POW's letter details horrors he saw in WWII
By Stephanie Rex, Tribune-Review News Service
Renna Secrist knew her father had been a prisoner of war, captured in Normandy by the Germans and missing in action about a year.
John Secrist didn't talk much about the war, but in a letter that he tucked into a tiny, metal box, he poured out the horror of what he endured.
Renna Secrist found the box after he died last year. The "POW Memo," was addressed to "whom it may concern."
"I started reading it and, when I did, I just never really knew what he went through. I never knew how bad it was for him," Secrist said.
She said anyone who knew his cheerful demeanor would have never guessed how he suffered.
"He was always so happy and loved life. He never complained; he was so strong," she said.
For weeks, Secrist could not bring herself to read the entire letter, detailing with the pain of losing comrades in combat and the abuse by his captors.
"Sometimes I would have it out two or three times a day and just couldn't get through it," she said, holding back her tears.
Born in Webster, Westmoreland County, on May 29, 1925, John Secrist lived in Springdale Township until joining the Army on Aug. 6, 1943. According to the letter, he was a member of Company B, 315th Infantry, 79th Division, as well as the recipient of a Purple Heart and Bronze Star.
The letter includes an account of the pain, anguish and suffering Secrist went through, with memories spilling onto the page in stark and to-the-point sentences.
On 1944, he was fighting in St. Lo in France, where he recalls "stiff opposition," and being captured by the Germans.
"He told me that he could only eat a potato a day when he worked on a farm in Normandy," his daughter said.
On July 4, Secrist left St. Lo and marched 30 miles a day for three weeks from dawn until dusk until reaching Paris.
Secrist and his friends were shoved into box cars filled with bugs, where he witnessed four comrades killed.
"He always said he was lucky he made it home, because so many people didn't make it," his daughter said.
In 1945 in Germany, his captors warned him that, if any American POWs tried to escape, they would kill two for every one who got away. On a day that three prisoners escaped, he was forced to line up with the others. A rock was thrown in the air, and whoever was hit, was shot. Six Americans died that day, one of whom stood right next to Secrist. He was 19. Two months later, he was liberated.
The letter ends with, "my story of the Normandy invasion, true story, bad feet, bad throat and bad nerves."
After returning from the war, he moved to Cheswick in 1945, recovering from a tumor on his vocal chords and severe malnutrition.
"He was a good man. He used to talk to me about being put into the box cars while American planes tried to attack, because they didn't know there were soldiers in there," said Emilio Saldari, a World War II veteran, who grew up with Secrist in Springdale Township.
His daughter said that it wasn't until much later in his life that he began to open up about his experiences after attending meetings of POWs at the Pittsburgh VA Healthcare System center on Highland Drive in East Liberty.
"Before that, he never said a word," she said, "I think that was a part he wanted to forget because it was so bad."
Secrist remembers people thanking her father after seeing his POW bumper sticker on his truck.
"So many people would come up to him and say thank you, and he'd ask, for what, and they would say, for fighting for our country. He was just so proud whenever that would happen," she said.
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