Two lifetime friends, connected through their time at a German POW camp, are joined once again after their lives have ended through a series of events related to a book about WWII heroes in Benson County, North Dakota.

Art Linrud and Merlin McCloud would visit about once a year. Art was a turret gunner on a B-17 that was shot down on October 14th, 1943, Black Thursday. Merlin was a tail gunner on a B-17 that was shot down by a German fighter on November 10,1943 near Bologna, Italy.

Linrud and McCloud would end up in the same German POW camp, Stalag 17B near Krems, Austria for 18 months. After being freed from Stalag 17B, the two were picked up by the 3rd Army near Strasburg, Bavaria.
Art Linrud returned to his hometown of Velva, North Dakota, where he farmed just south of Velva. Merlin McCloud was from Maddock, North Dakota. Mr. McCloud, as I would know him, lived just 2 houses away from my Mom & Dad. Merlin was a rural mail carrier.

Authors Marlan & Nancy Hvinden
During my time at the University of North Dakota I would get re-acquainted with longtime friend Marlan Hvinden and his wife Nancy Hvinden. Marlan was originally from Maddock, but he was 12 years older than me. He worked for the local newspaper, The Standard, in the days of typesetting and typewriters.

His decision to seek a journalism degree at UND, 12 years into his career, would make him one of those older than average students.

Nancy was not a journalism major, “we met in Norwegian class” she says. After graduation from UND, the Hvindens would move to Garrison, ND where Marlan was the editor of the McClean County Independent, a weekly newspaper printed in Garrison. Later he would leave the Independent and start the Dakota Country magazine, finally ending up as the McLean County Auditor at the Courthouse in Washburn, until he retired.

After retiring there was a renewed interest in continuing their work. Marlan would finish his book Justice Was Swift, Tales of the Old West. It was a book of stories of the law and the lawless in western North Dakota from 1867 to 1910.
The Hvindens then turned their attention, and their efforts to publishing a book about WWII veterans in Benson County. Of particular focus was Merle Gilbertson, a young man from Flora, North Dakota, who enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps. He would fly a P-51 Mustang during WWII. Merle Gilbertson would gain fame for his distinctly recognizable Sad Sack color scheme. Major Merle Gilbertson would eventually lose his life in a jet plane accident after WWII. His F-38 would suffer a flame-out, and the pilot ejection seat would fail. Merle Gilbertson was laid to rest in October of 1950. There were full military honors, and a flight of P-51’s overflying North Viking Church in Maddock.

For those of us with a passion to hear and record the stories of our veterans, there is the challenge of listening closely to the hundreds of true-life experiences that war creates. My introduction to Art Linrud was through my wife, Sue (Linrud) Wilson. Sue’s father Lawrence and Sue’s Uncle Art were both WWII veterans. It would certainly be accurate to say that most veterans keep those stories close to the vest, until they feel the time is right to share. “They all pretty much lived by the 75 year rule” according to Nancy Hvinden. That rule meant that all military information is classified for 75 years. In 2019 that rule was repealed. Many veterans were more open with their war experiences. Many still chose not to talk about the war.

It was a hunting trip with Art Linrud that brought to light some of the information. I knew that he and Merlin McCloud were friends from the war a POW’s together at Stalag 17B. Like Merlin, Art would stop short of a complete explanation of the horrible conditions they endured.

One afternoon Art put the truck in park, and gazing across the North Dakota landscape he would explain to me the long march to the American lines after being released from Stalag 17B. How they chose to go many miles more to reach the American lines to the west, rather than to the Russian lines to the east. How those who were healthy were able to carry those who were ill and could not walk. And of course there were those who did not make it to freedom. Still, most were carried, even though deceased, to the American lines rather than be buried along the way.

And then there was an afternoon in Art’s basement where he had professionally organized his war experience. On the wall were names of fellow crew members, and those from other B-17’s. Some were marked “because they died on the mission.” Others were not accounted for. A simple “X” across the plane meant it was shot down during the mission. It was surreal, because to say that many planes were lost is one thing, to see them represented on a chart was yet another. I was honored to share in Art Linrud’s story that afternoon. It didn’t seem right that I was a journalist that day. If I were wearing that hat I would have taken notes and recorded the event with photos. Instead, I was a friend who Art Linrud chose to share his story with.

As I look at Marlan and Nancy Hvinden’s book, I imagine the daunting task they had. “We made many trips to Maddock and Benson County” Nancy shared “there were just untold hours spent interviewing and listening” adds Marlan. There are 460 pages of stories and photos, and as Nancy said, “there could have been a lot more.” There were stories that weren’t shared, maybe because the memories were too painful, maybe because they were forgotten. But of more importance are the stories and memories that are recorded and retained for future generations.

