Joseph Massey was born in September 1925 in Argo, Alabama. He had five brothers and he was the youngest. There were four of them within 20 miles of each during the Battle of Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Massey was captured. One brother was wounded on D-Day [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944], recovered then invaded Southern France was wounded again. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer incorrectly says his mother had four gold star flags. He means four blue stars on a service banners, one of each serving member. Gold stars on a service banner are for those killed in military operations. Massey and all of his brothers return home from the war.] His father farmed and was in the wholesale produce business and raised cattle. It was a small town. The school was three rooms with two teachers. Each teacher taught three grades, first through third and fourth through sixth. His first job was a janitor in that school. He also had farm chores after school. They were better off during the Great Depression than most. It actually did not hurt them at all. They would have fried chicken for Sunday morning breakfast. He went to high school in Trussville, Alabama. He was closest with his older brother who was somewhat like a father to him. Each brother had three to four years between them. One brother died at age 27 of injuries sustained in high school. Massey was in his grandfather's old log house when he heard the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. They did not know where it was. They were wondering what was going to happen. Rationing started. Getting gas for the farm was easy but not for cars. He was still in school when the Pearl Harbor attack happened.

Joseph Massey was drafted just after leaving high school at age 18. He entered service on 15 November 1945 [Annotator's Note: 15 November 1943]. His third brother went in with him and volunteered for the Combat Engineers. They went to Fort McPherson in Atlanta, Georgia and his brother was asked if they wanted to stay together. Massey's brother said "no, send him somewhere else." Massey has not forgiven him for that to this day. [Annotator's Note: Massey laughs.] Massey went to Camp Shelby, Mississippi to the 65th Infantry Division for basic training. He went through twice and tried to get out. A captain asked him if he wanted to go, and he said yes. He was sent to Atterbury [Annotator's Note: Camp Atterbury, Edinburgh, Indiana] to the 106th Infantry Division. The ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program] schools were cancelled and the students were put into infantry. Massey went overseas with a lot of them that had not gone through any training. It was tough on all of them. He left in August 1944 for Myles Standish [Annotator's Note: Camp Myles Standish in Taunton, Massachusetts was a departure area for American and Allied soldiers en route to the European Theater] and then to Southampton, England. He was then sent to Fairford, England and trained for six weeks in basic gunnery. They left England on 15 November and crossed to Le Havre, France on 10 December 1944 then ultimately relieved the 2nd Infantry Division [Annotator's Note: in Belgium on 10 December 1944]. They swapped artillery there [Annotator's Note: with the Germans]. There was not much fighting going on. The squad huts there were made from logs. Massey would pull guard duty there, four hours on and four hours off.

The Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] for Joseph Massey started on 16 December 1944 around five-thirty in the morning. The sky lit up. They estimated they had about 1,000 artillery pieces firing at them. They were bogged down in snow. The 422nd Regiment [Annotator's Note: 422nd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division] was cut off. They only had riflemen with 48 rounds of ammunition. Massey was a BAR man [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] and he had 20 clips. They tried to make it back to headquarters at night. They made it to Schönberg, Germany but could not go any farther. They held out until 21 December [Annotator's Note: actually 19 December 1944] when their colonel surrendered them to an SS Panzer Division. The Germans took their cigarettes and money but their officer made them return two packs to each soldier. They were then marched to Prüm, Germany overnight. They went on trains to Stalag IX-B [Annotator's Note: in Bad Orb, Germany]. Every time the train moved Allied aircraft would strafe it. Six men were lost due to this friendly fire. The finally got out and walked down to the Stalag. Before they got there, the British were attempting to bomb the nearby railroad yard but missed and hit the prison camp. They killed a number of officers and enlisted men. Then they went to Stalag IV-B [Annotator's Note: near Mühlberg, Germany] which was south of Berlin, Germany. They marched 360 miles to that camp at Mühlberg between 21 December 1944 and 15 January 1945. All of them had frostbite on their hands and had frozen feet. Massey still has neuropathy [Annotator's Note: disease or dysfunction of one or more peripheral nerves causing numbness or weakness] in his hands. He can use his fingers, but the nerves are all dead. He was interrogated but only gave his name, rank and serial number. The Germans knew exactly who they were already. Of the prisoners, 102 of them were sent into Eastern Germany to repair tanks, halftracks and trucks. They would sabotage what they could. They never did get caught. There were Russian prisoners who did most of the heavy work. Chemnitz, Germany had never been bombed at that time so the work would just continue as planes flew over. One day, they went over and then the fighters turned and dropped smoke bombs for the bombers. The air raids killed 1,100 people that day. Their work area was torn up. Massey was put on a detail burying the bodies. The Russian prisoners had to dig the trench. The bodies were stacked two deep without coffins. Massey had to dig the dead out of the bombed shelters. Dead humans smell awful. There is no worse smell in the world. It was all he could do to stay two or three minutes. That took two to three weeks to finish. They then were put to odd jobs. They had to move 1,500 bushels of wheat out of a building.

