Untitled

Last Name: ` FOWLER	First Name Middle Initial: PAMMIE		Nick Name: PREACHER
Street: 630 MC CORMACK LN	City & State: LEIGHTON, AL		E-Mail: MF446@aol.com
Zip: 35646	Phone: 256 446-0095		Spouse: HELEN
Conflict: WWII	Service Branch: ARMY		Unit: 28TH INFRANTRY
Theater: ETO	Where Captured: GERMANY		Date Captured: 12/18/44
Camps Held In: Stalag B9 BERGA			How Long Interned: 110 days
liberated / repatriated: liberated	Date Liberated: 4/7/45		Age at Capture: 19
Medals Received: Army of Occupation, American Campaign Rifleman, Good Conduct Medal, WWII Medal, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Combat Inf. Badge, POW Medal, Eastern Campaign, European Campaign, African Campaign.
Military Job: ARMY GI		Company: United Methodist Church and TVA
Occupation after War: Minister, Truck Driver

Military Bio:

This is very hard to write since my husband very rarely talked about his experience as a POW. He passed away November 3, 1998 and I am writing this on December 20, 1998.

He was drafted into service while a senior in high school. When he returned home he went back to complete his high school education, and he wrote an essay about his service time and the following is what information I have. He didn't write a great deal about being a POW, we now believe it must have become too painful for him.

He was captured on 12-18-44. He states they were marched for several hours without water and food to a town called Gerodstein, Germany where they were crowded into German trains. There were 55 men crowded into each boxcar. They remained in the box cars until 12-28-44,(my husband told me many times this is where he met the Lord). While they were bombed on 12-24-44 he was on his knees in that boxcar and he gave his heart to the Lord and he remained true to the Lord until the minute of his death. He stated, they traveled very slowly and stopped in every big town or factory district where they thought our planes may hit. On 12-23-44 they pulled into a town called Driets Germany. Within half an hour or so they heard the siren begin to blow, soon they heard bombing. Those bombs, he stated, sounded like they were three times larger than they were. For about 2 hours the allies steadily bombed the railroad and yard. The flashes had the place lit up brighter than daylight. They stayed there three or four days and received water every other day and their first food since being captured, {a one man Red Cross box to four of them}, was all they received until the end of their journey. They unloaded in Bab Orb on 12-28-44. They were marched up a mountainside for about 1-1/2 miles to a camp. The snow was about 3 or 4 inches all that winter. When they reached their camp they received some greens to eat, mixed with carrots and sugar beets, it made nearly all of them sick. They asked for food but they said they didn’t have any more. They used their helmets or anything they could find to eat out of. They made wooden spoons, which were poor utensils. Starmlarger IXB Bab Orb Germany was divided into many sections with high barbwire fences. They stayed there until 2-8-45. They received a little potato soup the first week there, then they fed them on sugar beets, turnip tops the rest of the time. On the 8th of February 1945 they marched them out of there and loaded them on a train for another camp. They traveled about 4 days with nothing to eat. They stopped at a little factory town on the Elba River called Berga. They marched up on the hilltop to a small camp. They worked there for nearly two months digging an underground factory in the side of a mountain near the Elba River. Every day they saw hundreds of our large bombers overhead.

This is where my husband left off. I do not know much more except he told me that during the 125 days he was a POW he did not have a bath, nor a change of clothes and very little to eat. He lost about 70% of his body fat. He did not blame the German people, he would always say “they were as good to us as they could be.” My husband was a hero. He died with COPD (a lung condition) that was caused from being exposed to God knows what and digging those underground factories, yet our Government denied his claims for his lung condition. I have nightmares because they denied his claim and wouldn’t recognize what he gave up for his country. He deserved better from our government.

My Message to Future Generations:

I am sure my husband would want future generations to know what the POWs went through for their country and what they gave up for their country. He would want everyone to do their best in whatever they have to do and to do it without complaining. This is what he did, HE WAS TOUGH. I think he learned this by being a POW. He was on oxygen the last two years of his life and was a very sick man, but he didn’t complain, he always had a smile. He was however VERY DISAPPOINTED that his Government wouldn’t approved his claim for his lung condition (he never smoked a cigarette his whole life). He fought for his claim for six long years and now that he is dead they still don’t accept the fact that the CPOD was caused from the condition he was in while a POW. He deserved better than this!!! But it is a comfort to know that now he is well and can rest with the Lord. My husband always felt that voting was a very hard earned priviledge that he and everyone in the service fought for in fact the very last thing he did in this life was to vote. The one thing that my husband could not understand was the apathy that young people had toward government. He believed that as citizens of this country we had the prividigle and the responsiblity to vote and let our voices be heard by these who were elected to represent us in our state and in Washington. Now and always my husband and many others gave their lives for this right. Information provided by Helen Fowler his loving wife.


Pammie Fowler 1983 at 57 years old	Pammie Fowler 1943 at 18 years old