Ed Davidson: Letters from Stalag Luft 1

Last year, the newsletter of the Delaware County Historical Association included an article I wrote about a recent acquisition to the DCHA Archives from the family of Ed Davidson. It was eighty years ago this month that Ed experienced a major event in his life when he was shot down over the Bay of Biscay and became a German POW. A slightly edited version of the article appears below. 

Ed Davidson, son of H. Fletcher Davidson for whom our library is named, made his own contributions to saving the history of his hometown of Bovina and of Delaware County. Ed died at the age of 96 in 2019. As Bovina town historian, I am eternally grateful to Ed, as well as to his brothers Alan (who died in 2004) and Richard, who lives out in California. Their work on Bovina’s history certainly made my job much easier. My book on the history of Bovina got to Ed not long before his passing. 

Last summer, I was contacted by his son Tom, wanting to donate materials related to Ed’s military service as a B-17 pilot, especially his service in World War II and his time as a German POW, to DCHA. Included in these materials were his POW camp ID and his letters home from the camp, as well as the telegrams his parents received when he was shot down. 

On January 4, 1944, Ed wrote a letter home to his sister Jane, mainly reporting on a visit he made to the English town of Norwich on a 48 hour pass he got over New Years. The letter was received by January 15. 

The next day, January 5, Ed flew his seventh and last mission, flying an aircraft called "Little Girl." While flying to the southern French coast, his aircraft was badly damaged by German fighter aircraft and ditched off the coast. It is assumed that five of the ten-man crew bailed out over water and were lost. The copilot was killed by enemy gunfire. The remaining four crew members. including Ed, spent about four hours floating in their life raft before being picked up by a German seaplane, to hear the dreaded phrase “For you, the war is over.” 

Crew of "Little Girl" three days before being shot down.

It was almost two weeks before the family was notified that he was missing in action. On the evening of January 18, the family received this telegram:

Here's the text of the telegram:

HO 10 43 GOVT= WUZ WASHINGTON DC 18 519P=

HOWARD F DAVIDSON

BOVINA CENTER

THE SECRETARY OF WAR DESIRES ME TO EXPRESS HIS DEEP REGRET THAT YOUR SON SECOND LIEUTENANT EDWIN DAVIDSON HAS BEEN REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION SINCE FIVE JANUARY OVER FRANCE IF FURTHER DETAILS OR OTHER INFORMATION ARE RECEIVED YOU WILL BE PROMPTLY NOTIFIED

ULIO THE ADJUTANT GENERAL 

(552P)

When Phil Monroe saw my posting on Facebook about Ed’s passing in 2019, he shared a moving story about when the family got the first MIA telegram. He remembered his father was told to pick up a telegram at the Bovina Phone Station and deliver it (he was the back-up for the person who normally delivered war messages). Phil went with him to the Davidson home. Phil’s dad and Fletcher went across the living room and sat down, where upon he read the telegram to Fletcher. Both men sat together and cried for a bit, then composed themselves and started contacting other family members. Phil said that this was the most vivid memory he had of the war. He had never seen his father cry before. 

Here's the article from the Delaware Republican reporting that Ed was missing in action:

Over the next couple of weeks, the family received three more telegrams with somewhat more hopeful news, culminating in this telegram, received on February 1, confirming that Ed was a German Prisoner of War. 

HO9 34 GOVT= WASHINGTON DC 31 919P

HOWARD F DAVID

BOVINA CENTER

REPORT JUST RECEIVED THROUGH THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS STATES THAT YOUR SON SECOND LIEUTENANT EDWIN D. DAVIDSON IS A PRISONER OF WAR OF THE GERMAN GOVT. LETTER OF INFORMATION FOLLOW FROM PROVOST MARSHALL GENERAL=

ULIO THE ADJUSTANT GENERAL

(00)

After a brief hospital stay, Ed was sent to Stalag Luft 1 in northeast Germany, where he would stay for sixteen months. Here's his prisoner-of-war ID card:

Included in the donation from the Davidson family were the letters Ed sent from the camp. He was limited to three letters and four postcards a month. We have in our collection fifteen cards and eleven letters. Given some of the date gaps (no letters exist for October, for instance) it seems some of the letters he wrote never made it home. It took some time for the cards and letters to arrive. His parents noted when these were received. Some took a little over two months but others closer to six months. Letters and parcels to Ed in the camp also took time, and likely some never made it to their final destination. 

The cards and letters Ed wrote were all written in block capitals, probably to make it easier for the German censors to review. Here’s the first card he wrote, about 6 days after he was shot down. 

This card was written on January 11 but not received until March 30.

Here’s the next card, with some parts censored. 

Here's the first letter that made it home, dated February 18. Again, some of it is censored:

There’s not a lot that Ed could write about while in the camp. In May, he reports that “things are still going as usual here – monotonous but a really lazy life.” There’s a censored section in this letter, though, right after he says “We are still waiting for something to happen on the Western wall. Chances of our leaving here any other way are very slim indeed.” It was six months before he started receiving any mail, which seems to be about average for POWs. Many of his letters home took about as long. By November 1944, he reported that to date he had received 88 letters, mainly from his mother and sister, but other relatives and friends were writing too. 

The last letter in our collection written by Ed is dated January 20, 1945. He closes this letter with “The news is certainly looking better for us so maybe it won’t be too much longer.” 

Ed probably wrote other letters after this date, but the deteriorating situation in Germany at this point likely made sending them out pretty much impossible. The Germans left the camp on April 30, and it was liberated by the Russians the next day. A few days later, Ed was flown to France then to England before being shipped home. 

Ed (left) in France on May 13, 1945, shortly after his liberation. While in France, he bumped into another Bovina airman, Fred DeSilva. 

These letters are critical to understanding the pain and challenge of slow communication during war. DCHA is grateful to Tom and the Davidson family for donating these powerful items.