News-Info-Alerts

Re: Christmas In Prison

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: December 23, 2002

"Veterans recall spending Christmas overseas in wartime

By STEVE CAHALAN / Tribune business editor

Christmas has special meaning for Ed Wojahn and other area veterans who spent the holiday overseas during war, while their families prayed and worried at home.

Wojahn's most memorable - and worst - Christmas was 58 years ago today, when he and other captured U.S. troops were depressed, cold, hungry and crammed inside rail cars outside a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany.

British airplanes had bombed the railroad yard the night before, inadvertently killing a number of POWs in and near the camp.

Wojahn, of Onalaska, was a 22-year-old Army combat engineer when he was captured by German soldiers on his birthday Dec. 18, 1944, in Belgium during World War II's Battle of the Bulge.

His unit was without food, without ammunition and was surrounded by German soldiers for two days before his captain finally surrendered, Wojahn said in an interview on his 80th birthday last week.

German troops marched the American POWs into Germany, where they were put on rail cars destined for camps.

"We were sitting inside the boxcars on Christmas Eve, singing Christmas carols," Wojahn recalled. "We were singing 'Silent Night,' and all the other ones we had learned while we were growing up. We were in pretty good spirits."

But that changed when the lead British airplane dropped a flare that signaled the start of the bombing. "Shortly after that, we heard the rest of them come," Wojahn said. Someone unlocked the doors of his boxcar, and the captured American troops ran into an open field to avoid the bombs. After the attack, they were put back onto boxcars, 60 men to a car, and several days later arrived at another German POW camp that had room for them.

Ed Wojahn looks out his livingroom window as he thinks about his time in World War II,as his Eisenhower dress jacket with his medal rest on the chair.Dick Riniker photoThe captured soldiers spent Christmas Day in the boxcars outside the POW camp that didn't have room for them.

"It was pretty sad," Wojahn said, after what had happened the night before. "Our thoughts and prayers were to just get this train moving and get the hell out of there."

There was no water or food, he said. "And it was cold."

"There was no room to exercise, and you were just sitting or standing all the time" in the boxcar, he said.

Wojahn was confined in boxcars from Dec. 22 to Jan. 2. The only food he remembers being given during that time was a half-loaf of bread.

He still has the wool scarf that a neighbor, Mrs. Herman Keppel, knitted and shipped to him shortly before the Battle of the Bulge. His voice beginning to choke, Wojahn gently held the scarf in his hands and recalled, "I wore it all the time from when I got it" until he was liberated from a POW camp in Czechoslovakia in May 1945.

"In those days, I never figured I'd live to see (age) 80," said Wojahn, who was in the Army from March 1943 to November 1945. "It was the grace of God that brought me home."

Hubert Drugan, 83, of Trempealeau, Wis., was in the Army from March 1941 to July 1945, and spent three Christmases overseas - in North Africa, England and in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium.

Most of the time, Drugan drove a reconnaissance jeep. "We'd mostly be ahead of the column," he said. "A lot of the times we'd be out checking for blown bridges, sometimes even behind enemy lines."

On Christmas Day 1942, in French Morocco, "We'd already kicked the Germans out of our area," Drugan recalled. Members of his unit spent the holiday resting and relaxing, and had a special holiday dinner with turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy.

On Christmas Day 1943, Drugan and his unit were at a base in England, training for the D-Day invasion of France. He remembers having another holiday dinner with turkey, and attending a church service on the base.

His most memorable - and miserable - Christmas was in 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge. On Dec. 21, Drugan's unit had made a 100-mile march "in half rain, half snow" across Germany to join the battle.

On Christmas Day that year, Drugan said, "We were up at the front. There was snow on the ground and it was cold." His unit was engaged in battle until early afternoon, when German soldiers retreated. "We didn't get our dinner until 3:30 or 4 p.m.," Drugan said. "They brought up our dinner - turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing and gravy. It was hot, but it cooled off fast."

While he ate his Christmas dinner, Drugan watched German soldiers retreating on a nearby ridge.

Romey Bendel, 76, of La Crosse was a truck driver with the Army's 45th Infantry Division during the Korean War, where he spent a few Christmases.

"It was cold as hell," said Bendel, who was raised on a farm near Coon Valley, Wis. "It was pretty sad, being away from home at Christmas, but a lot of others were away from home, too."

On Christmas Day, he and other soldiers had "turkey with all the trimmings," Bendel recalled.

"They did a good job of serving hot food" when it was possible to do so, Bendel said. "They did the best they could."

Bendel also remembers separate Catholic and Protestant services being held outdoors on Christmas morning.

As a truck driver, Bendel spent most of his time near the front lines. "We hauled whatever they ate or shot," he said. "It gets pretty scary being a truck driver near the front lines."

Owen Mike, 61, of Neillsville, Wis., spent two Christmases in South Vietnam, in 1968 and 1969, while in the Marine Corps. The second Christmas was especially memorable, because his Marine patrol was ambushed that day.

Mike, whose specialty was being the point man on patrols, spent the first Christmas at a Marine base in Vietnam. "I thought about Christmas and missing my home," said Mike, a Ho-Chunk Nation member who was raised near Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. He recalls opening care packages from home that contained items such as cookies, apples, coffee and candy.

Mike's second Christmas in Vietnam wasn't as peaceful - while on patrol, his unit was ambushed by North Vietnamese soldiers. "We had a firefight for a couple hours," he said. He recalls eight Marines were killed in the ambush, and several more were wounded.

That day, he said, "To me, Christmas was just another day. It was just a matter of surviving."

Mike, who received a Silver Star for bravery in another battle, also recalled, "There was no snow and the temperature was 110 degrees in the jungle," even on Christmas Day.

Steve Cahalan can be reached at (608) 791-8229 or scahalan@@lacrossetribune.com."