Oscar
C. Varnell was a Private in the Army during World War II. Oscar was
captured by Nazi Germany while serving in Tunisia, and was sent to Stalag 3B
near Fuerstenberg, Prussia where 4,222 other American POWs were held.
Oscar's capture was first reported to the International Committee of
the Red Cross on February 14, 1943, and the last report was made on
June 22, 1945. Based on these two reports, Oscar was imprisoned for at
least 859 days (2 years and ~5 months). The average duration of
imprisonment was 363 days. Ultimately, Oscar was returned to military
control, liberated or repatriated.
Oscar C. Varnell's POW Record
Personal Details
| Name | |
| Race | White |
| State of Residence | North Carolina |
Service Details
Rank
|
Private |
| Military Branch | Army |
| Arm or Service | Field Artillery |
| Parent Unit Type | Regiment |
| Parent Unit # | 0017 |
Serial Number
|
6972118 |
Capture Details
| Theater of War | North African |
Capture Country
|
Tunisia |
| Detaining Power | Nazi Germany |
Internment Camp
|
Stalag 3B |
First Report
|
February 14, 1943 |
Last Report
|
June 22, 1945 |
| Days in Captivity | 859 |
| Status | Returned to Military Control, Liberated or Repatriated |
Source of Report
|
Individual has been reported through sources considered official |
Life at Stalag 3B as told by Carl Varnell:
Carl was always hungry. Even though the Red Cross provided some food, I believe it was paid for by the family. I have letters he sent home begging for clothing and food to be sent through the Red Cross. Carl stated they were often given soup broth (potato) and if they got potatoes in the soup, it was usually rotten potatoes.
There was a person from the Red Cross who came in and spoke with the various prisoners. He carried a small recorder that had a hand crank used to operate it. Carl and many others were able to speak on this recorder and the recording was communicated out via the radio airwaves throughout Europe. There are several post cards in my possession where various good people from Europe would write or type the exact verbiage that was used and the date/time of the radio transmission and it was sent to Carl's father Oscar Bolden Varnell in Macclesfield. Carl stated his name "Oscar Carl Varnell' and that he was in good health, the son of Oscar Bolden Varnell. And basically sent his love to his family.
I'm sure being in prison in Germany wasn't a fun experience for him or any of the other men there at the camp. Long days working in the fields, not enough clothing, being cold, being hungry. I praise GOD that he survived the experience, but I wonder if it weakened him as he died very young. He had a heart attack or heart failure (this ran in the Corbett side of the Varnell family). He was born in 1922 and was dead in 1969. I was 9 years old then, so I remember visiting him as a young child once or twice.
STALAG 3B
Stalag IIIB was located in the present city of Eisenhüttenstadt (formerly Fürstenberg) in Germany. It was a POW camp for British, French and American servicemen.
More information:
http://www.wartimememories.co.uk/pow/stalag3b.html
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1988-01-13/news/8801030404_1_german-pow-packs-camp
http://www.pegasusarchive.org/pow/cSt_3B.htm
https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalag_III-B&prev=search
http://www.wartimememories.co.uk/pow/stalag3b.html
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1988-01-13/news/8801030404_1_german-pow-packs-camp
http://www.pegasusarchive.org/pow/cSt_3B.htm
https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalag_III-B&prev=search
Below are some pictures that were taken at Stalag 3B. Another prisoner named Antony S had a guard purchase a camera and film for him (snuck it in) and Anthony took pictures of his friends. A book was created with all the pictures, but below are some of the pictures I found online.
I recently acquired a group of photos and other items to an American POW captured with the 34th Division at Kasserine Pass in 1943. He was sent to Stalag IIIB and formed a relationship with another POW named Angelo Spinelli .
Angelo Spinelli took over 1000 photos with a camera he traded from a German guard, and had the same guard develop his film. There is a great book devoted to Spinelli's photos called " Life Behind the Barbed Wire " by he and Lewis H. Carlson. The POW who kept the photos I have is mentioned in that book. Here is a link to info about the book:
http://fordhampress....d=9780823223053
The photos I obtained were brought home in 1945. Angelo Spinelli had guts, because if the Germans had found his film, photos, or Camera, he probably would have paid with his life.
