As incredible as it seems, the POWs — “Kriegies” — played hockey games in the South Compound at Stalag Luft III near Sagan, Germany. The “Great Escape” camp was about 90 miles from Berlin.
At the morning skates Friday at the Pepsi Center, I had a nice chat with Capitals radio play-by-play broadcaster , with whom I became acquainted in a roundabout way.
John’s grandfather, Lt. Col. Thomas E. Jeffers, was a bombardier on a B-24 crew during World War II. After his plane was shot down in June 1944, Jeffers spent nearly a year as a prisoner of war in, first, the Americans’ South Compound at the infamous Stalag Luft III — the “Great Escape” camp — near Sagan, Germany; and then, after a forced march of the prisoners as the Russians advanced from the east, in Stalag VII-A near Munich. That camp was liberated in late April 1945, the day before Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker.
John’s mother, Marilyn Jeffers Walton, over the years has helped organize reunions and symposiums of Stalag Luft III survivors and their families, and the families of POWs who have passed away.
She also is the author of several books, including Rhapsody in Junk (2007), about her voyage of discovery in retracing her father’s wartime experiences, including at Stalag Luft III. The title is the name of her father’s B-24.
Because of my 2004 book Third Down and a War to Go, I was invited to attend one of those reunions and symposiums a few years ago, when it was held at the Air Force Academy. In part, the site was a tribute to former AFA superintendent Albert P. Clark, who had been the head escape officer in the South Compound at Stalag Luft III while being a POW since July 1942. The spring 1944 “Great Escape,” redrawn a bit by Hollywood in the 1963 film, mostly involved British, Norwegian, and Dutch prisoners. Even after the murders of the recaptured escapees, the Americans continued to construct escape tunnels in the South Compound.
While communicating with Marilyn Walton, she mentioned I might know her son. John Walton. The radio voice of the Washington Capitals.
Small world, isn’t it?
I wasn’t able to make the reunion and symposium because of work obligations, and I regret that to this day.
Down a couple of booths from Walton in the press box Friday night was Avalanche radio play-by-play voice Marc Moser, an aficianado of World War II aircraft. And down on the ice before the game was Avalanche game-night anthem singer Jake Schroeder, a tireless advocate of military veteran causes. Together, Moser and Schroeder annually help escort American World War II veterans to revisit the sites of their battles and service in Europe.
My connection?
One of the heroes in Third Down and a War to Go, about the 1942 Wisconsin Badgers winning one version of the national championship, heading off to serve in World War II, and not all coming back, was halfback and co-captain Mark Hoskins. My father, Jerry, was an 18-year-old sophomore backup guard on that team before his stint as a P-38 fighter pilot in the Pacific Theater, and he looked up to Hoskins and co-captain Dave Schreiner, who was killed in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.
Hoskins still was alive when I researched the book, and I traveled to interview him at his home in San Diego.
He was a B-17 co-pilot whose plane was shot down over Hungary in a mission against German military targets in June 1944, and he ended up a POW in Stalag Luft III. Amid our far-reaching, marathon discussions, we talked at length about his experiences in the South Compound, with prisoners organizing such things as football and hockey games, a “radio” station broadcast over loudspeakers, the Circuit newspaper (actually a one-page sheet posted on the cookhouse wall), plays and concerts — and a lot more. (And horrible, nauseating food supplied by the Germans and broken up only by Red Cross contributions.) The above are shots of the hockey games in the compound, thanks to skates from the Red Cross. Hoskins, being a good Wisconsin boy, played at times, and also was a standout in the compound football games, covered by the POW newspaper. The other star was former Kentucky back Jess Tunstill.
Among Hoskins’ contributions to my research was loaning me his copy of “Clipped Wings,” an amazing school yearbook-type work about the prisoners’ experiences in Stalag Luft III and Stalag VII-A. Trying to describe it won’t do it justice, and I made myself a home-made photocopied and bound version before returning the book to Hoskins, who died in June 2003, a year before Third Down and a War to Go was published. He did see a copy of the manuscript shortly before he died, though, and gave it a thumbs up.
I regret not being able to ask Thomas Jeffers and Mark Hoskins, who arrived at Stalag Luft III at approximately the same time, if they ever ran into each other at the camp.
So, yes, look at those pictures of the hockey games, marvel at the American prisoners’ ingenuity under difficult circumstances, and salute them all … and their contemporaries.
I’ll close with this.
John Walton, with help from his mother, helped set up set up an appearance at the Capitals-Hurricanes game on March 15 of a former Stalag Luft III POW, 2nd Lt. John Pedevillano, 93. He was on the ice with singer Caleb Green for the national anthem.
If you can watch that and, especially while seeing Pedevillano emotionally dab at his eyes during his introduction and mouthing the anthem lyrics, not get at least misty … well, you’re “stronger” than I am.
My father, who was about as young as you could be and go through training and complete an entire tour of duty as a pilot in World War II, died in 2001. He was the only man on the planet who earned both the World War II Air Medal (three times) and a Super Bowl championship ring (twice). He would be 91 today.
Thomas Jeffers also isn’t with us any longer.
Eight Stalag Luft III survivors were among the attendees at the latest Marilyn Walton-organized reunion and symposium this year in New Orleans.
Eight.
We’re losing them.
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or @TFrei
