With the ranks of the World War II veterans dwindling so rapidly, a letter received by the Transylvania Times with the information that a special veteran of this war was living in Transylvania was especially welcome. The letter was from Daniel Voglesong, the US. Army Hohensfeld Safety Manager in Bavaria; and was written about his father Donald Voglesong. Donald was in a German P.O.W. camp (prisoner of war) during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-45 and now lives in Brevard, N.C Donald Voglesong, now in his eighties and possessing a sharp mind for details, lives in Deer Lake subdivision. His memories of his capture and internment give so much information about what those days were like for those prisoners. Voglesong was born in Grantsburg, a small farming community in the southern part of Indiana, not far from the Ohio River. "My mother was 16 years old when she married my father. My dad was a jack of all trades and could do almost any job that was available. I had two brother and we all grew up on the farm, except for brief periods when we lived in the big city of Gary, Indiana. My father worked in the steel mills and even became a conductor on Gary's street cars. But our whole family missed our home and farm in southern Indiana, so we moved back," Voglesong talked about his early days. Shortly after graduation from high school, Voglesong attended a special training school for sheet metal workers. "It was one of Eleanor Roosevelt's ideas and It was a good one, but it didn't work out for me," Voglesong related. So, he volunteered for the army and had his basic infantry training at Fort Benning, GA. However, as a result of an ASTP test he had taken in high school, he was sent to Auburn College in Alabama (known as Polytech at that time.) Shortly thereafter his orders were changed once again and he was sent to Camp Atterbury, Indiana for infantry training in early 1944. "The general public does not appreciate how dangerous the duties of the infantry men are," Voglesong commented as he discussed his 106th Division. Forty percent of that division was sent to Europe to fight in the Battle of the Bulge, and he was part of that percentage. The Allied Forces were suffering great losses at that time and were in desperate straits. Every available man was pressed into service to help save the situation, many with just a few short weeks of preparation. Voglesong shipped out from New York City to Scotland and then on to London England by train. In one month's time he was part of the Battle of the Bulge in that small area of Europe where Belgium, Luxemburg and Germany meet. "It was a calculated risk, our placing only three divisions across this area when the battle started. The Germans employed rapidly moving Panzer tanks, known as lightning warfare, and it really worked for them as they quickly encircled the Allied Forces," Voglesong recalled. "We were surrounded and fighting a big battle for a long time until there were not many Americans left; so our commander surrendered and most of the 106th was captured. This was at Schoenberg, Belgium on December 19, 1944 when approximately 7,000 American soldiers were ambushed. "Meanwhile, General George S. Patton, Jr. was moving into the battle from the south. I never met him, to tell you the truth, but we were scared to death of him, he was so offensive minded. The Americans, as well as the Germans, respected him," Voglesong recalled. "I was 19 years old at the time, tired and worn out, and I can remember how the Nazis marched us all night for 30 miles during miserable winter conditions. They then put us in box cars on a German train. These primitive cars had no facilities and we were so crowded that there was no room to lie down. We traveled in those box cars for four days with nothing to eat, just a little water to drink," Voglesong sadly described that time in his life. "The war was winding down and the German economy was shattered. The Germans did not have much food themselves, so the gave us only pieces of bread and bowls of thin soup. We arrived at the P.O.W. camp (prisoner of war) at Bad Orb, a small village east of Frankfurt, Germany on Christmas Day and we were there until April of 1945," Voglesong described that difficult period of his life. There wasn't much for the prisoners to do. When they looked out of the barbed wire that enclosed the area, there was not much to see. They were so hungry that food became their main obsession. "So, we mainly sat around and talked and thought about food. To keep occupied, three or four of us started writing down all the things we would have to eat when we were released," Voglesong described the rough conditions. "One thing that happened at that time which really scared me concerned one of the two or three letters home which I was allowed to write each month. A guard came into the building, called my name, and said, 'Come with me'" I was to present myself to the commander of the prison. I didn't know what to do when I was brought into his presence, so I saluted," Voglesong recalls. "I soon found out that a problem had arisen from one my letters home where I had complained about the lice. This had upset the commander especially when he noted that I had a German name. He wanted me to know that the lice had been brought in by soldiers from other countries, not by the Germans. He pointed out in, no uncertain terms, that the Germans were above that," Voglesong confided. Getting enough food to stay alive was the prisoners main goal. So, when a friend told Voglesong that they needed somebody to work at the dispensary, he volunteered because he knew it would mean receiving an extra piece of bread each week. His job was to clean up the floors with hot water, using a makeshift broom and patches of bags for mops. I usually shared that piece of bread with my buddies; but one time I ate it all myself because I was so hungry - all the time feeling guilty about it. I learned a lot about people and