Article published Sep 1, 2008

Leo Beaupre survived POW camp
By Chuck Clarino - Rutland (VT) Herald

Leo Beaupre joined the Army Air Corps in 1943, longing for adventure. As the saying goes, he should have been careful what he wished for.

A year earlier, he had been working as a cloth cutter in the garment business for O. L. Hines Co. in Burlington, dreaming of getting into the war action, but he was underage. His parents gave him permission to enlist in the Army. Still, his mother cried when he left home.

Over the next few years, she received only three letters from him, learning that he was alive but a prisoner of the Germans.

It began well enough, Beaupre, 86, of Essex Junction, recalled in a recent interview at the home of his daughter, Deb Allen, in Chittenden. He was an engineer, and a nose and waist gunner in a B-24 Liberator bomber. Beaupre was a member of the 15th Air Force, 456th bomb squadron and the 745th bomb group that flew missions into Austria and Germany in 1943 to 1944.

But before he made it home to Vermont, the 21-year-old staff sergeant's plane was shot down over Austria. He survived by parachuting out of the fiery plane, landing behind enemy lines and trying to walk back to the Allied forces, wandering through the Alps for four days, until his luck ran out and he was captured and interrogated. He survived for more than a year in a prisoner-of-war camp, Stalag 17B, before he was liberated.

Beaupre might have had a premonition when the "SkyGrazer," the B-24 he and his crew were flying, was seriously hit by flak and fire from German fighter planes early in April of 1944. The crew rallied around their pilot, Second Lt. Edward Meyer, and refused to bail out, even though Meyer told them, "the chances of bringing this plane in are very slim."

"When we got back to the base, there were 116 holes in that plane from the flak and from being shot at by fighters," Beaupre said. "We were doing high altitude bombing (around 18,000 feet). That was the last mission we ever had with that great old plane."

Beaupre had little love for the "Red Dragon," the next B-24 to which his crew was assigned. "It was a bucket of bolts. About all it was good for was to get shot down."

On April 15, 1944, Beaupre and the 10-man crew were flying a mission in the "Red Dragon" when they encountered strong and persistent attacks by German ME109 fighter planes. The "Red Dragon" was flying near the back of a formation of 25 to 30 bombers, not the best place to be, according to the Essex Junction native, who explained that those planes were more vulnerable.

"Nobody knows exactly what happened but we were hit," he said, unsure whether it was by flak or from a fighter.  They had KO'd one engine and the tail gunner was wounded. The left waist gunner was hit with shrapnel but I didn't get a scratch. All the electrical was cut off in the back end of the plane so I couldn't communicate with the pilot."

Beaupre went to the back twice before he was able to pull the tail gunner to safety from his smashed-up perch. He tried alerting the pilot about the crew's rough shape when the ball turret gunner left his shattered position and encouraged everyone to jump.

"I went out first because I really didn't have any choice," Beaupre said. "We were wearing chest packs (with the parachute inside) with a D-ring on the right side. I pulled it and it didn't want to go. I thought I was going to have to pull the chute out manually but it suddenly opened up. That was a good feeling when that stupid thing finally opened."

While Beaupre was drifting to earth, a German fighter made several passes, buzzing him. It was against the rules of war to shoot down parachuting survivors but Beaupre believed that the pilot was trying to tip his chute over and send him into a free fall.

However, Beaupre landed safely just outside a small town in the Austrian Alps. He buried his chute as best he could. As he wondered about the whereabouts of his fellow crew members, Beaupre heard someone call out "Hal-lo." It was not a welcome sound to Beaupre because of the thick Germanic accent.

He scurried up the nearby hillside, sticking to places where the late spring snow had melted so he wouldn't leave footprints. He knew he couldn't outrun his pursuers but happened to find an uprooted tree and wedged himself between the exposed roots and the ground. He felt fortunate because the dirt and the tree roughly matched the color of his uniform.

"I buttoned up my shirt and tucked my head in but my heart was pounding so loud I thought they'd find me," Beaupre said. "I stayed really still and they came very close but never found me."

