The EC Badgerow was my Grandmother Badgerow. The E stood for Edith and the C stood for Clarabelle. The few memories I have of her are very rare, but......oh so very pleasant.
Roy Martin Badgerow was my father.
I always held a torch high for my Dad.
My mother Marie Edith Fye and Pops parted ways when I was just 8 years old.
By that time I had a deep affection for him. Hey! He was my hero!
Superman and John Wayne all rolled into one, my Daddy.
My hero.
He remarried a woman named Shirley with two boys of her own, named Joseph and Anthony. He devoted himself to her and his new family.
In time they had a son of their own, named Darlee.
Yes , I know I am a bit off track here, but I must get this down on paper.
Darlee Roy Badgerow, I am sorry to say, has passed away. I only saw him a few times as a child. Never as a man.
This is only picture that I have of him.
His widow Debera sent me a box filled with things that Darl had of Dad's.
I will cherish that gift for ever and then pass it
on to my, three sons and daughter.
The dog tags pictured above and below are just some of many the treasures, I received.
I found out that my step brother Anthony has passed away, also. If I ever get his picture I will add it here.
As far as I know...my brother Tony was blessed with two children. A boy and girl named Anthony and Lacy.
Lacy reached out to me on my...... WORLD WAR POW F.B.PAGE.
It still make me smile when I think of the kind words she had for her Grandfather Roy.
She also praised me for setting up a page, where she could pass on a bit of our history, to her children. Thank you so very much lacy...for getting in touch!
She and her brother are responsible for the picture of their father in uniform.
Thanks kids!
I am proud to be your uncle and for us being friends on Face Book!
My older step brother,
Joe Tuttle looked me up via Face Book.
Many years had passed since we had seen each other.
Strange how life can take you in one direction or the other.
It was 50 years before we saw each other again. Hard to believe but true.
He told me that Tony and Darlee had passed away
We have so much to catch up on!
Hardly enough time in this life time, but we must try!
I was still in high school when he joined The Army of The United States. He was just 17,
when his Ma signed for him.
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| Feb. 10, 1967 |
Thank You For Your Service Big Brother!
Now where was I?
Oh yes,you see....
after Roy and my Mum Marie parted ways, in a time when little girls played with dolls exclusively, and boys played with guns all most all of the time, we went on with our lives.
I saw my father again when I was 12, after that I was 22....and so on. So to say we were close would be a huge, understatement.
I do cherish the memories, of the few times, that I do remember. I will try very hard, to set the bits and pieces, together; where we can read them.
Once when I was 7, my Daddy took me to a beer garden. Yup...that is what he called a bar. In fact, I know of two such establishments that are still in business in our sleepy little town, that we went to. The names may have changed, but that's the pub Pops and I visited.
It was great sitting up on the bar stool sipping a Roy Rogers, while he had a beer or two. At a small table near us was a feller telling a war story. His fists were raised clinched in the air and shaking forward and backward rapidly in front of his face. "Rata Tat Tat... Rata Tat Tat... Rata Tat Tat," his voice sounded out loudly.
I was mesmerized! Spellbound and watching that mans story unfolding, I almost fell off the stool.
Just then, my fathers voice caught me by surprise, I turned and faced him as he spoke,
"Rodge...if anyone acts like that they never even saw any combat, at all.
Do you understand?" I think I did. If not then, I do now.
Over the years I wished, time and again, I could been closer with my father.
It would be oh so wonderful, if we could talk, once again.
It would be great to ask my father more about his exploits when he was in the Army.
Alas, he died before our family history become,
important to me.
My father spoke, little if any about war. Ask a straight question, and he would take a long time to answer, if at all.
"Eat all your dinner son, 'cause people are starving in Europe."
Men of combat are quiet souls. Dads generation, those survivors of the horrors of war, very seldom spoke of it , if ever.
We can only imagine. The bravest of brave never returned from combat.
Brave men and women
that gave their lives for God and Country are to be never, forgotten.