Here are examples of his work. Some of the examples published in books are more dramatic than the ones I have, but all of them represent an important look into the lives of American POWs.
Life Behind Barbed Wire - Angelo M. Spinelli
They played baseball, staged musicals and attended classes -- salesmanship was the favorite.
After receiving a thank-you letter from one of them, the donor of a sweater wrote: ``I`m sorry you got it. I wish it had gone to someone on active duty.`` Writing to his son, a father wrote, ``I hope you are able to get in plenty of golf, and don`t drink too much of that good German beer, it is very fattening.``
If there was one thing they didn`t have to worry about, it was getting fat.
These men were the American Kriegies of World War II, Kriegies being slang for kriegsgefangenen, German for prisoners of war. American Red Cross packages supplemented the meager rations the Kriegies received from their captors. The parcels` cigarettes and chocolates were used to barter for German civilian food and other items.
Angelo M. Spinelli, a combat photographer and sergeant in the U.S. Army, was a Kriegie and spent 27 months in German POW camps. Of the 1,200 photographs he took illicitly at the Stalag IIIB camp near Furstenberg, 14 were used in Prisoners of World War II, published in 1981 by Time-Life Books.
Spinelli is full of war stories, but, 10 years ago, you couldn`t get a word out of him. He and other POWs had been shipped to their first camp in a urine- soaked boxcar and he had risked his life taking photographs to document life at a POW camp. Yet, he felt guilty.
``I clammed up after the war,`` Spinelli said. ``I wouldn`t talk about it until a few years ago. I had a guilt complex. You survived and the other guy died. It`s something you feel inside that`s hard to describe.``
In 1946, while still intoxicated with his sudden freedom, Spinelli collaborated with another Kriegie -- U.S. Army Air Corps Col. C. Ross Greening -- in The Yankee Kriegies. Published by the YMCA, the booklet listed Spinelli`s and Greening`s remembrances of their imprisonment. Photographs Spinelli shot at Stalag IIIB were also included in The Yankee Kriegies.
After receiving a thank-you letter from one of them, the donor of a sweater wrote: ``I`m sorry you got it. I wish it had gone to someone on active duty.`` Writing to his son, a father wrote, ``I hope you are able to get in plenty of golf, and don`t drink too much of that good German beer, it is very fattening.``
If there was one thing they didn`t have to worry about, it was getting fat.
These men were the American Kriegies of World War II, Kriegies being slang for kriegsgefangenen, German for prisoners of war. American Red Cross packages supplemented the meager rations the Kriegies received from their captors. The parcels` cigarettes and chocolates were used to barter for German civilian food and other items.
Angelo M. Spinelli, a combat photographer and sergeant in the U.S. Army, was a Kriegie and spent 27 months in German POW camps. Of the 1,200 photographs he took illicitly at the Stalag IIIB camp near Furstenberg, 14 were used in Prisoners of World War II, published in 1981 by Time-Life Books.
Spinelli is full of war stories, but, 10 years ago, you couldn`t get a word out of him. He and other POWs had been shipped to their first camp in a urine- soaked boxcar and he had risked his life taking photographs to document life at a POW camp. Yet, he felt guilty.
``I clammed up after the war,`` Spinelli said. ``I wouldn`t talk about it until a few years ago. I had a guilt complex. You survived and the other guy died. It`s something you feel inside that`s hard to describe.``
In 1946, while still intoxicated with his sudden freedom, Spinelli collaborated with another Kriegie -- U.S. Army Air Corps Col. C. Ross Greening -- in The Yankee Kriegies. Published by the YMCA, the booklet listed Spinelli`s and Greening`s remembrances of their imprisonment. Photographs Spinelli shot at Stalag IIIB were also included in The Yankee Kriegies.
Spinelli`s
recollections of his confinement range from the horrendous to the
humorous. He said that, during his first day, guards told him none of
the POWs would get out alive. But some anecdotes seem right out of
Hogan`s Heroes.
