POW Girls Begged “Don’t Make Us Swim” — The Americans Responded Differently

Chapter I – What They Had Been Told

In the final weeks of April 1945, Germany was collapsing.

The Reich that had promised a thousand years was crumbling in a matter of days. Roads were choked with refugees. Cities lay in ruins. The air smelled of smoke, rot, and fear. For those caught in the collapse, survival had become a day-to-day struggle.

Among them were four hundred German women, prisoners of war, packed into American trucks and driven westward. They were not combat soldiers. Most were young—between eighteen and twenty-five. Secretaries, radio operators, clerks, nurses, auxiliaries swept into the machinery of war and now discarded by it.

They were exhausted. Hungry. Terrified.

And they had been warned.

“You will drown,” they had been told.
“The Americans will make an example of you.”
“They will laugh as you beg.”

Propaganda had prepared them for cruelty. No one had prepared them for what actually waited ahead.

After three days on ruined roads, the convoy stopped.

Ahead lay the Elbe River, swollen with spring rain. The bridge that once crossed it was gone—blown apart, its twisted metal jutting from the water like broken bones. The current ran fast and dark.

The women understood immediately.

There was no way across.

Chapter II – Fear at the River

The trucks halted on the muddy bank. The women climbed down stiffly, legs shaking, eyes fixed on the water.

Some began to whisper.
Others began to cry.

“They will make us swim,” one said, her voice trembling.
“I can’t swim,” another whispered.
“This is where it ends,” a third said flatly.

The river was wide—far too wide. Even strong swimmers would be carried away by the current. For those who had never learned to swim, it would be certain death.

They watched the American soldiers gather near the bank.

The soldiers were young too. Clean uniforms. Solid boots. Calm faces. They spoke quickly among themselves, pointing at the river, at the wreckage, at their vehicles.

They did not shout.
They did not threaten.
They did not look at the women with hatred.

That, in itself, was unsettling.

One of the women, Greta, watched closely. She noticed an American officer standing slightly apart, studying the scene with a furrowed brow. He looked tired. Focused. Like a man solving a problem.

Then he turned and began to give orders.

Chapter III – An Impossible Solution

Engines roared back to life.

The women braced themselves—certain now that the trucks were leaving, that they would be abandoned on the riverbank.

But the vehicles did not turn away.

Instead, they moved toward the water.

One truck drove down the slope until its front wheels touched the river. Soldiers jumped out and tied thick ropes to its frame. A second truck pulled up beside it. Then a third. Then a fourth.

The women stared in disbelief.

“They’re… building something,” Greta murmured.

The soldiers worked with speed and precision. Trucks were positioned nose-to-water, rear wheels anchored on land. Ropes and steel cables lashed them together. Wooden planks were dragged out and laid across truck beds.

Jeeps filled the gaps. Half-tracks followed, their treads providing stability.

Slowly, impossibly, a bridge began to take shape.

Not a bridge of stone or steel—but of American vehicles, sacrifice, and skill.

The women fell silent.

This was not cruelty.
This was effort.
This was care.

After forty minutes, the officer walked back to them and spoke in broken German.

“You walk. Slow. One at a time.”

He gestured toward the bridge.

They were not going to swim.

Chapter IV – Crossing the Elbe

Greta stepped forward first.

Her boot touched the metal hood of the truck. It flexed slightly beneath her weight. The river churned below.

She swallowed hard and stepped onto the plank.

It creaked—but held.

She moved forward, one careful step at a time. She did not look down. She looked only at the far bank, at the solid ground waiting beyond.

American soldiers stood along the bridge, hands outstretched, steadying planks, offering quiet encouragement. Their words were English, unfamiliar—but their tone was unmistakable.

Calm. Patient. Kind.

When Greta froze halfway across, dizzy with fear, a young American soldier gently took her arm.

“Easy,” he said softly.

She nodded and kept going.

It took over an hour to get all four hundred women across.

Not once did a soldier shout.
Not once did anyone rush them.
Not once did anyone show impatience.

When the last woman reached the far bank, many collapsed in tears—not from fear, but from relief.

Behind them, the soldiers were already dismantling the bridge, reclaiming their vehicles as if nothing extraordinary had happened.

But for the women, everything had changed.

Chapter V – The Enemy Who Fed Them

That evening, the convoy stopped again.

The women were herded into a clearing, bracing themselves for the next humiliation. Instead, they smelled something unfamiliar.

Meat.

Real meat.

American soldiers moved among them with trays—bread, potatoes, beef, vegetables, even canned fruit.

“Eat,” one said simply.

Some women cried openly as they ate. Others stared at the food, afraid it might disappear.

Greta took a bite of bread and nearly sobbed. It was soft. Real. The taste of a world she thought was gone forever.

In the weeks that followed, the pattern continued.

They were fed.
They were washed.
They were given clean clothes and medical care.

Eventually, they were transported across the Atlantic to a POW camp in the United States—Camp Sheridan, Louisiana.

There, under the American flag, they found order instead of chaos. Rules instead of fear. Work instead of punishment. Dignity instead of humiliation.

They earned small wages. They bought soap. Chocolate. Writing paper.

They were treated not as monsters—but as people.

And that, for many of them, was the most difficult thing to accept.

Chapter VI – The Bridge That Lasted a Lifetime

When the war ended, the women were sent home to a ruined Germany.

They returned healthier than when they had left. Better fed. Changed.

Greta carried little with her—some soap, a bit of chocolate, and a notebook filled with memories.

Years later, she would tell her children about the bridge.

“We were told the Americans would let us drown,” she said. “Instead, they built a bridge.”

She never forgot the lesson.

That strength can be disciplined.
That power can be restrained.
That even in war, humanity is a choice.

The bridge across the Elbe existed for less than an hour.

But its meaning lasted a lifetime.

It taught four hundred women that mercy is not weakness—and that the true measure of a nation is how it treats those who cannot fight back.

That was the bridge the American soldiers built.

Not just across a river—but across everything the war had taught them to believe.

Note: Some content was generated using AI tools (ChatGPT) and edited by the author for creativity and suitability for historical illustration purposes.