End of the war, POWS and Returning to Military Control Questions

I am trying to gain a better understanding of how an airman captured near the end of the war may have been returned to US military control. The airman in our situation was captured on April 18, 1945, when the B-17 he piloted went down over Germany. He passed away without talking too much about that part of his life, and we are just trying to gain a better understanding, knowing that in most likely hood not much actual information will be gained.

Per family history, he was captured upon touching down. Was marched to a town outside of Munich and detained in the town prison. While being moved or marched to a new location, they awoke at some point and the guards where gone. An Airman Military Record lists him as being a POW from April 18 to May 7

So I am guessing that he would have eventually had to establish contact with allied troops in Germany. Would he have had to actively search for allied troops or where the allies good at searching out and locating missing personal? Once finding allied forces, what kind of trail of reports, orders, etc. might have been created as he was processed back into the US Army and where might such items be found (Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell Air Force Base or at the NARA.) At some point the MACR for his aircraft was revised and updated his status. Where would he have been sent, where there central bases that POWs and formerly captured allies sent to for medical check-ups? Did they return to their units or directly back to the states. Or was this a situation where chaos reigned supreme and most of standard operating procedures where thrown out the window.

 

If you qualify as next of kin or know someone who does you can request his personel record that may have some of the information.
Here's a photo I found that may be of interest:
US Air Force - Near Munich, May 1945
This site:World War II: Race to Seize Berchtesgaden
mentions the 7th Infantry was involved in taking Munich looking for links related to the them and Munich may provide some answers or at least clues to more places to look.
The same for this one:
World War 2 Timelines 1939-1945 - Western Europe 1945 - Worldwar-2.net
Which states:

And there's always wiki Western Allied invasion of Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[/SUP]

 

Thanks for your input. We have received some of his records, only an Airman Military Record lists him as being a POW from April 18 to May 7. The MACR has his status as MIA, until at a later date it was revised to RMC.

Thanks for the info and I like that photo

 

In the course of some research I uncovered a situation in which the 781st Tank Battalion, which spearheaded the 7th Army's drive into southern Germany, liberated both a POW camp and a concentration camp. In both situations the inmates were quickly turned over to the Medical Corps. The POWs were quickly processed through the local battalion/division aid and sent to some sort of POW rehab/hospital/processing center that was in or near Paris to mend. From there they were sent stateside to an outprocessing camp and discharged.