In the spring of 1945 the Russian Red Army was heading for Berlin, and this meant that
prisoners from POW camps and concentration camps also headed west fleeing from the Russians - nothing worse could be imagined. Finally Lester Schrenk and other POWs on
their sore feet (see The March) had reached so far west that on 3 May 1945 they were liberated by the British Eighth Army near Lübeck.

(Lester Schrenk wrote MY POW EXPERIENCE * THE EVACUATION OF STALAG LUFT VI
and POEMS BY LESTER SCHRENK.)

Lester Schrenk travelled by ship back to the USA and set foot on American soil in Norfolk, Virginia, on 20 July 1945. It was a pleasant surprise to his family who during the war had
been informed that he had been shot down over Denmark and that it was unknown what
had happened to him.

Against his will he was dismissed from the United States Army Air Force on 19 October
1945. He never got the promotion that was planned for the day after he was shot down,
as on that day he was "separated from his unit" - a truth to be challenged as he was with
8 of 9 mates from his plane and the 9th man was dead.

Lester Schrenk did not return to farming. Instead he went into trade and for many years
he was the warehouse manager of a very large grocery chain called National Foods.
He retired in 1982 and did craft sales making articles in his basement workshop and
selling them at public gatherings. He is still doing that he stated in an email from the USA.

In connection with the preparations for the current series by TV/Midt-Vest about Karup Air Base, then Fliegerhorst Grove, Lester Schrenk met the German pilot stationed in Karup
Hans Hermann Müller who shot down his plane. They met in Heidelberg in April 2012.

From the USA Lester Schrenk brought his carvings of a pair of eagles from his workshop
in Bloomington as a present for Hans Hermann Müller.