"The day of December 12, 1944 was clear; there was no enemy action either from the ground or from the air. My problem was that I lost all cool all of my engine. It came back over the plane from the area of spinner. Pure mechanical failure. It have been raining quite a bit and there were number of planes running up to part.

Elsberry was leading my B flight of 301st and did make several passes but it was beyond reason to try to get down and pick me up. I saw farmer and also saw a little policeman ahead with his rifle as long as he was tall. For me that was it. Minutes after that German patrol came up. They took me to small village. In village I was surprised to find a couple of Czechs to speak very god English and learn from them that had worked in Detroit and other industrial areas before war. These individuals stayed with me all the time while Germans got to act together to determine what they are going to do with me. After number of telephones calls one of the patrols took off his pistol and put on machine gun and motioned for me to come with him. The Czechs told me not to worry. I’d be all right. I found later what the purpose was. We were going to ride a motorcycle and they were riding behind the guard holding on it would be impractical to have his pistol with him. Same left the area where I landed and went on to a smaller town to a sort of local prison facility.

I was put into room and short time later the doctor came in. I learned from him, he spoke English, that he was Austrian, he wasn’t enthusiastic about being in a position he was. After he asked if I don’t have any physical complications. Later that day he brought me two bottles of very cold beer. That was the only contact with him.

Mission was to Blechhammer O/R. When I hit my problem we were 10 minutes from Target area. Elsberry immediately turned around thought we can hit back to Italy. At least got out of Germany. I did understood from some mechanic, that engine can be run for a while, when the oil is kind a frozen. I put the controls for oil as in manual an opened them wide. This worked for a while. When I got over Czechoslovakia, at the point I bailed out, I could see each propeller blade. At that point I decided to bail out or ride that thing down. I bailed out! Turned plane upside down I kicked myself out of cabin. And that was last time I saw that particular Mustang.

A few days later, the Germans had decided what they have to do with me. I learned later that there were at least 2 other German a/f camps not far from where I was in Czechoslovakia. The practice in Germany was that they had their own prison camps hold by Luftwaffe and others by Wehrmacht.

After being in this small town in Czechoslovakia for a few days, they told me we were leaving. They did not say where. So we went to railway station and got on a train. We headed to Vienna. Few Luftwaffe pilots get on train and when they found out that I was there in train, they showed up. I didn’t speak German, they didn t speak English. We mostly did some signs. They were friendly.

In Vienna guards were lost. We wandered around – I saw a bit of Vienna, although destroyed by bombing raids. Another stop was Frankfurt am Main interrogation center Dulag Luft. From there I went to Stalag Luft I near Barth. With me there were only two other black pilots in camp. Alfred Q. Carrol Jr. from 301st FS (shot down on June 25, 1944) and Brown from 99th FS."

Cornelius P Gould jr