Early training
Willard and Wilbur Diefenthaler trained at Camp Phillips, Kan., and both were assigned to the 106th Infantry. Willard recalls how mistaken identity almost denied him his first meal at the mess hall. He describes his chemical warfare training and recalls witnessing British ingenuity in Oxford, England.
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The Bulge
Willard Diefenthaler chronicles the early hours of the Battle of the Bulge. Surviving those first hours was the first of many "lucky" moments.
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Surviving Bad Orb
Diefenthaler describes his capture during the Battle of the Bulge. Prisoners marched and dragged each other through the rain and sleet to a railhead, where they were packed into boxcars for prison camps. While waiting outside Lindberg Prison Camp, Diefenthaler narrowly escaped strafing from an Allied plane. He recalls a moment of kindness from a German civilian and describes the grim living conditions at Stalag 9B in Bad Orb, Germany.
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Wilbur
The Germans moved Diefenthaler to Stalag 9A on Jan. 25, 1945. He describes his last memories of his brother, Wilbur, who was too ill to move. Decades later, Diefenthaler received his brother's final letter and met the American medic who took care of Wilbur during his final days.
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Liberation
The Allies liberated Stalag 9A on Good Friday, 1945. Diefenthaler describes how several prisoners exacted revenge against "The Man of Confidence," the sergeant formerly in charge of the camp. The next staging ground was Camp Lucky Strike in LaHavre, France, where some former POWs died from overeating.
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Reunions
Diefenthaler reflects on the importance of attending veterans' reunions. He notes that POWs suffered during and after the war, and he commends supportive POW wives.
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Wilbur
The Germans moved Diefenthaler to Stalag 9A on Jan. 25, 1945. He describes his last memories of his brother, Wilbur, who was too ill to move. Decades later, Diefenthaler received his brother's final letter and met the American medic who took care of Wilbur during his final days.
audio clip (5:34)

Willard Diefenthaler: And it all started when one night he [Wilbur] got up. And there was a bed — you know, as wide as this table — and there was three of us in there. And he got up and sat on the edge of the bunk and put on his shoes. Most of the time, we'd left our clothes and everything on, and I said, "What's the matter?"

He said, "I'm going to teach these guys how to make coffee." And we never had any coffee. So then we talked him into coming back and put him between Maynard Sexton and I, and held him in the bed. A couple of days later he had such a high fever that he was talking silly. They took him into this other building. So then I didn't see him for a couple of days. And then when we were going to move and I talked to one of the sergeants — we called him the "Man of Confidence," and he was the ranking non-com and he was in charge of the whole thing — and he said, "I think he's in that building." So we stood there and I was getting madder and madder, so I asked the guard if I could go and see my brother and tell him good-bye, and he wouldn't let me go. So then I walked back and got in line — he'd always count us so that the guys shuttling back and forth to goof him up on the counting.

So, finally, I got really disgusted and I went up. And it was about three steps, and a little porch, and then there was a door. So I went up there, and here's an old German down there with his rifle. Well, I got up and looked him right in the eye, and I pushed him off to the side in a snow bank and I went in. Just by luck, I turned right and my brother was laying on the floor and just on an old blanket. So I changed my field jacket, which I had loaned him 'cause my old one was warmer than his new one. And he said I better take that back. So I took my field jacket and put it on and took the one I had and put on him. He was so weak he could hardly raise his head. And, of course, we hadn't shaved for the whole time, and hadn't washed the whole time. And so then I said good-bye to him and went back. And just by luck, the German that — the guard — came in and he turned left down the length of this building, and by that time I was out again. But he couldn't find out which one, who it was; but when he come back we had all shifted.

I went to this other — Stalag 9A, and I think that's when we froze our feet the second time. We were liberated March 30 on Good Friday, and I never heard any more about him except that I got, my folks got a letter from the War Department that — And we agreed that he would be buried in France at St. Avold Cemetery. And then several years ago in Muskogee, Oklahoma, we went to a Stalag A, B and C reunion, and a guy tapped me on the shoulder and he says, "I'd like to talk to you." I said, "OK."

Here it was Chuck Stubbs from Minnesota, and he had been the medic that took care of my brother. And he had a little piece of paper that had his name on and what he had given him. All they had was sulfa drug, but they give it to him and he had the dates and stuff and he had some pictures from newspaper clippings that showed a burial detail there and the open pit where they had buried these guys. And he'd taken care of him.

A German colonel operated on him for an abscess on his left lung. So that was interesting. I had heard that he had been operated for an abscess on his left lung, pneumonia. So when I go to the VA, I asked the doctor there, I says, "What does this entail?" He says, even if they had anesthetic it would be rough. And when Chuck came and he visited with us at Elkhart Lake and he explained what they did — they put a needle between his ribs and tried to suck the infection out. He claimed that Colonel Borst — that was the name of the German doctor that did this — he tried.

Then we were looking at this book again. I think I said I had shown my daughter the Bible I had in the service on Thanksgiving and out come a little black book that had all these addresses in. I don't know how it got there. Somebody must have sent it back from Germany because this guy from Oostberg was named, and he said that was his writing and we hadn't seen him since we were in the [unintelligible].

Anyhow, there's a guy by the name of Cliff Acey, A-C-E-Y, and I have a letter that he brought from a French captain that was in battle and helped wrote the letter that my brother dictated to me in Siggenheim. During the day my buddy and I always stood next to the door because there'd always be some stragglers coming in, and all at once this couple of guys come in from Bad Orb, and a lot of them we didn't know because there were so many of them. And this one guy says — he stood and looked at me and he said, "I swear to God I buried you at Mannheim." And then I kind of knew something was wrong, and he had handed me the letter that Will had died and what all happened to him. So we knew about that.