Commemorating 'Survivors' on Memorial Day

While people across the country are enjoying barbeques, swimming pools, and friends and family today, sometimes we lose the meaning of Memorial Day and the sacrifices that have been made throughout history to protect the freedom of our great country. In our own community, there are countless veterans and service men and women who are deserving of our appreciation. Ashby Ponds, a retirement community situated on 132 acres in Ashburn, has more than 550 residents, a quarter of which are veterans, including: 

•  54 U.S. Army Vets
•  41 U.S. Navy Vets
•  34 U.S. Air Force Vets
• 15 U.S. Marine Corps Vets
• 1 U.S. Coast Guard Vet

Combined, these veterans have given more than 1,485 years of service defending America’s freedom. Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Wilbur “Bill” Sharpe, a Ashby Ponds resident of Ashby who served in World War II and spent nearly two years as a prisoner of war.

How did you get into the military?

Mr. Sharpe: I joined the National Guard in high school in 1938. I had to get permission from my parents, which they gave me, provided [the Guard] “take care of me.” We went in the summertime and had meetings before we’d go to an armory and do marching and take guns apart and put them back together and all of the military stuff.

Was it like a modern-day ROTC?

Mr. Sharpe: Yes, very much like that.  It was in a local community. There was a lot of activity in Europe between Russia and Germany and they were both wanting to take over Poland and there was a lot of disconnection there. So young people were encouraged to join some kind of military organization, even kids like me in high school.

Right, 16 years old.  How were you able to make a decision like that at 16 years old?

Mr. Sharpe: Well there was a lot of talk about a draft and things of that nature. My brother and brother of law were going to be called to active duty at any time. So in 1940, I graduated high school and our unit happened to be mobilized to federal service in December of that year. We had no equipment, no uniforms, nothing. There were only about 35 to 40 guys, and we were a cadre to take care of draftees and train them.  We trained them how to take a gun apart and put it together, how to march and wear a uniform and things of that nature.

What were the ages of most of these men?

Mr. Sharpe: Eighteen to 25. The officers were older; most of them had spent years in the army and served in World War I.

Where were you training at this time?

Mr. Sharpe: Lebanon, Indiana. I was born and raised there until I went into the service and then I didn’t go back until after the war.

What was the atmosphere like when you all realized that it was inevitable that you were going overseas to fight a war?

Mr. Sharpe: Had no clue. I was so young and I had worked my way in those two years from private to corporal to sergeant, so by December of 1940 when we were mobilized, I was a sergeant and part of the cadre and training. I had learned what to do [in the National Guard] for two years. So I figured I’d go along, but at least you went along with guys you were in school with and familiar faces.

So we were mobilized for a year and then in December of 1941 Pearl Harbor happened, exactly a year after we were mobilized, and then our enlistments were frozen. They gave us an opportunity to go to officer’s training school so I had to take the necessary tests and I made the grades so I went to Ft. Sill, OK, to train as an officer. It was what they call a “90-Day Wonder.”

And how’d you fare?

Mr. Sharpe: I became a second lieutenant. I graduated in July of 1942 from Officer’s Candidate School. By the time I graduated the War was already on, so they transferred me to a regular Army unit in England.

Was it your first time overseas?

Mr. Sharpe: It was my first time out of the United States.

And what was it like?

Mr. Sharpe: I was half-scared, half-excited.

And that’s probably how you all felt.

Mr. Sharpe: Exactly. We were all 18 to 20 years old and young and a little stupid.

And you were ready to go fight the enemy.

Mr. Sharpe: Gung-ho mentality.

What did you do when you got to England?

Mr. Sharpe: We trained from July to November of 1942 – got our equipment and went into the field and fired these heavy guns – intense training.

By then was it starting to feel real?

Mr. Sharpe: Very real. We invaded North Africa at Oran [French-held territory] on Nov. 6, 1942. We went in as primary forces to push them back, along with a lot of infantry, too. My experience in landing in water and taking these [landing craft] to land was kind of exciting for an 18-year-old, but scary, too.

We got our equipment together, unloaded our boats and got ourselves organized to move west and battle Rommel. We fought until February 1943. Then we were surrounded by Rommel he outmanned us. He had more personnel, more vehicles, everything. We were inexperienced and short of equipment and not prepared. Nobody was prepared in WWII. On Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1943, our unit was completely surrounded.

Where were you at this time?

Mr. Sharpe: Faid Pass, Tunisia.  They rounded us and marched us to Tunis, put us on airplanes and flew us to Italy.

How many of you were there?

Mr. Sharpe: 17th field artillery 2nd battalion, probably about 1,500 soldiers. We were just overwhelmed. We didn’t have a chance to fight at all. We did destroy our weapons so they couldn’t be used against us; we had enough brains to do that. 

