U.S troops liberated a German prisoner-of-war camp on April 29, 1945 bringing to an end the 28-month ordeal of a Houston newspaperman turned bomber navigator.

Anyone, who has driven the streets of Texas’ largest city, has at one time or another ridden down Westheimer Road. Few realize, however, that the urban thoroughfare named for a nineteenth-century German immigrant is the longest in the entire Lone Star State.

On the morning of Dec. 11, 1942, a B-24 Liberator with the unwieldy name &ldqu...