Helping Hands: Ex-POW offers a holiday salute to those who endured
By Jennifer Kovalich, ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
In his wallet, Vitold Krushas carries a faded black-and-white photograph taken when he arrived at the Stalag 17B prisoner-of-war camp during World War II.
The two-by-three-inch picture identifies him as prisoner No. 104722.
On the back in black ink is written: "4/29/44, 5/3/45, 370 days, 8880 hours." The numbers mark the date his B-24 was shot down over Germany, the date he was freed, and the number of days and hours he was kept prisoner at the camp.
Krushas, 83, has vivid memories of his time as a POW ‹ too many memories, he says.
"It isn't fair. I'd rather not remember all that stuff," Krushas said last week, sitting in a recliner in his East Bridgewater living room.
He remembers the prisoners being so hungry that one of them trapped, cooked and ate a sparrow to get some scraps of meat.
He remembers being force-marched along fields covered with dead bodies, yellow-green smoke rising as corpses burned in the distance.
He remembers coming across other prisoners also marching. They wore rags, all "skin and bones and blubbering." As he watched, a German took aim and shot one dead.
Krushas cries as he tells this story. But he also says that the agony of those days made his life back home, once he was freed, that much sweeter.
"It's the stuff that lives with me," he said. "Still, I wouldn't give the experience up. It made life so much different afterwards. Life was so good to us before."
The memories of Stalag 17B also live with Ed Sexton of East Bridgewater, who spent 18 months at the camp. Eight other local men - from Abington, Brockton and Whitman - were in the German prison camp between 1943 and 1945.
Every year, Sexton, sits down and writes a Christmas card to Bill Clarke of Levittown, Pa., another former POW who in May 1945 escaped a forced march to swim across a river to tell U.S. troops about the 4,300 men being held prisoner on the opposite side. Clarke's swim resulted in the liberation a day later, by the army of Gen. George S. Patton, of Sexton and the other prisoners.
"I always knew my government would come get me," said Sexton, 85.
Sexton this month made a $100 contribution to The Enterprise Helping Hands Fund. The charitable donation was the idea of his wife, Florence, who had read about the fund in the paper.
"In reading the article, I thought what a wonderful way to help people, by donating in memory of someone," she said. "We were thinking about who we could give it in memory of, and decided on his fellow (Stalag) 17Bers."
Sexton's contribution reads: "In memory of my departed former Prisoner of War buddies at Stalag 17 in Krems, Austria, 1943 to 1945, from Abington John Brown and Brocktonians George King, Peter Lupica, Clayton Kahler, Ruel Stevenson and Arthur Gay."
The Enterprise Helping Hands Fund is overseen by The Enterprise Charitable Foundation and collects donations that are dispersed as grants to charities that provide direct assistance to needy local families and individuals.
Of the 10 local men, Sexton and Krushas, are the keepers of the Stalag 17B flame. Here is their and their buddies' story.
Camp a grim existence
Sexton, a Whitman native, was a radio operator and gunner on a B-17 with the 303rd Bomb Group based in Molesworth, England. He was captured in Holland on Nov. 5, 1943, when the "Ramblin' Wreck" was shot down on its way back to base following a bombing mission.
"It was rather grim," Sexton said of life in the camp. "We had very little to eat. There was no heat in the barracks, no water a good part of the time."
Stalag 17B was located a few miles northwest of Krems, Austria. The camp had been a concentration camp from 1938 until 1940, when it first began receiving French and Polish prisoners of war.
The POW camp was where all non-commissioned officers of the Army Air Corps were sent when captured. That is how the 10 local men, although stationed in various bases throughout Europe and Africa, came to be in the same place. The camp contained nearly 30,000 prisoners of war from various allied nations.
"They didn't have anything," Sexton said of his German captors. "I don't know how they held out for so long. They had absolutely nothing and they shared it with us."
Sexton met King the day he entered the camp.
King, an assistant engineer on a B-17, had been shot down on Oct. 20, 1943, on his first mission in the European theatre. He and Sexton had done their combat training together.
"I walked into the camp and there he was," Sexton said. "He was as surprised as I was."
Sexton got his first taste of "nothing" from the Germans when he had his left foot operated on in the prison camp.
When the "Ramblin' Wreck" went down, he was hit by flak in the left foot. The wound was bandaged at a local jail where he was taken before eventually ending up at Stalag 17B.
Three weeks after he was injured, Sexton was operated on by a Polish doctor who had been a war captive since 1939. Sexton's anesthesia was a "shot of booze and a few guys holding me down."
The prison hospital had one crutch, being used by another prisoner who had lost a leg. Sexton hobbled around on the crutch when that man slept. "I couldn't walk for a long time," he said.
The prisoners were given a tin cup and a spoon for meals. Breakfast was usually hot water. Lunch featured soup with maggot-like worms. Dinner was often another encore of hot water.
Red Cross food parcels filled with blocks of cheese, cans of spam, canned corned beef and packs of instant coffee, helped keep the men from starving to death.
They hoarded cigarettes to trade for food with Russian prisoners, exchanging them for potatoes or rutabagas. The Russians would sling them over a security fence in socks stripped from the feet of their dead comrades.
