Shot down from a B-24 and captured by the Germans in 1944, Kensington man survived more than a year in prisoner-of-war camp

By Gary Demuth

Salina Journal

KENSINGTON -- The number 21 has special meaning for E.R. "Bud" Nech.

On April 21, 1944, Nech and his B-24 bomber flight crew were shot down over the Alps in German-occupied Yugoslavia.

It was Nech's 21st mission as a flight engineer. He was 21 years old.

"I guess it wasn't my lucky number," said Nech, now 86.

Nech, a native of Woodston (Rooks County), was part of a 10-man crew that flew bombing missions out of Italy in World War II. Their missions consisted of destroying oil fields and aircraft facilities in Germany and Austria.

After being shot down, Nech thought he'd never see home again. For a year and 12 days, Nech was a German prisoner of war. He had to endure harsh living conditions, forced marches, little or no food and frostbite during the winter months.

Then there was the matter of his right leg, which carried a piece of the B-24 and shrapnel from German flak guns that had shot it down.

Nech survived his ordeal, but for years his own children never knew that much about his capture and survival. All they knew was that for the last 62 years, their father has refused to step on an airplane.

"If you've ever got shot out of a plane, you want to keep your feet on the ground," he said.

Like many men of his generation, Nech didn't like to talk about his war experiences. In his mind, they were just men doing their job. There was no reason to make a fuss about it.

A child's question

What changed Nech's mind about telling his story was a Veterans Day invitation a few years ago from an elementary school at Kensington, the northwest Kansas town where Nech and his wife, Rosalie, have lived most of their adult lives.

After Nech told the children about his experiences as a prisoner of war, a child asked him if it was worth it. He became tearful and choked up, said his daughter, Sue Young.

"He said, 'When I look at you kids, I know it was all worth it,' " Young said. "I started crying. He had just never talked about it before."

Young said she is extremely proud of her father's sacrifices in World War II, even if he downplays his contribution.

"If it wasn't for my dad and other veterans, many of us wouldn't be here and we wouldn't have the freedoms we have today," she said.

Nech was born and reared in Woodston, a farm community about 30 miles southwest of Stockton. He graduated from Woodston High School in the spring of 1941.

Soon after graduation, he went to Baltimore, where he got a job building Martin B-26 Marauder bombers.

Work, then Pearl Harbor

He had been building planes just a short time when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

"The boss told me not to leave, that I was needed there," Nech said. "I said the heck with that, I'm going to join the service."

Nech joined the Army Air Force and spent nine months in Leavenworth at engineering school, then went to gunnery school at Fort Myers, Fla. From there, he went to McCook, Neb., where he joined the 454 Bombardment Group, 739th Squadron.

After training at Charleston, S.C., Nech's squadron was sent to North Africa and then to an air base in Italy.

From Italy, Nech and his squadron flew frequent bombing missions over Germany and Austria.

"You had to fly 50 missions before you got to come home," Nech said.

Had his feet shot out

The squadron was almost halfway through its required 50 missions when German guns shot out the plane's engines as it flew over the Alps at Mostar, Yugoslavia.

"I was in the back of the plane, and I had my feet shot out from under me," Nech said.

Nech felt a burning sensation in his right leg as shrapnel hit it. The engineer standing next to him was less fortunate -- he was hit in the head and died instantly.

"We laid him down and while one of us held onto his (parachute) ring, we rolled him off the plane," Nech said. "His chute opened and he made it down. The Germans later told me that they recovered his body."

Nech and the rest of the flight crew bailed out of the plane as it burst into flames. With his leg throbbing and bleeding, Nech landed safely, right in the middle of a flock of sheep.

A young girl tending the sheep ran down the hillside screaming. Before Nech could get his bearings, he found himself staring into the barrel of a shotgun wielded by an elderly farmer.

An unfortunate landing

As Nech soon found out, he had landed on the wrong side of the mountains.

