coming from the East.  In our camp there were slaves from Yugoslavia, 
Poland, France, Hungary, even German political prisoners.  It was a very brutal camp 
in which we were worked hard and slowly being starved to death.  Many died from
privation and disease.  I weighed 90 pounds when I was liberated.  I  nearly died from
 pneumonia, fever and tuberculosis directly after the end of the war.  Penicillin is probably 
what saved my life.  Luckily, I made it back through the Russian lines and barely 
escaped Stalin's order to keep all Americans.  (You may be aware that 25,000 
Americans were held by the Russians after the War and were never returned.  This is 
a dishonor and a horror in part committed by our own Government, since we 
were aware of this fact and did nothing to demand their return.)  In 1992 I returned 
to Czechoslovakia.  I found the last Camp I was at which was run by the SS.  We were
moved from this Camp one day before the War ended to a nearby Czech town, Benesov. 
A placard I had translated  explained that everyone who remained in the Camp,
approximately 100 people, were executed by the SS.  We had missed the shooting by
one day.