Out of Context 21

Well, it was bad.  Maybe there wasn’t the horrific brutality The Veteran experienced in Japan, but it was bad.  I learned that, not from conversation with Rangers, but by reading books such as Twice to Freedom, The Last Escape, and Soldiers of Misfortune, the latter a book Clarence Goad recommended that argues many American POWs ended up in Soviet hands and were never repatriated, never heard from again.  Clarence would know.  He was an escaped POW who ended up in the Soviet sector near war’s end and had a devil of a time getting a US Naval ship to take him on board.  At first, they advised him that, since he was in the Soviet sector, he was required to turn himself over to the Soviets, not the Americans.  Clarence knew better and would have none of that.

            Micky Romine had an equally difficult time getting back on the American side.  The Soviets liberated his camp near the Elbe River, and that side of the river belonged to the Soviets; the Americans controlled the other side.  According to Micky, the U.S. and Soviets had a POW exchange program in the works, but the Soviet POWs had no desire to return to the Soviet side because they believed, since they had surrendered, they would face either a firing squad or a trip to Siberia.  The U.S. Army wouldn’t force them to go; therefore, the Soviets refused to return some 5,000 American POWs.  Many believe those POWs ended up in Soviet gulags, never to return.  Twenty-two G.I.s got lucky, though, and Micky was one of them. Disguised as a U.S. Army patrol that numbered exactly twenty-two soldiers and frequently crossed the Elbe River bridge, Micky and the others nonchalantly marched across the bridge and into the American zone, into freedom.

From "Prisoner of War: It wasn't too bad"--2008