Description:
German prisoners at Fort Custer base camp attend services on Nov. 3, 1945, for 16 comrades killed in a train-truck accident near Blissfield three days prior. The prisoners were being returned from a work detail in a sugar beet field when the their truck was struck by a passenger train. An American soldier on guard duty also was killed. Eight other prisoners and the truck driver were seriously injured. The Enquirer and News reported that the "Military funerals, including an honor guard of nine American soldiers, were held in accordance with the rules of the Geneva convention. Caskets were draped with the red, white and black flag of the German republic and prisoners served as pall bearers. Seven German flags were flown here from Philadelphia to provide enough flags to drape the caskets." More than two dozen German POWs are buried at Fort Custer National Cemetery, where Volkstrauertag — a day of mourning for Germans known as that nation's memorial day — has been observed each November since 1953.