Page 77 - Anthology

A funny thing happened: One of the very best places to rest was in a farmyard barn where there was hay
to make a bed. It was wonderful. Early in the forced march when my body was still in good condition, I
noticed this particular hen. She had made a nest and was about to lay an egg. The families house was
nearby, and a ten to twelve-year-old boy had been sent out to find an egg. The boy tired from waiting. I
watched that hen and I got an egg. My buddy and I enjoyed that raw egg. It was strange, but the guards
did not interfere. Fellow prisoners and I would sit around talking about the food we wanted to eat when
we got home. We discussed Spanish, Italian and French foods. We were hungry, dreaming of food, and
wishing we were home.

~ LIBERATION ~

On April 16, 1945, a small group of us (perhaps 20) were in a barn yard near Horsinger when a U.S.
Sherman tank found us! We were scrawny and weak. We weighed about ninety pounds each. All of us
suffered from diarrhea from drinking the standing water from the fields. We had fantasized about food.
We made tremendous books full of recipes. It was not entertainment. It was serious business – thinking
about food.

The rescue crew radioed for a truck and we were on our way to Camp Lucky Strike, Janville, France, near
Le Havre, France. It is estimated that nearly three million American troops either entered or left Europe
through Le Havre, which led to it becoming known as the "Gateway to America" in 1945-46. The trip took
3 days and we got horribly sick when we engorged with real food. We were debriefed at Camp Lucky
Strike. I soon boarded ship for New York; a train to El Paso, Texas, where I finally got cleaned up with
new clothes and boots. I was home in Espanola, on May 22. It felt like when I’d seen the Pope kiss the
ground; I was home, on American turf.

The Germans had signed the Geneva Convention after WWI, but they did not always adhere to its
requirements about treatment of prisoners of war.

The 106th Division suffered tremendous losses. I was captured on my 24 birthday, December 23, 1944,
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with a wound that festered as time wore on. I experienced extreme starvation, especially during the last
two months of captivity when I and a large number of my comrades were ousted from Stalag VIII-A at
Gorlitz and subjected to a forced-march until our liberation.

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I was liberated after being held for one hundred fifteen days. I will always remember my 24 birthday and
my rebirth on April 16, 1945, by U.S. forces.

Continuing my chronicle; I was home on July 16, 1945, when the papers announced that a big cloud and
apparent explosion had been observed in the Alamogordo, New Mexico, area – Research site for the
Atomic Bombs that would be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The atomic bomb bombings
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of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, were conducted by the United States during the final
stages of World War II (August 1945).

In late August, I was ordered to Santa Barbara, California, to a Rehabilitation Center. This was the first
time I had a physical and the first time an American doctor examined my hand. In early September I was
sent to San Francisco, California, where I was assigned to the Northern California Railroad Commission
where a small group was engaged in public relations duty!

I was in San Francisco when Victory over Japan soon came when our B-29 bombed Hiroshima on August
6, 1945, and three days later, the second bomb destroyed Nagasaki. That ended WWII and peace was
signed September 2, 1945.

I was quickly transferred to the Missouri Military Academy in Mexico, Missouri, where I, along with another
Tech. Sergeant served as instructors in Military Science and Tactics.