Archie G. Birkner

NAME: Archie G. Birkner

ASN: 20801430 / O-416862

PLACE OF BIRTH: San Antonio, TX

DATE OF BIRTH: 1917?

DATES OF SERVICE: 25 Nov 1940 -

UNIT ASSIGNED: E Co 2nd Bn 509th PIR

CAMPAIGNS: Algeria-French Morocco, Tunisia, Naples-Foggia

AWARDS: Parachutist Badge, Combat Infantryman Badge, EAME Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal

SUMMARY OF SERVICE:

25 Nov 1940 - Enlisted at San Antonio, TX - NARA Enlistment Record

ARMY SERIAL NUMBER 20801430 20801430
NAME BIRKNER#ARCHIE#G######## BIRKNER#ARCHIE#G########
RESIDENCE: STATE 85 TEXAS
RESIDENCE: COUNTY 029 BEXAR
PLACE OF ENLISTMENT 8607 SAN ANTONIO TEXAS
DATE OF ENLISTMENT DAY 25 25
DATE OF ENLISTMENT MONTH 11 11
DATE OF ENLISTMENT YEAR 40 40
GRADE: ALPHA DESIGNATION SGT# Sergeant
GRADE: CODE 5 Sergeant
BRANCH: ALPHA DESIGNATION INF Infantry
BRANCH: CODE 10 Infantry
FIELD USE AS DESIRED # #
TERM OF ENLISTMENT 0 Undefined Code
LONGEVITY ### ###
SOURCE OF ARMY PERSONNEL 7 National Guard
NATIVITY 85 TEXAS
YEAR OF BIRTH 17 17
RACE AND CITIZENSHIP 1 White, citizen
EDUCATION 4 4 years of high school
CIVILIAN OCCUPATION 175 Salespersons
MARITAL STATUS 6 Single, without dependents
COMPONENT OF THE ARMY 4 National Guard (Officers, Warrant Officers, and Enlisted Men)
CARD NUMBER # #
BOX NUMBER 0361 0361
FILM REEL NUMBER 3.82# 3.82#

 

08 Nov 42 - 2nd Lt. Archie G. Birkner, O-416862, E Co 2nd Bn 509th PIR, San Antonio, TX  Operation VILLAN (TORCH) Plane 8, Seat 1, Combat Weight 239 lbs.

15 Sep 1943 - Captured near Avellino, Italy

SERIAL NUMBER O&416862 O&416862
NAME BIRKNER ARCHIE G BIRKNER ARCHIE G
GRADE, ALPHA CAPT Captain or Asst. superintendent of nurses or Asst. director of nurses or Chief dietitian or Chief physical therapy aide
GRADE CODE E Captain or Lieutenant
SERVICE CODE 1 ARMY
ARM OR SERVICE INF Infantry
ARM OR SERVICE CODE 10 INF: INFANTRY
DATE REPORT: DAY (DD) 15 15
DATE REPORT: MONTH (MM) 09 09
DATE REPORT: YEAR (Y) 3 1943
RACIAL GROUP CODE 1 WHITE
STATE OF RESIDENCE 85 Texas
TYPE OF ORGANIZATION 160 Parachute Infantry
PARENT UNIT NUMBER 0509 0509
PARENT UNIT TYPE 06 Group/Regiment/Commands/System
AREA 98 North African Theatre: Italy
LATEST REPORT DATE: DAY (DD) 12 12
LATEST REPORT DATE: MONTH (MM) 07 07
LATEST REPORT DATE: YEAR (Y) 5 1945
SOURCE OF REPORT 1 Individual has been reported through sources considered official.
STATUS 8 Returned to Military Control, Liberated or Repatriated
DETAINING POWER 1 GERMANY
CAMP 032 Stalag Luft 1 Barth-Vogelsang Prussia 54-12
REP    
POW TRANSPORT SHIPS    

 

11 Nov 1943 - Reported as POW to Stalag Luft 1 Barth-Vogelsang, Prussia, Area 98 North African Theatre: Italy

 

The following is extracted from "Stories My Father Never Told Me". The narratives, taken between 1986 and 1993

Capt. Archie Birkner, 509th paratrooper battalion

"I was the first Senior American Officer at Luft 1. I was a Paratrooper. In the German Army, their Paratroopers were part of the Luftwaffe. When the Germans would capture one of us, they wouldn't know whether to send us to a Whermacht or Luftwaffe camp. I wound up in a Luft Stalag, but others that were captured on the jump at Avalino wound up with the infantry."