``Most of the guards were either very old men or young men who had been wounded in combat,`` Spinelli said. ``It took me a couple of months to get one guard`s confidence at Stalag IIIB and, after that, I used him steadily for the remainder of my time there. He was an older guy and I traded him 15 packs of cigarettes for a Bessa Voightlander folding camera, and three packs for a compact tripod. Then I`d give him a pack for a roll of film and another pack to have the film processed.``
But there was a serious edge to the bartering.
``If the film processor would have snitched to the SS or if the SS would have gotten hold of the pictures, I think it would have been curtains for everybody involved,`` Spinelli said. ``Being in the photographic branch of the army, I felt, by doing photographic work at the camp, I`d be doing a service to my country. I felt a moral obligation to do this.``
Spinelli bartered with a POW paratrooper for a baggy pair of pants that he always wore to conceal his camera and film. He traded with a guard for concrete to construct a hiding place for his camera, film and photos.
Because he could not read the German printing on film canisters, Spinelli never knew the speed of the film he was shooting. He used a tripod for his indoor shots and exposure times of 8 to 12 seconds to ensure adequate exposure in case he was using slow-speed film.
In one photograph, a Kriegie and a guard are hiding behind a sentry box. The Kriegie is trading a can of Red Cross margarine for a loaf of civilian bread. In another, American prisoners are standing in formation for roll call outside their barracks on a cold day. Other photos show POWs playing baseball and basketball, boxing, and putting on musicals and variety shows.
``That may sound like we were having a lot of fun,`` Spinelli said, ``but without the sports and shows, we would have all gone crazy. There was always a feeling of fear. Not a day went by when I didn`t think I might die. That made me want to take these photos, too, because I wanted something left if I didn`t survive.``
During warm months, Spinelli and other POWs slept outside their barracks to escape fleas and lice. Some POWs took the wood from window frames to burn for cooking. ``Of course, when the winter came, the Germans weren`t going to replace the windows, so the barracks were very cold,`` Spinelli said.
``Most of the guards were either very old men or young men who had been wounded in combat,`` Spinelli said. ``It took me a couple of months to get one guard`s confidence at Stalag IIIB and, after that, I used him steadily for the remainder of my time there. He was an older guy and I traded him 15 packs of cigarettes for a Bessa Voightlander folding camera, and three packs for a compact tripod. Then I`d give him a pack for a roll of film and another pack to have the film processed.``
But there was a serious edge to the bartering.
``If the film processor would have snitched to the SS or if the SS would have gotten hold of the pictures, I think it would have been curtains for everybody involved,`` Spinelli said. ``Being in the photographic branch of the army, I felt, by doing photographic work at the camp, I`d be doing a service to my country. I felt a moral obligation to do this.``
Spinelli bartered with a POW paratrooper for a baggy pair of pants that he always wore to conceal his camera and film. He traded with a guard for concrete to construct a hiding place for his camera, film and photos.
Because he could not read the German printing on film canisters, Spinelli never knew the speed of the film he was shooting. He used a tripod for his indoor shots and exposure times of 8 to 12 seconds to ensure adequate exposure in case he was using slow-speed film.
In one photograph, a Kriegie and a guard are hiding behind a sentry box. The Kriegie is trading a can of Red Cross margarine for a loaf of civilian bread. In another, American prisoners are standing in formation for roll call outside their barracks on a cold day. Other photos show POWs playing baseball and basketball, boxing, and putting on musicals and variety shows.
``That may sound like we were having a lot of fun,`` Spinelli said, ``but without the sports and shows, we would have all gone crazy. There was always a feeling of fear. Not a day went by when I didn`t think I might die. That made me want to take these photos, too, because I wanted something left if I didn`t survive.``
During warm months, Spinelli and other POWs slept outside their barracks to escape fleas and lice. Some POWs took the wood from window frames to burn for cooking. ``Of course, when the winter came, the Germans weren`t going to replace the windows, so the barracks were very cold,`` Spinelli said.
At
Stalag IIIB, Spinelli was imprisoned with 3,500 Americans, 12,000
Russians, 8,000 Frenchmen and 1,000 Serbians. After 20 months there, he
was taken on a 10-day march to Stalag IIIA near Luckenwalde where he was
imprisoned for six months. With his camera equipment stuffed into his
baggy pants, Spinelli gave a German guard a pack of cigarettes to be
rushed through Stalag IIIA`s shakedown inspection for new prisoners.
