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Interviewee
Joswick, Earl
Document Type
Oral History
Date of Interview
6-14-2004
Abstract
Earl Joswick was born 25 October 1923 in Minneapolis, one of four children, but grew up in the small town of Deephaven, Minnesota, where he graduated from high school in 1942. He entered the US Army Air Corps in November 1942. Earl was trained as a ball turret gunner on B-17 Flying Fortress four-engine heavy bombers. He was assigned to 334th Bomb Squadron, 95th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force, and in November 1943 sent to England. He completed thirteen missions before his B-17 was shot down on 19 July 1944 while on a raid to Schweinfurt, Germany. As a POW, Earl was initially at the Dulag Luft interrogation facility, then at Stalag Luft IV (July 1944 - February 1945). When this camp was evacuated in February 1945, with Soviet troops nearby, the prisoners were marched through central Germany for eighty-six days (nearly five hundred miles) until liberated on 28 April by US forces near the city of Bitterfeld. Once evacuated from that area, Earl was returned the United States; he was discharged later in 1945. Again a civilian, Earl was married in 1946 (wife Florence) and worked for thirty years as an auto mechanic for Ford. He was active many years in the American Ex-POWs organization, serving as Minnesota state commander.
Copyright
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced without the written permission of Concordia University Library or Thomas Saylor, Department of History, Concordia University, St. Paul.
Recommended Citation
Saylor, Thomas, "Oral History Project World War II Years, 1941-1946 - Earl Joswick" (2004). Oral History Project: World War II Years, 1941-1946. 31.
https://digitalcommons.csp.edu/oral-history_ww2/31
PDF Transcript of Interview with Earl Joswick