WWII prisoner of war recounts tale for Peterson

Published Sept. 23, 2008
By Corey Dahl
21st Space Wing Public Affairs

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Imagine surviving for months on a little more than 600 calories a day.

Or living in a camp with more than 9,000 men and almost no sanitation systems.

Or being interrogated for three days, while being fed through a slot under a cell door.

Tech. Sgt. (ret.) Charles Blaney doesn't have to imagine any of it. As a prisoner of war during World War II, Sergeant Blaney lived it.

Speaking at Peterson's POW/MIA week closing ceremony Sept. 19, Sergeant Blaney told the crowd about his capture near the end of the war and the few months he spent in a German prison camp. The speech capped off a week of POW/MIA events on Peterson, meant to honor imprisoned and missing servicemembers, both past and present.

Sergeant Blaney was a radio operator and top turret gunner in the 8th Army Air Force during World War II. On March 25, 1945, his plane was shot down over Hamburg, Germany, where he and his crew members were captured by German troops and taken to an interrogation center. For three days, the Germans questioned the Americans and fed them by sliding trays of food under their cell door.

Eventually, the men were taken to the Stalag Luft 1 prison camp, where they survived on about 680 calories a day and the occasional Red Cross care package. More than 9,000 American and English troops were held in the camp, where there was no sanitation system and no medical treatment for the many sick and injured.

"You got to these points where you didn't know what was going to happen," Sergeant Blaney said. "There were times you'd think you were going to make it and others when you just weren't sure. The lack of food was the worst, but it just wasn't a good place to be in."

Sergeant Blaney and his fellow prisoners were liberated in May of 1945, however, as Russian troops closed in on the camp and the Germans fled. Within a few days, Sergeant Blaney was in France; in a few months, he was back in America. After the war ended, Sergeant Blaney was discharged and went to work in the aerospace industry for several decades.

Col. Jay Raymond, 21st Space Wing commander, called Sergeant Blaney an "American hero" and thanked him for his service. He also urged everyone to remember the nation's POWs and MIAs year round, not just on the designated remembrance week.

"Though we stand here alone, as one small group on one small base, we stand united with the rest of the country as we remember these heroes," the colonel said. "We can never forget the untold sacrifice that our nation's prisoners of war and missing in action have made for our country."

POW/MIA Remembrance Ceremony