Spinelli said it was the closest he came to being caught.
He was liberated on April 22, 1945, by Russian soliders marching toward the Battle of Berlin. Spinelli and his fellow POWs were left on their own because their captors had fled the night before.
Spinelli reached the American lines 60 miles away after hitching a ride with a French POW on a German civilian truck that the Frenchman had commandeered. They followed a Red Cross ambulance convoy on their drive to freedom. Before returning to the U.S., Spinelli spent 20 days near Le Havre, France, at an American camp known as Camp Lucky Strike.
``We got all the food we wanted every day,`` Spinelli said. ``They wanted to fatten us up before we shipped back to the States.``
After his discharge, Spinelli married his childhood sweetheart, Anna, and went into the jewelry manufacturing business with his brother Joseph in his native New York. Now, he lives in Hallandale. He was contacted by Time-Life photo editors in 1979 after they saw a copy of The Yankee Kriegies booklet in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
In 1980, Spinelli joined the American Ex-Prisoners of War organization.
He has made a videotape of his photographs with an audio description of his years of captivity and has produced copies of the videotape for other ex- Kriegies. At his second residence in New York, he attends weekly Veterans Administration group therapy sessions for former POWs.
He was liberated on April 22, 1945, by Russian soliders marching toward the Battle of Berlin. Spinelli and his fellow POWs were left on their own because their captors had fled the night before.
Spinelli reached the American lines 60 miles away after hitching a ride with a French POW on a German civilian truck that the Frenchman had commandeered. They followed a Red Cross ambulance convoy on their drive to freedom. Before returning to the U.S., Spinelli spent 20 days near Le Havre, France, at an American camp known as Camp Lucky Strike.
``We got all the food we wanted every day,`` Spinelli said. ``They wanted to fatten us up before we shipped back to the States.``
After his discharge, Spinelli married his childhood sweetheart, Anna, and went into the jewelry manufacturing business with his brother Joseph in his native New York. Now, he lives in Hallandale. He was contacted by Time-Life photo editors in 1979 after they saw a copy of The Yankee Kriegies booklet in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
In 1980, Spinelli joined the American Ex-Prisoners of War organization.
He has made a videotape of his photographs with an audio description of his years of captivity and has produced copies of the videotape for other ex- Kriegies. At his second residence in New York, he attends weekly Veterans Administration group therapy sessions for former POWs.
``I
think that after the American hostages in Iran were released, therapy
sessions for ex-POWs became very popular,`` Spinelli said. ``Before I
went to them, I never would talk to anybody about what I went through.
Now it doesn`t bother me so much. I`ve met a lot of guys who understand
me when I tell them what I went through. They know what you had to go
through to eat and survive.``
LIFE IN THE CAMPS
In the following excerpts from The Yankee Kriegies, published in 1946 by the National Council of Young Men`s Christian Associations, Angelo M. Spinelli recalled his 27 months in German prisoner of war camps during World War II. During the war, the YMCA furnished 1,754,254 sports articles, 244,432 musical instruments and 1,280,146 books to American prisoners of war in Europe.
Kriegies was POW slang for the German word for prisoner of war, kriegsgefangenen.
-- I was on a combat photographic mission in the early fighting in North Africa when my film and luck ran out at the same time. I`d used up all my film and was sitting around without much to do when I was ordered to take some German prisoners to the rear. We hadn`t gone very far before we drove smack into the middle of a tank battle. . . . After a while, the shooting stopped, and when we looked out, a German tank had its guns pointed down into our ditch, and the American tanks were all shot up and on fire. Right then, we changed places with our prisoners and became Yankee Kriegies.
