News-Info-Alerts

Re: A Tale of Two POWs

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: September 18, 2003

"MEMORIES OF WAR, FREEDOM: TWO MEN RECALL ORDEAL OF BEING PRISONERS OF WAR

BY JIM MUIR THE SOUTHERN

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS -- As Americans pause today to commemorate National POW/MIA Recognition Day, two men remember vividly the dark days in German POW camps where they both doubted they would set foot on Southern Illinois soil ever again.

While many people talk about fighting to keep their freedom, Marion's Dick Jordan can say that he fought -- literally -- for three days without stop to regain his freedom.

Jordan, now 81, entered the Army in July 1942, and after completing basic training in Georgia was shipped to New York in December, where he boarded the Queen Mary for a seven-day voyage to Scotland.

"I remember that there was Christmas music playing when we left New York," Jordan said. "I remember sailing out of New York Harbor and watching the Statue of Liberty just as long as I could. I watched it until it disappeared, and I wondered if I would ever see it again because I knew what was ahead of us."

After taking Ranger training in Scotland, Jordan shipped out to Ireland and then Wales before heading to Normady Beach to take part in the invasion. Jordan was part of the 23rd Infantry Division, where he served as a rifleman. After "five or six days" in combat the squad became trapped in a hedgerow and was forced to surrender.

That surrender would send Jordan and other members of the 23rd Infantry on a 12-month, horror-filled stay at Stalag 4D -- a German prisoner of war camp.

Jordan spent the days after his capture being interrogated by German soldiers before being marched across France to Germany.

"We went three days without food and at night they made us get in these wooden crates that looked like a hog trough made of wood and wire," he said. "The only way you could position yourself was to squat down, and then you had to stay that way all night. The next morning I would hardly be able to walk, and then we would start marching again."

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Jordan recalled one incident where German soldiers bought a horse from a farmer, and then shot and skinned the animal and cut off chunks of raw meat to feed the starving prisoners.

"We hadn't eaten in three days, and when you're hungry you can eat about anything," Jordan said. "They handed us a piece of raw horse meat and we tried to eat it -- it was all we had. The farmer had one old milk cow and we lined up and with one cup we stood in line to get a cup of milk."

After marching for more than a week, Jordan said, the prisoners were loaded into boxcars and for five hot days in July were transported to Stalag 4D.

"There were about 45 of us in each boxcar and we didn't have anything to eat, no water," Jordan said. "We had to break out this little glass window to get a little fresh air. We spent five days and nights crammed in that boxcar. During the day they would set the trains in a switchyard and then we would travel at night."

Jordan said he was in a group that was called "forced labor." He said he worked with one group of prisoners in a cemetery burying the casualties.

"They brought in dead bodies by the truckload," he recalled.

Jordan said prisoners were fed once a day, after all the work was completed.

"We were given bread and carrots, but only after the work was done," Jordan said. "So, after working all day you got that. On Sunday they would give us a little treat and we would get horsemeat that was ground up and we'd put that on the bread."

Jordan said he saw a fellow prisoner executed when the man stooped over to pick a wild strawberry.

"They were marching us in to take a shower and he bent over to pick that strawberry, and a German guard in one of the towers shot him right in the temple," Jordan said. "That happened right in front of us."

Jordan said prisoners wore the same clothes for one year. They would scrub the clothes under a cold shower and then wring out the water and put the wet clothes back on.

"Can you imagine that, wearing the same clothes for a year?" he asked. "We slept in them and worked in them."

Jordan said prisoners caught the attention of a low-flying American plane, an unusual twist that he thinks led to his rescue.

"We were waving our arms, and on the third time he flew over he tipped his wings in recognition, and we all believe he radioed for help for us," Jordan said. "The next day they came in with a halftrack and a tank that was equipped with weapons. We thought we would be liberated right then, but they gave us K rations and guns and bullets and we held our position for three days. From there we moved out by truck and then to planes that had landed in a farm field."

After being rescued, Jordan and other prisoners were taken to Camp Lucky Strike in France.

"They had tents set up and a big mess hall, but they told us don't try to eat too much because it could kill you," Jordan said. "When I was captured I weighed 130 pounds, and after being a prisoner for that one year I weighed about 60 pounds. There was some guys that looked worse than me. We were too weak for the trip home. They had to build us up before we could come home."

And Jordan certainly has fond memories of his return to New York Harbor, aboard the ship appropriately name Liberty.

