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Re: Taped POW Memories Find Home in LOC

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: January 10, 2003

"'Not Forgotten'

Veterans' taped memories of POW experiences will have home in Library of Congress

By JUDY JENKINS, Gleaner Columnist

"I was beaten, stomped and cussed, but they didn't kill me."

That's how the late Marvin Payne once described his 26 months as a World War II Prisoner Of War at the mercy of his German captors.

During that grim period when he and fellow POWS barely managed to stay alive on a diet of thin soup, bread and potatoes, his 5-foot, 11-inch frame dwindled to a mere 97 pounds.

He had enlisted in the Army 11 months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and was taken by the Germans after surviving the Kasserine Pass Battle in Tunisia. The youth from tiny McQuady, Ky. wound up at Stalag 3 B in Furstenberg, Germany, after marching miles and miles in the frozen German countryside.

He was forced to walk in spite of a wounded leg and hip. "It was either walk or die," he told The Gleaner in a 1985 interview. Those who couldn't keep up, he said, were shot.

Marvin, who made his home in Henderson for nearly half a century, died in late 2001, but his story didn't die with him.

Not only did this newspaper record his heart-wrenching tale, but North Middle School's oral history program, Bonnet, filmed the veteran, who broke down several times as he related the atrocities he and others had suffered.

Now his taped memories and those of James Bernard Thomas, another Henderson resident and World War II POW -- and Bonnet subject -- will have a permanent home in the national Library of Congress American Folklife Center where they will be available to historians, educators, researchers and the general public in all the years to come.

Marvin and Bernard reportedly are the first two war veterans from Henderson County to be part of the Veterans History Project that covers all of America's Twentieth Century wars, all branches of service and all wartime roles and seeks to preserve historically precious personal recollections for tomorrow's generations.

The project was created by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton on Oct. 27, 2000.

It recognizes that while there are 19 million war veterans living in the nation today, they are dying at the rate of 1,000-1,500 every day and in many instances their enlightening wartime experiences are consigned to the grave.

Congress sought to correct that loss, and the project not only solicits the audio and video oral histories of these warriors, but also documentary materials such as letters, diaries, maps and photographs. While veterans are the primary focus, the effort also includes all war participants, among them civilian volunteers, support staff and war industry.

In this state, the Kentucky Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) has undertaken the project and is urging war veterans and support personnel to order the Veterans History Project Kit that explains how to conduct an interview.

You can obtain one by calling the Library of Congress toll-free at 1-888-371-5848 or by visiting the project website at www.loc.gov/folklife/vets/

Bernard was fortunate to have an in-house DAR representative, wife Patsy, who is chaplain of the local chapter. She knew that Bernard's Bonnet tape was ideal for the project, as are so many of the other tapes done by those North Middle students (under the direction of Roy Pullam) over the last two decades.

Bernard's poignant story was a Gleaner Christmas feature two years ago.

At 19, Bernard, who today is commander of Kentucky's chapter of the American Ex-Prisoners of War, was captured by the enemy after the first major clash of the Battle of the Bulge, in which he and his comrades were hopelessly outnumbered by the well-armed Germans. Both their ammunition and food had run out, and surrender was their only option.

Of those valiant young men the Saturday Evening Post later wrote: "No other American division in the war was hit by a greater concentration of enemy strength."

It was on Dec. 18, 1944 that Bernard and other members of his division, the 106th, were herded into an open field in the snow where they began a two-day, 50-mile march in below-freezing temperatures. For three days they had no food.

Upon reaching Limburg, Germany, they were crowded into railroad boxcars and had to take turns sitting and standing on the train that couldn't immediately move because of bombed out track. They were given one loaf of bread for every ten men.

But there were bigger problems. On a flatcar on an adjacent track was a German 88 artillery piece that drew the attention of Allied bombers who had no way of knowing Americans were on the nearby train. Bombs fell, and scores of Americans died.

Bernard and others spent Christmas Eve morning burying the dead. That night, the train started to move as snow fell and the passengers -- though scared and shaken -- took refuge in their faith and began singing "Silent Night." It was taken up by soldiers in car after car, and there were prayers...

Their destination was a small town near the Czechoslovakian border where they spent the next four months digging air raid shelters for the Germans. When they were liberated on May 8, Bernard weighed 90 pounds.

In the front yard of his and Patsy's home the American flag flies next to the POW-MIA emblem that promises "You are not forgotten."

If the Veterans History Project succeeds, those words will apply to all of our war veterans.

© 2003 The E.W. Scripps Co."