Cloyd "Doc" Brown
United States Army 142nd Infantry Regiment
from:Evansville, Indiana
This is the full story that went with this photo from my grandfather:
"I went through bits and pieces of this 50+ year old story. I went through the Italian campaigns - Sicily, Naples, Santa Maria, Anzio Beach, Rapido River, Salerno, Rome, Florence. Then invasion so to France, Frajtes Beach, I was captured on the 30th of August1944 at 3:30 am, in the Rhone Valley outside Valeure, France.
I was a machine gunner (30 caliber water cooled) CO. M. 142 INF 36th Division. Held in France six weeks; put in box car to Stalag 12A Limburg, Germany. Wound up in the prison hospital five days later with pneumonia. After I was released I was again loaded onto boxcar “40 ton car.†Locked in for 14 days. Wound up in Neubrandenburg Germany, Stalag IIA on the Baltic Sea. There I stayed till liberated by Russians in April ’45. I escaped once, Ray Vanarsdale, Frenchie Thibadeaux and myself. Were caught 20 days later. Put in city jail til German guards came and got us. We evaded the guards when this young German soldier took us up through the compound. (Lucky).
The picture of Ray, Frenchie, Henry Morris, Rohland Stager and myself and the horse and buggy we stole five days after the Russians left. We stole a camera, too to take pictures and map. We travelled 11 days hiding out in barns, etc. We ran into the 82nd Airborne Headquarters on the 11th day. They deloused us, burnt our clothes and gave us uniforms and we were on an Army plane within 50 minutes. Taken to Le Havre, France Army Hospital."
