The Nearly Everybody Your Quiet Hour Reads The ITEM Companion “Get Wise – ITEM-ize” 3rd Quarter 2019 Good Ole USA Of Undetermined Worth Editor/Printing and Mailing Elodie Caldwell 2731 TERRY AVE LONGVIEW WA 98632-4437 [email protected] Treasurer Bret Job 2801 SW 46th ST CAPE CORAL FL 33914-6026 [email protected] Drawing by Jim Bickers, shown without barbed wire fences or guard towers Webmaster/Blogger Bill Caldwell 2731 TERRY AVE LONGVIEW WA 98632-4437 Polish-American Foundation Launches Its New Website [email protected] We are pleased to announce that the Polish-American Foundation for the Contributors to this issue Commemoration of POW Camps in Szubin was recently created and is now Cindy Burgess registered in Poland. Additionally, and equally important, is the creation of the Glenn Burgess Foundation’s new website which you can access from this link: Barbara Baumgartner Helen Chappell http://www.szubinpowcamps.org/en/ Tom Cobb Susanna Connaughton Victoria Herring Rosa Lee Marlene McAllister David Palluconi Help us get the word out by visiting the Foundation’s website (address above) Gail Rahal and also their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/oflag64altburgund John Rodgers Margie Slack and then like, share, comment, and ask friends to do the same for this ongoing Al Sokerka project. There is also a link to the Foundation's website on the Oflag 64 Dave Stewart Remembered home page. Pat Waters Nancy Wyatt We appreciate the support we have received thus far and the promises of support Jan Daniluk-Advisor still to come. Please join us by donating your time, artifacts, or by providing [email protected] monetary support. Our Oflag 64 Kriegies would be pleased to know that this great Mariusz Winiecki-Advisor work is being done to preserve their WWII memories. [email protected] Our best to you always, We apologize to any others Elodie/Bill Caldwell, we may have overlooked but ITEM Editor/Webmaster thank everyone who has www.oflag64.us contacted us. ! Friends of Oflag 64, Inc. be valued and appreciated by Fund Donations 12768 Turberville Lane those who visit the Museum Oak Hill, VA 20171 for many years. There is now more Thanks to all who have than one way to contribute to If you prefer to donate agreed to donate artifacts to Oflag 64 related funds. funds online, you can access the Museum of POW Camps However, since our remaining the donation page on the new in Szubin so far. Out oF Kriegies are usually not able to Polish-American Foundation interest sake, we have attend reunions, we are NOT website at: received artiFact donations encouraging donations to a http://www.szubinpowcamps. from more than 25 KrieGies Reunion Fund at this time. org/en/foundation/u-s-501-c-3 or KrieGy Families to date. For contributions to the These funds are For artifact donations, Postage Fund ONLY, which separate from the Postage please see the Friends of covers the cost of mailing the Fund and will be used to help Oflag 64 Update, on pages 18 printed ITEM to our remaining support the new Museum in and 19 of this ITEM. Kriegies or their widows, various ways. One more request – please make your checks “Friends of Oflag 64, Inc.” is payable to Oflag 64 Postage THANKS to all who also in need of support in other Fund, and send them to: have so very generously areas. If you can share your donated to our various Oflag skills, help with publicity, Bret Job 64 funds in the past. We are communications, IT, finance, 2801 SW 46th St greatly appreciative. etc., we would be most Cape Coral FL 33914-6026 grateful. Please let Elodie OR REQUESTING know how you can help. ARTIFACTS and Elodie Caldwell 2731 Terry Ave EXPERTISE Longview WA 98632-4437 Over the last few months we have been Thanks to Lynn and soliciting donations of artifacts Jimmie Kanaya For their Historical InFormation for the future Museum in and Feedback Are recent contribution to the Szubin. Several shipments Always Welcome PostaGe Fund. have already been sent and are being securely and safely If you have anything to stored until needed either for submit for print in the ITEM, upcoming Oflag 64 exhibitions please contact Elodie at during 2020 in Szubin or [email protected]. Digital awaiting the opening of the scans of original photos or Museum. Other incoming anything that can be sent in artifacts are being securely .jpg format, works great. If you and safely stored in the US in are unable to scan photos, I And, now that we have weather-controlled conditions non-profit status, the Friends would be glad to scan them until the Museum prepares to and send