"We were relieving the pressure on the beachhead at Salerno and we jumped behind the German lines to intersect a communications center. All the troops were going down to repel the invasion at Salerno. I was loose for about 10 days until one of the Italians turned me in. This was September of 1943."

" I got up to Luft 1 on November 11, 1943. We went in and I was the first Senior American officer, although Art Smedley and I used to have discussions about it. He insisted that he was the first one. All the British who were there at the time, the majority had been captured at Dunkirk."

"With me in South Compound, were Johnny Laneheart, and Speed Gronis. They were Air Force. There were only five or six of us paratroops. The British told me that I should assume command of the American contingent. I didn't have the foggiest notion of what to do. British enlisted men were running the camp, because that's all that was there. The only British officer that I can recall was a Doctor Nichols. What a wonderful man, and he was quite a morale builder. He did more to help everybody, than anyone I can think of."

"Art Smedly came in next, but a short time later, Major Todd took command. He was the Senior American Officer for quite some time after that. Hatcher wasn't there very long, and I didn't get to know him."

"North One opened in the fall of 1944, and we moved the operation over there. That's where they had all the "wheels": Spicer, McCullum and Col. Byerly. He was a real wonderful man from Aspen Colorado. He was a little older than the rest, a gentleman... but in very bad health. You'd never notice, because he didn't complain...just kept hanging in there. I think he died not very many years after the war. Of course, Russ Spicer was in there; He was a character."

"In the meantime, I had gotten involved in the XYZ Committee. We were involved with the distribution of food parcels and I remained in that position for the rest of the war. As such, we had plenty of contact with the Germans; primarily enlisted men , involved in charge of our parcels. The Germans weren't particularly hard to deal with, although one of them was a hard head; Kettleston. He had worked in New York and then went back over and got involved with the Nazis. The rest of them ,we were able to work with fairly well. A number of the guards were elderly and treated us with respect; not like the young hotheads. Two, by the names of Moss and Egelston, were very reliable."

"Egelston had the International Harvester Agency in Prussia and was an affluent man. After the Nazis took over, his business was shot and he wound up a Sergeant in the Whermacht. Later on I sent Egelston packages. He and his family managed to get out from the Russian side and over to the British Zone of Occupation."

"We used to send out our Red Cross crew on a darn near daily basis. I had a crew and the British had a counterpart crew who went to the ration distribution center, even when they didn't have anything to distribute. The point was, we were tying up more personnel and we'd manufacture work if nothing else."

"One of our guys was Pinky Westerfield, from New Orleans. He was a real character. He'd tell Kettleston: "You SOB, I'm going to take your head home in a cap!". And Kettleston would just grin like a horses ass. Pinky never slowed down! "

"The British had a flight Leftenant named Erich Mitchell. He'd been captured in Crete. Mitch and I were able to work together very closely. With Egelston's help, we could manipulate figures about food supplies on hand; as of what we really had and what the German's thought we had."

"Jack Eames was another British enlisted man; real nice looking and smooth as glass. Jack managed to knock up the waitress for the German officer's mess. This gal became a source of information for us. Whatever she related to Jack, he'd pass on to the proper sources. "

"Col. Zempke came in November of '44 and things got really organized when he took over. I remember one incident that I thought was quite amusing. We had a staff meeting with the Germans, and it was going along in English. All of a sudden, they started talking in German to one another, about something. We sat there a few minutes, and none of us could understand very much. They were pretty much ignoring us until finally, Zempke broke in and explained one of the finer points to them, in German. Of course, they were all shook up, because they didn't realize that Zempke could speak it. A truly funny moment."

