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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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.
audio clip (12:07)

Willard Diefenthaler: … We were in St. Vith, and everybody says, "Well, this is good. You can hear our .50s chattering." And the Germans were more of a rumble deal, fired faster, so we thought we were safe. We went into St. Vith, and all at once they turned those .50s on us and there was Germans in our uniforms, guiding us right into the trap. And they called that, I think, Parker's Crossroads. I didn't know that until we went to a couple of reunions that that's where it was, but I said, "That's where we were." So we backed — I couldn't back up to get out of this trap 'cause I had a little trailer on this 6x6, so I backed it up and unhooked the pinnel and give it kind of a jerk and let it go down the mountain. Then we could turn around, and we headed out of St. Vith towards Schoenberg.

And then — it didn't take long — the orders come over to destroy our weapons. So we were there destroying our weapons, and in the three-quarter-ton Red Cross truck there were two medics guarding two German prisoners in there. They stopped right aside of us, and they come out and they hit their carbines on the frozen ground and this one shot himself in the belly. So I bent down to see what I could do to help him, and this German had grabbed the Riskano, a .45 machine gun, .45-caliber machine gun, and shot this guy dead. Hunt told him to put his hands on his head again, and that was the end of him. Then we had to run down this hill. We lost our freedom that day.

Mark Van Ells: And that's when you knew that you were captured.

Diefenthaler: Yeah. We were — I think there was 1,200 of us, and it was raining and sleeting on Dec. 19, and it was about 3:00 in the afternoon I think. They tried to call in air power, but it was so foggy and snowy the aircraft couldn't get in.

Van Ells: And so what happened after you were captured? I mean, you were marched to Germany.

Diefenthaler: We marched in — well, the first night we stayed in a cemetery. Some of them only had a blanket, and they took our helmets and everything away. I had a field jacket and full knit cap that goes under the helmet. And I had three pair of heavy socks on because my brother was in the supply room, so I grabbed three heavy pair of socks. And I put on combat boots that were a size-and-a-half too big, but they fit in the socks good. When we got all done — and we dragged a guy about 100 miles — and these little "black shirts" come and Hitler Youth, and they pulled — I had a pair of four-buckle galoshes and I had put them up on my epaulet on the shoulder. And this little "black shirt" come and jerked them off.

I, like a goof ball, I brought them back and hooked them on the other shoulder and about that time I got a kick in the butt and a trooper come off of the pole — he was fixing the telephone line — and he let me have one with his spurs. So I was pretty stiff and [we] still carried, dragged this guy, 'cause any time you let them lose, let them lay, they would shoot them and they had orders to shoot most of them and they weren't going to take prisoners. So we were kind of lucky that way. I never found out his name, and I don't know if he made it 'cause there were so many of them that didn't make it. But then we marched and marched and finally they put us in a train. There was about — some guys say 60, some guys say 100 in these 40-and-8 boxcars. Anyhow, we couldn't move around.

Van Ells: So they brought you to a railhead somewhere.

Diefenthaler: Yeah, they brought us in this railhead, and they put us in the boxcars. And that was on Christmas Eve. So we were sitting on this siding, outside of Lindberg Prison Camp, and they were going to put us there, but that was full. So then in the evening our planes come and strafed and bombed this rail yard. Some of the guys — when the railcars tipped over and busted open, and some guys ran and they shot them. Some evidently must've made the POW sign with their bodies in the snow. Anyhow, the fighter plane — all I could see, I thought it was a P-47, and I'm not sure if it was or not. But anyway, he saw these POWs and he flew over and headed back. So then the next day was Christmas and they had to fix the track enough that they could pull us out of there. Anyway, I got a picture of that — must be about a year ago now — that was finally released, and I thought the engine had blown up and we were the first car behind that. Well, according to the picture, it seems that the coal car was next to us, and then the engine was blown up. So we were pretty lucky there.

Van Ells: Once again.

