Re: Capture, Escape and the Long Road Home

Date: March 21, 2004

"WWII POW Recounts Capture, Escape, Long Road Home

By Laura Banish AP/The Daily Times


WATERFLOW   —   It's been a long time since his 1945-issue Army jacket fit, but by the vivid way Kenneth Benally recollects being a prisoner of war in World War II, one would think it was just yesterday the 86-year-old was crisscrossing Europe trying to find a way home.

    It started with an argument one day in early October 1944.

    Benally had taken part in six campaigns before the men of F Company, 180th Regiment, 45th Infantry Division found themselves in southern France with tanks closing in. Benally and a higher-ranking soldier debated over whether the tanks were friend or foe. Benally said they were German tanks; the officer believed them to be American.

    "He told me to take the men over there out in the open and I said ?No sir, not over my dead body,? ?? recalled Benally.

    Instead, Benally went with two other men to check out the tanks and see which side they were on.

    As it turned out, Benally was right, and he was captured alone.

    "I walked right into a trap," he said. "But I did prove that I was right. Instead of my men being killed, I spent six and a half months in prison camp."

    Once in the hands of the Germans, Benally decided to play tough with the interrogating officers. He pretended to not know English and only spoke in Navajo. The trick worked as he was grilled by three separate officers, but then he met his match   —   a German with a psychology degree from Cornell University in New York.

    During the questioning, the German officer discovered a piece of paper Benally was carrying. It was a letter from his new bride Ielene, whom he had gone absent without leave to marry before going to war.

    The letter was written in English and described Ielene's teaching career on the Navajo reservation.

    For his stunt, he was punished with one month of solitary confinement.
    "The only opening in the cell was a little slot where they would slip the food in, a little soup, coffee, maybe some toast that was all dried up and not even worth eating," he said. "That's where you go nuts."

    Right around the time Benally was taken prisoner Ielene had a dream that her husband had been captured.

    "I was so alarmed and baffled that I broke down and cried. Then there were months that I didn't hear from him and I found clippings in The Albuquerque Tribune and his name was listed as POW," Ielene said.

    Ielene saved the article, which featured the headline, "28 New Mexicans on Casualty List; 6 Dead, 15 Wounded, 1 Missing, 6 Prisoners."

    After Benally's capture, he and the other POWs were packed tightly into cattle cars and taken by train to Camp Stalag 3C near the Oder River along the border of Germany and Poland.

    As the six-month mark approached, things started to change at the labor camp, Benally said. American and British forces were advancing and the Germans seemed skittish. The prisoners were told they would walk to Berlin, which Benally estimated to be 80 kilometers from the camp. They formed a line and began marching.

    One day, a shot was heard from the front. The group had been stopped by Russian forces and some of the prisoners, including Benally, were able to escape.

    Benally and 12 other men formed a band, which they called Lucky 13.
    "We decided to stick together through hell and high water, and we did," Benally said.

    The group walked and hitchhiked around Poland, looking for a way to get home. They survived by selling or trading their Army uniforms and other belongings. When they had nothing left to trade, they stole.

    Dressed in rags, the vagrant soldiers crossed through the Russian lines and made their way to Odessa, a seaport on the Black Sea.

    The Russians did not quite know what to make of Benally, one of 12 children born to ranchers in Mitten Rock.

    "They didn't know what American Indians were. They wondered, ?What the hell is it?' They thought I was Mongolian," Benally said.

    Eventually Benally's group was herded onto ships with other American POWs, traveling to Egypt, Turkey, Malta, France and Italy. The group stayed together until they reached Boston, Mass., April 9, 1945, where they had one last hurrah before parting ways.

    After the war, Benally and his wife lived in Albuquerque while he worked toward a teaching degree in elementary education.

    Once Benally obtained his degree, the couple moved to Waterflow where they have made a home for 42 years.

    Benally was employed as a counselor, teacher and principal at Nenahnezad, where he worked for three decades and retired in 1987. Now he rises every morning at 4 a.m., tends to the house, his dogs and his pet cow Claire-June.
    One of his hobbies is keeping journals and scrapbooks of his experiences, including those from the war. Gifted with a sharp memory for details, he is currently working on putting his life story together for his three daughters and grandchildren.

    "It's hard, but if you set your mind to it and reminisce for a while, you can remember a lot of things," he said.

©Albuquerque Journal"