Kilgore man writes book from his war journals

Kilgoreite Freddie Ward, 87, recently published a book, "Stalag XVIIB Diary," based on WWII diaries that chronicled his daily existence as a POW in Germany during World War I I . Of the thousands of YMCA notebooks shipped to American prisoners of war in Germany during World War II, most long ago disappeared or were confiscated by enemy guards. But 11 of them survived months of imprisonment, a forced march across Austria and then glorious freedom to become the basis of a book published recently by the East Texas soldier who penned them during a long-ago war in a faraway place.

Freddie Ward, pastor of Highland Park Assembly of God Church in Kilgore for almost 29 years, began writing daily in his first "YMCA Wartime Log" in October 1943, about three months after he bailed out of a plane shot down by the German Luftwaffe.

For more than 60 years the notebooks, along with other pieces of scrap paper, cardboard and cigarette wrappers used for his writings, were tucked safely away. Last year, he and his wife decided they needed to do something with the diaries, to somehow preserve them for posterity and for their kids' sake.

Since the notebooks were handwritten in pencil — in tiny script because paper was scarce — church secretary Judy White used a copy machine to enlarge each page. Ward then read the entries aloud as his wife Frances typed them onto a computer.

The resulting book, "Stalag XVIIB Diary," is a verbatim account from Ward's log books. From Wednesday, Oct. 6, 1943, until Sunday, June 10, 1945, Ward kept track of everything from the weather to various goings on in his wartime prison and travels thereafter.

To this day, he can't explain why the guards let him keep his notebooks, especially since some of the entries aren't especially complimentary of his keepers.

The U.S. Army Air Force enlistee from Overton was working for Western Union out in West Texas when he volunteered for service. Ward was trained as a radio operator with the rank of Tech/Sergeant. The 22-year-old became part of a 10-man crew aboard a B17 bomber they flew from the United States to England in June 1943.

They were on their fourth raid over Germany on July 28, 1943, when their bomber was hit by flak.

"We were supposed to bomb a German air force manufacturing base, but we never made it," Ward said.

He doesn't know how long the firefight lasted, but he does remember his crew got credit for knocking at least one German plane out of the sky before their own plane went down.

"I heard the pilot say, 'Boys, let's get out of here,' and we parachuted out from about 20,000 feet," Ward said.

Amazingly, all of his fellow crewmen survived that day and were liberated at the end of the war. Ward landed on the edge of a wheat field and was quickly surrounded. He wasn't injured but he recalls one of the many civilians who ran to his location roughed him up a bit. Incredibly, one was a teenager who spoke fluent English. He told Ward he was from Detroit but his family had been forced to stay in Germany after they came to visit relatives.

The Americans were transported by enemy soldiers to different places — a building in Frankfurt, a temporary barbwire camp — before being taken to Stalag 7A near Moosburg, Germany.

"That was one of the most terrible train rides," Ward said. "Men were crowded inside these old WWI '40 and 8' cars. They were originally built for 40 men and eight horses." The rickety, unheated cars are described as being roughly half the size of U.S. railroad cars.

The Americans remained at Stalag 7A for about three months before being shipped by train —again in boxcars — to Stalag 17B near Krems, Austria.

The four officers from his crew were housed elsewhere, probably in a German "Oflag" for captured officers, and for the remainder of the war the other six men were imprisoned at Stalag 17B, where they remained for roughly 18 months.

Stalag 17B's "main camp" was located on about 250 acres. According to Internet sources, the prison held anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000 captives. Ward estimates there were about 4,500 U.S. soldiers there. By 1945 the Americans, and later some British POWs, were kept in five "compounds" within the huge barbed-wire enclosure. Seven other camps held other POWs from Italy, France, Belgium, Poland and Russia.

"The Russians never signed the Geneva Convention, so they suffered the most," Ward said, adding that the Americans were "lucky" in many ways, though conditions were terrible for all POWs.

"One winter we had soup with greens and little white worms," Ward recalled. "Some of the guys would say, 'There's meat in the soup today.'"

Weekly food parcels from the American Red Cross were truly a blessing.

"They saved us," Ward said. "I think we got most of them, though some were destroyed by our own bombers (during transport across enemy lines)." It's also reported German guards took what they wanted whenever they could.

The Red Cross parcels contained, among other items, a can each of SPAM, corned beef, liver pate', salmon and powdered milk, along with chocolate bars and three packs of cigarettes, which Ward used for barter since he did not smoke.

Many POWs died or suffered greatly from disease, but the Americans, unlike soldiers from other nations, had been vaccinated against many of them.

"We always sweated out typhus but we had been inoculated. I don't remember any of us with typhus," Ward said.

Still, they suffered malnutrition and disease. Ward sported 180 pounds on his 5-foot-10- 1/2-inch frame when he joined the service. By the time he was freed and weighed again at Nancy, France, he was down to 140.

By the spring of 1945, the Germans realized the end of the war was near as U.S. soldiers crossed the Rhine traveling east at the same time the Russian army marched west into Hitler's homeland. In April 1945, all of the POWs able to travel were forced to evacuate and endured an 18-day march west through Austria. Those unable to walk were left at Stalag 17B.

"The Russian POWs were near starvation," Ward recalled. "They were in terrible shape."

As they marched, they encountered pockets of Jewish concentration camp survivors whom Ward describes as "walking skeletons."

The Americans and British had "secret radios the fellas had assembled" that were used throughout their incarceration. They could monitor British radio telecasts, especially at night when the airwaves were clearer.

"We knew Patton and his 3rd Army were near, east of Munich," Ward said, adding the soldiers were later told Hitler had ordered all of them to be executed but Hermann Goering, the German air force's commander in chief, would not allow it.

The POWs came to a stopping point in a heavily wooded area along the River Inn in Germany. Ward said he will never forget a soldier named Clark from Pennsylvania who was concerned Gen. George Patton's troops might mistake them for the enemy. Then one day they spied two tanks with white stars across the river.

"We knew then we'd linked up with Patton's army," Ward said.

Clark walked to the river's edge and then dived in and swam to the other side.

"We thought surely he would be shot but he made it. He told them American POWs were in the woods," Ward said.

A few days later an American Jeep with four GIs drove into the POW encampment. The quartet disarmed the 200 or so German guards and "the tables were turned."

It was May 2, 1945. Tech/Sgt.