"I got to see the Statue of Liberty again and that was quite a moment," Jordan said. "There were times when I doubted that I would ever get home alive. It was just the goodness of the Lord that brought me through that year as a POW. I think that time in Germany made everything in my life a little more special and taught me to appreciate things more."

Jordan said despite the fact it has been nearly 60 years since his days as a POW, his love of country and freedom have only grown stronger.

"I recently had the opportunity to talk to a group of grade school kids about freedom and I don't think they really understand what that flag stands for and what it means," Jordan said. "But, a lot of people lost their lives protecting our freedom. That's what we were fighting for back then and that's what our boys are fighting for now -- our freedom."

Jordan and his wife, Alice, have been married 61 years and are both retired. They have two daughters. Jordan worked in his own trucking business and also worked 15 years for the Marion Water Department.

Eggs for Easter

Bill Murry had fried chicken, gravy and eggs, lots of eggs, for dinner on Easter Sunday in 1945. While that might not seem important to some people, Murry, of Sesser, remembers nearly 60 years later that "Eggs for Easter" translated to freedom from a German POW camp.

The 81-year-old Murry was attending the University of Illinois in 1942 when he enlisted in the Army. He began his active duty on March 19, 1943, and was shipped overseas on Nov. 25, 1944.

Murry was a staff sergeant in Company A of the 242nd Infantry Division, assigned to dig foxholes in front of combat units.

Murry said Jan. 9, 1945, is a day he will always remember.

"Our company got separated at Hutton, France, and we were captured by the Germans," Murry said. "We spent five days in boxcars traveling by night. We didn't have any food or water. The only water we could get was by melting the snow on top of the boxcar."

Murry said the 180 prisoners were interrogated for five days and then transported to Zeihorn, Germany. Murry said there were 1,000 Russian POWs, 2,000 Americans and 1,000 French.

"They (Germans) were never really cruel or mean to anybody but the living conditions were rough," Murry said. "We got a cup of coffee for breakfast that looked like it was made out of alfalfa leaves, and at lunch we got a cup of potato soup with most of the potatoes missing. At night we got a loaf of bread, old black, hard bread, to split between six people."

Murry, who was a POW slightly more than three months, said the Germans asked for 50 volunteers to work on railroad tracks that had been bombed. He said it was during a work detail that five prisoners planned to escape into a wooded area.

"On the second day three of our men escaped, two were captured and never got away, but the third one stole a donkey and rode through the timber all night heading east," Murry said. "He hid the donkey and slept during the day and then rode again all night. All he knew was that he was going east and then the next morning he was 10 miles past the front line. He had rode that donkey through the German line and the American line and never got stopped. He finally found an Army kitchen and figured out it was an American unit."

Murry said the Germans, suspicious, decided to move the POW camp the next day.

"They began moving the Russians first at 6 a.m., and the American POWs were set to be moved next," Murry said. "We were expecting to be liberated, but we were concerned we wouldn't be found if they moved the camp."

The American soldiers, Murry said, showed some good old American ingenuity to delay the move.

"When it came time for us we took a bite of soap and we were sick and foaming at the mouth" Murry recalled. "That was about 12 noon, and at 3 p.m. on Good Friday -- March 30, 1945 -- Gen. Patton spearheaded an attack on the camp and we were liberated."

Murry recalled that throughout the three months the American soldiers had coined a phrase, "Eggs for Easter," meaning that they planned to be eating eggs instead of POW food by Easter of that year. He said his platoon leader told him after the rescue to prepare to cook a big meal on Easter Sunday.

"I asked him how I was going to cook because we didn't have any food, and he told me he'd take care of that part of the deal," Murry said. "He went somewhere and came back with a quart of fresh milk -- he'd found a cow somewhere -- and a big, old hen that weighed about 8 or 10 pounds, and a dozen eggs. It was a good meal, and we kept our word to have eggs on Easter."

Murry, who worked more than 30 years as a clerk in the Sesser post office, left the service in December 1945. He and his wife, Jean, have five children, 17 grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.

writeon1@shawneelink.net 618-625-2006

DETAILS

Today is National POW/ MIA Recognition Day. The first was July 18, 1979, to honor POWs and those still missing from the nation's wars.

In the mid-1980s, the American Ex-POWs wanted the date changed to April 9, the date during World War II when the most Americans were captured.

To accommodate all returned POWs and all Americans still unaccounted for from all wars, the National League of Families proposed the third Friday in September, a date not associated with any particular war and not in conjunction with any organization's national convention.

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