Prisoners no more — reunion brings together former POWs

By DAYNE LOGAN, Times Staff Writer
Published: Monday, June 11, 2007 9:35 AM CDT
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(Times photo/Dayne Logan) Thomas Grove (left) and his wife Kay listen to tour guide Dick Wright at the Frontier Army Museum on Fort Leavenworth. Grove was one of 65 former prisoners of war in town for a reunion on Friday.

Sixty-three years ago, thousands of Americans fell prisoner to Nazi Germany in a battle that would later be known as the Battle of the Bulge.

An estimated 65 of those former prisoners were in Leavenworth Friday for a prisoner-of-war reunion.

The reunion brought together former POWs from across the United States who were imprisoned near the German-Belgian border toward the end of World War II. Several family members also attended.

The reunion included a driving tour of Leavenworth and Fort Leavenworth, a self-guided tour of the fort’s Frontier Army Museum and lunch at High Noon Saloon.

A tour guide for the Leavenworth Convention and Visitors Bureau, John Reichley, said that on the way through Leavenworth some men stood up and gave a salute as they passed by Patton Elementary, in honor of Gen. George Patton.

“They said, ‘He’s the one that liberated us,’” Reichley said.

(Times photo/Dayne Logan) Robert Cozean, Pat Duca, Linda Peterson and Della Sandahl wait for lunch to be served at the High Noon Saloon. Cozean was a prisoner-of-war during World War II.

Throughout the day, many of the former soldiers reminisced about their time as prisoners.

Jake Underwood, the coordinator of this year’s reunion, said the majority of the POWs, himself included, were captured on Dec. 16, 1944, just after the Battle of the Bulge. Following their capture, the prisoners were taken to a number of stalags — the German word for prisons — where they were held for as many as six months. Underwood estimated that each stalag held approximately 3,500 Americans, in addition to soldiers from other Allied countries such as Italy and France.

However, the crowded quarters may have been a blessing in disguise given that the soldiers were forced to endure the harsh German winter with little more than the clothes on their backs and the body heat of those around them.

(Times photo/Dayne Logan) Mort Brooks (left), Francis Cook, Ken Smith, William Busier and Chuck Reick joke with each other while they wait for lunch at High Noon Saloon. The men were in town for a former prisoners-of-war reunion on Friday.

“It was one of the worst winters in a number of decades,” Former POW Frank Trautman said.

Troutman added that much of the time the sky was so overcast that the Allied air forces were completely incapable of conducting missions in the area.

In terms of food, Trautman said the men were given a coffee-like beverage in the morning that would keep them warm for a short while and a bowl of soup at noon every day. The soup, he said, often contained little or no solid food.

Underwood said that for dinner each night, six soldiers were forced to share a loaf of bread that was no more than 10 inches in length.

Trautman said that when he entered the camp he weighed 174 pounds. By the time he left, he weighed just 99.

Former POW Asher Schroeder was forced to cope with an even more difficult situation in his time as a prisoner.

Unlike most of the other prisoners, Schroeder was captured about a month prior to the Battle of the Bulge in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest. Schroeder said he sustained a foot injury that allowed the Nazi forces to take him prisoner.

Following his capture, Schroeder was moved from prison to prison as the Allied forces started to make progress in the war.

“They were kind of deteriorating as I went,” Schroeder said of the numerous prisons he lived in that winter.

Schroeder also said that the transportation between prisons was spiraling ever downward.

For his initial transports, Schroeder said the prisoners were moved via train. However, for his final move Schroeder — still nursing a foot injury — was forced to march 100 miles to the stalag in Bad Orb, where most of the other soldiers had been detained all along.

Despite being housed in the same general area, the soldiers said that for the most part they never met until after the war.

“A few of us did, but it wasn’t a social situation,” Trautman said.

The former POWs and their guests will remain in the area through the weekend. They plan to tour the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in Independence, Mo., Saturday afternoon, before having a meeting that night.

Most of them will part ways on Sunday, but plan to meet again at a new location next year.