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October 13, 2008 Author's |
Book DisplayWorld War 2 is Not Over
A Combat Infantryman's Experience in a German POW Camp
 by Frank Yarosh | Availability |
Description | |
This book is an exciting personal WW2 story which holds the reader’s interest from beginning to end --- a true “page turner’ of fast moving events. Written in a non-sophisticated language style, Frank shares intimate happenings, thoughts and details of some of his harsh experiences while in intense combat, cruel captivity and a frustrating afterwards. The reader will find the wartime events enlightening and somewhat entertaining in an unusual manner. After registering for the draft when 18, at Lopez, PA. Frank was called up March, 1943, and after completing three months of intense combat engineering training at Fort Lewis, WA, he was offered officer candidate training at Fort Belvoir, VA or the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) at Brigham Young University, BYU, Provo, Utah. Since General “Ike” needed infantrymen for the invasion of France in 1944, Frank reluctantly had to leave BYU and was assigned to Company C, 1st Battalion, 274th Regiment, 70th Division, Camp Adair, OR. As a youngster, Frank was a tough, outdoor type of kid, since his boyhood life included lots of hard work during the 1930 depression years as well as trapping, fishing and hunting. All contributed to a terrific background for the rigors of becoming a well-trained infantryman. After completing three months of rough training in the swamps of Oregon, he was selected and qualified to attend West Point. After much deliberation and consideration of West Point requirement to serve many years after graduation, Frank elect6ed to stay with Co. C as an infantry scout. Within a short time, Frank and his outfit were shipped to Marseilles, France, in December 1944. By Christmas time, Frank was on the West Bank of the Rhine River in frigid, snowy northern France. On January 4, 1945, he was assigned to lead a large scaled attack as a scout onto Phillipsbourg, France. He barely survived the horrors and ordeals of eyeball to eyeball combat until being relieved on January 19, 1945. His unit was recognized for successful tenacious combat against well-seasoned German troops. While going to another assignment on January 20th, Frank fell off an icy snow covered mountainous trail and severely sprained his left ankle. He was assigned to a snow covered large concrete pillbox on the Maginot Line with three other infantrymen to spy on nearby German troops. At midnight on January 21, during a blizzard, a white clad Waffen S.S. Troop patrol fired explosives into the isolated pillbox and Frank and his buddies became prisoners of war. Frank’s recollection of his five hour interrogation by a face slapping German Intelligence officer in an isolated farm house somewhere across the Rhine in Germany was intense and of a dramatic movie scene quality that shook him to the core of his being. Transport in a crowded filthy 40 and8’s boxcar for five days through Germany was the beginning of cruel treatment by his captors. Besides the train being strafed by American planes, since it was not marked, the prisoners were spat on and sworn at by civilians in train stations. Stalag XI-B at Fallingbostel in Northern Germany near Bremen was filled with thousands of POW’s from the many nations that Hitler had conquered, as well as captured Allied troops. Many POW’s died each day and were buried in mass trenches. Frank’s barracks, filled with sad looking American GI’s, was unheated and loaded with lice. Since he was not an officer, Private 1st Class Yarosh had to work digging out tree stumps without breakfast or lunch after walking about 4 miles to the proposed V2 rocket site. Supper back at the barracks consisted of one slice of dark hard bread and maybe two small cold boiled potatoes and a cup of weak cold soup. This slim diet soon produced a skeleton frame on many POW’s. Since Frank had an excellent knowledge of the Russian language, he made many dangerous nighttime trips to the nearby Russian compounds to buy vegetables with American cigarettes. These were risky forbidden ventures, crawling under barbed wire, avoiding tower searchlights and mounted machine guns to buy raw food. An exciting ordeal to ward off death by starvation. In addition to the lack of food and heat, among the most vexing problems were the annoying lice, no showers or hot water and lack of toilet paper to wipe up persistent diarrhea. At one point in his capture, Frank began cutting strips from a shirttail as a paper substitute. Frank’s strong boyhood religious training and his sincere belief in a great Friend in the beyond significantly helped him throughout these ordeals until April 16, 1945. On this great day, Field Marshall Montgomery’s Desert Rat Tank Corp. liberated the stalag. Monty visited the dirty barracks and interviewed Yarosh about his trying experiences. Soon Frank and his fellow emaciated GI’s were airlifted to Oxford, England, for a six week stay at the Winston Churchill General Hospital. Frank weighed about 98 pounds, losing about 65 pounds during his three months of captivity. While in the hospital being “fatted up” for his return to his folks in Lopez, PA, the WW2 fighting in Europe ended on May 8, 1945. Frank’s first few days at home were not too pleasant as the public generally did not treat POW’s as big heroes. The phrase “take no prisoners” was a dominating theme for many years in the USA. Soon after his return home Frank became periodically tormented with ghastly nightmares usually involving combat and being a POW. Certain types of daily events provided the stimulus for re-experiencing his wartime ordeals. While Frank, fortunately, was not awarded a Purple Heart for a physical injury, there has not been a single period since his Honorable Discharge and award of the Bronze Star, that he is not reminded of WW2. It has become clear and a part of his life that “WW2is not over,” thus the title of his writings. Veterans and their families as well as WW2 history buffs should add this story to their library since it provides a significant intimate insight of a rugged individual’s will to survive under extreme harsh conditions. | |
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