As children we threw dirt clods and pretended they were grenades.
Just a game...
Just like, Cowboys and Indians!
Right?
Hey we were kids and guns are toys.
Right?
For that two week vacation I spent with my step brothers Joe and Tony we played hard,
very hard indeed. Joe was a year older and Tony was a year younger.
B-B Guns... 22 rifles....sling shots...bow and arrows you name it. We had a creek , just down the way, with the biggest bull frogs I have ever seen. It was a great time.
It was the longest amount of time I ever spent with Dad and his
new family.
We boys got in our heads to get Dad, to talk about the war. We knew he was shot in the leg.
When he had a swimming suit or shorts on, you could see the enter and exit wound scars. He also was missing the two middle fingers on his right hand.
We knew he was a POW!
We wanted info!
"Tell us Dad! Tell us!"
Then one night when we were camping out in the back yard, he came out to check on us.
I remember how he looked as he opened the flap of the tent. That bright moon light night in 1962, was to be burned into our memories, forever.
He was just 39 at that time. Much time had passed since the war, time is a great healer, perhaps that is why he opened up to us boys, on that night.
"Come on...Dad! Tell us how you lost your fingers. Please! Please! Please!" We begged!
"Okay" he said, "I will tell you the whole story."
With a huge shy, he began to relate how they were pinned down all night long, surrounded by the Germans, with most of them out of ammunition. There was a German with a megaphone, urging us in broken English, to surrender or die.
The sun continued to rise and illuminated just how desperate their situation was. There was a sea of faces peering down at them, most over the sites of the weapon they held. Having the cover of darkness with a minimal moon, was not to their advantage, anymore.
They marched the men that had already been captured in front of tanks urging them to....
surrender.
The megaphone blurred it's message again, that all would be fine if they would just stand and put their hands on their heads.
He said," I hugged the ground and prayed , as a few of the guys stood and placed their hands on their heads."
Just then, he said the lieutenant jumped into action screaming," Come on men, lets get out of here!" With his Thompson machine gun waving in the air, empty from the hard night battle.
He was cut down in the hale of bullets, as were the few men that first, stood to surrender.
When the shooting stopped, he said, they knew.
They all knew, the situation was hopeless. Soon heads were popping up all along the
huge ditch where they spent the night, pinned down and watching for muzzle flashes, so they knew which way to fire back.
Hands on their heads, now they were all standing.
Some Germans worked their way down from the cover of the hedgerow to where they waited, with their hands, on their heads.
The Germans began searching their new prisoners and preparing them for transport to the rear.
Three wide eye snot nosed boys in that tent could hardly contain ourselves!
"Dad, when did you get shot?"
"Wait, he said with a smile."I was just getting to that part."
"You see boys, all night long we were held down in that gully. We had walked into a trap.
They knew we were coming.
They had the high ground with trees and a hedgerow for protection,
we had nothing but dirt in our faces.
So we dug in best we could and fought back.
All night long a shot here a shot there, could be heard.
Sometimes bursts of machine gun fire, cut through the night.
But mostly, deadly silence."
He went on,
"Boys, have you ever heard of three on a match, is bad luck?"
We all shuck our heads as he went on with his story.
"See, you strike a match, and after lighting your cigarette, then you light another guys , with that same match. When you hold that match out for the third GI to light up, that sniper in the tree has the light pin pointed by then.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!" He said loudly. "Three on a match is bad luck!"
After we settled down a bit,
he went on...to say,
"See boys, all night long I never had a cigarette."
Just then he paused, to light one up, before he continued.
"Hands on my head I looked around, Germans by this time were all over the place,taking weapons and pulling off helmets."
"The German that searched me tossed my helmet....
and went on to the next man."
"This was my chance! He never took my smokes! I needed a smoke!
I took one hand off my head reached into my shirt pocket and grabbed my pack of Camels. With a flash there was one dangling from my lips and the pack was back in the pocket."
"Now for a light! There was my zippo lighter in my pants pocket!
