"Everything After That is Just Gravy"

Carrie Stambaugh, Managing Editor


    Life can change in an instant. For U.S. Air Force Staff Sargent Joseph E. Bauer that change came in January 1944 when somewhere over Italy the B-17 bomber he was flying in was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire. For the next 18 months Bauer was a prisoner of war at the mercy of Nazis.

    That he survived the crash, much less his time as POW, shaped the remainder of Bauer’s life. Earlier this year to mark what would have been his 100th birthday, 11 of his descendants traveled to present-day Poland to visit what remains of Stalag Luft III, the Luftwaffe-run prison camp where he was held.     

    Bauer, a native of Portsmouth, Ohio, was drafted into the Air Force in 1942 at the age of 24. After attending gunner training in Colorado he was deployed to Europe where he, along with 10 others, were assigned to the B-17 bomber “Cultured Vulture.” On January 22, 1944, the plane set off on Bauer’s 50th bombing run. It was significant because, at that time, successful completion would have qualified him to be transferred out of the war zone.

    “Somewhere over Italy they got us. I had unleashed several rounds on a railroad bridge below when anti-aircraft fire took us down,” he said years later retelling the story so his family could record it before his death. He recalled fighting through smoke and flames to pry open the hatch of the airplane in order to escape.  Five of his comrades jumped immediately. Bauer shoved out two more before an explosion expelled him too. As he fell he watched the airplane slam into a mountainside. The pilot and co-pilot didn’t make it out.

    “If it wasn’t for them controlling the plane for so long, we all would’ve gone down. God bless their souls,” he said in the recorded conversation. “Everything after that is just gravy.” Those words were Bauer’s mantra, according to his family.   

    After the war, Bauer returned to Ohio, where he met and married Erma Conley on Aug. 9, 1949. The couple moved to Ashland where they raised their six children: Cheryl Reames, Mary Bauer, Bob Bauer, Teresa Traugott, John Bauer and Joe Bauer. Joseph Bauer went to work as a towboat pilot for Ashland Oil. He was a devout Catholic who attended Holy Family.

    “He always had a joke to tell, a story to tell,” said daughter Cheryl Reames. “He also never held a grudge. He said what he wanted to and then he just went on after that.”  He was stern but fair, and he always treated everyone with dignity and respect, his family also recalled.

    “He always had an appreciation for life – he felt like he was given a second chance,” said son John Bauer, adding that his father’s standard response to the question, “How are you?” was always, “Better than I deserve.”   

    “He had a zeal for life… for living every day like it was his last,” his grandson Ryan Reames remembers adding his grandfather had lots of wild stories to illustrate the fervor with which he lived.

    Bauer also never shied away from sharing about his time as a POW. “A lot of people would say I’m not like most veterans. I can talk about my experiences, my stories. These stories are my life, and I’ve got to talk about my life to keep me going long after I’m gone…” Bauer explained in that same video. 

    His openness and the “War Log,” he kept after being given the cloth bound book by the Canadian YMCA upon his arrival at the camp have undoubtedly helped him to live on. At some point Bauer retitled the book, “I Wanted Wings,” complete with a drawing of an aviator duck behind bars to illustrate his point. While in the camp, he filled the book with short stories, poetry, songs, drawings, letters from home and newspaper clippings.  That book played a role in sparking the idea among his grandchildren – first Ryan and Nick — to return to Stalag Luft.

     In October, more than 70 years after Bauer left the camp along with 11,000 other captives on a forced march to Nurnberg, Germany, his descendants willingly returned.  According to records at the Stalag Luft III Prison Camp Museum, which his family was shown, Bauer arrived on April 22, 1944, and was assigned to Building 162, Room 2. Although that particular barracks have since been demolished, museum staff was able to walk the family to the exact spot where it once stood.

     “It was really weird to think, ‘This is where Dad was,’” said Cheryl Reames. “I don’t think it is a trip we will ever forget. It was very sobering to go and realize what he went through. It brought back all the stories he used to tell.”

    “It was just really interesting to see,” agreed Ryan Reames. “The most interesting part,” he added, “was that he would never have thought that we would have done that.”