Lester Schrenk, who served as an Army B-17 ball turret gunner during World War II, stands in the forest outside Tychowo, Poland, on March 22, 2025, where he was detained as a prisoner of war 80 years earlier. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
TYCHOWO, Poland — The last time Lester Schrenk stood in this dense patch of forest in what is now northwestern Poland, there were no trees here.
It was 80 years ago, and the Germans had cleared a swath of land to build a World War II prisoner of-war camp known as Stalag Luft IV.
Schrenk, a former U.S. Army Air Forces B-17 gunner who was shot down over Denmark in February 1944, spent about half of his 15 months as a POW enduring the harsh conditions at the camp.
Over the weekend, the 101-year-old living in Bloomington, Minn., returned for the first time since he left eight decades ago.
He didn’t come for closure. Schrenk says he got that years ago. Instead, his visit was driven by curiosity and a desire to pass his story down to younger generations.
“I’m glad to be back. It’s part of my history,” Schrenk said, looking around at the towering pines that have thrived over the passing decades. “I put all the bad memories behind me. It’s part of forgiveness.”
Schrenk enlisted on his 19th birthday, Nov. 19, 1942. About a year later, he deployed to Europe with the 327th Bombardment Squadron, 92nd Bomb Group of the 8th Air Force, stationed at RAF Podington in Bedfordshire, England.
As a ball turret gunner, his job was to fire two .50-caliber machine guns from a small rotating sphere made of metal and glass, mounted on the underside of the B-17 aircraft. The role required skill and nerve, with minimal armor protection from enemy fire.
Schrenk and his crew manned a B-17 named Pot o’ Gold and were on their 10th mission when they were attacked by a German Junkers Ju-88 aircraft.
Lester Schrenk on March 22, 2025, walks through a forest near Tychowo, Poland, where Stalag Luft IV stood during World War II. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
Railway tracks at Podborsko train station, in northwestern Poland, March 22, 2025. During World War II, Allied prisoners of war were brought to the train station on their way to the Nazi-run Stalag Luft IV camp. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
Lester Schrenk in a photo taken at Sheppard Field, Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1943. (American Air Museum in Britain)
Barbed wire that was once part of the Luft IV prisoner-of-war camp is displayed in the Stalag Luft IV museum, located inside a military-affiliated high school in Tychowo, Poland, on March 22, 2025. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
Students studying at a military-affiliated high school in Tychowo, Poland, pose with U.S. veteran Lester Schrenk, on March 22, 2025. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
A photo of the Stalag Luft IV prisoner-of-war camp, where some 10,000 Allied prisoners were kept during World War II, including Lester Schrenk. (American Air Museum in Britain)
The crew parachuted out of their burning plane, landing near the town of Thisted. All but one of them survived, but months of hardship awaited.
Schrenk immediately was captured, interrogated and sent to Stalag Luft VI in what is today Silute, Lithuania, where he said he was beaten and given just enough food to survive.
In July 1944, as Soviet forces advanced into Eastern Europe, he and other inmates were transferred to Stalag Luft IV.
In all, about 10,000 prisoners, including 8,000 Americans, were loaded on rail cars and arrived at what is today the Podborsko train station, roughly 2 miles from the camp.
“They shackled us and gave us each a Red Cross parcel to hold under our arms, then started chasing us down the road with dogs and bayonets,” Schrenk recalled. “I had the presence of mind to stay in the middle of the group. The ones on the outside bore the brunt of the police dogs nipping at them.”
Schrenk, who left the Army as a staff sergeant, shared the memory Saturday morning outside the weathered, still-active train station, speaking to a small group of American volunteers who helped organize his visit, along with Polish officials, U.S. and Polish military representatives, and a few journalists.
After visiting the train station, Schrenk and the group traveled to the former camp site.
Following the war, residents demolished the camp’s barracks and other structures for lumber. Nature slowly reclaimed the area during the Cold War years.
But after the fall of communism, residents began rediscovering the forgotten history of the POW camp.
In 1992, monuments were erected at the Podborsko train station and the grounds of the former camp. American veterans began returning to share their stories.
“The problem is that this camp wasn’t very well known, and there’s not much documentation, so not many people know the history of this place,” said Pawel Urbaniak, a military historian with the Museum of Polish Arms in Kołobrzeg, adding that efforts are underway to recover artifacts that may help paint a clearer picture of what life was like there 80 years ago.
Army veteran Lester Schrenk, 102, stands next to a memorial at Podborsko train station near Tychowo, Poland, March 22, 2025, which commemorates Schrenk and some 10,000 other Allied troops who were brought to the station and imprisoned in the nearby Stalag Luft IV prisoner-of-war camp. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
Historian Pawel Urbaniak, right, points to a map carved into a monument at the site of the former Stalag Luft IV prisoner-of-war camp on March 22, 2025. Urbaniak was showing former POW Lester Schrenk, center, where he was located when he was imprisoned at the camp 80 years ago. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
Schrenk is believed to be the first POW from Stalag Luft IV to visit the site in about two decades, according to Urbaniak, who organizes a commemoration event each February.
“What I remember most was starving,” Schrenk said as he walked across the grounds, where a few camp remnants remain. “You were so weak that you tried to spend most of your time lying in bed to preserve your strength.”
He vividly recalled a prison guard he dubbed “Ham Hands,” who would sneak up behind prisoners and pound the butt of his rifle into their feet or cuff his hands over their ears.
“He must have been used to very hard labor because the size of his hands was just tremendous,” Schrenk said.
Because Schrenk spoke some German — his grandparents had emigrated from Germany — he occasionally was used as a translator in the camp.
In February 1945, as the Soviets drew closer to Stalag Luft IV, the guards told the prisoners they would be relocated once again, this time on foot.
What followed would become known as the “March of Death” or “Black March,” an 86-day forced march across Germany in freezing weather, with no clear destination and little food or shelter. The prisoners, many malnourished and poorly clothed, walked for hundreds of miles through snow and mud.
Several hundred POWs, including many Americans, are believed to have died during the march. The exact number remains unknown.
Schrenk said the thought of his family kept him going.
“My parents didn’t want me to enlist, and I had promised my mother that I would make it back home safely. I relied on that promise, and I think that helped me get through,” he said.
Army veteran and former prisoner of war Lester Schrenk stands with active-duty U.S. soldiers at a memorial near Tychowo, Poland, on March 22, 2025. The memorial pays tribute to Schrenk and other Allied troops who were kept as prisoners or war at the Stalag Luft IV camp. (Phillip Walter Wellman/Stars and Stripes)
When British forces liberated Schrenk and his fellow inmates in May 1945, he weighed just 93 pounds, down from 185 when he arrived in Europe.
In 2012, Schrenk met the German man who shot his plane down and forgave him, as part of a Danish war documentary.
“It’s an inspiration for younger veterans to see that they, too, can live a successful life after combat,” said Andrew Biggio, a former Marine Corps infantry sergeant and author who has led efforts to bring more than 60 WWII veterans back to Europe. He described the experience as therapeutic for everyone involved.
Schrenk wrapped up his visit to Poland at a local military-affiliated high school which houses a permanent exhibition on Stalag Luft IV, including artifacts recovered from the site.
He answered students’ questions but played down any notion of bravery.
Third-year student Tymoteusz Wasiak wasn’t convinced.
“We are seeing, for the first time, a walking legend,” Wasiak said. “This has been a good opportunity not only to talk, but to learn something we can pass on to the next generation.”