Connections Never Lost
I know a lot of the names in The Heroes Next Door book. No one took my hand and walked with me to Merlin’s front door and said, “let me introduce you to a real hero.” It’s not what Merlin wanted or expected. In Merlin’s story, his granddaughter is the recorder. Merlin’s story now only lives on in the pages of Marlan and Nancy’s book, but in the memory of Tamara Lea Schwartz, hopefully passed on to the next generation.

The time we have with these WWII veterans is almost over. But thanks to the Marlan and Nancy Hvindens of the world, the stories of these true American heroes will be passed on.

Sgt. Merlin McCloud Parachutes from B-17, Was Captured, Forced to Endure One Year in Notorious Nazi Stalag 17-B
Reprinted with permission of Marlan and Nancy Hvinden.
A rural Maddock, North Dakota farmer and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Loren McCloud had special interest in the war news because two of their sons, Harley, 23, and Merlin 21, were fighting in the North African/Middle Eastern Theatre. Harley had enlisted in the Army in April 1941 and became an infantryman, while Merlin went a different route, enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps June 13, 1942, and found himself a crew member on a B-17 Flying Fortress, manning the tail gun on the four motor bomber.
Mr. and Mrs. McCloud were notified in mid-June 1943 son Harley had died after being wounded April 8, 1943. An intense battle in the desert of Tunisia made it impossible to get medical aid for soldiers.

Harley McCloud died in the dark as the jeep carrying him to an aid station stalled in deep sand. McCloud’s commanding officer, an aide and two other soldiers battled for hours to get the jeep moving but in the interim Harley died peacefully.
McCloud’s parents hoped that 1944 would get off to a good start, New Year’s they received a message that their son was reported missing but alive, although he was a prisoner of the Germans.

Several weeks later McCloud was reported a German prisoner of war. The message came from the Red Cross and was welcomed news indeed. It brought them other information through rather roundabout channels but none the less authentic. His ship was shot down by a German fighter on November 10, 1943. Three of the ten-man crew members managed to escape by parachute while the other seven killed in the crash or from enemy machine gun fire from the fighter which attacked them.

It took 42 years and a High School 10th grade class writing project by Sgt. McCloud’s granddaughter Tamara Lea Schwartz to get some facts of McCloud’s POW days. Prior to her interview for the writing project, she had never talked about the war with her grandfather. She had previously been told how her grandfather had left for overseas on February 8, 1943. Just six days later he and crewmates on the B-17 they were ferrying to England had engine trouble and the plane was crash landed near a small island off French West Africa. The following italicized story is the first-hand account of what Tamara was told to her by her grandfather. “After the bomber crashed the crew made their way to a beach on French Guinea and into the jungle where he was spotted by search planes and picked up on an emergency landing strip and sent to French West Africa. He spent a week in the hospital with malaria and then sent to Algeria late in April 1943.

“It was there he learned his older brother had been killed in action in North Africa. His first bombing raid was May 10, 1943,” Tamara said, “He was on his 50th mission the day his plane was shot down. (Nov. 10, 1943) near Bologna, Italy. He and the pilot parachuted from the doomed plane, but the remaining seven crewmembers died in the crash. Bomber and fighter crews completing 50 missions were rotated back home for a furlough, He came so close,” his granddaughter remarked.
He said, “It got worse, we dropped into a German airfield, and I was knocked out, when I came too, all I could see were leather boots and six pistols aimed at my head.”

McCloud was put on a train to Frankfort, Germany where he was interrogated before being sent to Stalag 17B, Krems, Austria.
Tamara Schwartz noted that it was six months before his parents knew he was a POW. His first letter arrived at his parent’s home June 1944.

“The conditions at Stalag 17B were very bad, my bed was straw pad with one blanket. There were close to 4,500 men and there was a lot of illnesses and no doctors to treat them. When I first got there, I spent the first two weeks in solitary confinement. I ate turnip soup with worms and sawdust bread. We got very little fresh food, only what came from the Red Cross.” (McCloud spent 363 days imprisoned but would only say “Terrible” and only prisoners can ever know how bad things were, he told Tamara.
“On May 8, 1945, the American 3rd Army picked me and others up in the woods near Strasburg, Bavaria. I was transported to LeHavre, France, where I was given a physical, food, clothing and then interrogated by our people.” Sgt. McCloud told his granddaughter.

She closed her interview with this observation: “On his birthday, June 12th, 1945, he returned to the states for a 60-day rest leave. He felt that people were very cold toward him, my grandfather had a very bad time telling me all this. Afterwards he rarely talked of the war until he joined a POW Organization in 1983. He says no one will ever know the things that they went through and the way they were treated (by their captors), There will always the nightmares (for us).” Tamara Lea Schwartz – Granddaughter of a Hero, Sgt. Merlin McCloud.

View our full Tribute to Service: https://www.nordaknorth.com/newspapers/northernsentry/online-issues/tribute-to-veterans-2024/