Re: In the Words of a POW

Date: April 17, 2004

"In the words of a prisoner of war

by Jim Stingl

"Come into my war room," Julius Hunt said as he led me through a doorway past a framed collection of war medals.

Hunt, who along with his wife, Louise, has raised three children, will turn 80 in July. A lot of guys his age have a war room. World War II is the war people want to remember, and every war since then has been less and less that way.


Julius Hunt, 79, of Elm Grove, a World War II veteran, was liberated 59 years ago after a march across Poland and Germany.


Julius Hunt's diary, courtesy of the YMCA and Red Cross, contains memories of his time as a prisoner of war during World War II. Many of his entries reveal the boredom of confinement by the Germans.

An Excerpt

April 13: - "The rumors are that the G.I.s are 4 kilometers from us. Boy, plenty of excitement now. An observation plane flew over our barn. We took white towels and spelled 'P.O.W.' with them on the ground."

I had come to his home in Elm Grove not so much to talk to Julius Hunt now, the retired teacher and elementary school principal, but to listen to his words back when he was a prisoner of war for 14 months.

Hunt kept a diary. It's the 20-year-old speaking on those pages that drew me here.

Hunt opened to the first entry, dated Jan. 11, 1945, and read aloud:

"I hope I have a continuation of last night's dream. The war was over. I was home. And all was good. Water's hot for coffee. So I had better make it before the candle burns out. Good night."

He had been drafted into the Army almost two years earlier - 179th Regiment, 45th Infantry Division - leaving his home and family near Lima, Ohio. After his training, he spent several months fighting in Italy. In the invasion at Anzio, a port city not far from Rome, Hunt was among about 1,000 American and British soldiers captured by the Germans.

Hunt knows now how much worse it could have been for him. When he made a return visit on the 50th anniversary of the battle, he saw "rows and rows" of Allied soldiers' graves dated the day of his capture.

Packed in rail cars with the other men, Hunt wound up at a stalag near Munich and in a camp near Danzig, Poland, where he was put to work on a tree farm.

Hunt's capture had come on Feb. 18, 1944, so you can see by his first diary entry that he had been in confinement nearly 11 months when the diary, courtesy of the YMCA and Red Cross, landed in his hands.

You get the sense from most of the entries that the POWs were well-treated. They played poker with their new friends, the French prisoners in camp. They received mail from home and books to read. Sunday was a day off work.

Many of the entries reveal the boredom of confinement. "My beard is still growing." "Me and Johnny sawed wood and did dishes today." "Very cold today, windy and snow."

Then, this entry on Feb. 19, 1945: "The guard opened the door late this morning and to our surprise he told us to pack up. We are packed now and waiting for a phone call to leave. Where we're going, no one knows."

Over the next 53 days, Hunt and the other POWs were forced to march nearly 600 miles west across Poland and Germany. Russian troops were pressing in from the east, and the Third Reich was on the run with the prisoners in tow.

Writing in pencil, Hunt tracked their distance - 25 kilometers one day, 34 the next, 39 the next, and on it went. If the prisoners were lucky, sleeping quarters would be a barn. Other nights, rest came in the open and in the cold.

Feb. 25 - "Went to a small village where 300 men were packed in one room in a barn. To top it off, it rained all day while we were marching."

March 4 - "We got parcels, one for four men today, and that helps a lot. The Jerries don't give us much, so the Red Cross keeps us alive."

The diary goes dark for a couple of weeks after the March 8 entry. Then Hunt resumed with these words: "Due to a lack of food and so much marching, I couldn't keep this book up to date. But what happened in between times will never be forgotten."

Allied forces were closing in.

April 12 - "Artillery sounds close. The officers left us by ourselves."

April 13 - "The rumors are that the G.I.s are 4 kilometers from us. Boy, plenty of excitement now. An observation plane flew over our barn. We took white towels and spelled 'P.O.W.' with them on the ground."

More from April 13 - "And the tanks came in. Boy, were we happy. The tank drivers and officers saw how happy we were and tears rolled down their dirty (from dusty roads) cheeks. We all shed tears, too, for we are now free men again."

"Incidentally," Hunt wrote to close the day's entry, "I found a four-leaf clover this morning." The day, he noted, was Friday the 13th.


Call Jim Stingl at 224-2017 or e-mail: jstingl [at] journalsentinel [dot] com

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