"He was a great moral builder too. He offered to take on anybody in a boxing match in Stalag Luft one...Just for entertainment. A lot of people didn't realize that he was a boxing champion in college. He fought a Major, from West Point, Cy Minnierre. He was a Strategic Services guy ( OSS). It was a good scrap anyway, good for moral, and a distraction from the everyday discouragement that you had. Lots of guys were hoping Zempke would get his rear end knocked off. It wasn't that they disliked him...it was just the rank!"

"Lowell Bennett was a newspaper corespondent for INS. He went with us on the second combat jump of American Paratroops. We flew down to North Africa, but couldn't find a chute for him, so Lowell just flew back with the planes. Later he was shot down over Berlin and wound up in PW camp with us. Lowell wrote the kriegie newsletter, which they would stuff in a can and throw over the fence."

 

Capt. Archie Birkner

"There was quite a bit of controversy, when the Germans told us that officers were supposed to be able to have orderlies. Of course we all said: "No, we don't need any orderlies!" Somebody suddenly thought: "Well yes we do, because we can give them better living conditions, than where they are." Zempke finally made the request, but of course, they never had to pull any orderly duty."

"One of the guys who came in about that time and worked with the parcel crew, was Sgt. Frankhauser. He'd been a gunner on a B-17 that had broken apart. He fell umpteen thousand feet in the tail section and landed in the snow. The guy just walked away, without even a scratch! We used to look at him, shake our heads and say: "I don't believe you!"

 

Capt. Archie Birkner, 509th paratrooper battalion

"Along about March of 1945, we were really hurting for parcels. The Germans told us that it was due to the saturation bombing of the railroads and terminals; we thought they might be holding packages back. The decision was made to tighten up on the distribution of what parcels we did have on hand. With the welfare of 10,000 PW's at stake, we wanted to make sure that we didn't run out."

"The Germans gave us so little, that, if we had to subsist on their ration, we would have been in the same shape as the people in the concentration camp. We knew of it from our work crew that went down to unload the boxcars. We'd see these people walking around like Zombies in lockstep, so we knew something was screwy. As soon as the Germans pulled out, we went down to check it out, and every picture that you've ever seen, of a concentration camp, is true! It made quite an impression on me. What I found difficult to understand was, the people in the forced labor camp, just across the road, told us that they didn't know what was going on! "

 

Capt Archie Birkner, 509th paratrooper battalion

"When I left Barth, conditions were a little unsettled. They flew us out on B-17's from the field nearby. We landed at Camp Lucky Strike and conditions were terrible. I guess we were the last ones coming through, but it felt like we were being mistreated more than back at Luft 1. Lowell Bennett got so upset with it, that he flew over to England and put in a formal complaint. Things may have improved, but I got out of there as soon as I could. "

 

Note about Stalag Luft 1

MIS Report Jan. 1945

Stalag Luft 1 (situated at Barth, Germany) was opened in Oct. 1942 as a British camp...when the Red Cross visited the camp in Feb. 1943, two American non-commissioned officers had already arrived. By January 1944, 507 American Air Force officers were detained there...

Early in 1944, the camp consisted of 2 compounds designated as South and West compounds, containing a total of 7 barracks, in which American and British officers and enlisted men were housed. A new compound was opened the last of February 1944 and was assigned to the American officers...this compound became North 1, and the opening of North 2 on 9 September 1944 and North 3, on 9 December 1944 completed the camp...

South compound was unsatisfactory because it lacked adequate cooking,washing and toilet facilities. West compound provided inside latrines and running water. North 1 compound formerly housed personnel of the Hitler Youth (and had) a communal messhall, inside latrines and running water taps...it was considered the best compound. North 2 and 3 were constructed on the same design as South Compound and were as unsatisfactory...Stoves for heating and cooking varied in each compound (but) facilities in all compounds were inadequate ... the extremely cold climate of northern Germany made living conditions more difficult for the PWs.

For more information about Stalag Luft 1:

http://www.b24.net/pow/stalag1.htm

23 June 2009 - Katherine Marie Birkner wife of 509th member Archie G. Birkner passed away.  They attended reunions for the 509th for many years together and valued the friendships.  She is buried at the Ft. Sam Houston Military Cemetary.  A veteran in her own right and the recipient of three bronze service stars for her service in North Africa and Europe she received full military honors.

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