Late in World War II, my dad was a POW in a prison camp in Shumen, Bulgaria. I’ve written a couple of posts about his ordeal, and the family’s.
The Shumen camp was small, populated mostly by Allied aircrews shot down in the region. The camp existed from November 1943 until September 1944.
Not long ago, I Googled Shumen and found a website about the camp, maintained by a Bulgarian. In English, no less.
The things you find online.
The website is still under construction, but I found some fascinating stuff there. For example, a prisoner list. Dad was POW #125.
I also found this photo of dad’s aircrew, donated to the website by one of the former POWs. It was taken in Italy just days before their B-24 was shot down.
Dad (center front) and his ill-fated aircrew, June 1944.
The website shows another photo of Dad when he returned to Bulgaria in October 1944 as part of an intelligence mission. He’s shown playing horseshoes.
Recently, I unearthed yet another piece of the puzzle: a magazine article about the Shumen prisoners that ran in Yank, the Army Weekly in November 1944.
Yank was published as a morale-booster and usually featured a beautiful lady celebrity on the cover. It was written by enlisted rank soldiers only. During the war years, it was distributed to troops around the world.
Here’s the article.
No one can fully understand what Dad went through in the war years. I can uncover pieces of the puzzle, but I can’t complete it. I know that.
But I’m working on it anyway.
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Very interesting. It IS amazing what one can find on the web. Enjoying exploring your blog. Gloris
My father, on your father’s left in the crew photo, was a member of the crew when they were shot down. I am interested in finding out if you have more information about your father’s time as a POW.
Wow, small world.
I’ve written 4 or 5 posts relating to Dad’s war years. You can do a search of his name to find them. Those posts pretty much cover what I know about Shumen. Dad emphatically didn’t want to talk about it, and I wasn’t smart enough to push him on it.
Oh my gosh! I have been searching everywhere for that article. Thank you so much for sharing it. My uncle is Laurens Woolhouse. He passed in 1976 and I know so little about his internment. My father was very young and didn’t remember much, but he definitely remembered this article.
I’m glad you found the article. Funny, I document things like this for the benefit of my kids and grandkids, but lots of folks like you respond. It’s a nice feeling.
I don’t know if you still track this page. If so my father was in your dad’s crew.
Standing 2nd from right. George Chesterton-radio operation and waist gunner.
Deceased since 1983. Spoke of his time in that camp from time to time and how the plane was circling above them after they bailed out. He thought on the next circle around as it was descending it was going to take out a few of the crew. Luckily it crashed into a mountain on that last circle.
I’m happy to have names for the faces. Thanks.
My dad was also a POW in the Shumen, Bulgaria camp. George Cale. He was listed as prisoner #12. He was originally housed in the original prison, which I believe was in town. He wrote home he had finally been assigned to a permanent crew, which happened to be all Yugoslavians. They were stationed in Africa with the Army Air Corp. Their plane went down in Bulgaria after the crew bailed out. We know only a little about his time there, as he very seldom talked about it. My sister has done a lot of research and some information was in the book that Jonathan Taylor co- wrote with a professor from Bulgaria.
More pieces of the puzzle. Thanks. My dad also was reluctant to talk about his Shumen experience.
My uncle was a POW 157 in the Shumen camp. There was a lot of questions about this time in his life. None of the family talked about what happened. Thank you for answering some of the questions.
My father was also a POW there. How do I find the POW list? He was Louis Lannon
I see the Shumen website I found in 2010 is no longer in English. I don’t recall that it included a prisoner list, but a list is bound to be out there somewhere. I’ll let you know if I find it.