     At 3:30 PM on December 19th, Colonel George Descheneaux was nearing the end of his tether. That morning his men had started their advance against Schonberg and made good initial progress, pushing the Germans back. They had heard by radio that the 7th Armored Division was coming to the rescue, that they would be resupplied by air that very day. The men fought with renewed hope of a deliverance that seemed at hand.
     But the tanks that came weren't American. They were big German tanks against which his men had little defense. Now that the Germans knew where he was, they were sending more tanks and more infantry to tighten the noose. Progress slowed, and then his men ran into a wall of fire. They could not go one step forward.
     The promised airdrop was nowhere to be seen. It had originally been promised for the 17th, and then the 18th. Now it was the 19th, and still no sign of help. The men of the 422nd were beginning to feel that they had been abandoned. It was 3:30 in the afternoon and they were trapped in a forest about a mile east of Schonberg. The Germans were closing in and raining artillery on them. The shells were exploding in the treetops, raining shapnel downward on the men below; even a trench or foxhole gave no protection. Descheneaux's men were being slaughtered. There was no food, no water, no medicine, and little ammunition. He decided he'd had enough. A white flag went down the hill.
     It was the largest surrender of American forces since Bataan. 8,000 Americans marched into captivity.
/POWs
     The Geneva Convention provides that prisoners of war are to be treated no worse than soldiers in the army holding them, except insofar as is necessary to maintain security. They must receive adequate medical care. They must be fed the same rations that rear-area troops of the holding nation receive. There are restrictions on the nature and amount of work they can be required to perform.
     All in all, German treatment of American prisoners was legal and correct. Yet, many Americans found it to be brutal, largely because the Germans treated their own soldiers brutally. The death sentence was widely used in the German army; corporal punishment of various types was common. This came as quite a shock to men used to the far more lenient American military discipline.
     Another shock was the food. German rear-area troops were allotted about 3.5 pounds of food per day, about half of which was rye bread. There was very little meat, vegetables, or dairy products. The diet was starchy, consisting mostly of bread, potatoes, and beans.
     German POWs, by contrast, found life as a prisoner of the American Army delightful. They received ice cream once a week -- it was on the official Army ration list for rear-area troops. They were treated with much more dignity and respect than they had ever received in the German Army. They often worked on farms, and they seemed to have enjoyed the open air and relative freedom. One escaped, went to Chicago and settled down. Why go home?/