I would like to find out more information about this artifact if possible.
Before my great grandfather died, he told me the story of this badge. He was a communication officer aboard a B-17 bomber. His crew and a host of other bombers flew a mission over Holland to bomb a facility. Upon entering the area, they were unchallenged. Perhaps because the Germans had not had time to scramble a response. However, after dropping their payloads and turning back for home they came under heavy fire from aircraft and ground based anti-aircraft guns. His plane was downed somewhere in Holland.
My grandfather and the rest of his crew, minus the bottom turret gunner who was unable to escape due to hydraulic system failure, landed in the field of a Dutch farmer. The farmer took them a change of clothing and made them hide in the hay stacks of his field for a few days. Later, the squad of men decided to try and trek back to allied lines. However, while on the move, they were captured by a gestapo unit. My great grandfather then spent 3 years of the war in a POW/concentration camp until he was liberated and brought back home.
This is the story as I remember it being told to me as a young boy. I would like to know if anyone can make out the inscriptions or decipher their meaning so I can find out more about where he was detained.
Thanks!
We do have this handy Guide on Military Identification as part of the resources available for our users where you can get more info.
What this dog tag can tell is your grandfather's POW number – 50 48 – and that he was in the Stalag (Stammlager – the name for German POW camps for troops and NCOs) Luft (meaning Luftwaffe resp. for aircrew) Nr. 4. Below it says "KGF (Kriegsgefangenen – POW) LGR (Lager – camp) 4 d (der – of) LW (Luftwaffe – German Airforce)", so POW camp Nr. 4 of the Luftwaffe, which is synonymous with Stalag Luft 4.
Stalag Luft IV was a German POW camp in Gross Tychow, Pomerania (now Tychowo, Poland), opened in May 1944, where the conditions according to the Red Cross report on the camp were to be considered bad. In February of 1945 about 8000 of inamtes were forced on what was called "The black march", an evacuation march to Stalag 357 near Fallingbostel, which lasted until the beginning of April, only to be then forced on another march until they were liberated by British forces near the Elbe on May 2, 1945.
Now this is quite curious artifact. First of all, its shape corresponds to the shape of military dog tags of German armed forces, not the tags issued to the prisoners of war (these were rectangular with rounded corners, slightly bigger and contained only camp name and prisoner's number, usually composed of six numbers).
The inscription itself is interesting. The information on the top and bottom half is different. The former refers to 'Stalag Luft-4', the latter clearly states 'Stalag Luft-1', pointing to completely different camp (but it can be explained, see below). Another unusual thing is the usage of Arabic numerals for the camp designation, as Germans tended to use Roman numerals in this particular case. But usage of military tags and differing inscriptions was not unheard of, especially in heavily overcrowded camps (and the adherence to naming and abbreviation standards was pretty lackluster). What is even more interesting is that inscription looks like it has been made with punch set that was missing numbers (it is obvious that '4' is made of three letters 'I' and 5 consists of two 'I' and one 'O'). Of course, the number punches could have been damaged or misplaced and the camp personnel had to make do with what they had at a moment.
Of course, this could be a forgery, and not necessarily modern one. There are WW2-era fake ID tags made by people who wanted to impersonate military personnel for whatever reason (resistance fighters, escaped POWs, German deserters etc.).
The inscription can be deciphered as follows: 'Stalag Luft-4' can mean 'Luftwaffe Camp 4 for airmen' (ger. Stammlager, in opposition to Oflag or 'Offizierslager', camp established to hold officers). It is worth noting that camps for airmen were run by Luftwaffe, independently of other prisoner camps. 'KGF-LGR-4-D-LW' can be deciphered as 'Kriegsgefangene Lager 4 D Luftwaffe' (Prisoner of War Camp 4 D for airmen) what corresponds with Luftwaffe Stalag IV in Gross Tychow (now Tychów in northwestern Poland). It makes a lot of sense - 90% of POWs in this particular camp were American and there were around 10000 of them, so the prisoner number is believable.
If this deciphering is correct, we have a small problem. You say that your grandfather spent 3 years in captivity before liberation (presumably somewhere in early 1945). This would mean that he was shot down in early 1942 (pretty early for the American involvement in Europe) and the Luftwaffe Stalag IV has been established only in 1944. Of course, POWs were often moved between the camps. It is worth noting though, that the because of approaching Soviet forces, Luftwaffe Stalag IV has been evacuated in 6-8 February 1945 and the prisoners were force-marched to Stalag XI B in Fallingbostel (almost 950 km southwest) that was liberated by Allied forces in early April 1945.
There was a 'Stalag IV D' (what means POW camp established as fourth one in the 4th military administration district). In this case, it was camp in Torgau belonging to the District IV with headquarters in Dresden. It is not likely that the ID tag comes from this camp however, as it hasn't been run by Luftwaffe and it held less than 1000 prisoners, so nothing would warrant the prisoner number '5038'.
The letter, as I said before, meant specific camp in case of regular camps for soldiers of the land forces. In case of Luftwaffe camps if could have also meant sub-camp or some internal unit. There were no sub-camps in Luftwaffe Stalag IV, but there were five compounds designated A through E. Units D and E were built later, when the camp became overcrowded. This, along with military blank tag and shoddy craftsmanship supports the theory that it could have belonged to a prisoner moved there somewhere around January 1945 from a different camp.
