News-Info-Alerts

Re: POW-MIA Remembrance Day Ceremony

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: September 16, 2002

"POWs, MIAs honored in veterans museum remembrance day ceremony

By Julie M. Graham The Chronicle

American flags flew outside the Centralia Community Church of God Saturday and toe-tapping patriotic music, courtesy of the133rd Army Band, greeted those attending the Veterans Memorial Museum's fourth annual POW/MIA Remembrance Day.

"To the prisoners of war who returned, we say 'Welcome home.' To the POWs who have not returned, we say 'Thank you for your sacrifice.' To those who are missing in action, we say, 'You are not forgotten,'" said museum Director Lee Grimes in his welcome remarks.

More than 60 former prisoners of war and men and women missing in action attended or were represented at the ceremony. Each received a memorial medallion commissioned by the museum.

"The thing that's great about veterans is, you've taken the time, the time to serve your country and defend the freedoms and liberties formed over 200 years ago," keynote speaker Brig. Gen. Richard Read said.

The veterans honored Saturday lost their personal freedoms for a time as prisoners of war, and it is unknown exactly what those listed as missing in action have lost, he said.

"My 33 years in the service pale in comparison to what you experienced for months or years in prisoner of war camps and the unknowns of those who are missing in action," Read said, adding families of MIAs never have closure.

"You have given far beyond what most veterans, though all of us have given in some way, have and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart," he said.

Jim Wells, a guest speaker from Tacoma and veteran of the Army Air Corps, told of his experiences as a German prisoner of war after being shot down in a B-17 bomber on its sixth mission during World War II. He remembered being crammed into a boxcar with at least 50 people — no room to lay down or sit — and arriving at a camp in Poland on what he would later learn was D-Day. The camp wasn't well supplied and as a new site, hadn't yet been contacted by the Red Cross, but he saw acquaintances thought lost and the main problem was boredom until the war began to go badly for Germany, he said.

"Eight months to the day, on Feb. 6, 1945, the Russians had begun their march to Berlin, and we went on a forced march," Wells said. "And we didn't know that that would be the first day of 86 days."

The prisoners weren't told what had happened or where they were going, he said, recalling the cold, snowy and blustery weather, foraging for food and sleeping in ditches and barns.

Liberation came May 2, by British forces, he said; he weighed 115 pounds at his physical.

Another man shared his story as a civilian prisoner of war by the Japanese. He and his father were contractors working for U.S. forces in Bataan. When they were captured, the Japanese believed there was a secret tunnel from Bataan and tortured the father in front of the son, hoping he would talk, but there was no tunnel. The two men were sent to separate camps, and the father died before he could be liberated.

Jean Badavinac of Centralia served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, and is now a member of the Grant Hodge American Legion Post No. 17 and involved with the museum.

She came, she said, because "I'm a veteran. This is just one of our duties to honor our comrades and this is a neat way of doing it."

Norma Creighton, Olympia, came with her two adult daughters and her sister, also married to a former prisoner of war, to collect a medallion for her husband John. He was unable to attend as he was still recovering from two broken legs, she said.

"We belong to a POW chapter and we've come to all of them. In fact, I registered him, thinking he'd be farther along," she said.

Don Masterman accepted a medallion for his brother Edward, missing in action since World War II. The Rochester resident said Edward, then 21, had been a tail gunner on a B-17 when he was shot down over Europe.

"He bailed out to ocean, so he's always been missing. He's never been recovered," Don said.

Explaining why he attended, he said, "I belong to the museum and like the general said, there's just never closure."

Julie M. Graham covers education and religion for The Chronicle. She may be reached by e-mail at jgraham@chronline.com or by calling 807-8232. "