He entered the service in January 1943 and received his basic training at Camp Robinson, AR. He also trained at Fort Benning, GA and Camp Butner, NC.

His mother is Mrs. Fred Knoerr, 1606 Frederick Street.

Technical Sergeant Robinson entered the service on January 21, 1943 and received his training at Camp Robinson, AR; Fort Benning, GA; Camp Butner, NC; and Camp Wheeler, VA.

He went overseas in May 1944 and went to France in July.

He stated that he was in good health and would be moved to a new camp within a few days.

Technical Sergeant Robinson was with an Infantry division of Lieutenant General George S. Patton's Third Army and saw considerable action in the drive across Normandy and France.

He is the son of Mrs. Fred Knoerr and was employed as sausage maker for A.F. Schwahn and Sons, before entering the Army on January 21, 1943.

T/SGT. HAROLD ROBINSON

She received the following telegram from the Adjutant General's Office Monday: 

"Am pleased to inform you report, received from United States Military Mission in Moscow, states your husband, Technical Sergeant Harold W. Robinson, previously reported missing in action, has been released from a German prisoner of war camp.  The War Department invites submission of a message, not to exceed 25 words, for attempted delivery to him. Further information will be furnished when received." 

At the same time, she received a form message from her husband, saying he had been liberated. 

Tuesday, Mrs. Robinson received a V-mail letter from her husband, saying he was then at a port in the Middle East, presumably en route home. 

Technical Sergeant Robinson was serving with the Infantry Division of General Patton's Third Army when captured at Nancy, France on September 18, 1944. He was officially reported missing in action as of that date. On January 8, Mrs. Robinson received a card from her husband, stating that he was a prisoner of the German government and was in good health. He was imprisoned in the German prison camp Stalag 3-C, located between Frankfort on the Oder and  Kuestrin, a city recently captured by the Russians. He is reported to be in good health. 

Technical Sergeant Robinson is the son of Mrs. Fred Knoerr, 1606 Frederick Street. He was employed at the A.F. Schwahn Company, before entering the Army on January 21, 1943.

He was, he said, one of the lucky ones who drew a berth, or space, in an enemy war prisoner camp, the commanding officer of which was fairly humane, and besides this, their own camp leader, chosen from their own number by the prisoners, also turned out to be a good and efficient leader, which, he said, meant a lot.  

His liberation occurred when the Russian armies moved in and captured Kuestrin, just east of Berlin, with the Germans unable to evacuate their prisoners from the camp before the Red armies moved in. 

Evidences of the horrors at other German prison camps were seen by the liberated Yank while en route to an embarkation port on the Black Sea, but details of these he was not permitted to give. 

Visiting Wife and Mother Here 
The soldier is Technical Sergeant Harold M. Robinson, United States Infantry, who is visiting his wife, Evelyn, 946 Fifth Street, and his mother, Mrs. Fred Knoerr, 1606 Frederick Street. 

Sergeant Robinson, who entered the service on January 21, 1943 and joined General Patton's forces on July 6, shortly after the Normandy invasion, participating in the battles at St. Lo, Teregny, Montain, and Chateau Dun, was captured near Nancy on September 18, 1944 when, after becoming separated from his outfit, he walked smack into three waiting German soldiers who had him covered with their guns. 

A prisoner of war for 4 1/2 months, Sergeant Robinson was first located at the war prisoner camp at Limburg, and the first two months, he said, were pretty rough. Then, he was sent to the prison camp at Kuestrin, where he remained until he was liberated.

Daily Ration a Thin One
[most text, here, must be located in scrapbook]

Sergeant Robinson said that the Russians, when they took over at Kuestrin, paid little or no attention to the liberated prisoners, making no provisions for moving them elsewhere, but let them go on their own. The freed prisoners, he said, made their own way to a Russian Black Sea port, crossing Poland and the intervening country in groups and living on the country. The Polish people were very good to them, he said, and shared their meager food supplies with them most generously. 

There was little left of the larger Polish cities through which they passed, he said, but some of the smaller places showed only slight evidence of the ravages of war.

From his experience and what he  could observe while being moved back from the battlefront, where he was captured, to the first prison camp at Limburg and, later, to Kuestrin, the German railroad systems, both rolling stock and tracks, had been badly mauled by Allied bombing. The prisoners were transported, he said, in box cars and, on one trip, some 23 of them were packed in a box car that 25 men would fill, and the doors boarded up. Twice a day, the boards would be taken off, he said, and the prisoners were permitted to get out for a brief spell. The progress was slow, and often the trains would be halted for many hours at a time.

Evidencing what the United States was doing to supply the Allied countries and countries occupied by the Allies, was the fact, Sergeant Robinson said, that no matter where one went, there were weapons of war, supplies of every kind, including food, bearing the American label. This was in evidence, he said, in Poland and the sections of Russia the freed prisoners passed through on their unescorted journey to the Black Sea.

As far as he and other prisoners with him were concerned, Sergeant Robinson said, he could not make any complaint as to their treatment by the German soldiers. "They treated us like soldiers," he said.

He said that SS troopers frequently went through the prison camps, checking on what the camp officers and guards were doing, and it was quite evident, he said, that the rank and file of the German soldiers were somewhat fearful of them.