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Bob Pioli

Age: 87.

Residence: Devola.

Family: Wife, Roberta; seven children; 14 grandchildren; one great-grandchild.

Occupation: Retired chemical engineer.

Service: U.S. Army, Air Corps, 2nd Group, 96th Bomb Squadron, 15th Air Force.

The American flag may be a symbol to many, but to Bob Pioli it's a bright, sunny Sunday about 64 years ago in Moosburg, Germany - the most memorable day of his life.

It was early spring in 1945. Pioli, then about 21 years old, had just endured one of the coldest winters of recent history in Germany. He had approximately 60 pounds as a prisoner of war for more than a year. The only clothes he owned were what he came into the camp wearing: a leather bomber jacket, thin, olive drab pants and an Army shirt. His hair was greasy and dirty and he could feel the plaque on his teeth - he hadn't showered in more than a year.

Every day during that time in various POW camps, Pioli was beaten, harassed and starved, and every day spent in one of those camps, near Moosburg, Germany, was a day spent looking at the Nazi flag flying in the wind over a nearby town.

The most memorable day of his life also occurred there. It was Sunday, April 29, 1945, to be exact. A P-51 had just buzzed the camp so close that Pioli said he could see the pilot wave. A barrage of gunfire sounded. Bullets flew in all directions.

"We hit the ground," he said. "Tried to be as small as we could be."

It was then all hell broke loose.

This is how the story begins:

Pioli, now 87, of Devola, grew up near Niagara Falls, N.Y., the son of Italian immigrant parents. His fate had seemingly been laid out for him. College wasn't an option; his parents couldn't afford it. Instead, a well-paying factory job beckoned.

"When the war came along, this was my opportunity to get out," Pioli said. "I didn't want to get a job and college was completely out."

Like nearly every one of his friends, he joined the military, but he chose the Army's Air Corps because it "seemed glamorous." Ironically, all these years later, Pioli is quick to ask that his story not be glamorized when it is retold.

"I'm no hero," he said. "I just did what I had to do."

In the Air Corps, 2nd Bomb Group, 96th Squadron, 15th Air Force, Pioli was trained to be a bombardier and quickly found out the life of an airman was far from glamorous.

"It was long, tedious, cold; there was nothing to do," he said. "It's like they say; it's 90 minutes of boredom and five minutes of sheer terror."

Up in the skies over Hungary, he'd look out over the horizon and see his buddies collide mid-air with each other or bulrush in their planes into a brightened sky lit up with enemy anti-aircraft fire.

One day in 1944, Pioli's own plane was hit with enemy fire, and as it spiraled down in a plume of smoke, he struggled to escape the deathtrap.

"My whole training was centered on dropping bombs," he said. "I had problems getting out of the airplane."

He finally dove out of the plane, but struggled to open his parachute and plummeted down, down, down. It felt like someone kicked him in the groin. He got airsick.

Quickly he hit the ground. When he came to, three civilians were over top of him, beating him. A fellow soldier, he would learn later, had been beaten to death the same way.

German soldiers, it turns out, saved Pioli when they pulled the civilians off of him and put him in a truck with other American prisoners. They took Pioli to Budapest, where he was questioned about his base, his unit and his family. They wanted to know his home address.

"I wouldn't give it to them," he said. "I was afraid if they contacted my mother and asked her to sabotage the (local) plant or something to save me, she would have done it."

He didn't sleep that night. Civilian prisoners - Jewish politicals - screamed all night.

"These poor people," he said. "I don't know what they did to them, but it was something awful."

Soon Pioli was thrown into a small broom closet. Not a speck of light broke through. German soldiers would drag him out and order him at attention. His ankle throbbed from the plane crash and every time he limped, he'd get gutted with the butt of a gun or sucker punched.

"They told me, 'We have ways of making you talk,'" he said. "But I didn't know anything. I kept thinking what could I tell them to prolong it."

At one point, a soldier pulled out a gun and pointed it at his head, the barrel touching his forehead, right between his eyes, and demanded information. Another time, the soldiers took him and other prisoners before a firing squad and pulled the triggers.

The guns just clicked. There were no bullets. The soldiers laughed.

Another night, Pioli and other American prisoners looked out the window and saw the sky alight with British bombers. It was like the Fourth of July, and the prisoners cheered extravagantly.

The guards fired on them through the door. Like many times before and after, over the course of a year and in several different POW camps, Pioli was sure he was going to be executed by German soldiers.

As he sits in his living room in Devola recently and retells these stories, his wife, Roberta, looks close to tears.

"We never heard this story for 50 years," she said.

Then one day about seven years ago, a phone call stirred disturbing memories in Roberta's husband.

A Polish historian had found Pioli's dog tags in Germany and called to talk to him.

"For 50 years, I hadn't said anything, and then I just start blubbering," he said. "It's hard to tell people (about the experience). You just can't understand.... (But) talking doesn't bring back memories. I can remember what I had for breakfast that morning (my plane crashed). I can remember everything crystal clear."

Like the sound of German patrol dogs roaming the POW camps or the way train box cars carrying crammed prisoners to other POW camps would smell of human feces.

Most of all, though, Pioli remembers that day in April 1945 in Moosburg, Germany.

He remembers the POW camp being attacked, the bullets flying through the air and the sudden stillness that enveloped the camp when the gunfire stopped. He remembers the rumbling of the tanks and the most beautiful people in the world, the 14th Armored Division, as they came barreling into the camp. He remembers mobbing the soldiers and smiles. Everywhere smiles.

And later...

"You could see the (Nazi) flag run down and up went the Stars and Stripes," he said. "It was quite an emotional moment. There wasn't a dry eye. I just love to see that flag flying. Every time I see that flag flying I think of that moment. God, I love to see that flag fly."

Today the American flag flies outside Pioli's home, just like it has every day since his liberation.