Wwii Escape Made Enemies Into Comrades, Lasting Friends

It was during the most dangerous days toward the end of the war that they met - a U.S. Army Air Force colonel and a German Luftwaffe officer, both looking for a way out.

It was March 1945, in a tiny World War II interrogation camp run by the Germans.

Don Hillman, a combat pilot from Seattle, had flown a number of bombing missions against the Germans before being shot down and imprisoned in Stalag 17 in Moosburg. He had escaped six days before, and now here he was, back in front of his German captors.

"I think the war is about over, Lieutenant, and your side is losing," Hillman remembers telling Ulrich Haussmann, the German officer.

"If I were you, I'd be thinking about after the war."

Haussmann, a pilot himself, decorated for bravery in combat, had come to the same conclusion. He and Hillman entered a dangerous pact to escape to the American side while they could. And they began a friendship that outlasted the war.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, 50 years after some of the most significant battles of World War II.

Hillman, one of about 8.5 million American veterans of that war, attended Seattle's Broadway High School, now closed, and graduated from Stanford University in 1939. He joined the Army Air Corps, the predecessor of the Air Force, in October 1940, more than a year before Pearl Harbor, believing the war already raging in Asia and Europe eventually would involve America.

Haussmann, the cultured son of a wealthy German scientist, had traveled in America as "a spoiled young man" and attended Columbia University. He spoke perfect English and had an American pilot's license. In 1940, at age 36, he was drafted by Hitler's Luftwaffe - the air force - as a war correspondent and interrogations officer.

Hillman flew bombing and strafing missions in support of the D-Day invasion. Haussmann's missions as a pilot and aerial gunner took him into combat in Libya, Sicily and Greece, and, finally, on the Western front in France.

They met in Mainburg, a small camp with about 30 prisoners.

"The war for us was over by then," Haussmann said yesterday.

"I think I knew Germany was losing as early as 1942, when I heard we were invading Russia. When Hitler opened the second front in Russia, I knew. But you got along best if you kept your mouth shut. So I kept my mouth shut."

As Haussmann remembers it, Hillman and another American, Maj. Hank Mills, had been captured together and pretended to be French agricultural workers. Haussmann saw through the ruse.

The two Americans were supposed to be sent to Moosburg, where they would have been severely punished, Haussmann said.

"So they asked if they could stay with us. I said yes. They also had a plan to escape and asked me right out if this was possible."

Russian and American forces were pressing closer to their camp, from opposite directions. A Gestapo unit had fled the Russians and settled into the camp. They were hostile toward both the prisoners and interrogators, and Haussmann worried about everyone's safety.

Haussmann and Hillman developed an escape plan: The two Americans, Haussmann and a German soldier would try to intercept the American forces.

The four started out through the countryside. One day out they were stopped by a German SS unit, which accepted Haussmann's story and put the four up for the night. The next morning the SS unit was gone. In the distance was a long convoy of U.S. tanks and jeeps.

When they reached the U.S. forces, Hillman and Haussmann exchanged places; Haussmann became the prisoner. Hillman told the Americans in charge that "if they were going to put us in prison, they'd have to put him in prison, too," Haussmann recalled.

Haussmann eventually was taken to an English officers' prison. He and Hillman kept in touch, and in 1955 Hillman helped Haussmann's family immigrate to the Seattle area.

Haussmann worked as a journalist for German-language publications. He and his wife live in Lake Forest Park. He still has the Iron Cross he received from Hitler's government for combat bravery.

Hillman retired from the Air Force in 1962 with more than three dozen combat decorations. As a civilian, he worked for The Boeing Co., retiring in 1980 to Kirkland, where he lives with his wife.

Hillman, now 75, and Haussmann, now 89, still see each other once or twice a year.