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Framed Nazi War Souvenir of Robert D. Fulkerson
Fulkerson, Robert (Bob) Dale, 1922-2006
display
Arapahoe County, Colorado
United States of America
,
Germany
,
armband
Date Used, 1945-2006
Estimated Date Made, 1980-1985, Based on other war souvenirs in the Fulkerson collection that were framed and displayed in his dental office.
Date-Fix, 1945, Collected in late April or early May 1945
Fulkerson, Robert (Bob) Dale, 1922-2006
,
World War II
,
Third Air Force
,
Eighth Air Force
,
100th Bomb Group
,
Nazi Party
,
Swastika
Red cotton armband bearing a black Nazi swastika on a circular white field. The armband is framed in a black wood picture frame.
Robert "Bob" Fulkerson was in his sophomore year at D.U. when the U.S. entered World War II. He enlisted in 1942 but didn't enter active duty until the following year. He would become a navigator on a B-17 bomber that had to ditch into the North Sea. After four days in a life raft, he and the survivors of his crew beached on a German occupied Dutch Island. Bob would spend the rest of the war between three different prison camps beginning with Stalig Luft III where he was quartered in the North Compound. As the Russian army advanced, the Germans moved Fulkerson to Nuremberg, where he endured the harrowing experience of nearly being bombed by Allied forces. The Allied army drew close to Nuremberg two months later, and the Germans moved Fulkerson and the other prisoners again, sending them on a 75-mile nighttime march to a train that brought them to Stalag VIIA prison camp in Moosburg, near Munich. Not long afterward, Gen. George Patton liberated the Moosburg prison. A few days after the April 29, 1945 liberation of the Moosburg camp, Robert Fulkerson traded cigarettes with a Hitler Youth for this armband.
Fulkerson, Robert (Bob) Dale, 1922-2006
,
Centennial, Colorado
Captioned inside the frame on white paper: WWII / A few days after being liberated from Stalag VII A at Moosburg, Germany, by General Patton and his forces / on April 29, 1945, two or three of us explored a nearby airfield. On the way back to camp we encountered a / Hitler Youth kid who had some Nazi armbands. I traded cigarettes for a few armbands. The Hitler Youth kid also was carrying a "panzerfaus" which was similar to a grenade with a sticklike handle designed to throw at / tanks. We continued on our way, perhaps a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards when we heard an explosion. / Apparently the "panzerfaus" had exploded sending the Hitler Youth kid to smithereens. / Bob Fulkerson
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