The Red Army overran Stalag 17-B on May 9, 1945 and insisted that the remaining 75 Americans, including Mixon, be sent via Vienna to Odessa, on the Black Sea. Knowing that General Patton was much closer, Mixon refused. “The Russian means of transportation was captured trucks and every Russian I saw was drunk, parts of GI uniforms were scattered all over,” he wrote. “About two days later a small convoy of trucks and ambulances from Patton’s Army, led by an English major, came in and picked us up, without permission from the Russians. After being loaded and anxious to leave, we had to wait about ten minutes for an English soldier to boil an egg over an open fire; he said he hadn’t had an egg in five years.”

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Booming artillery outside Moosburg on the morning of April 28^th signaled the approach of Patton’s Third Army. On the morning of the 29^th, the same day that Adolf Hitler committed suicide in Berlin, a combat team from the 14^th Armored Division attacked the German SS troops (who had replaced the regular Wehrmacht guards) defending Stalag VII-A. After a two and a half hour battle, with bullets and shells flying over the prisoners’ heads, the Germans surrendered. Around midday the American flag was raised over the camp; in the early afternoon, American troops, supported by one tank and an Army jeep broke through the barbed wire fence. Jubilant, cheering, weeping POWs mobbed the tank. General Patton arrived within the hour. He addressed the men briefly before continuing on toward Munich.