-- Along with a lot of other American prisoners, I was loaded onto a boat and taken to Italy. There, we were jammed into freight cars, without any sanitary facilities or water, and eventually arrived in Stalag IIIB, a prisoner of war camp in Germany. The guards in our camp were mostly older men. They all told us they weren`t Nazis! We called the guards ``goons,`` and when they came into the camp for inspection, the signal ``goon up`` would be passed around. The Germans would have spies in the camps and we called them ``ferrets`` from their snooping habits. A ferret`s assistant was a ``weasel.`` The greatest fear of our guards was that they`d be sent to the Russian front. That was the punishment given them if something went wrong in the camp. As a result, we were usually tipped off when the Gestapo was to pay us a visit. That was to give us time to hide things that were verboten, such as radios, cameras, notebooks, weapons and a flock of perfectly innocent objects that the Gestapo might decide to dislike.
LIFE IN THE CAMPS
In the following excerpts from The Yankee Kriegies, published in 1946 by the National Council of Young Men`s Christian Associations, Angelo M. Spinelli recalled his 27 months in German prisoner of war camps during World War II. During the war, the YMCA furnished 1,754,254 sports articles, 244,432 musical instruments and 1,280,146 books to American prisoners of war in Europe.
Kriegies was POW slang for the German word for prisoner of war, kriegsgefangenen.
-- I was on a combat photographic mission in the early fighting in North Africa when my film and luck ran out at the same time. I`d used up all my film and was sitting around without much to do when I was ordered to take some German prisoners to the rear. We hadn`t gone very far before we drove smack into the middle of a tank battle. . . . After a while, the shooting stopped, and when we looked out, a German tank had its guns pointed down into our ditch, and the American tanks were all shot up and on fire. Right then, we changed places with our prisoners and became Yankee Kriegies.
-- Along with a lot of other American prisoners, I was loaded onto a boat and taken to Italy. There, we were jammed into freight cars, without any sanitary facilities or water, and eventually arrived in Stalag IIIB, a prisoner of war camp in Germany. The guards in our camp were mostly older men. They all told us they weren`t Nazis! We called the guards ``goons,`` and when they came into the camp for inspection, the signal ``goon up`` would be passed around. The Germans would have spies in the camps and we called them ``ferrets`` from their snooping habits. A ferret`s assistant was a ``weasel.`` The greatest fear of our guards was that they`d be sent to the Russian front. That was the punishment given them if something went wrong in the camp. As a result, we were usually tipped off when the Gestapo was to pay us a visit. That was to give us time to hide things that were verboten, such as radios, cameras, notebooks, weapons and a flock of perfectly innocent objects that the Gestapo might decide to dislike.
--
Next to food, I think Kriegies thought more about escape than anything
else. Every prisoner dreamed of making a successful break for freedom,
but, although many tried, only a few suceeeded . . . The real escape of
most prisoners was in reading books and going to educational classes.
Classes were taught by men who were experts in that field in civilian
life. One of the most popular courses in my camp was in salesmanship.
The men liked the course so well that they gave a party for their
instructors at the end of it . . . We also played sports and we had some
former professional baseball players in our camp and some of our teams
were plenty hot. The German guards became so interested in watching us
play baseball that we got them to move the barbed wire fences back so we
would have more room to play.
-- One of the lighter sides of POW life was the slang that grew up in our camps. Dehydrated vegetable soup was ``green death`` or ``seaweed.`` A big meal or a party was a ``bash,`` so a Kriegie with an uncontrollable appetite was a ``bashomaniac.`` A prisoner became ``browned-off`` or ``Kriegie-happy`` from being too long in captivity. Anything that was wrong or stupid was ``from hunger`` because your mind is not sharp when food is scarce. A prisoner ``strictly from hunger`` was something of a jerk, or sad sack . . . One thing that helped us out were the deals we were able to swing with the German guards. In exchange for cigarettes and chocolate bars (that came in Red Cross parcels), the guards would smuggle food to us. If it hadn`t been for that, we would have been a lot more hungry. Trading with the guards was such a well- established custom in our camp that we had a regular price list to go on. I got my camera and had my film developed through exchanges with the guards.
