100-year-old Minnesota veteran who was held captive in a POW camp on D-Day to visit Normandy
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — June 6 will be the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. Some Americans who took part in the liberation of Europe will be going back to Normandy for the last time.
But a 100-year-old Bloomington veteran is making his first trip there.
Five days a week, Les Schrenk can be found doing water aerobics at his senior living facility. He goes hard for 45 minutes, exercising his arms, legs and mind.
"If I don't do it, I miss it," said Schrenk. "I still feel young. I don't have any aches or pains or anything like that so I'm very, very thankful."
At 100 years old, Schrenk is used to making waves. But in early June, he'll leave his pool behind and head for the English Channel.
"I enlisted because my brother was in the Air Force, and naturally, I wanted to be in the Air Force," said Schrenk.
Even though he fought in World War II, Schrenk was a prisoner on D-Day. A couple of months before the Allied invasion, he and his crew were shot down by a German ace in Denmark. He spent more than a year as a POW — and was subjected to brutal interrogations.
"It was just unbearable," said Schrenk. "He flew into a rage and took his gun and whammed me across the head. It really hurt. I felt stars."
Writing poetry with his fellow American prisoners helped get him through. But there was something else that kept him going. Schrenk always wondered why the German pilot who shot his plane, didn't finish them off.
"He could have kept shooting at us when the plane was on fire. Knowing fully well that we would have hit the water and drowned. But he didn't do that," said Schrenk.
Finally, in his late eighties, curiosity got the best of him. And with help from European friends, Schrenk tracked down a phone number for the German who spared his life. When he called, a woman answered.
"I was grateful, so I wanted to put flowers on his grave. And she said, what do you mean put flowers on his grave? He's sitting right beside me!" Schrenk recalled.
That's how Schrenk got to know Hans Herman Muller. They became the unlikeliest of friends and even agreed to meet in Germany.
"When I got there, we hugged each other, and it was like we were old buddies," said Schrenk.
And then, Schrenk asked the question that had been haunting him most of his life.
"He said yes, I could have shot you but why should I?" Schrenk said. He believes that Muller was tired of the war, and the killing.
Schrenk made other discoveries while on that trip. A metal detector helped him find the data plate that was on his crashed and forgotten B-17. It was truly like finding a needle in a haystack.
"We couldn't believe our eyes," he said.
Now, he wants to open his eyes to something else. Even at his age, Schrenk is eager to learn more about the sheer grit and determination of American soldiers. And he figures Normandy is as good a place as any to continue that education.
"I'm glad I lived to talk about it," he said. "I put all the bad things behind me a long, long time ago."
He said he's also going because that's what his wife Bernice would have wanted. They married after Schrenk got home from World War II and were together for 75 years before Bernice died last summer.
Schrenk will be traveling with Old Glory Honor Flight based out of Appleton, Wisconsin.