Plakut, Joseph (1921-2005)

https://reflections.mndigital.org/catalog/stc:9876#/kaltura_audio

Biographical Information: Joseph Plakut was born in Swan River Township, Minnesota, on March 17, 1921, entered the Army in October 1942. He was trained as an airplane mechanic and .50 caliber machine gunner on a bomber plane in England. On his first mission, his plane was shot down and he spent the remainder of the war in a German prison camp. Plakut married his wife Anna Maciej on June 11, 1946 and they had X children: Richard, JoAnn, Kathleen, and David. Plakut passed away on June 24, 2005 at the VA Medical Center in St. Cloud.

Transcript Summary: Joseph Plakut discussed his experiences during World War II. Plakut began his service by attending airplane mechanic school, and moved to a base in Laredo, Texas where he trained as a .50 caliber machine gun operator in a P-6 aircraft. After training, Plakut eventually was sent overseas to England. Plakut discussed how his first mission was to bomb a German plant at Bremen with incendiary bombs and their fighter plane support ran low on fuel and had to turn back. This is when German planes shot up the bomber Plakut was on, and he was forced to bail out of the aircraft without any previous parachute training. Upon landing, Plakut had gotten stuck in a tree and suffered damage to his legs, making walking very difficult for three weeks afterwards. He was placed in the care of a German farmer and found his pilot and co-pilot from the airplane. The farmer had then turned the three men over to the Gestapo, and because officers and enlisted men were separated in prison camps, Plakut was removed from the two pilots. Once Plakut arrived at the prison camp, he talked about constant efforts and plans of escape by the prisoners, one attempt was a five-month effort to dig a tunnel. Plakut also discussed their efforts to hide an American pilot from the Gestapo, such as hiding him in the floorboards of their building as well as the latrine to avoid bloodhound detection. Plakut also discussed general prisoner interactions with other inmates and the German guards, as well as the Red Cross contributions and witnessing the Russians struggle from not agreeing to the Geneva Convention. During a camp evacuation march in 1945, Plakut and the rest of the surviving prisoners were liberated by the American 3rd Armored Division. After the war concluded, Plakut returned to Minnesota and was discharged from service. Plakut concluded his oral history with a discussion about how his treatment as a prisoner and the treatment of prisoners in Iraq were very different experiences.

Interview by David Overy

Includes archival material