By SCOTT WESTCOTT
Morning News staff reporter
Harold
Talling wears a small lapel pin with a caterpillar on it. It's the least he can do for the small creature he credits with saving his life.
""The thought being that the silk from the lowly caterpillar was
used to create our parachutes that saved us,'' said Talling, nearly 50 full years after he spent a 51-day odyssey in enemy territory.
The Caterpillar Club is composed only of people who have made an emergency jump in
which the silk produced by caterpillars has saved their lives.
It was November 11, 1944, when Talling and the rest of his U.S. Army Air Force crew aboard a B-24H ""Liberator'' bomber abruptly became members
of that exclusive club. They had to bail out over the former Yugolsavia after the plane was damaged on a bombing run.
As pilot, Lt. Talling realized the plane was losing altitude at a rate of 500 feet per second and
ordered the crew to jump. He was soon drifting down into enemy territory, a long, long way from his hometown of Erie.
Shortly after he landed safely, Talling was welcomed into the home of a partisan, the first of many
to help him and his comrades in otherwise hostile territory.
""I had walked up the hill figuring if someone was chasing me they'd be more likely to chase down than up,'' said Talling. ""I came to
a clearing and an old man sitting on a porch motioned for me to come in.''
The partisans helped despite the real threat they and each member of their family would hang if the Germans caught them assisting American
soldiers.
Soon after he arrived at that first house, a German soldier came by searching for the Americans who had parachuted from the plane. Through the slats of a window shutter, Talling could see the soldier kicking
over bound cornstalks in hopes of flushing out a U.S. soldier. Luckily, the partisan had ordered Talling into a back room where he hid under a wine barrel.
""I'm lying there so cold that my teeth are
chattering,'' said Talling. ""I remember actually holding my mouth open so my teeth wouldn't clack together.''
With the partisan's fear for his family's safety increasing, Talling had to leave the house and
headed for a forested mountain.
Discouraged and frightened, he remembers reading from the metal-covered New Testament his mother had given him shortly before he went overseas. The New Testament was metal-covered so
soldiers could wear it in their shirt pocket to possibly ward off a fatal bullet heading for the heart. It gave both physical and spiritual protection.
It was in the woods, alone and so very far from home, that
Talling recalls asking for strength and guidance from God.
""I sat down on a log and I read a chapter of the New Testament,'' said Talling. ""I prayed to the Lord for help and he gave it to me.''
The copy of the New Testament today is a bit weathered but still has the lock of hair from his newborn son that his wife had sent him and a dried flower given to him to by a partisan.
Talling met up with several of
his crewmen within a few days and they began the long and dangerous trek out of enemy territory. Winter had arrived and the weather was often bitterly cold. An excerpt from Talling's diary dated Nov. 23, 1944, details
the conditions.
""Woke up at daybreak and heard a German holler, ""halt'' and immediately fire right outside the barn. Heard German holler something to a couple others and then blew a whistle.
Thought they had us surrounded. Laid as still as possible, shaking from cold and fear. Am quite sure someone came into haymow to look for us but did not see us as we were well hidden. Sure was scared. . .''
Talling's
diary reveals close calls like that were the norm. Often times the men had to go hours and even days with little or no food and would be awake for 18 hours at a time.
On Dec. 6, 1944, Talling wrote of walking barefoot
in freezing weather over sharp rocks. He had taken off his boots to be quiet. ""Never underwent such torture in my life,'' he wrote. ""Wouldn't repeat it for $500.00.''
""That's more like $50,000 today,'' he said with a laugh.
It was Dec. 30, 1944, 51 days after he had jumped from his plane, that Talling and the others finally made it across the Adriatic Sea on a
British Destroyer destined to Bari, Italy.
The men arrived just in time for New Year's dinner. Talling was then given a couple weeks rest and recuperation in the U.S.
""I could have flown home but I
decided to take a ship,'' he said. ""I thought my luck had run out and I should take the safest route.''
Today, it's the people of the former Yugoslavia that Talling remembers fondly. He often thought about
going back to look them up and thank them. It pains him to think of the former Yugoslavia now torn by war.
""Whatever they had they were happy to share with us,'' said Talling. ""They were
incredibly generous.''
Helen Talling remembers seeing the car creeping down the road, a flashlight shining out the window to see the addresses on the houses. In her gut she had a feeling they were looking for her and
the news wouldn't be good.
The young messenger delivered a letter to Helen, who was staying in Erie with the parents of her husband, Harold Talling. Talling was a pilot with the Army Air Force in Europe.
""It's my sad duty to confirm the report of the War Department that your husband, First Lieutenant Harold C. Talling, has been missing in action since November 11, 1944, when he failed to return from a heavy
bombardment mission to Linz Austria,'' the letter read.
So while Harold Talling spent nearly two grueling months trying to survive in enemy territory in the former Yugoslavia, Helen Talling was home wondering if she
would ever see her husband again. She had just recently given birth to their young son, Terry, and was working in the accounting department at Hammermill.
""I'm not so sure that the wives and mothers back
home didn't have a tougher time of it than those on the front lines,'' said Harold Talling.
Still, Helen Talling never gave up hope.
""When he left he said he was coming back and I never doubted it,'' said
Helen.
Helen and her family spent the next few weeks worrying, waiting and praying. Every week she'd go to St. Peter's Cathedral for a special service for U.S. servicemen.
""That helped a lot,'' she
said. ""I remember looking forward to that every week.''
In early January, Helen got word from the wife of another soldier that Harold was OK. A few days later she got a letter from Harold which confirmed
the good news.
""He was supposed to wait ten days to write but he didn't - he wrote right away,'' she said with a laugh.
Harold arrived home shortly after his letter. He met his young son and the family
spent two weeks in Miami Beach for rest and recuperation. He was never again assigned overseas during the war.
""There were good times and bad times,'' said Helen, reflecting on the war years. ""I
don't think I'd want to live through them again, but we made a lot of friends.''