When he finally left his hiding place, he assessed his supplies: four cigarettes, a little survival kit that included a compass and maps, and his service handgun — but nothing to eat. He smoked the cigarettes one puff at a time to make them last. He set a rough course for Italy and began to trek over the mountains.

"I knew that if I made it back I'd get a 30-day furlough," Beaupre said. "I walked all night to get over that first hill."

The next morning he hid in a grove of evergreens as a German fighter crisscrossed overhead, convinced it was searching for him.

Tired and weak from hunger, he came upon a small alpine farm. He knocked on the door and made a hand motion like eating. The farmer obliged with a big glass of warm milk and a crust of black bread.

"I tried to pay him but he wouldn't take it," Beaupre said. "That's all I had to eat for the four days I was out there. But I drank a lot of water every chance I got."

Beaupre was captured by local police on his fourth day, near a town where he remembered seeing a ski lift. The police turned him over to the Germans and they transported him to Frankfurt, where he was interrogated. The interrogators treated him kindly, giving him American cigarettes as they tried to persuade him to inform on his outfit and the Army Air Corps bases.

"They were not like the Germans you see in the movies," he said. "I told them I thought all of my crew was dead. But they told me that they were all alive and had already been through there days ago. I acted real dumb and just gave them my name, rank and serial number."

He was then taken to Stalag 17B, a prison camp at Krems, outside Vienna.

Beaupre's prison camp experience was arduous — not in the horrific way of the death camps that housed the Jews, but rather because of lack of food and heat.

He scavenged for food any way it came, and once he and other prisoners burned their barracks down by using a homemade stove.

"It was like living in a barn and there was never anything to eat," Beaupre said. He's a tall man, still lean and standing straight all these years later. "I stayed there from April 1944 to '45 before they moved us."

When the Germans retreated from the advancing Russians, they moved the prisoners by forced march for 28 days, sleeping in fields and barns. One night, the "Red Dragon" ball turret gunner sneaked out of the barn in which they they were holed up and stole a chicken. They killed it, plucked the feathers and quickly threw it into a boiling pot to cook. They ate the lucky feast ravenously but furtively.

"It was so good, the next night he went out and stole two more chickens," Beaupre said. "He was a farm boy and knew his way around but we had to be really careful because if we were caught …"

Another memory involves coming across a column of Jews being marched in the opposite direction.

"They pulled us off the road and I saw one of them being held up by two guys. He was so weak he couldn't walk and there was a soldier behind, who was kicking the man that couldn't walk," Beaupre said. "It was so sad but after they passed, we got on the road again and found a half dozen of the Jews dead in the field. They had not been shot but stuck with a bayonet. I asked one of the officers why they did that and he said, 'They're better off.'"

The march ended in Braunau, Hitler's birthplace. The prisoners were told to make camp in a forested area outside of the town. They enjoyed relative freedom in the vast tract of land, living in lean-tos and tents inside a fenced-in perimeter. They worked cutting wood and in an aluminum factory in the town.

"There was no food here either but we were able to scavenge and we lived off the land," he said. "We lived in the woods while we were there. A lot of men got sick. I was lucky to survive."

On May 3, 1945, Beaupre and his cohorts couldn't believe their eyes when four Jeeps roared down the camp road. Most of the guards had vanished, scared off by either the advance of the Russians or the Americans. Those who remained were taken prisoner by what was an advance party of Patton's Third Army.

They waited for the main body of the Army but were given GI rations and potatoes to eat, a virtual beggars' banquet.

In a letter home after they were freed, portions of which were published in the Burlington "Free Press" Beaupre wrote, "We have plenty of food. Last night we saw a movie and tonight the Red Cross girls are going to pass out doughnuts and coffee."

It was only the third direct communication his parents had received since Beaupre's capture.

Beaupre had spent 14 months in captivity. Eventually, he was evacuated to France and departed by ship from Le Havre to America. The Statue of Liberty welcomed Beaupre to New York City on June 3, 1945.

Beaupre was presented with the Air Medal and an oak leaf cluster for meritorious service. He married his wife Esther and raised a family, retiring from IBM several years ago.

Contact Chuck Clarino at chuck.clarino@rutlandherald.com