I was born as Volodymyr (Vladimir) Virlo in Stadt Rhine, Germany. My parents were forced laborers taken from Ukraine to German labor camps at the beginning of World War II. Short on labor, the Nazis rounded up teenagers from countries they occupied and forcibly sent them to work in various installation in Germany. Initially the work was not dangerous, but you risked starvation and they were poorly fed. Towards the end of the war, my mother and other girls were camped in a railroad depot. A strategic target, it was bombed by the allies almost daily with phosphorous bombs. The girls were forced to repair the tracks after the bombing raids. My mother said she lost some of her girl friends during those bombing raids.

Like all the young forced laborers in Germany, my father and mother met in a displaced peoples (DP) camp set up by the Allies. My father eventually went to Quaregnon in southern Belgium to work in the Coal mines. My mother, with two babies (my older brother and I) eventually joined him. I recently found out, at the time, my mother was not yet married to my father. So it could be said my older brother and I were born bastards. We lived in barracks that had no running water or central heat. We kept it warm with a pot belly stove. The outhouse was outside. You can see the barracks in the photo on the left. My mother recently told me the barracks had actually been a prison camp. I'm not sure if it was a German prison camp for allies. After the war, the allies forced German prisoners to work in Belgium coal mines from 1945 up to 1947. They were kept in specially built camps or housed in former German prison camps. One thing is certain, the barracks we lived in were owned by the coal mining company and used to house its workers. One could say they were comparable to and probably just as unbearable as transient worker housing you see on large farms here in the United States.

Photographed with my brothers around 1953 in Quaregnon, Belgium -- I'm on the left. My mother always wanted a girl, so she let my younger brother's hair grow long, he's the little guy in the center.

Coming To America, June 1958

Yes, I'm one of the few Immigrants that actually boast that I came over on a boat.! Not too many of us left. It was one of the most exciting trips a ten year old boy could experience. The trip took over a week, but we didn't mind. It was like being secluded a large floating hotel. They had lounges, movies, gyms and they served the best meals I ever had. The ocean liner was the MS italia, in the service of Home Lines. We boarded in Zeebrugge, Belgium, a port city on the North Sea. From there she sailed to Southampton, England, then on to Le Havre, France and from there to Halifax, Canada and finally to New York City. You can't quite grasp how much of the world's surface is covered with water until you take a trip on an ocean liner. For a week, there was nothing but water. I did get to see the US Coast Guard training ship Eagle in full sail. What a beautiful sight. Many people got sea sick. Less and less of them showed up in the dining hall. I was the only one in the family that did not get sea sick although I started to get somewhat nauseous when finishing the strawberry part of a Neapolitan ice cream desert. From that moment on, I could not look at strawberry ice cream without getting that mild sea sick feeling. It took more than 10 years before I could again look at strawberry ice cream without any ill effect.

The ocean liner that brought my family and I to the United States in June of 1958, Home Line's MS Italia.

I wanted to fly ever since I could remember. As a small child, I would get excited every time an airplane flew overhead. When we immigrated to the US, my goal to become an aviator grew even more and at one point I applied for and took the test for Naval Aviator. By the time I met the requirements, which included US citizenship and graduation from college, I was married with a 1 year old son and wasn't so keen about leaving my family for military duty.
However, I never lost my desire to fly and after I scrounged enough money, I took lessons and eventually earned a private pilot's license. It's not like flying jets, but it's flying nonetheless and there's nothing on earth like it. Every time I go up, I say to myself, I'm doing something men had dreamed to do since he first walked on this earth.
For me, flying is a great stress reliever . Once up there, I feel myself totally detached from life's everyday problems. It's like being in an entirely different world.