IT WAS DECEMBER 1944 and Europe was having its worst winter
in 35 years. We were in France, across the Rhine from Karlsruhe,
Germany.  We  had been under artillery barrages, been
strafed by the Luftwaffe and had watched the U.S. Air Force hit
the city with heavy bombers. We were loaded aboard amphibious
vehicles, "ducks," and were sure we were going to cross the Rhine. 
Fortunately that didn't happen.  Instead, we were taken to an area
in the Vosges Mountains near Lichtenberg, France.

Moving through a wooded area, we surprised a German patrol of
nine or ten men. In the firefight that followed, all the members of 
the German patrol were killed. (Maybe that was an omen of things
to come!) We crossed an open field under very heavy machine gun, 
rifle and mortar fire. We could see a beautiful castle on a mountain 
top near the city. We attacked the city of Lichtenberg and stayed 
that night in the castle. The 4- to 6-foot solid-stone walls dating 
back to 1749, stopped even the largest military shells. I slept in 
the chapel that night.

Next day, I went into town to headquarters that was in the basement
of a house. I stopped to talk to a jeep driver outside. Just then, the
Germans started shelling the town. I jumped or rolled into the doorway
of the basement. When it was over, I found the driver dead under the jeep.

Later, we were taken to the town of Offwiller where we slept in a big 
barn outside the city. The following day, January 7, 1945, my squad
of 12 men was sent to make contact with Co. K. In a mountain valley
with a stream running through it, we approached the area where K 
was supposed to be. We heard noises and assumed it was the 
company we were searching for. As we entered an open field, 
machine gun and rifle fire poured from a wooded area in front of us. 
Half of the men in my squad were dead before they ever hit the ground.
It was here my friend, Archie Whitsett, Jr. of Seymour, Indiana was
badly wounded.

I lay beside him while we were pinned down and we talked. Just before
he died I promised him I would go see his parents. I was able to fire about 
half a clip of ammunition from my automatic rifle. Of my 12-man squad, 
nine were killed. William Neidzalak of Willowick, Ohio and Harold Burgess
were wounded. I was the only one who didn't have a scratch. Pretty soon 
a couple of German soldiers came out of the woods and told us to come 
to them. It was then I realized that I was a prisoner of war. It was two weeks 
after my 19th birthday.

Neidzalak was wounded in the arm and Burgess had much more
serious wounds. We carried Burgess while we were forced to walk to
where we were to join with other American prisoners. This took several
days. Each night, our captors put us in private homes where we were 
forced to stay in clothes closets that weren't big enough for us to lie down.
At the end of  the first day, Burgess was taken away and I never saw or 
heard of him again. Finally, we linked up with other prisoners and we were 
taken in 40&8 box cars to Bad Orb, about 35 miles from Frankfurt. We were
admitted to Stalag IX-B.

We went through two days of intensive interrogation. Other than raising their
voices trying to scare us, we weren't mistreated. I had only been on that part
of the front lines a few days and didn't have any information to give them had 
I wanted to.

On May 1, 1989, I  returned to this same camp but this time could leave 
whenever I wanted - I was a visitor, not a prisoner. I was surprised to learn
many of the buildings, including my old barracks, are still there. As I stood 
in the compound, which is now a boy's camp, I remembered Neidzalak 
sharing a single blanket with me as we slept on the floor in the middle 
of the cold, cold winter. I remembered pouring what sulfa I could get into 
his arm wound - we didn't want to be separated, so he never reported it 
to our captors. It finally healed.

I remembered seeing them carry out the dead each morning. There 
had been 6,000 prisoners in the camp, more than 3,200 were American, 
mostly infantry. There were also British and Russians. Most of our 
guards were old and not very interested in what was going on. Our 
main problem: We didn't get enough to eat. Each morning, we had 
black bread; sometimes we had potato soup. The potatoes were 
brought up to the camp in the same carts that were used to haul
coal to the camp and sometimes we would find pieces of coal 
in our soup! We had a hot drink made of some kind of bark. I lost 51
pounds during my captivity.

We were never issued any clothing. We only had what we were
wearing when captured and these clothes were never laundered. When
we had a warm place, we would take off our shirts and sweaters and 
kill the lice eggs. We had only one shower while there and they didn't
let us stay in it very long.  Every morning, we had reveille and then 
there was nothing to do the rest of the day.  Once in a while, those 
who weren't sick or wounded, could go to the administration building 
area and cut wood for our barracks. A couple of times I was able to 
get inside the administration building and I saw hundreds of Red Cross 
boxes stacked against the walls. These packages were meant for us 
but we didn't get a single one. We looked forward to these breaks from
our regular boring prison life.

One morning we were not permitted out for reveille at our customary
early hour and we knew something was up.  Eventually we were let out.
After standing there in the cold for a long time, we watched the elite 
soldiers of the German army, the SS Storm Troopers, set up machine 
guns. We were told two prisoners had sneaked into the kitchen during
the night trying to steal some food. A cook had walked in on them and
one of them had hit him with a cleaver and nearly killed him. They told 
us unless we turned the culprits over to them we would be machine 
gunned and we knew they meant it. After a long-drawn-out process, the 
prisoners were turned over to them and the SS left. We later learned the 
cook survived so the Americans were spared being executed and were 
sentenced to 14 years in prison. Presumably, they were later released
and returned home.

One time, the Germans brought in their "Big Bertha" cannon that was
capable of shooting a one-ton shell about 60 miles. They fired several
shots and then removed the cannon. The next day, American planes
were flying low over the camp looking for the gun. They didn't shoot 
or bomb because they knew where the prison camp was located.

On an afternoon in the middle of April, we heard Americans in the 
town of Bad Orb. We had concerns that the Germans might massacre
us before they left the camp. The area was quiet during the night 
and the next morning we discovered the guards had taken off. A tank 
company came to our rescue. The tank commander wouldn't let us 
eat the food left cooking on the stoves at the camp. His men gave us 
their rations and we had the best meal we'd had for months. 
I finally felt that I would get out of this mess alive.

After liberation, we were flown out on C-47's to Camp Lucky Strike
where our clothes were burned and we were deloused and powdered.
New uniforms were issued and we were put on a hospital ship bound 
for the United States.

After some R&R on Miami Beach, Florida and a 60-day furlough, 
I was sent to Fort Ord, California. A little later, all former POWs 
were discharged.  It had been quite an ordeal.

As I left this camp in 1989, I thought back to the wonderful day 
in 1945 that I walked out the gate. I didn't think I would ever return 
but I later promised my wife we would go back when I retired.  
I had no qualms about returning to the camp that had been the 
cause of  my nightmares for many months after I came home. I 
stood there and wondered whatever happened to some of those I 
knew in the camp.  Neidzalak and I still keep in contact and have
all these years. I was glad I returned.  As a matter of  fact, I would
like to someday return to Bad Orb which I consider to be one of the 
most beautiful cities in Germany.

After leaving the camp, we took a tour of France and Belgium. We 
visited Paris and while in Germany we went to Dachau,  the first 
concentration camp in Nazi Germany.  Here the Jewish citizens 
were persecuted and murdered in gas chambers. It made me sick to 
look at the pictures in the museum and see the gas chambers. 
-I thank God for being so good to me.

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