If I could just get to it.
Carefully, I took my right hand from my head,
and reached into my pants pocket."
"Out of the corner of my eye," Dad went on." I caught the movement of a rifle being shouldered!"
" It all happened so fast, but it seemed like slow motion!" Dad said with a wave of his two fingered right hand.
"Standing not far away, was a young German with a bright blue eyes, aiming right where I was a reaching....
into my pocket!"
Boys he went on...."He didn't even shave yet!"
"Please....don't shoot!" I yelled!
"Too late! He fired!"
As Dad put it....
"The shot knocked me clean off my feet. The bullet knocked my ring finger clean off and tore my middle finger right to the bone."
We boys could feel the intensity in his words as his story unfolded.
"It went right straight through my thigh, just like that!"
He said, as he motioned with a wave of his hand in downward diagonal motion across his leg.
"Thank God, the bullet missed the bone!" He said with a smile.
He had our attention now!
It took a while for us to settle down,
but when we did, he continued with his story.
"But, Dad you are missing two fingers! "
The three of us wondered aloud.
He then explained how they wrapped his leg and hand up in bandages. How some of the other guys helped him to the trucks.
"Transportation to the camp, took a very long time, he said
"My leg was healing okay," he continued....
but my hand was starting to....stink a little, by the time
we got to the prison camp."
We boys sure did laugh when he put his hand under his nose, scrunched his eyes, and shook his head.
"Smelt a little rotten to me," Dad laughed.
Once they arrived at camp, he went on....
"I got me some much needed medical attention."
"They took me to the camps hospital. The doctor motioned for me to place my hand on the table."
Then Dad went on to say that.....
"As the doctor was examining me, he just took a blade and very quickly, cut the infected finger off; with nothing at all for the pain!"
"It happened so fast I didn't have time to say ouch!"
His smile was as big as that full moon showing from above.still sitting cross legged right in front of the pup tent, peering through the flap at his three sons.
He held his hand up and wiggled his fingers. The four finger knuckles were moving and I swear, we saw two invisible fingers move on that night.
"The hand healed great after that," he went on to say.
"My leg was feeling good too."
Dad went on to tell us more about his adventures before his capture, that had the hair on the back of our necks standing!
We knew he was not just telling war stories to his sons. "We knew they were true!"
Some were very graphic....
as to show us the horrors of war.
as to show us the horrors of war.
As I look back....
I feel it was a healing time for my father.
I feel it was a healing time for my father.
I was filled with pride as were my brothers.
That night, in that tent, was forever ingrained in our minds.
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| FRONT |
This is dedicated to CPL Roy M. Badgerow
Gefangenennummer 36131
Stalag #344
This one’s for you Dad!
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| BACK |
It was the Army Air Corps during WWII. In fact.... it never became The United States Air Force until 1949.
I served during Vietnam, and when I got out of the military, I had a chance to go be with my father and half brother and step mother for a 2 week vacation. Out to California to visit her sister and family.
Pops had a small Champion Motor Home.....
and I agreed to go along.
He did most of the driving and I did open up on a few things.
But, I wish I could take that journey....
over again.
He was a wise man....
he knew the war was not popular with the American citizens.
I remember telling him about the air port when I was in route for home, and in uniform because, "military standby tickets" were much more reasonable.
How heartless and strange it all seemed, as the dirty looks and negative chatter made us returning service members feel like criminals.
Dad laughed it off and said,
"Don't worry son, that water is well past the dam."
He was so right.
After the fall of southern Vietnam to the north in 1973.... there was a big old black eye being spouted by Good old Uncle Sam. One hell of a shiner, that's for sure,
Everyone just wanted to forget,
and I do mean every one.
Hawks and Doves alike, just let it go.
Every body just wanted to make it.......
all go away, just like it never happened.
Then roughly ten years later, in 1983, I almost fell off my couch when I heard the word Vietnam again on TV.
It was history now.....and had became news worthy once more.
But, that is a different story.
