Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War Read Online Free PDF Page B

bade his family farewell. Strapping on his backpack, which was already filled with everything he was taking, he grabbed his official documents and set out to hitchhike 400 miles to Bremerhaven, the North Sea port from which his ship would depart for America. He had already sold all his possessions, including his homemade skis, a newer bicycle he had built, and a kayak he had picked up in trade. In fact, Dieter sold the kayak “three times to three different people,” all of whom showed up to retrieve it after he left.
    Residents of Calw—the birthplace of the novelist and Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse, who had apprenticed years earlier in the same blacksmith shop for Mr. Perrot’s brutally abusive father and used the experience as material for his book Beneath the Wheel —were in agreement that the cagey and charismatic Dieter Dengler would grow up to be either very successful and rich, or “the biggest gangster ever” and in prison.

2
AMERICA
    For three weeks Dieter passed the time in Bremerhaven, lingering near the docks while he awaited the arrival of his ship. He slept in empty cargo crates and ate green bananas and other perishables that fell off the conveyor belts snaking from the holds of cargo ships. He also scavenged for edible leftovers in garbage cans behind waterfront restaurants. Having been assured by the shipping line that all the food he could eat was included in the price of his passage, he couldn’t wait to get a decent meal aboard ship.
    When the ocean liner SS America arrived, being pushed dockside by a cast of tugboats, its great size was beyond belief to the young man from the Black Forest. The 33,000-ton vessel was longer than a city block—more than 700 feet from bow to stern. Built in 1939 to carry 1,200 passengers in three distinct and separate classes (cabin, tourist, and third class), with a crew of 640, America had been converted to a troopship during World War II. Converted after the war to again carry civilian passengers, and painted in the iconic red, white, and blue of the prestigious United States Lines—even on the two finned smokestacks designed to minimize wind resistance in gales— America was the most graceful and well-appointed liner flying the U.S. flag.
    Dieter watched in awe as the passengers filed down gangplanks, many of the men dressed in fine suits and the women in fancy dresses and feathery hats. Gleaming Cadillacs and Lincolns were hoisted from a forward cargo hold onto the pier, where well-heeled passengers waited to drive away.
    When he finally boarded the ship for its return run from Bremerhaven to New York—with port calls at Le Havre, France, and Cobh, Ireland—Dieter was ecstatic about his future. As the mooring lines were released and the ship inched slowly away, a band on deck played “ Auf Wiedersehen.” Friends and relatives on the ship and pier waved tearful good-byes. The song beseeched travelers not to stay away too long, but Dieter “had news for them.” He didn’t want to come back. For him, an “era had come to an end,” and he knew it. Nobody on the pier was waving good-bye to him, and he was ready for his adventure in America.
    Compartments for third-class passengers were located in the bow section of the ship, where the motion at sea was most pronounced. Dieter was assigned to a room with three other men, and his first food aboard ship was a “strange American hot dog” on a bun with only ketchup. Not long afterward, when the ship hit the choppy waters of the North Sea, Dieter became seasick. He couldn’t eat much after that—missing out on those all-you-can-eat meals he had so looked forward to. Miserable, he mostly stayed in the room “heaving for ten days.” Occasionally, he dragged himself to the dining salon so he could bring back fruit and sandwiches. He marveled at the bowl of oranges kept filled on the table to which he was assigned. He had usually seen an orange only at Christmas in his stocking, along with cookies and a new