Two local veterans discover common thread as they recount World War II experiences

By Gloria Young, Journal Staff WriterOn April 2, 1945, a young American prisoner of war heard the roar of B-24s overhead and ran out to watch as a dozen bombers dotted the clear blue sky. They dropped their payload on a nearby village, the concussion so ear-splitting that it seemed as though the bombs were going to hit the camp.That Army private was Mark Osweiler, who today lives in Lake of the Pines and belongs to the Auburn chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Last week Osweiler learned quite by accident that a fellow VFW member, Roscoe Ashton, was in one of those aircraft that day.Osweiler, who is a resident of Lake of the Pines, and Ashton, an Auburn resident, belong to a group of veterans that visits area schools to discuss their World War II experiences. It was during a presentation to St Joseph?s eighth-grade class, when Ashton passed out a list of his bombing missions, that the two stories came together. Osweiler checked the date of Ashton?s mission to Krems, Austria with a diary he had kept during the war, and, sure enough, he had been one of the 4,500 POWs at Stalag 17 on that day who had cheered on the Americans as the explosions shattered the air.A native of Montana, Osweiler joined the army in 1944. After 16 weeks of training, he was shipped out to Alsace-Lorraine in eastern France as a replacement soldier in the 80th Infantry Division of Patton?s Third Army.?There was a constant turnover of men,? Osweiler said as he related his story last week. ?The 80th lost 17,000 soldiers ? wounded, killed or missing in action ? during the time it fought through France and into Germany. This was before the Battle of the Bulge. We were fighting all the time, but not in major battles.?Just six weeks after he arrived on the battlefield, Osweiler was shot in the leg while on maneuvers. ?I hid out for a couple of days in the basement of a house, but then the Germans found me,? he said.After his capture, Osweiler spent time in a hospital on the Rhine River, and about a month later, around Christmas, he was sent to the infamous Stalag 17 prisoner-of-war camp. Although he was never brutalized or mistreated, life at the camp was harsh. ?We didn?t eat very well,? Osweiler said. ?At times I didn?t know if I was going to starve to death or freeze to death. But I survived.?The prisoners received a cup of hot water for breakfast. At mid-morning there would be a small piece of bread baked with a special recipe using 20 percent sawdust. In the afternoon, the POWs received a ration of soup served to each in his one eating utensil ? a tin cup. Osweiler had been at Stalag 17 a little over four months when the U.S. forces bombing raid occurred. Less than a week later the Germans vacated the camp, taking the prisoners with them, because Russian forces were closing in. ?We marched in groups of 500,? Osweiler said. ?We marched for 17 days and slept out in the open country.? In all, they walked 190 miles, ending up at the village of Branau on the Inn River, near the Austria-German border.?We couldn?t go any farther because the bridges had been destroyed,? Osweiler said. ?So we stayed there. Eight days later, the Americans arrived.?Osweiler was liberated by U.S. forces on May 3, 1945. Ashton grew up in Ohio and was drafted into the Army in 1942. He went into the Army Air Corps and was trained as a flight engineer in Miami Beach.In 1944, he was sent to Cerignora in central Italy where he would complete 35 B-24 bombing missions.Ashton remembers that the B-24s frequently encountered enemy flak. There were times that aircraft in the bombing run didn?t make it back to base. And there were other challenges to face.?One time, one of the three 3,500-pound bombs in the bomb bay got hung up and the two others came down on top of it,? Ashton said as he related his story last week. ?I had to go out on the catwalk and work for about 45 minutes to free it.?This was while the aircraft was 21,000 feet in the air, headed to its target. There were no parachutes.Another time, the group of bombers had been given permission to bomb a target at 15,000 feet, but when it arrived, encountered Germans firing flak at them.?They had monitored the radio and were waiting for us and had our altitude,? said Ashton.At times a P-38 squadron escorted the bombers and, on those occasions, the German would leave the contingent alone.?They were afraid of those P-38s,? said Ashton. ?But we never knew when we were going to have fighter escorts. Sometimes we just took our chances.?The April 2 bombing run to Krems was Ashton?s 28th. His logbook notes that the mission took six hours and 50 minutes. He described it that day as ?a milk run? meaning no flak was encountered, and added that it was ?a good bomb drop and a good ship.? He went on to complete another seven missions before earning the right to go home. On his way back to the U.S. by ship, he learned that the war was over.After his release from the service, Ashton moved to the local area, where he has lived since 1945.Ashton and Osweiler, along with other members of the Auburn VFW, frequently visit local schools to talk about their war experiences. For more information on scheduling a visit, contact the VFW at 888-9861.The Journal?s Gloria Young can be reached at gloriay@goldcountrymedia.com.