how they react under such austere conditions. A few were so selfish that they would do anything to stay alive, stealing your bread or your shoes at night," Voglesong described the details of those terrible days. "I always had the feeling that I would be the last one to get out of there. Many of the Americans died. In fact, four of them died in one day of Pneumonia. We picked them up and carried them out. It was not a hard thing to do as they were very light, barely skins and bones," Voglesong remembered with sadness Life at the prison camp was nothing like the comedy TV show, Stalag 17, which portrayed conditions at a prisoner of war camp with humor. There were lots of atrocities committed on both sides. He remembers that the Germans lined up about 100 Americans in Belgium and shot them down. He mentioned that the S.S. German troops were fanatic fearsome fighters; but not all the Germans troops were that way. Many of them were just doing their jobs. In fact, he remembers feeling sad when he came upon one dead German soldier who was about 16 years old. At that time there were about four or five German soldiers lying dead in a little field and their comrades came along with wagons and took them away. "We were liberated from the prison camp by an American Reconnaissance Group. By that time the Germans had fled the area under the pressure of the advancing Americans. After our release, our rescuers gave us cans of C-Rations to eat. However, we were so weak and malnourished that we were not able to finish the can of food all at one time. "The Americans interviewed each of us and then we were put on planes for France. When we got there we finally got a bath and clean clothes. Our new uniforms were much smaller than the ones we had originally been issued when we were inducted into the army. We had lost most our body weight," Voglesong said as he recalled his release from captivity. Voglesong was then sent to a London hospital for a couple weeks. Then came a joyous boat ride back to the United States, followed by a big long furlough. One of his buddies at the prison camp had developed TB (Tuberculosis) and after Voglesong was discharged and teaching school in Indiana he tested positive for TB on every annual physical exam. "My great-grandparents had also fought in wars, as they were in Indiana outfits during the Civil War. They supposedly served with General Sherman, going from Atlanta to the sea and then north up the coast," Voglesong added. "After my return from the service, I taught school. My wife of 42 years died and I was the principal of a high school, teaching typing and shorthand, as well. I later became re-acquainted with my present wife, Twighla, who was an elementary school teacher. We had known each other since we were children, as we lived in a small town where every one knew each other. I encountered her at a school meeting on a Saturday, asked her out the following day to go to the park and by that Sunday I had proposed and she had answered "yes:. That was in November and we were married in December, one month later. "When it came time to retire, Twighla was looking for a better place to live, although there was nothing wrong with Indiana. Through a trade magazine we found an ad for Deer Lake in Brevard; so we mailed in a request for information. We got an answer inviting us to come down and take a look for ourselves. So we drove to Deer Lake, fell in love with the area, bought a place, and moved in five years ago," Voglesong talked about coming to North Carolina. Don and Twighla are happy at Deer Lake since there are so many friendly people there. In fact, they have made several trips with a group of their neighbors and have enjoyed traveling. Twighla is a very active member of the Brevard community. She volunteers at Habitat, SAFE's Attic and the library. She is the secretary of the Friends of the Library and is also very involved with her church activities. His son Daniel, who wrote the letter to the Transylvania Times, lives in Bavaria where he is in the army at one of the last training camps that Americans have in Germany. He is stationed near Heidelberg and very happy there. "My son invited us t visit him in March of last year, 2006. He lives in the mountains in a beautiful part of the country. The state-owned forests are carefully managed there: when a tree is cut down, it must be replaced.. Although my son is a Presbyterian, he was invited to sing in the choir of a beautiful 600 year old Catholic Church. Every town in that area has a singing group and they go from house to house serenading the people. They are then served cups of a hot drink which is very strong. In fact, it takes your head off," Voglesong laughs as he describes the libation. In his letter about his dad, his son said that the first thing his father wanted to do when he arrived at the Frankfurt Airport was to visit the camp where he had been held prisoner. They had a hard time locating it, because it is now a camp for children, but finally found it. There they met a German school teacher and his wife. After Don's son told the new friend that his father had been a prisoner at that place, the man told the children (in German) that his father had done a heroic thing to save Germany from the Nazi dictator. The children all clapped and it was a very emotional moment for Donald Voglesong Voglesong says that politically he is a strong Democrat and that it is the subject of much discussion with his buddies at the Deer Lake Clubhouse. He feels very strongly against wars. He says that he was fighting with the U.S. military for such a short time that he did not have much experience in that regard; but that 80% of the Americans killed in World War II were infantry soldiers. "They just gave us an M-1 rifle and hand grenades and sent us off to the fight. That war was fought mainly by Americans who were poor. It was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight." Voglesong concluded, Lorraine Miller
