Donald Prell
DONALD PRELL
Age: 85
Hometown: Los Angeles
Residence: Palm Springs
Military branch: U.S. Army, 106th Division, 422nd Infantry Regiment, Anti-Tank Platoon Leader
Years served: 1942 - 1946
Rank: First lieutenant
Medals: Bronze Star, Purple Heart, POW Medal, Combat Infantry Badge
Family: Wife Bette, two children, three grandchildren
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II Wednesday through Sunday through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
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Donald Prell was a young U.S. Army second lieutenant in charge of an anti-tank platoon on the front lines in Losheim, Belgium, during the opening days of the Battle of the Bulge.
The Battle of the Bulge, a major German counteroffensive attack against Allied forces in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium, began on Dec. 16, 1944 with an massive artillery barrage by the Sixth SS, Panzer Army.
Prell, as a member of the thinly spread 106th Division, 422nd Infantry Regiment, was stationed near the northernmost end of the battle's boundaries.
By Prell's account — and historical records concur — inexperienced divisions manned this area because it was thought the Germans would not attack it — especially in the dead of one of the coldest winters in decades.
Prell and his men, stationed at what became known as the Losheim Gap, were among the first targets of the assault.
It didn't take the Germans long to penetrate the undermanned defenses.
On the morning of Dec. 18, 1944, the men awoke to the sound of gunfire 500 to 1,000 yards away.
“My platoon had just undergone shelling and we were trying to remove our three 57 mm guns from being overrun, when tree bursts (tree parts shattered by gunfire) showered down upon us,” said Prell. “Since we had been left with only one round of anti-tank ammunition for each gun, I decided we would no longer be an anti-tank platoon. I ordered the men to extract their breech-blocks (a metal block that must be closed before a shell is fired from the gun), bury them, then follow me on foot, moving west to our regimental command post.”
The men never made it.
The survivors were captured and taken as prisoners of war by the Germans.
One of Prell's most harrowing experiences as a POW occurred on the night of Dec. 23, 1944.
“Sixty POWs — I was one of them — were in a boxcar parked in the marshaling yards in Limburg, Germany,” he said. “The British had decided to bomb the yards that night and I was one of the fortunate ones to come out alive.”
Leaving the dead and wounded behind, Prell and those from his boxcar were led out of the rail yard to board a train for the next leg of their journey.
“Two days later we arrived at Stalag IXB where we were interrogated and given POW identification numbers,” said Prell.
Prell was assigned POW number 25563.
“Since this camp was for enlisted men only, my fellow officers and I were force-marched 60 kilometers to the Oflag XIIIB (officer's) POW camp at Lager Hammelburg.
The conditions in the camp — bitter cold and very little food — were exacerbated by the Germans, invoking the 1929 Geneva Convention, which did not allow officers to work.
“Enlisted men were allowed to work, cut wood and heat their barracks,” he said.
Although officers begged to be allowed to go into the nearby forest for wood, the German camp commander pointed out it was not allowed.
“As a result, many of my fellow POWs literally froze to death.”
He remembers eating a concoction the officers referred to as “green hornet” soup, “made of reconstituted vegetables (including) peelings of potatoes and carrot leaves.”
The Geneva Convention specified a certain amount of meat each POW was to have per week, Prell said. So the Germans brought in a dead horse from the Russian front for them to eat.
“This, of course, included the bones, hoofs, head, maggots, etc.
“After the cook got rid of the innards, bones, etc., the result was one-quarter-inch piece of meat per man, that is, if you were lucky.”
Gen. George Patton had been making plans to “take Hammelburg” because it was where his son-in-law, Lt. Col. John Waters was being held captive.
Capt. Abraham Baum was assigned by Patton to take about 300 men to liberate the POW camp.
The attempt was mostly disastrous, as they were outnumbered and most of the escaped prisoners were recaptured.
“On March 27th, with guns a-blazing, Task Force Baum arrived at Oflag XIII-B,” Prell said. “I was close enough to hear the officer in the lead tank shout, ‘Does anyone know where Col. Waters is?'”
Prell said the ranking American POW officer, Col. Paul Goode, told the men they could either ride back to the American lines by tank, stay in the camp and await liberation by some other American outfit or take off on foot to try to make it to the U.S. lines 50 miles away.
“No way was I going to get aboard one of the tanks and no way was I about to stay in the camp,” Prell said. “I and two other second lieutenants retrieved our meager belongings and then took off on foot heading west.”
The men started on their cross-country journey in the late afternoon and were able to reach a wooded area a few miles from camp.
They ate a few bits of bread and cheese they packed, got some sleep and at daybreak, continued their journey.
“Three days later, after crossing a small stream, we found ourselves behind a stone wall, about a hundred yards from a farmhouse,” he said. “There were no woods (where we) could hide and we were hungry. It was decided that we would draw straws and the loser would circle the field and find some food for the three of us.”
The loser took off to look for food, while Prell and the other man hunkered down behind the wall “as the minutes began to seem like hours,' he said.
“All of a sudden there appeared behind us two German soldiers pointing rifles at us, said Prell. “‘Gekommen' (come) was the command.”
Prell hit it off with the young German officer who accompanied him by jeep and train to Oflag 73, a POW camp near Nürnburg.
“Imagine how I must have felt, having my own personal escort,” Prell mused.
He wanted Prell to take his name and address so they could be in touch after the war.
“Something whispered to me that the war must be near its end,” Prell said. “We were on a passenger train and no one seemed surprised to see me in dirty army fatigues being escorted by a German officer.”
Once at Oflag 73, the officer delivered Prell to the medical dispensary, where an Australian doctor took charge of the POW.
Prell said he remained in the medical dispensary for the next two weeks and on April 12, when informed President Roosevelt had died, the Germans began marching the POWs east.
“The Australian physician told the guards that I could not be moved, which no doubt saved my life as many (POWs) died on that march.
“A week after the POWs moved out, I woke up to find there were no longer any guards in the camp so the Australian doctor and I walked out the front gate of the Oflag. After ‘requisitioning' a motorcycle from a German civilian, we rode about 30 miles west to freedom after being fed and accepting a full tank of petrol, we two ex-POWs rode our BMW to Paris.”