When you arrived in Italy …

Mr. Sharpe: They separated the enlisted men from the officers so that we wouldn’t have a mass escape ­– that was good thinking – then moved us by boxcar from Naples, Italy up to Germany. We were ground force officers, separated from the enlisted men, and they moved us into a camp that was already established for the British officers that were captured at Dunkirk in 1940.

Were they still there?

Mr. Sharpe: They were still there. They had been there for three years, which was a good thing for us because they’d had experience dealing with the Germans; digging tunnels, moving around while they were trying to count them to aggravate them, doing anything to make it miserable for the Germans. They taught us things like that. As the war progressed more ground-force officers were captured so we had to move out of that camp. So they took a boys camp in Schubin, Poland, and converted it to a ground force officers’ camp for American officers.

It sounds like you have a very good memory of all of the places you had been. Is that because you knew what was going on at the time or was it something you learned after the fact?

Mr. Sharpe: After the fact. I didn’t know anything. Everything was new to me. 

Was it a hostile environment?

Mr. Sharpe: Each day in the prison camp was boring and they didn’t feed us enough food. They did not torture us. They didn’t let us outside of the camp because they were afraid we’d escape. In fact, they’d threaten us: “if you try to escape, you’ll be shot.” We had a Colonel who was a West Point graduate that was captured at the same time we were. He told the Germans that they couldn’t keep us from trying to escape; that it was our job to try to escape. So we did try. We’d try to cut through the wires, but we never were successful.

It sounds like you took a lot of risks. In looking back do you feel lucky that you came out of prison camp alive?

Mr. Sharpe: Oh, absolutely.  We’re survivors.

How long were you in the prison camp?

Mr. Sharpe: From June 1943 to Jan. 21, 1945, I was incarcerated in one camp. 

Time must have passed very slowly.

Mr. Sharpe: It did. And the time that we were in the prison camps, the Red Cross saved our lives. If it had not been for the Red Cross, many of us would have died because the Germans could not feed us. We got Red Cross parcels every ten days.

The Germans allowed this?

Mr. Sharpe: Not only did they allow it, they’d go to the stations to pick them up for us and distribute them to us. Of course, they’d steal some along the way because they were starving too. At least we were kept alive during that period of time because of the Red Cross. The YMCA provided us with things to entertain us and keep our sanity.

How did you get out of the camp?

Mr. Sharpe: In January of 1945 the Russians were getting closer. Of course, the German officers did not want to be captured, so they marched us out of that camp in freezing weather with minimal clothing, and they’d march us to country farms sometimes 15 kilometers a day. They’d put us up in a barn for a night and we’d slept with farm animals to keep us warm. On the seventh or eighth day, two friends of mine and I stayed in a hay mound and when they called roll the next day we decided not to show up. The Russian guns were sounding in the distance and the German’s thought “man, we need to get these guys out of here” so they didn’t come looking for us. We stayed in the hay mound and they moved everyone along but us. We were the first ones to escape, but every night a couple more would drop off. The Polish people saved our lives. They fed us and hid us from the Germans and then turned us over to the Russians.

Did you have faith that you’d be safe with the Russians?

Mr. Sharpe: Of course, they were our allies. We had to. But we thought that once we were saved we’d be shipped back to the United States. Instead, they put us in the front lines for protection purposes, but for help as well. So we lived with them for 30 days and we were fighting with the Russians. After 30 days, we made a big escape. We took a jeep and drove to the rear echelon and found intellectual people back there that understood the situation. They sent us by train to Lublin, Poland where there was an American Embassy representative and that’s where we started to make contact and get transportation to Odessa, Russia. The British took us to Egypt where we met the U.S. forces. They fed us five meals a day to get our strength back up before they sent us home; I was down to 96 pounds. And that’s when life began. We got treated like a human being and we were on our way home.

What happened when you got back home?

Mr. Sharpe: They wouldn’t release us right away.  They sent us to Ft. Sill for a refresher course because the war was still going on in Japan. Before we were finished with the refresher course, the war ended and we could either stay in or be released from the service. So I asked to be released from the service, but I did stay in the Reserves. I continued training. Then, in 1950, I was called back to active duty for Korea. I fought there for two years. In 1953, I got out of the Army and went back into the retail business.

How would you like to see our Veterans be commemorated on Memorial Day?

Mr. Sharpe: To appreciate the sacrifices that some people make. I made sacrifices but nothing like some of the guys did. I wasn’t in combat that long. We weren’t beaten, we just weren’t fed, but we weren’t mistreated. We did serve and intended to serve. Just appreciate us. And consider us survivors, not heroes. I am not a hero; I’m strictly a survivor.