-- One of the lighter sides of POW life was the slang that grew up in our camps. Dehydrated vegetable soup was ``green death`` or ``seaweed.`` A big meal or a party was a ``bash,`` so a Kriegie with an uncontrollable appetite was a ``bashomaniac.`` A prisoner became ``browned-off`` or ``Kriegie-happy`` from being too long in captivity. Anything that was wrong or stupid was ``from hunger`` because your mind is not sharp when food is scarce. A prisoner ``strictly from hunger`` was something of a jerk, or sad sack . . . One thing that helped us out were the deals we were able to swing with the German guards. In exchange for cigarettes and chocolate bars (that came in Red Cross parcels), the guards would smuggle food to us. If it hadn`t been for that, we would have been a lot more hungry. Trading with the guards was such a well- established custom in our camp that we had a regular price list to go on. I got my camera and had my film developed through exchanges with the guards.
********************
Stalag 3B Survivor - Joni B. Hannigan
http://www.christianexaminer.com/article/nazi-flag-reminds-wwii-pow-of-conquest/49199.htmJuly 3, 2015
OCALA, Fla. (Christian Examiner) -- It was "Independence Day" in 1946 for the Americans interred during World War II in Stalag 3B and they couldn't wait to get to the flour mill next door to tear down the Nazi flag flying overhead.
The Nazi flag with its once loved, but now perverted swastika, flew over the flour mill adjacent to the Prisoner of War camp in Furstenberg, Germany until Arch Shealey and his brave band of brothers finally tore it from its pole and trampled it underfoot.
The hooked cross, which literally means "good fortune" -- was subverted by evildoers, encircled by a labor camp wheel on a red cloth background and has since been an extremely powerful symbol synomymous with murdering millions of people. "Burg Stargard 2" showed the mill reached its capacity for contributing to the Nazi cause.
"We went over there and tore it down and wiped our feet on it," Shealey said, recounting the day his camp was liberated.
It was the victory of being liberated that day from Stalag 3B POW camp at Furstenberg, in Bravaria, Germany.
But there was another symbol of the war that started out in North Africa -- before he was one of 130,000 POW's interred in Europe and Japan -- that he holds dear.
A Bible, presented to him as a teen, by his pastor, had been his constant companion.
Left behind in a tent in North Africa when he and his unit were sent to the front at historic Kasserine Pass where they faced a barrage of enemy gunfire in one of the most critical battles in WWII -- the Bible, clearly trampled and possibly run over by a truck -- was sent home to his mother.
Shealey, now 95, remembers learning his mom received the Bible months after his capture. For the godly woman who had reared her son in church, it became a symbol of hope.
That hope sustained him as well when he thought of his mom, and his future wife, Louise, pouring over single page letters he eventually was allowed to write from the POW camps.
A father of four, grandfather and great-grandfather, Shealey said he spent 52 wonderful years with his wife before she died of cancer in 1997. He credits her with helping him through nightmares, later diagnosed at PTSD.
The flag and his Bible serve as a reminder of the moment he crawled flat in the dirt, with bullets flying overhead, and as a 22-year-old soldier asked God to allow a bullet only a "glancing blow" on his helmet, so he could live.
"Every day I thank Him for bringing me through my experiences as a prisoner -- that hail of bullets-and I didn't get a bullet on me," Shealey said. "I came through starvation and all of that, and I still got my health and my body. I'm thankful I know where it comes from."
******************
Two in their 90s get POW medals
Two World War II
Two World War II
Two World War II veterans and former
prisoners of war received long overdue recognition and were awarded POW
medals in a ceremony Saturday at the Ocala Marion County Veterans Park.
OCALA — Two World War II veterans and former prisoners of war
received long overdue recognition and were awarded POW medals in a
ceremony Saturday at the Ocala Marion County Veterans Park.Arch Shealy, 95, an Ocala native and 1938 Ocala High School graduate, and Jerry Ruelf, 90, originally from Saint Petersburg but now a resident of Ocklawaha, was surrounded by friends, family and about 150 well-wishers as Congressman Ted Yoho, R-Gainesville, presented the awards.
Both veterans received standing ovations.
One of Shealy’s brothers, Nuby Shealy, operated Nuby’s Corner service station and store located at State Road 40 and County Road 314. Ruelf’s daughter Sandra Guinn is the wife of Ocala mayor Kent Guinn.
The event Saturday included a fly-over by three vintage military aircraft.
“We could not be here today if not for you. Seeing these planes fly over reminds us of the price you paid for our liberties and freedoms,” Yoho said.