"I landed on the German side of the mountains," he said. "On the other side were Yugoslavian freedom fighters, and I would have been safe."

The farmer kept the shotgun trained on Nech until German soldiers arrived. Nech was taken to a German hospital, where he spent two months recovering from his leg wound.

Nech never saw the other members of his flight crew again.

"I imagine some of them landed on the right side of the mountain, while others were captured and sent to prison camps," Nech said.

The cold and frostbite

After recovering, Nech was sent to a prison camp in Frankfort, Germany. American prisoners were treated decently at the camp, Nech said, and were allowed to receive canned food from the Salvation Army.

"One thing about the Germans was they respected rank," he said. "They respected those of us who flew."

With captivity came boredom, and prisoners did whatever they could to occupy time.

"We played ball a lot and played cards with a deck we made," Nech said. "During the winter, we mostly just sat there and shook."

The winter of 1944-45 was tough for the prisoners. All they were given to wear was a single shirt, pants, shoes and a light sweater. They also got two thin blankets. Before winter was out, Nech suffered frostbite on his fingers and hands.

In the spring of 1945, the prisoners could hear Russian tanks and guns close by and knew it was only a matter of time before the war ended. The Germans weren't giving up that easily, however. The prisoners were loaded onto boxcars and shipped to the German stronghold of Nuremberg.

"We were packed in there and dying of thirst," Nech said. "What saved us was there was snow on top of the boxcars, and we could catch snow dripping off the roof."

The prisoners arrived in Nuremburg, where 20,000 other men were held. Soon after, they were forced to march to another camp near Munich. All the time, the men waited for the American army to liberate them.

"We knew the Americans were coming," Nech said. "Hitler had given orders to kill all of us, but they didn't carry it out."

Liberated by Paton

After one year and 12 days as a German prisoner of war, Nech was liberated by Gen. George S. Patton's 3rd Army.

"I got to talk to Patton," Nech said. "He said, 'I can't visit with you long. I'm after those S.O.B.s, and I've got them on the run.' Patton was a tough old guy."

Nech and the other prisoners were taken by troop train to France, where they were visited by another famed General -- Dwight D. Eisenhower.

"He came down the line and stopped and shook my hand," Nech said. "He said the war was over in Europe."

After being shipped back to the U.S., Nech had the shrapnel removed from his leg. To his surprise, a rivet from the B-24 had been embedded there.

"I had that thing in my leg the entire time I was a prisoner," he said. "I brought part of the airplane back with me."

Married a pretty girl

After returning to the U.S., it didn't take Nech long to adjust to civilian life. Barely a year later, he married a pretty girl named Rosalie whom he'd met at nearby Alton, Kansas.

"We were at a wedding," Rosalie Nech said. "I stood up for the bride and he stood up for the groom. Three weeks later, they stood up for us."

The Nechs have been married 63 years and have four children, three boys and a girl. They settled in Kensington, where Nech owned and operated a hardware store and lumberyard most of his working life.

Oldest son Terry Nech said his father has always been his hero.

"He's been a tremendous role model," said Terry Nech, a Vietnam veteran who now is a science teacher at Osborne High School. "He's very modest and matter-of-fact about what he did in the war. He told me it was just something they had to do."

Get Dad on a plane

One of Terry Nech's ambitions is to get his father to board an airplane again. He's applied for the Honor Flight program, which flies World War II veterans free of charge to see the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Terry Nech plans to fly with his father to the memorial in April 2009.

"I think I'll be able to get him on a plane again for that," he said.

After his war experiences, Bud Nech isn't certain he wants to get on an airplane again, but he might make an exception to fly to Washington.

"Maybe we'll go on April 21st," he said.

n Reporter Gary Demuth can be reached at 822-1405 or by e-mail at gdemuth@salina.com.

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WhatsUp says....
Bud was lucky. I talked with survivors of the Bataan death march who suffered much more by seeing their buddies bayoneted and shot by the Japanese.
11/10/2008

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