POW Notebook of
1SG Woodrow H. Smith
G Company, 3rd BN, 506th PIR, 1942-1945
POW June 44-April 45


items from Woodrow L. Hall, nephew of CWO2(R) Woodrow H. Smith
Back of Photo

1SG Woodrow Smith was captured on D-Day, and during his 10 months of captivity,
stayed in four different German prisoner of war camps. However, the back of each of
the photos in his POW Notebook was stamped in red as being from Stalag XII A:

Geprüft ??
Stammlager
XII A    44
with additional handwriting in pencil

Translation:
Geprüft = passed
Stammlager = Stalag = main camp

Stalag XII-A, a German prison camp in Limburg, Germany, was the main processing
center for US enlisted men and NCO's taken prisoner after D-Day. After IDs were issued,
the prisoners were usually sent to other, better organized Stalags deeper inside Germany.

After WWII, all of the buildings from the Stalag XII-A POW camp were removed, and
the site is now the German Army post Freiherr-vom-Stein-Kaserne, located midway
between Limburg and Diez off the B417.



Red Cross Boxes

1SG Woodrow Smith checking the Red Cross boxes

POWs would receive Red Cross parcels of powdered milk, chocolate bars, cheese,
and Spam on a semi-regular basis, usually once a week. Most of the time they would
get one box for two men, although occasionally, it was one box for four.



British POW

unknown British POW

Although Stalag XIIA was mainly a prisoner-of-war transit camp,
it was a permanent POW camp for the British and Indian prisoners.



American and British POWs

1. 1SG Woodrow Smith
2. American POW Baer
3. British POW Dollery
4. American POW Keating
5. British POW Amey

From Roland H. Hiles (POW at Stalag XII-A):
That picture of Keating on the website is SGT Jack Keating. I'll never forget his face.
He had a high forehead. When I was in Stalag 12 A, Jack Keating staged boxing
matches and awarded bread to the guy that won.



Indian POW
There was a large number of Indian soldiers at Stalag XII-A. They had been
captured in North Africa in 1942 and spent the remainder of WWII at Limburg.


Indian POWs
As troops of the British Commonwealth, the Indian soldiers were treated better than most,
and since they were imprisoned for a long time, they learned how to make their conditions
more comfortable, keeping both themselves and their quarters relatively clean.


Table Tennis Tournament
Table Tennis Tournament


KIA and Wounded

MAJ Maxwell J. Papurt was in the OSS and was killed in the November 29, 1944,
air raid on Limburg by the US Ninth Air Force.

The names listed in the DEAD column were all from G Company, 3rd BN, 506th PIR,
and were KIA in Normandy and Holland. 1SG Woodrow Smith would have served
with these paratroopers before he was taken prisoner. Their listings can be found in the
Currahee Memorials Section.

Those in the STATES column must have been wounded in action and sent back to the
US, except for PVT George A. Trotman, who was killed on D-Day.



These pages are maintained by veterans of
The 506th Airborne Infantry Regiment Association (Airmobile - Air Assault)
Send any changes or corrections to: Hoyt Bruce Moore, III "The Moe"
This page updated 09/27/11