[Annotator's Note: Joseph Massey served in the Army as a BAR man in the 422nd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division. He was captured a few days into the Battle of the Bulge and spent time in Stalag IV-b before being sent to Chemnitz, Germany where he was used as labor.] The Russian Army was advancing through Czechoslovakia. The Americans pulled up outside of Chemnitz, Germany and shelled the town. The prisoners thought they were being liberated and that they should sit tight. The next day the town was shelled again. Nobody showed up but the guards all left. The guards came back that night and took the prisoners and marched down to Prague, Czechoslovakia. They were in a building that had potatoes in it. They filled their clothes with the potatoes. They then started marching back towards Chemnitz and stopped about halfway. A farmer was planting potatoes that day. The prisoners raided the field that day. They were keeping ahead of the Russians and went into Wolkenstein, Germany, in the mountains. They stayed in an old, bombed-out paper factory with English and Australian prisoners. There was a dairy farm that they would go down to and help the farmer in exchange for milk. Massey wonders why their guards did not shoot them. They stayed there for three weeks. The Russians came close, so they moved again. They would walk ten to 12 hours a day. On 8 May 1945 they started walking back to Chemnitz. As they got closer to Chemnitz, about 500 German soldiers with full packs and weapons joined them as they did not want to surrender to the Russians. An American outfit was in town and they gave the men their breakfast. It was the first real meal they had in six months. In the prison camp, they had not gotten very much food. Massey still has some tobacco they gave him. The Americans flew them to Reims, France where they were deloused and given new clothing. They were fed eggnog and split pea soup five times per day along with a vitamin pill. After two weeks they were given turkey. At Camp Lucky Strike [Annotator's Note: Cigarette Camp, temporary staging camp; Lucky Strike was between Cany and Saint-Valery, France], Massey weighed 115 pounds. He had lost 80 pounds in six months in the prison camps. His hand hurt from where it had burst open from frostbite. He went from there to Le Havre, France and boarded a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] to Newport News, Virginia, the SS Samuel Ashe.

Joseph Massey returned to the United States aboard the SS Samuel Ashe. On the third day of the trip they ran into a storm. It was so rough that the bow would go completely underwater and the propeller would come out of the water. The ship would shake like it would break in half. It took 15 days to get to Newport News, Virginia from Le Havre, France. He got a T-bone steak for dinner. He stayed there a week and then went to Fort McPherson [Annotator's Note: near Atlanta, Georgia], followed by a 60 day hospital leave home where he worked on the farm with his father. Then he went to Miami Beach, Florida where the US Army had rented hotels. A hurricane hit while he was there and the first floor flooded. He was there for 30 days and then went to Fort Lewis, Washington by train. It was all former prisoners on the train. Another soldier told Massey they should get off the train in Atlanta so they did. They found an MP [Annotator's Note: Military Police] and told him they had missed their train. He sent them back to Fort McPherson. The officer did not believe their story, but he got them new travel orders and meal tickets as well as new clothes. He then gave them a pass back to Atlanta, so they hit the bars and then got their original bags. They got on a train and stopped in Chicago, Illinois. They went to some shows and dinner with some girls. They got into Tacoma ahead of the troop train. Nothing was ever mentioned about them not being on it.