Although Sexton wound up imprisoned at Stalag 17B with almost a dozen local men, he did not know many of them while they were there.
"I don't remember much about them from in the camp," he said. "I met them after the war was over."
Sexton met some of them at John "Jack" Brown's wedding to the former Ellie D'Arpino on July 15, 1945.
Sexton was the best man. Gay, Krushas, Kahler, Stevenson and Lupica and Sexton's brother John, were the groomsmen.
The Browns' formal wedding portrait, taken at the Rialto Studio in Brockton following their ceremony at Holy Ghost Church in Whitman, shows the men in their GI uniforms.
Sitting in her kitchen this week, Ellie Brown, 79, said that to this day she still does not know exactly why her husband asked each of the former POWs to be his groomsmen.
"I have no idea," she said, but figured "they were captured almost together and he wanted to be with them."
Lives changed at home
When Jack Brown came home from the war, settling back into civilian life was difficult, his widow said.
"When he first came home he was really changed," she said. "He had a lot of nightmares. It was hard living with him, very hard."
After surviving on little more than soup with worms, Brown said, Jack had a hard time adjusting to regular meals again.
"He would push the food around to make sure there weren't any worms in it," she said.
She said it took about three months for Brown to return to his usual self. He stopped having the nightmares but they returned years later when he was ill with cancer, she said.
Brown died on Veterans Day in 1992, at age 70.
While Brown had worked as a mailman in Stalag 17B, Sexton and Peter Lupica came home and took jobs with the U.S. Postal Service.
Lupica worked in Brockton and Sexton retired as the Whitman postmaster after a 35-year career.
Lupica was the first prisoner of war from Brockton, captured Jan. 18, 1943, on his way to his North Africa base from a mission to bomb the Tripoli aerodrome.
Lupica's B-24, the last in formation, was aflame from a flak attack and fighters on its tail. He had to bail out. As he pulled his parachute rip cord, his flying boots came off his feet.
"As I came down I kept thinking, 'Here I am from Brockton, the Shoe City, yet I have no shoes on," he recalled in a June 1945 Enterprise article.
He landed in stocking feet on a mountainside and was captured 20 minutes later. Lupica was first imprisoned in Moosberg, Bavaria, and later transferred to Stalag 17B.
While in Stalag 17B, he lived in the same barracks as two other Brockton men, Arthur Gay and Donald Hayes, who both had their Flying Fortresses shot down on Sept. 6, 1943.
Gay, was a turret gunner and B-17 crew chief engineer. Hayes was a tail gunner captured on his 12th mission after bailing out over Germany.
After the war, Gay returned to work at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Brockton as an electrician. He died in August 1974 at age 56.
In Brockton, after Bernadette Hayes of Ellsworth Avenue learned her son was missing in action, she refused to think of him dead and began praying he would be located as a POW, the Enterprise reported at the time.
Shortly after getting the telegram, she attended a novena, a nine-day prayer recitation, at St. Patrick's Church. The paper reported that Mrs. Hayes made the novena to pray for the safety of her son, and right after its conclusion she received a telegram notifying her that her son was safe as a prisoner.
A loving message home
Lupica and Sexton share the same wedding date, April 27, 1947. The men had each invited the other to attend his wedding, discovering in the invitations they were to be married at the same time on the same day.
Lupica wed Patricia Merra of Brockton at 3 o'clock at St. Edward's Church. Sexton married Florence Davenport of Whitman at St. Patrick's Church.
Before attending their respective receptions, the couples got together in downtown Brockton to celebrate.
Lupica later retired down the Cape, where he died several years ago.
Like Lupica, Sexton for a short time also lived in the same barrack as a fellow Brocktonian, David Hatch.
Hatch spent more than a day floating in the Bay of Biscay, off the coast of France, after his B-17 was shot down May 1, 1943.
Rescued by the Germans, he was allowed to make a broadcast over a short-wave radio on May 29.
Hatch's parents in Brockton listened to their son at the Pearl Street home of Mark MacAdams, a police department radio expert, who provided the radio set.
Listening in Tulsa, Okla., was the airman's wife, Ruth. Their new baby, Donna Ruth, had been born weeks earlier on April 30.
"Hello Ruth. I just want you to know I'm all right. I was shot down in the ocean but was rescued by the Germans. Write and tell Mom and Dad I am well," Hatch said in his broadcast, according to Enterprise files.
"Has our baby arrived yet? Write and tell me about it. I love you very much. I got to see Paris. I was in the hospital for awhile but I am OK now. It was not so bad. Cheerio. Keep your chin up. This can't last too long. I love you all."
As Clayton Kahler prepared to spend his first Christmas in Stalag 17B, Krushas on Dec. 24, 1943, was preparing to leave for England with the 392nd Bomb Group.
Kahler, who was based in north Africa, had been shot down over Greece and captured on Dec. 14, 1943. His family in Brockton received word on Jan. 5, 1944, as they were taking the decorations down from their Christmas tree. They later received a letter from him.
