Irving Glick
Army Air Corps
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Irv Glick grew up in Chicago and Milwaukee. He was drafted into the Army during World War II. He recalls telling the staff at the processing center that he was a lawyer, only to have them tell him, “We don’t need lawyers, we need infantrymen.”
Glick later enlisted in the Army Air Corps, and was trained as a bombardier and navigator. He went to North Africa, where, on its very first mission, his six-person crew was shot down, and crash-landed in the desert.
Glick and two others were captured and taken as prisoners of war by the German military. Glick spent more than two years in prisoner-of-war camps, much of it in Stalag-Luft III—a camp famous for escape attempts that involved the construction of secret tunnels. The escapes and tunnels were the basis for the movie “The Great Escape.”
Glick says he never talked about his experience as a POW with his children until 1996.
Photos and memories adorn a board marking Irving Glick's ninety years of life and his service in the Army Air Corps.
Irving Glick sits at the desk in his apartment at the retirement community where he lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Irving Glick spent 27 months in German prisoner-of-war camps after he and his crew were shot down and captured in the desert in North Africa.
Images of Irving Glick's children hang above his bed. He says, when they were growing up, he never told them about the time he spent as a prisoner of war.
Irving Glick enjoys lox and bagels at Benji's Deli in Milwaukee. As a POW, when he was asked about his religious heritage, Glick says he told the German officer to put down "Protestant."
Irving Glick waits at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee where he receives treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
