Enemies in War, 2 Vets Bond As Seniors-- Part 5: Danced With Gloria DeHaven on Plane Flight

Gunter Buhrdorf was captured an taken to a British internment camp on a small island off the coast of England.  His clothes were covered with lice and the food he was given consisted of watered-down cabbage soup.  He found dandelions, sea gull eggs and frog legs to eat on the island instead of what he was given.

There wasn't much left of Germany after the war and he decided to go to the United States and join his brothers who were already living there.

On his flight over in 1949, he sat in the back of the DC-6 airliner drinking Canadian Club whiskey with a group of Norwegians.  They dared him to ask a pretty girl sitting up front to dance with him.  So he did and she agreed.  They slow-waltzed on the plane to music playing over the speakers.

When they deplaned; photographers were waiting at the gate.  He waved at them, thinking they were there to greet foreign visitors.  But his brother laughed at him and said they were there to photograph Hollywood starlet Gloria DeHaven, who was returning from a USO show.

--GreGen