Diefenthaler: And Christmas Day, we pulled into Bad Orb town, and we pulled a guy by the name of Jeske out of this boxcar. He was all filth, didn't have a toilet and he had the diarrhea and everything else. And they had a five-gallon bucket in one end for all these people to go to the toilet and Jeske — nobody'd touch him 'cause he was such a mess. So my brother and I and this Maynard Sexton from Iowa — we were always together — we pulled him out of that corner and laid him on the street. And the houses were right next to the sidewalk. So we laid him down and we took snow and kind of brushed him off hoping we'd clean him a little bit. And I think Jeske was from northern Wisconsin someplace, but I never have been able to find him. A little old lady come out and wanted to know, in German, if some warm milk would help. I said that would be fine. So then she got a little, like a little white pitcher, and the milk was just lukewarm. And we raised up Jeske and poured a little down him, and this SS trooper come up and kicked that pitcher out of our hand and threw that little lady back in the house. I don't know where those — those SS troopers were just plain mean.
Then they got us together again, and we marched five miles up this road to the Bad Orb, Stalag 9B, and they put us in there.

That was originally, I think, a prison camp, a kiddy's camp, and it was turned into a prison camp for — we had Serbs and Australians, Russians. And some of the Russians, they didn't belong to the Geneva Convention — at least that's what they said. Some of those people didn't have any shoes; they just had rags around their feet. Some of them looked like they were maybe 20 years old and they'd been there five years already.

Van Ells: So the Russians would be in one particular part of the camp.

Diefenthaler: The Russians would be in one and the Serbs — and I often wondered where the Serbs came from and now we just hear about Serbia. And then the Australians — they had their fancy hat on with the side turned up, and then they were in the compound next to it. And evidently the French had some underground connections, because when on March 30, in the morning — we were liberated on March 30, about 3:10 in the afternoon; that was Good Friday of 1945. But in the morning the Germans tried to move us, the American POWs. So we had orders to carry each other in the back in the barracks and make believe we were sick. Well, we were sick. We couldn't stand up five minutes or we'd pass out.

So these — I was laying behind the chimney and there was a double-door open and I saw this plane come and we hadn't known that there was any guards around — it seemed like they had left. Anyway, there was an anti-aircraft gun open fire at this one fighter plane. I think it was a P-47, and one of the guys at the reunion said it was an English plane. It went straight up and come straight back down and blew up this gun emplacement. And as he pulled out, he hit I think about 30 Frenchmen, as he pulled out of this dive; he didn't let up on the trigger fast enough I think. But I was laying behind the chimney, and it knocked out the side of the building. It was just all mud and beams. And I laid behind the chimney and I saw this and I could see the pilot with his goggles on and I could see his eyes. I could see the four machine guns coming onto each wing. Pretty lucky there.

Van Ells: That was close, yeah.

Diefenthaler: Yeah, and that was the day that later on in the afternoon we had orders to stay in the barracks, on the floor, and the 6th Armored Division come in with a tank and busted the gate down. One of the guys come in there and he couldn't figure out how we could still live 'cause it was — I weighed 99 pounds and that was with my big boots on.

Van Ells: Now, I was going to ask about life in the camp. You were basically a prisoner for about four months, from —

Diefenthaler: From December —

Van Ells: — December to April.

Diefenthaler: March 30, yeah.

Van Ells: How was your camp set up and how was it —

Diefenthaler: It had big buildings and the buildings were double-ended. In the middle there was like a wash area, but they didn't have any water. Then there was 500 of us on each end. Every once in a while they'd take us out and count us — [a German phrase is spoken here that the transcriptionist could not decipher]. That means "up and out and counted." So then they'd count us. And every once in a while they'd come through with a washtub, a couple of guys carrying it, and it would be soup and they'd have a dipper.

Ours, my buddy and I, ate out of a steel helmet. I think there was three or four of us with helmets then. Most of the time it was just water, maybe a little warm. We figured there was sugar beet tops. To this day, when we eat together, we always look to see if we've got any solids. Sometimes you'd have a piece of meat or something. So we didn't have much nourishment.

Van Ells: And you were fed three times a day?

Diefenthaler: No, we were lucky sometimes if we got it once or twice a day, and then they'd have maybe six or seven men on a short loaf of bread. When we cut that, the guy that cut it, he always got the last piece; and the next day if we got it, no cheating. And they'd measure that, oh, just minutely. Then we'd have something to eat, go back and lay down. Some of them, they took out to fix the railroad tracks, but most of us were so weak they couldn't work them.

Van Ells: So how would you occupy your time?

Diefenthaler: Well, some of the guys would be cooks, and they'd concoct the darndest recipes. Some guys would write songs and poems and everything you could think of. A lot of us just prayed and slept.