"Dear Mom, Well here I am again. Got a new home for awhile and it isn't too bad here. I've been a prisoner almost a month now. Sure hope the news didn't spoil your Christmas," he wrote, according to Enterprise files. "There are seven of us here from the home town so we'll have a grand celebration when we get back,"
Shortly after Kahler's family received his letter, Krushas, one of his best friends, also wound up in Stalag 17B. He was the last Brockton man to be taken there after the "San Antone Rose" was shot down on April 29, 1944, over Germany.
"When we got shot down, five were killed in action and five parachuted out," said Krushas, the B-24 engineer and turret gunner.
Christmas in Stalag 17B
Nearly 60 years after he was liberated from Stalag 17B, the memories that Krushas carries are razor-sharp ‹ so sharp that he finished therapy for post-traumatic stress just six years ago.
"Most everybody I know from POW camp can't remember hardly anything about their experience," he said. "In my mind it's like a library catalogue. I had to keep the radio on all night long for I don't know how many years."
One memory is of Christmas 1944, when Krushas began hoarding carrots and sugar cane, in hopes of making an imitation pumpkin pie for Kahler, whom he managed to see daily. "I put it in a snowbank out the window to freeze it, to set it," Krushas recalled.
That Christmas Day the Germans piped in carols over the public address system. Krushas and Sexton recalled decorations made of tin cans and barbed wire in the barracks, snow on the ground, and time to pray.
"We had a priest who served all denominations," Sexton said. "We had Christmas Mass. He did quite a job."
In the decades after they returned home, Sexton and Krushas became and remain close friends.
They and others, including Brown, became involved in organizations for former prisoners of war. They have traveled to conferences with other ex-POWs, wear their military status on their vehicle license plates, and have shared their war experiences with many schoolchildren.
Since the war, Sexton has returned to visit Braunau, Austria, where they were liberated. Krushas has not.
This Christmas - as Sexton recalls Brown, King, Lupica, Kahler, Stevenson and Gay - he reflected that Stalag 17B was made more bearable knowing there were others there from home. "They were all good guys," he said.
These local men were held prisoner at Stalag 17B during World War II, based on Enterprise files.
PETER LUPICA, Brockton
First Brockton man to be taken prisoner of war, captured Jan. 18, 1943, after bailing out of a B-17 over northwest Africa. Was a radio operator and gunner with the 342nd Bomb Squadron, 97th Bomb Group. Captured on his 10th mission. Graduated Brockton High School in 1934.
DAVID HATCH, Brockton
Captured May 1, 1943, when his B-17 was shot down over the Bay of Biscay during his 25th mission. He was in the water more than 24 hours before being picked up by the Germans. Died December 1967.
ARTHUR GAY, Brockton
Shot down Sept. 6, 1943, over Europe while on his sixth mission. Was a turret gunner and crew chief engineer of a B-17. Graduated Brockton High School in 1935. Before enlisting, survived being shot in the chest during a car-jacking in 1939 in Field Parkway in Brockton. Died in August 1974, at age 56.
DONALD HAYES, Brockton
Was captured Sept. 6, 1943, after bailing out of a B-17 over Germany. Was a member of the 8th Air Force, based in England. Served as a gunner and was shot down during his 12th mission. Graduated Brockton High School in 1939. Lived in the same barrack at Stalag 17B with Gay and Lupica. It could not be determined if he is still alive.
GEORGE "BUDDY" KING, Brockton
Shot down on his first mission on Oct. 20, 1943. Was an assistant engineer on a B-17. Stoughton native and graduated Brockton High School in 1935. Was a communicant of St. Edward's Church and worked at the Shoe City Express before enlisting. Died in California about 10 years ago.
ED SEXTON, Whitman
Now of East Bridgewater, shot down in the B-17, the "Ramblin' Wreck" Nov. 5, 1943, over Holland and taken prisoner. Was a radio operator and gunner and was the first POW from Whitman. Was a member of the 8th Air Force based in England. Graduated Whitman High School. Retired in 1983 as the postmaster in Whitman.
CLAYTON KAHLER, Brockton
Captured Dec. 14, 1943, after his plane was shot down over Greece. Had been stationed in North Africa. Was home schooled most of his years due to asthma but graduated Brockton High school in 1941. Died at age 53 in 1975.
RUEL STEVENSON, Brockton
Shot down over Italy Dec. 19, 1943, while on his 43rd mission. Was a radio gunner who was based in Africa. Flew bombing missions over Africa, Italy and France. Graduated Brockton High School. Died in 1968.
JOHN "JACK" BROWN, Abington
Became a prisoner of war April 8, 1944, after his B-24 Liberator was shot down over Hanover, Germany. Was based in England with the 44th Bomb Group and was a chief engineer of bomber crew. Died Nov. 11, 1992, at age 70.
VITOLD KRUSHAS, Brockton
Now of East Bridgewater. Was shot down April 29, 1944, in the "San Antone Rose" over Germany. Bailed out and was cut down from a tree by two German women after his parachute got tangled in the tree limbs. Was an engineer and turret gunner on the B-24 Liberator stationed in England with the 392nd Bomb Group. Graduated Brockton High School in 1939.
©The Enterprise, Brockton, MA