them back to you. of OFlag 64, Inc. is able to open. receive monetary donations Documents can also be sent in We know how difficult .pdf format. for the new Museum at the it is to part with cherished Polish-American Foundation. If you notice website items owned by our Kriegy errors, omissions, or links that For contributions to this fund dads, grandfathers, brothers, don’t work properly, please ONLY, please temporarily and uncles but we appreciate contact Bill Caldwell at: write your checks and send your consideration of our [email protected] them to the following address: request for artifacts. They will 2 DAVID ANDERSON, son of the late Kriegy Mays attended one of those two reunions, she wasn’t W. Anderson, and I have been in communication aware of the model. She also sent news of her recently. We had not previously had the pleasure son Jeff and his family who returned to the of talking, but while doing so found we have some Philadelphia area from Bellingham WA. Jeff things in common. I was able to find some photos attended several of Oflag 64 reunions over the of his dad (newspaper articles amongst some years. Thanks, Pat, for your updates and articles my father kept) and was able to send information about the model. Such a puzzlement. them to him. This was our first contact with a member of the Anderson family, so we look GAIL BROWN, daughter of the forward to learning more as time goes by. David, late Kriegy O. L. “Brad” Bradford, thanks for sharing the bits of information you have wrote to catch us up on how things on Mays. are in her life. She is spending winters in Osprey FL and living at NANCY ANDERSON, daughter Buckeye Lake OH the rest of the of the late Kriegy Floyd M. year. She has 6 grandchildren, all great students Burgeson, after receiving a copy and great athletes. She often finds herself talking from us of Henry Soderberg’s about the reunions she took her dad to and said “Oflag 64: As I Saw It”, she always had good memories traveling with him responded with the following: and of the fun they had with everyone. Gail, “Thanks so very much for this. Henry and his wife thanks for catching us up. Always fun to were close friends of Dad and Mom. They visited reminisce about those great reunion days. each other. Our family visited Henry at his Stockholm home in summer of 1964. After that, MICHELLE CRAIG, daughter of the late Bill my folks and Henry and his wife visited in Des Higgins, responded to an email sent about a story Moines several times. Henry became part of SAS that included her father. It was entitled “Escaping and my folks were treated to the maiden flight of is the Greatest Sport” and was written by Alan the first SAS 747 flight in December 1972 - which “Chum” Williamson. I had never seen the story coincided with the famous Swedish Santa Lucia before but found it recently among my father’s celebration - Dec. 13 - first day of the Christmas belongings so I sent a copy to the families of all season.” Nancy, thanks for sharing this tidbit. who were mentioned if I had email addresses. The more we know, the closer we become to all Michelle responded that “every time I read this, I our Kriegies and those they came to know from think how Col. Drake saved my dad’s life.” The their POW days. article seemed to be a publication of some sort, one in a series of stories, but there was no BARBARA BAUMGARTNER, daughter of the indication at the beginning or end of the article late Kriegy Ralph J. Ball, sent some information about who published it or where. Thanks, and a newspaper article about her dad’s capture, Michelle, for responding. Such an interesting which is included in the Kriegy News and story. Information section. She also updated her dad’s database information for our website. Barbara, DAVID DURGIN, son of the late Kriegy George L. seeing such articles brings history so much Durgin responded to my email request about a closer. Thanks for sharing. copy of Henry Soderberg’s “Oflag 64: As I Saw It”. In reading old ITEMs, I ran across mention of PAT BENDER, daughter of the late the article but didn’t have a copy myself. Within Kriegy Vincent “Doc” Di Francesco, an hour of my request, David sent it to me wrote in response to an email I sent digitally. The plan is to put this most interesting regarding a model of Oflag 64 that document on the website as soon as we can. was displayed at a couple of David, thanks so much for providing the copy and reunions in the ‘90s. Although she so quickly as well. 3 JANIS HALES, daughter of the late Kriegy Roy he wore, will be donated to our Museum.