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| Purple Heart Given to POW |
"It wasn't so much the brutality-it was the neglect. The Nazi wouldn't give us soap, or. Or cigarettes. We didn't have half enough food; or half enough anything else. The Germans just didn't seem to care whether we lived or died. Some of the time we were so discouraged we didn't care either."
That is the memory Pfc Bradford Grant has brought back to Defiance of his 10 months captivity in a Nazi prison camp in Limburg Germany.
Pfc Grant, clad in red pajamas and the luxury of a dressing gown, recounted his experiences from the time he hit the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, June 6 and through his internment, until he returned to the home of his mother, Mrs Emmet Moore, 672 Washington street, where he has been catching up on his rest.
"I had been in England one year one to the day." Pfc Grant recalled,"when we started for the Normandy beaches on D-Day. Artillery held our ship off shore until noon when I went ashore as a medical aide-a runner -with the 104th Medical Battalion of the 29th Infantry Division."
"On June 9, I was at the front, about five miles ahead of the medical collecting station, traveling with an infantry battalion to locate casualties and report back to the station. We were in the vicinity of Preiers.
We had pulled up a short distance ahead of a hedgerow held by the Nazis. There was a woods on our left. Suddenly, the Germans led by a big tank, burst out of the hedgerow. Another mass of them broke out of the woods and turned our left flank. I was taken prisoner along with about 50 others."
From a temporary camp in France, the captives were moved to the transient camp at Limburg, where they arrived July 2.
Wounded prisoners were flowing through the German camp, in route to permanent internment. Because of his prior attachment to a medical unit Pfc Grant was assigned groups of wounded men and "we did all we could for them with what we had." Pfc Grant was permitted to send one postal card to his mother. It never arrived.
It was on March 27 that the Ninth Armored Division broke open the Limburg camp.
"We were ever glad to see that gang? They're one real outfit so far as I'm concerned."
"Within a days time, the 9th Armored Division had set up a field hospital medical unit in the prison and was treating our wounded prisoners. I stayed on to look after the sick men I had been taking care of until Easter Sunday April 12 when I was dispatched to a base hospital in France."
What happened to him from there, until he arrived in New York is a military secret.
But Pfc Grant waste no time in New York. He got of the big city as rapidly as possible and headed for home; his folks; a 60-day furlough; and a real honest-to-goodness bed.
From a temporary camp in France, the captives were moved to the transient camp at Limburg, where they arrived July 2.
Wounded prisoners were flowing through the German camp, in route to permanent internment. Because of his prior attachment to a medical unit Pfc Grant was assigned groups of wounded men and "we did all we could for them with what we had." Pfc Grant was permitted to send one postal card to his mother. It never arrived.
It was on March 27 that the Ninth Armored Division broke open the Limburg camp.
"We were ever glad to see that gang? They're one real outfit so far as I'm concerned."
"Within a days time, the 9th Armored Division had set up a field hospital medical unit in the prison and was treating our wounded prisoners. I stayed on to look after the sick men I had been taking care of until Easter Sunday April 12 when I was dispatched to a base hospital in France."
What happened to him from there, until he arrived in New York is a military secret.
But Pfc Grant waste no time in New York. He got of the big city as rapidly as possible and headed for home; his folks; a 60-day furlough; and a real honest-to-goodness bed.
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| Bradford Grant Grave site, Riverside Cem. Defiance Ohio |
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