Joseph Massey returned to the United States and ended up at Fort Lewis, Washington. He was processed with guys coming back from the Pacific. The aircrews were turning in their flight jackets and Massey got one. On 21 November 1945, he was discharged and went back to Birmingham, Alabama. Massey went to work repairing calculators for about six months. He then took a job as a streetcar and bus driver for four years. He and a friend drove to Los Angeles, California with their wives and went to work for the Pacific Electric Railroad. Every 12 hours he was called out and he had to do a lot of driving. He was laid off from the Railroad and returned to Birmingham to work in his uncle's mercantile business for four years. His wife wanted to go back to California, so they took their two kids with them. He tried the grocery business and started clerking at a grocery the next day. He became assistant manager, then grocery manager and transferred to Downey, California. He became a store manager in Hawthorne, California. He then went back to Birmingham and became a part owner of his uncle's store. He did that for five years but did not get along with his relative who bought out the other part of the store. He sold his share back and retired in 1991.

Joseph Massey was discharged as a PFC [Annotator's Note: Private First Class]. There were no promotions. He was only a PFC because he was a BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] man. Otherwise, he would have remained a Private. The Germans treated the Russian prisoners of war far worse than they treated the American prisoners. The German guards were mostly older or had been wounded. They always said they were off the Russian Front. Most of them could speak pretty good English and one on one they would admit they were losing, and the war was over. They were biding time. They were trying hard to make it to the American lines, so they did not have to surrender to the Russians. They knew the Russians were doing the same things to the towns they took that the Germans had done in Russia, raping the women and burning the towns. There were 102 Americans in Stalag IV-B, including Massey. Five of them have gotten together over time. He saw his former interpreter at one and recognized him right away. He still keeps up with Clyde Nichols from his outfit [Annotator's Note: 422nd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division]. The Americans did not bother the Germans who surrendered to them. Their former guards were begging them to write them letters saying that they had not been mistreated, but the former prisoners would not do that.

The war made Joseph Massey appreciate life a lot more. [Annotator's Note: Massey gets emotional.] He got a better understanding of other people and their ways. He is more tolerant than he was before. He and his three brothers were all within 25 miles of each other during the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Two of his brothers actually encountered one another on leave once. His oldest brother helped liberate Buchenwald [Annotator's Note: the Buchenwald concentration camp in Weimar, Germany]. He had a lot of pictures of it. He could smell the stench of the human bodies even from 30 miles away. He says there is no way that the townspeople did not know the incinerators were there. Massey's most memorable experience was being on a train to the prison camp [Annotator's Note: Stalag IX-B in Bad Orb, Germany] when it was strafed by aircraft. A guy was sitting right between his legs and a bullet split his head open. [Annotator's Note: Massey gets emotional.] His brains were all over him. He will never forget it as long as he lives. The Germans had them locked in and would not let them out. They were in cattle cars, so they pushed the dead man out the small window and then the Germans stopped. The prisoners walked the rest of the way. He has been back to Europe six times. He retraces his steps from Scotland to Prague, Czechoslovakia. Every time he has been back it has snowed. In 1999, 102 of them went back and met 100 of the German SS Panzer Division soldiers they had surrendered to. They all went around Prüm, Germany and the Schnee Eifel area. It was interesting to hear their side of the story for Massey. Massey would not take anything for what he learned from being in the service and from being a prisoner of war, but he would not do it again for all of the money in the world. He feels that anyone who was a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] has a better outlook on life. [Annotator's Note: Massey gets very quiet and emotional and says it is hard to talk.] He feels that the majority of Americans have forgotten about the war. Patriotism has picked up though. In the past six months, he has had people pay for his lunch for him when they see his hat. Two or three years ago that did not happen. The majority of teenagers do not have the slightest clue. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer says they try to teach it at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, and it is hard to do.] Massey feels the story needs to be out there, but he feels we are starting too late. His wife passed away after 66 years of marriage.