Following service as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery during the early 1970s, Ward Carr decided to remain in Germany, residing in Frankfurt. He has worked as a language trainer, freelance journalist, and translator.
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In 2001, Carr and a German colleague began writing a book featuring the crew of the famous battleship Bismarck. While searching for survivors and family members of Bismarck sailors, Carr often encountered veterans or family members of veterans who had served in the German armed forces during World War II. Although they may not have been associated with the Bismarck, many of their stories were nonetheless fascinating.
During the course of his research, Carr placed an ad in a national veterans’ magazine. Joachim Benz was one of those who responded. Over a period of several years, the two communicated often by telephone and visited one another. Benz has contributed oral passages, comments, and photographs for publications, and a German-language book of his memoirs was published in 2003. The photographs in this article were all taken by Joachim Benz with a Kodak Junior camera that he got as a confirmation present.
As a student at the Virginia Military Institute in the 1960s, Carr had learned German from Peter Fyfe. The two renewed their acquaintance in the 1990s, and Fyfe contributed his translation skills to numerous projects, including the interview with Benz, which formed the basis for this article.
Benz tells an interesting story of combat with a Luftwaffe field division. After the war, he worked on a farm for two years before opening up a grocery store and delicatessen in Bad Arolsen in the German state of Hesse. He has often met with buddies from his former flak regiment, many of whom were prisoners of war in the United States after their capture with the Afrika Korps. Although he has tried repeatedly, he has never been able to get in touch with anyone from the 3rd of 4th Luftwaffe Field divisions.