News-Info-Alerts

Re: Former POWs Saluted

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: March 16, 2002

"American Legion salutes former POWs
By MARTIN CAHN, C-I staff reporter March 11, 2002

They are often called members of America`s greatest generation. But the nine men honored Monday night by the James Leroy Belk Post 17, American Legion, hold a place of even higher honor.
They are not just former veterans, nearly all from World War II; they are former prisoners of war, men who were once considered missing in action.

Past Departmental Commander and Kershaw County Service Officer Bill Bell introduced the former POWs during Monday`s program. Some are Kershaw County natives; others moved here before serving the country overseas. Those honored were Marion Morgan, Claude Motley, Clarence Riggins, Albertus Shirley, Leonard Vincent, Benjamin Fatridge and Francis Eckert. Three other veterans, though not present, were also recognized: James Gardner, Steve Kiba and Wallace Kershner.

Perhaps the most poignant introduction, however, was made by Post Commander Perry McCoy. During his introduction of his brother John, he also spoke of another brother, Willie.

``We were notified that Willie was missing in action -- MIA -- on Oct. 10, 1943,`` said McCoy. ``One year later to the day, on Oct. 10, 1944, we learned that John was a POW.``

John was seated at the head table along with the other POWs in attendance, while a picture of Willie sat at another, much smaller table in front of theirs. That table held a single place setting representing all MIAs. The glass was inverted to symbolize that the MIAs could not be present to toast them. A flag was set on the table in hopes of their return.

Willie`s picture indicated he had been a first lieutenant in the 51st Fighter Group, U.S. Air Corps.

``It`s been long overdue, but it`s never too late to honor these men,`` Perry said at the program`s outset.

Each of the former POWs was given the opportunity to speak. Some spoke briefly, others not at all, but Clarence Riggins perhaps spoke for all POWs, especially those of World War II, as he related much of what happened to him during three and a half years of captivity.

``I was 18 when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and we had to surrender to the Japanese,`` explained Riggins. ``You hear a lot about the Geneva Convention when they talk about the (Taliban) prisoners in Cuba. They say we have to give them food and adequate medical care. Believe me, the Japanese didn`t follow the Geneva Convention.``

Riggins said the first clue he had that the Japanese were not going to be friendly guards was when he and a group of other soldiers were lined up on a dirt road. One of the guards kept walking up and down the line and then chose to throw a rock in the face of the soldier standing next to him.

``His face got all swelled up, and he started balling his fist like he was going to go after that guard,`` said Riggins. ``But we all knew that they would have killed all of us if he`d done that. Luckily, he kept his cool.``

That was mild compared to most of Riggins` story.

He was sent to the Philippines and forced to parade through the streets of Manila, where Japanese soldiers on horseback tried to run over the soldiers in the line. They were then packed in a cattle car so tightly that they couldn`t fall over if they fell asleep. Riggins and his fellow POWs were camped at Nichols Field, a captured U.S. airfield where he spent two and a half years of his captivity forced to rebuild a runway. He said conditions were so bad that many prisoners would purposefully hurt themselves to get out of work.

But there were times in those two and a half years at Nichols Field when Riggins said he knew God was watching out for him.

The first time was when he was resting against a 40-foot embankment waiting for the work detail cart to come back. Suddenly, a Japanese guard begins jabbering at him and pointing up behind him.

``The bank was falling ... it was like an earthquake,`` Riggins recalled. ``I wonder if that guard knew he was speaking for God that day.``

Another time, he and a Marine were pushing a work cart up an incline when a guard struck the Marine across the back with a board.

``I guess he didn`t think that Marine was pushing the cart hard enough. I never saw him after that,`` said Riggins.

Then there was the day when a Japanese officer whom the POWs called the ``White Angel`` came and told them that the sickly prisoners were going to sent back to a ``big`` internment center away from the labor camp. The officer asked for volunteers to stay at the camp.

``I figured I`d been there two and a half years and knew what to expect,`` said Riggins, who volunteered to stay despite having painful leg ulcers. ``They came for the ones going back at 2 in the morning, and they used bamboo canes to whip the POWs that were leaving. This is what happens when you lose your freedom. They can do anything to you.``

Riggins was later moved to Camp Ogana in Japan after spending 18 days in the hold of a ship out of the Philippines. He spent a year at Ogana`s nickel factory, where it was so old, he said, prisoners` breath vapor would freeze around their mouths.

Finally, something extraordinary happened. He and his fellow prison laborers were told to stop working at 3 p.m., very unusual for the camp that normally saw sunup to sundown work schedules.

``We were told the war was over, but it took an additional four to five weeks for U.S. troops to get us back out,`` said Riggins.

In the meantime, B-17 planes dropped supplies of food and medicine to the camp. Some of that food included Hershey`s candy bars.

``They dropped enough so that there were 18 candy bars to every soldier in that camp,`` Riggins recalled. ``And after we got out, I ate so much food I went from 90 pounds at the camp to 180 pounds on the way back home. It took a little while, but I got back down to 130 pounds.``

Riggins then spent four months in a hospital in Asheville, N.C., and then returned to Kershaw County after five years away from home.

``My mother said she knew it was me from the sound of my footsteps on the porch after five years away,`` said Riggins. ``Freedom is not cheap, and it`s a precious thing to lose.``

Some of Riggins` fellow POWs shared small accounts of their incarcerations. Morgan said that after being trained at Ft. Jackson, he was assigned to the 103rd Infantry, Company B. In the last quarter of 1944, they were sent to France to relieve another division. A, B and C companies were all captured within their first 16 days. They were sent to one stalag on foot and later spent seven days in a boxcar meant to hold only 40 men.

``There were 60 of us in there. It was very cold, and many of us suffered frostbite,`` said Morgan. ``The Red Cross helped us save our feet, and I think that may have been why we made it out.``

The last camp Morgan was held in was Stalag 3A, just 30 miles outside of Berlin. He said it was good for morale whenever they saw U.S. bombers striking Berlin.

Vincent noted he had six brothers and three brothers-in-law. At one point, six of them were serving in World War II, and he said he was proud that every one of them made it back home.

Each of the former POWs was presented an American flag and a certificate of appreciation at the American Legion program Monday.


Byars sought POWs

The night`s keynote speaker was Bill Byars, former family court judge and current S.C. Child Law Office director. Serving as an Army intelligence officer during Vietnam, his job was to search for POWs who were being held outside of Vietnam itself.

``I remember the first two soldiers that were taken. They were captured north of an area called the Iron Triangle. One of them was a Private Johnson. I eventually got to watch him walk off an airplane home in 1974. I never knew what happened to the other man,`` recounted Byars.

But it was a sequence of events in 1968 that Byars said he will never be able to forget.

Byars had learned that a Cambodian village just three miles over the Vietnam border had been occupied by North Vietnamese. The Americans discovered from a captured enemy lieutenant that 25 to 30 American POWs were being held in the village.

``We also learned that they were going to be sent up the Ho Chi Min trail to North Vietnam, so I and another lieutenant, who we called `Mac,` created a briefing book that we took to our commander.``

That commander, in turn, sent the book on to Washington in hopes of getting permission to conduct a mission to rescue the Americans.

``I will never forget what Washington told us, and I quote, `It is inexpedient to conduct (the) operation,``` said Byars. ``They were three miles over the border, and we did nothing.``

The other lieutenant, Mac, is now the deputy director of the CIA. Byars said he is certain his old friend John E. McLaughlin wouldn`t allow such a mistake to happen again.

``I hope we will always fight to bring our prisoners home,`` said Byars.


©Camden Chronicle Independent 2002 "