Sometime that evening, the Pilot that shot us down came and introduced himself and said that he was sorry he had done so, but it was his job, and maybe next time he would be the victim. He spoke perfect English.

We were put on a train and taken to Budapest. The next morning, Lt. Hilde, the co-pilot, was taken to a Luftwaffe hospital. I learned later that Sgt. Valdez our flight engineer was killed, and our tail gunner Sgt. Nuccio was shot thru his knee and eventually lost his leg. We didn't see any of the rest of the crew until after the war, in fact I never saw any of the gunners again as we were taken to different prison camps.

We were taken to a prison in Budapest. On arriving, we were immediately taken to an area that had shower heads in one corner of a room, and forced to take all of our clothes off. Our escorts were several soldiers with rifles. We were not allowed to talk. You soon learned to comply--if you didn't, you got hit on the side of the head with a rifle butt and jabbed with a bayonet.

We had been told of the atrocities--with the Jews being told to take showers, but instead of water coming out of the shower heads, gas came out and they were killed. Since we couldn't talk, the pilot and I exchanged glances that said we would jump the soldiers, even though they had guns--we would not go down without a fight. About that time, water came out of the jets and we took a shower. We would have no doubt been shot if the water hadn't come out at that time.

The pilot and I were put in a cell, where we were again not allowed to talk. We got a small aluminum cup of liquid with a few grains of barley, and an occasional worm in it, once a day. The cups had messages scratched on them, saying things like:

"I have been here 90 days and am very weak but still holding out."

While in the cell one day, I heard a commotion outside. The cell windows were small and up high, so I crawled up to see what was going on. Outside were soldiers marching alongside of a fellow in striped pajamas. The fellow was no doubt a political prisoner and was carrying a large basket. They marched out of sight, then several rifles shots rang out.

The soldiers came back with the fellow in the basket. He had been shot.