In
the winter of 1944-1945 the Soviets rolled across Poland into Nazi Germany, driving
westward. The ultimate goal was Berlin,
but numerous prisoner-of-war camps (Stalags)
lay in the path of the Russian juggernaut.
Rather than allowing POWs to be freed by the Soviets, the Germans
decided to evacuate most of the Allied personnel.
Among
the thousands of men held in Stalag Luft Four near Gross Tychow (now in Poland)
was an unheralded hero in an unlikely capacity.
He was Captain Leslie Caplan, a 37-year-old Army Air Forces doctor.
Caplan was a flight surgeon in the 15th Air
Force’s 449th Bomb Group based in Italy.
Unlike most flight surgeons, he insisted on flying combat missions,
including tough targets such as Ploesti, Romania, and his B-24 had been shot
down near Vienna in October. The camp
was incomplete when he arrived, and conditions quickly spun out of
control. The conditions went from bad to
worse to terrible: overcrowding, poor sanitation, inadequate food, and almost
no medical supplies. He
described the camp as “a domain of heroes, but from a medical standpoint it was
a kingdom of illness.” Faced with
“patients” suffering malnutrition—some ate rats--Caplan worked minor miracles
keeping men alive with minimal medicine.
He was one of just five Allied doctors present
at “Luft Four” serving some 10,000 POWs.
There was another, more ominous aspect to
Caplan’s captivity. He was Jewish. Nazi Germany’s murderous antisemitism was well
known, prompting some POWs to obscure the “H” indicator on their dog tags,
indicating Hebrew. Not Leslie
Caplan. He bluntly told his captors of
his heritage. For whatever reason,
Caplan incurred no harm on that account.
But things were bad enough for everyone.
The weather turned bitterly cold, compounding the shortages of food,
clothing, and heat.
On February 6 the Germans began evacuating Luft
Four on a forced march to prevent thousands of airmen from being
liberated. Caplan could have accompanied
those too sick to walk being moved to Luft One by train. Instead he insisted on joining a group of
some 2,500 sergeants, knowing the risks that lay ahead.
The Germans handed out Red Cross food parcels
to the prisoners—presumably enough to last one man a week. However, in the harsh climate, food went fast
among perennially hungry men. A B-17
gunner, teenaged Sergeant Bill Hess, said, “We went through the food in three
or four days. After that we lived on
boiled potatoes and whatever we could scrounge.
I made a sugar beet last three days.”
Thus began a meandering forced march of nearly
500 miles to escape oncoming Russians.
Men subsisted on fewer than 800 calories per day—one fourth the American
average. Seven Americans in Caplan’s
group died en route or in German hands but none died under his care.
Dr. Caplan was an innovator. To reduce the effects of dysentery he burned
wood into blackened remnants, pulverized the charcoal, and mixed it with a
potable liquid. The brew was ghastly to
the taste but it worked—some men later said that it probably saved their lives.
Caplan’s
group arrived at Stalag Eleven-B in northwestern Germany on March 30, remaining
for a week. Then on April 6 the men were
forced back on their trek, trudging another three weeks—in almost the opposite
direction. The advancing Anglo-American
armies convinced the captors to turn back eastward. Said one POW, “We covered a good bit of the
same territory we just come over a month before. We doubled back for over 200
kilometers and it took 26 days.”
Dr.
Caplan could have remained at Luft Eleven where his medical skills were needed,
and he was offered decent quarters. But
he chose to march on with his men.
While
on the road the prisoners generally were held in barns. The conditions inevitably were
crowded—sometimes there wasn’t enough room to lie down to sleep. But Doc Caplan continued advocating for his
men, and on at least one occasion he convinced a German army doctor to tend a
flier’s feet. The German, a captain who
spoke fluent English, lacked anesthetics but lanced the sergeant’s suppurating
sole, swabbed it out with alcohol, and bandaged it. The Eighth Air Force radioman, Sergeant Aldon
Dryer, kept his foot and his life.
On
May 2 the prisoners were liberated by the British near Hamburg. Leslie Caplan’s war was over.
Or
so it seemed. Upon return “Stateside” Caplan was promoted to major
but required treatment for tuberculosis. He recovered at Fitzsimons
Hospital in Colorado, was decorated with the Legion of Merit, then left the
Army to resumed his career. He underwent a residency in psychiatry
at the University of Minnesota, where his future wife Arline was on her way to
a psychology PhD. They married in 1947 and had two
daughters. Leslie died in 1969 and Arline in 2002.
Caplan’s
youngest daughter, Laura, is justly proud of her father. She has been active in POW organizations and
compiled a stack of testimonials from prisoners who credited “Doc” with saving
their lives. Her 2004
privately-published account, Domain of
Heroes, contains dozens of those letters.
Laura also maintains a web site with the daughter of another ex-POW,
Barbed Wire Sister, http://barbedwiresister.blogspot.com/.
Caplan’s
Legion of Merit was awarded in recognition of his exceptional work under harsh
conditions, at risk of his life, lasting for months. Because his deeds were not considered in
combat, the decoration was “for merit” rather than “for valor,” in keeping with
regulations at the time. However, higher
decorations had been presented to military personnel for actions in
captivity. The army’s Distinguished
Service Cross and the Navy Cross—ranking only below the Medal of Honor—went to
half a dozen men who escaped Japanese captivity. And two navy officers received the Medal of
Honor for actions in enemy hands, one each in World War I and II. Additionally, four POWs received Medals of
Honor for actions while held in Hanoi during the long Vietnam War.
Two
Minnesota senators nominated Caplan for an upgrade of his Legion of Merit to a
Medal of Honor, without success. The
medal process is so politicized that high-level advocates are required, as when
the late Senator Daniel Inoue and 19 other WW II veterans’ DSCs and Silver
Stars were upgraded to “the big one” in 2000.
The regulations limiting retroactive awards are routinely ignored, never
moreso than when President Clinton presented the Medal of Honor for Teddy
Roosevelt in 2001, 103 years after the Spanish-American War. In 1977 Jimmy Carter approved the Civil War
MoH for Dr. Mary Walker, a contract surgeon who was not a member of the U.S.
Army.
Leslie
Caplan demonstrated far more than “merit” in the hands of the Germans. He consistently went above and beyond his
duty, flying combat missions, voluntarily remaining with enlisted men, tending
to them, advocating on their behalf with his captors at risk of his life, and
saving lives against incredible odds.
If
that isn’t valor, please tell me what is.
