A aT .
A ————— NES
RALPH M SNYDER
R.D BOX -
. OX 3040
MOUNT JOY, PA. 17552
SUSQUEHANNA TIMES
Susquehanna Times & The Mount Joy Bulletin
Vol. 79, No. 29, July 25, 1979
MARIETTA & MOUNT JOY, PA.
FIFTEEN CENTS
On POW Day,
Ben Thompson recalls
his days in Stalag 7A
The recent observance of
POW Day had special
importance for Mr. Ben
Thompson, 212 N. Jones
Street, Marietta. He was a
POW for a year during
World War Two. Mr.
Thompson, who is well-
known in Marietta as a civic
leader and postman, related
the story of his internment
in German _Stalags to
Marietta correspondent
Hazel Baker. The story
follows. —Ed.]
I enlisted in the Air Force
on October 10, 1942, at the
age of 18. I was trained as a
radio operator and aerial
gunner and was assigned to
duty as a crew member of a
B-24 (‘‘Liberator’’), flying
out of Italy with the 15th Air
Force. Our bombing mis-
sions included northern
Italy, Rumania, France and
Germany.
It was on the last bombing
raid, which was to have
been Munich, Germany, on
June 6th, 1944, that my
plane was attacked by
enemy fighters and lost an
engine to their machine
guns. The Liberator fell out
of formation, turning back,
but had lost so much
altitude that we were
exposed to the anti-aircraft
batteries at Inasbruck,
Austria, and our plane was
badly damaged by them.
We were literally shot out of
the air.
We bailed out just before
the plane blew up. I came
down in a rural area near the
city of Inasbruck and was
immediately captured by
German citizens. They
turned me over to the
military.
I was placed in a local jail
cell for a while, until I was
sent to an interrogation
center at Frankfurt. After
several days of isolation and
questioning I was put on a
train, under guard, and
finally arrived at Stalag Luft
3 in Sagan, which is now a
part of Poland. This was the
same camp in which ex-
Lancaster mayor Scott was
imprisoned.
i
Ben Thompson
Hundreds of other Allied
airmen from Britain, Can-
ada, Australia and America
were interned there until
January 1945. When the
Russians started moving
toward Berlin, with our
camp in their way, we found
ourselves marched out,
heading south.
The weather was ex-
tremely cold in January of
'4S, with much snow and
sleet. The hundreds of
Allied airmen were forced to
hike all night in the intense
cold. At dawn we would be
herded into barns and
chicken coops, out of sight
of Allied aircraft.
After three days and
nights of this, we were
placed in boxcars, like
cattle, and driven to a prison
camp near Moosburg,
Germany: Stalag 7A. Moos-
burg is not far from Munich.
Stalag 7A held thousands,
rather than hundreds, of
prisoners. Life there was a
constant struggle for food
and shelter.
President Roosevelt died
while 1 was interned in
Stalag 7A, and we were all
concerned about the war
effort when we heard the
news. But soon after, in
April 1945, we suddenly saw
American PS fighter planes
swooping over our camp. It
was a lovely Sunday
morning.
We had been hearing the
sounds of heavy guns for
several days, but weren't
sure what was happening.
Rumors circulated that we
would be held as hostages
so the Germans could get
better terms of surrender.
Finally, like dinosaurs out
[comtinued on page 4]
Left to right: Nancy Herneisen, Albert Dettinger,
Steve Englert, Paul Grater, Steve Bailey, and Claudia
Good. Steve Englert and Paul Grater are holding the
Marietta ambulance
wins state emergency certification;
fund drive starts
The Marietta Ambulance
is now state-certified.
Last Wednesday Paul
Grater, director of Penn-
sylvania Emergency Health
Services, presented Mari-
etta Area Ambulance Asso-
ciation officials with a certi-
ficate and round stickers,
which were immediately
placed on the doors of the
ambulance.
The certification means
that the Marietta Ambu-
lance and its personnel meet
certain requirements in
terms of equipment, train-
ing, availability (all the time
is the requirement), and
recordkeeping / communi-
cations.
Marietta received the
16th certification in Lancas-
ter Co. and the 144th out of
1079 services in Penna.
The current ambulance
was delivered in 1978 at a
cost of $17,000. Of this
amount, $7100 remains to
be paid.
The ambulance crew
conducts fund raising cam-
paigns on a regular basis to
certificate; Steve Bailey holds one of the stickers that
were put on the ambulance doors after this photo was
taken.
meet expenses, and they are
now in the middle of a
membership drive. Mary
Ann Spangler and Ruth
Miller are chairing this
drive. If you wish to join the
Ambulance Association, and
have not been contacted,
you may obtain a member-
ship at Farmers First Bank.
Memberships cost $7 for a
family, $S for individuals.
The Marietta Ambulance,
which was organized in
1963, will soon purchase a
CHE radio, which will
enable the ambulance crew
to talk with local hospitals
while en route.
Current officers of the
MAAA are: Albert Dettin-
ger, president; Steve Eng-
lert, crew chief; Steve
Bailey, assistant crew chief;
and board members Bob
Spangler, Arthur Haines,
Pat Kenney, Jr., Mary
Miller, Barry Eppley, and
Hazel Baker.
The MYAA has ten
qualified EMT’s and five
people trained in CPR, in
addition to the Advanced
First Aid members.
Romayne Bridgett, native of Mount J oy,
citizen of Paris, reflects on life as singer, mother
by Lorna Simmons Nolt
When you meet Romayne
Bridgett face-to-face for the
first time, you just know her
singing voice is powerful
and important and that
every phrase she sings
means exactly what she
feels it should mean, with
every nuance an interpreta-
tion of feeling she has taken
a lifetime to explore and to
express.
Because that’s the way
she is: powerful, assertive,
insightful, and intelligently
able to interpret in song
what she perceives with her
whole self.
And her charisma—her
stage presence—fills her
living room just as surely as
it does the stage.
Romayne Bridgett —
familiar face and voice of a
myriad of Lancaster operas
and musicals, Mount Joy
native and probably one its
biggest fans—has spent all
of her years exploring
herself and what she calls
‘the beautiful things of
life.” “I get up for a
performance by reading
great poetry and litera-
ture,”’ she says, ‘‘listening
to and singing beautiful
music, keeping what 1 call
‘happy thoughts.’ ”’
She is, to put it mildly, a
positive person.
But she hasn’t always
been so sure of her goals or
of herself. Singing, her
great love and comfort and
career, grew out of some-
what negative beginnings.
[continued on page 6]