Congressman Rich Nugent’s office was involved in securing the decorations.
Marion County Commission Chairman Stan McClain and Commissioner David Moore also spoke at the ceremony.
Yoho acknowledged the efforts of the POW advocacy group Honor, Release, Return (www.honorreleasereturn.com ) and member Kathy “Kat” McLaughlin, who is also with The Ride Home, a POW remembrance organization, for initiating the medal awarding process on behalf of the veterans, which was carried through by his office.
Honor, Release, Return has been involved in getting recognition for at least three World War II POWs here and their efforts continue.
According to the American Ex-Prisoners of War website www.axpow.org/powmedal.htm, the POW medal was authorized in 1985.
In 1943, U.S. Army Private Arch Shealy, then about 23, was serving with a howitzer gun crew in North Africa.
″(German general) Rommel did one of his pincher movements on us,” Arch Shealy said.
The American soldiers were trapped in a situation described by retired U.S. Army Maj. Morrey Deen during the medal presentation as “every man for himself” as some soldiers including Arch Shealy were stopped by enemy gunfire.
Arch Shealy said he “crawled so much on the ground it filled my hip pockets with dirt. My watch stopped at the time we were captured and I hid it and still have it,” he said.
“I dropped down to about 90 pounds from about 138 pounds,” he said.
Arch Shealy’s granddaughter Wendi Moldthan said she “cried all through the ceremony.”
“My grandfather told me about eating scraps the enemy soldiers threw away,” she said. Moldthan’s daughter Emma Molthan, 3, romped during the presentation.
Additional members of Arch Shealy’s family included his brother Reuel Shealy, a World War II Navy veteran, daughters Diane Hickerson, Debbie Stinson and Carolyn Freligh, his son Arch Shealy Jr. and family friend Glen Busby, chaplain at the Malcom Randall Veterans Administration Medical Center in Gainesville.
After returning home, Arch Shealy worked with Roquemore Motors and Moses Auto Parts. In 1946 he married Louise and the couple had four children. Louise has since passed away.
“I was honored by my family and treated well by sympathetic friends when I got home,” Arch Shealy stated, but he indicated he was “quiet” about his experience.
After he was presented his awards, Arch Shealy said “I love you all” to the assembly.
Deen called both veterans “humble heroes.”
Jerry Ruelf said he “spent one day” in aviation-related training and then “retuned to the Army.” He was one of 13 soldiers being towed into a supposedly secured area in Holland in a glider on Sept. 19, 1944 when the glider pilot “was hit by (ground artillery) and killed.”
Although seated in the co-pilot seat, Ruelf was not trained but managed to land the craft in a field of small pine trees after it was cut loose from the tow plane.
Ruelf was credited with saving the men and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) for his actions. The group was captured following the landing.
Ruelf was wounded in the landing and was hospitalized and, then spent about eight months at Stalag 11, north of Berlin.
At the camp, prisoners were forced to make “daily marches with one prisoner missing every day. I don’t know where they went,” he said, indicating it was a means of intimidation.
Ruelf returned from his service, attended the University of Michigan and pursued a career in education, including serving as assistant principal at Dixie Hollins High School in St. Petersburg.
At the ceremony, he was presented the DFC, Purple Heart Award, POW Medal, three decorations related to WWII campaigns and Airborne Wings.
“Keep your faith, love the U.S. and keep your morale high,” Ruelf said in his acceptance remarks.
Ruelf was accompanied by his wife of 63 years, Mary Jean Ruelf, their daughter Sandra Guinn and son Michael Ruelf.
Michael Ruelf, 60, said his father had always been “quiet “about his war experience.
“I heard more today than ever,” he said.
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Carl died young. He lived on Hwy 111 Pinetops NC. When traveling on 111 toward Tarboro NC, you cross 43 Hwy and his house if the first house on left. Carl, wife Nanny Gray Webb Varnell and daughter Peggy were on the way home after having lunch at BBQ (Holdens Crossroads), Wilson. He had a massive heart attack and died behind the wheel. His car landing in the Dutch. Carl is buried at the James Varnell graveyard on Hwy 124 Macclesfield, NC.
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