War stories

DOBBINS AIR RESERVE BASE, Ga., -- Marietta native and bomber pilot, Harry Livingston, Jr., addresses members of the 700th Airlift Squadron over the May unit training assembly. Mr. Livingston flew B-17s with the The Mighty Eighth Air Force, 385th Bomb Group in WWII. Shot down over Berlin on his seventh-and-a-half mission, Livingston had to endure the rest of the war as a prisoner of war. With the advancing Russian army from the east, the Germans moved the POWs from Stalag Luft III (on the Poland/Germany border); to Nurnberg and then onto Stalag Luft VIIA in Moosburg, Germany (Munich area), a distance of nearly 300 miles in 86 days. For food, they averaged 770 calories a day of German rations for the first 53 days of the march, until Red Cross parcels caught up. Harry celebrated his liberation April 29, reminiscing on the day when the first tank of General George Patton's army came crashing through the compound gate. Mr. Livingston dedicated a picture of himself and his navigator, Walter Schulte, which will proudly be display in the Hall of Warriors at the 700 AS. (Air Force photo/Don Peek)