http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-51872sy0feb17,0,3115600.story?coll=d



Samuel Massenberg Korean War pilot



By Stephanie Heinatz

Daily Press



Published February 17, 2003



HAMPTON -- On Feb. 1, 1960, in Greensboro, N.C., Samuel Massenberg had a good idea of what was about to happen.



Four students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University - black men known today as the "Greensboro Four" - had plans to sit down at a whites-only lunch counter at the local F.W. Woolworth store.



Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair Jr. and David Richmond weren't interested in the food - the soda pops, the doughnuts and the sandwiches. In a peaceful civil disobedience, they wanted to attack the society that had kept them segregated all their lives.



"Two of them were my students," said Massenberg, then the Commander of the college's ROTC program. "Two of them were ROTC cadets. But it has gotten to a point where I can't remember their names any longer - just what they did."



Because Massenberg was in the military, he couldn't participate in the civil-rights sit-ins or marches. All he could do was listen to his frustrated cadets and give them what moral support he could.



"I told them a little bit about bravery," said Massenberg, who was a Korean War prisoner of war. "I told them that this will help society and the community. But they better be prepared for whatever was going to happen - it wasn't going to be pretty."



Some of the things that Massenberg's seen throughout his life - a mountain prison camp, crew members dying, his hand frozen and his B-29 bomber catching fire - weren't pretty, either.



Massenberg, who doesn't want his age known, was born in Detroit. As a teenager, he worked at a local airport, washing airplanes.



"The airport went bankrupt," he said. "And they didn't have the money to pay me anymore. But they still needed their airplanes cleaned up. So I was given flying lessons, in exchange for washing the airplanes."



Neil Loving, a pioneering black aviator and owner of the flight school, taught him to fly. After six hours of instruction, Massenberg flew solo. Before age 16, he was flying between Detroit and Indianapolis.



When he graduated from high school, he went to Wayne State University to study law. But the itch to fly and his love to do it never left him.



"I dropped out after three years," he said. "I went into the Air Force."



At 21, Massenberg attended flight school at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, and became one of the few black pilots in the military at the time.



"After advanced flight school," he said, "I went onto train B-29 crews."



In August 1952, Massenberg was transferred to the Japanese island of Okinawa, where he and his crew joined the 307th Bomb Wing and continued to train.



By this time, the Korean War - often referred to by veterans as the "Forgotten War" - was in full force.



On Jan. 10, 1953, Massenberg and his crew of 13 were flying their 13th combat training mission over North Korea. A spotlight fixed on them, and they were shot down.



"We had just come up to our target and dropped bombs over the capital city," he said. "That was when we were hit on the tail. I guess they were kind of mad at us."



Bullets ripped through the third and fourth engines. The bomber caught fire and started going down in a spiral. The crew had to evacuate, one by one.



Massenberg was one of the last crew members to get out. When he did, he forgot his gloves.



Snow blanketed the ground, and it was freezing. When he landed, he hid in a cave.



The next afternoon, he was captured.



The North Korean guard tied his hands together so tightly that, exposed to the freezing air, they froze in that shape. He was beaten when he tried to move his fingers to regain feeling in them.



Massenberg doesn't like to talk about the political and military interrogation that he went through as a POW. But from the North Korean perspective, he was rare. He was a black officer, and the North Koreans were fascinated by him. Not only did they want to get information out of him, they wanted to convert him to their side - to communism.



He never buckled.



For the next eight months, Massenberg endured pain, cold and hunger.



"We were only given two cups of rice a day," he said. "I went into the camp weighing 175 pounds. When I returned, I was about 100 pounds."



Some of his crew members tried to escape. They never made it.



He was always very athletic and, under other circumstances, might have tried to escape, too. But there was no way that he could have made it with his disabled hands.



In August 1953, a North Korean truck came, loaded the prisoners and took them on a ride that eventually led them home.



"We were all kind of confused," he said, not knowing that the war had ended. "We didn't know what was going on."



But he had made it.



"The first thing I did was try to get caught up on my cuisine," he said. "Two cups of rice didn't hack it. For a while, I indulged myself in some of the luxury items I didn't get to enjoy. But it was also a time for family."



Massenberg had a wife and a son waiting for him. Later, they went on to have a daughter.



But the other family that Massenberg enjoyed was his flight crew.



Even though he was the only black man among them, he says, he was never treated any differently.



"I always felt as though I was a United States airman," he said, explaining that even outside their professional lives, the families of the flight crew often got together for dinner. "I felt as though I was a pilot. The color line blurred, even though the rest of my crew members were white."



In fact, Massenberg says, he was the only black B-29 pilot flying out of Okinawa in the Korean War.



"There were so few of us that it didn't create any stir," he said. "I guess I was pretty lucky."



Massenberg moved to the area in 1969 and went on to become dean of men at Hampton University, director of education at NASA Langley Research Center and a member of the Hampton School Board.



He has few tangible items left from the events in his life, other than a hand that still bears the cramping and scars of his capture.



"I've never had any nightmares," he said. "And I've never had any problems talking about the past.



"I would probably say that everything gave me a sense of focus on my life.



"Being a POW was one of the most strengthening moments in my life.



"I had to come to grips about being cold, being sick and being in the prison camp."



This year marked the 50th anniversary of the night when Massenberg and his flight crew were shot down.



But for Massenberg, it passed unnoticed.



"Because there are so few of us left from that war," he said, "I just didn't do anything special."



Stephanie Heinatz can be reached at 229-3784 or by e-mail at sheinatz@dailypress.com



Copyright © 2003, Daily Press

What an incredile story; thanks for sharing ! There is a black gentleman here in Texarkana who was also a Korean War POW. I remember his last name being Johnson, but I cannot recall his first name. He was the first veteran (next to my grandpa) that I talked to after moving here in Feb of 2001. He came up and chatted with me following Memorial Day services, and I look forward to seeing him each Memorial Day, when he and his granddaughters do a POW/MIA flag presentation.