The Wartime Memories Project - The Second War

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies. If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.     Site Home     WW2 Home     Add Stories     WW2 Search     Library     Help & FAQs  WW2 Features     Airfields     Allied Army     Allied Air Forces     Allied Navy     Axis Forces     Home Front     Battles     Prisoners of War     Allied Ships     Women at War     Those Who Served     Day-by-Day     Library     The Great War  Submissions     Add Stories     Time Capsule     TWMP on Facebook     Childrens Bookshop  FAQ's     Help & FAQs     Glossary     Volunteering     Contact us     News     Bookshop     About Advertisements World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII 1939 1945

238677 T5. Charles August Wiedman United States Army D Coy. 409th Infantry Regiment from:Kiowa, Kansas My father, Chuck Wiedman, was captured at Selastat, France on 2nd of December 1944. He was a medic. He was in a house (the basement, I think) caring for injured German prisoners of war (I think) when a German tank came up, and blew the back out of the house. Dad said the only thing that helped them survive was that the charge was shaped so the explosion happened after the shell was outside of the house. He was taken several places before being brought to Stalag 3B. He was interviewed at one point and told, "What is a good German boy like you doing fighting for the Americans." He told about the American bombing raids which were happening constantly and of sitting on a bucket of potatoes during one raid to protect the only food they had. Dad told of the Germans bringing in bloated horses killed by shelling for them to eat. He told of sleeping in a tent with many other prisoners. A Russian appeared in the camp and he said that he and another prisoner (whose name I never knew) were given their papers (which we still have). These were necessary because it was the only identification if they were to have enough room to lay down in. He wrote home to my grandmother asking her to send him food. He told how horribly the Russian prisoners of war were treated. At the end of the war he said that the Germans disappeared from the camp. He said the Russian told him he did not want to get caught behind Russian lines because with a name like Wiedman he might never get to go home. He said the Russian grabbed a couple of Germans who were riding bicycles, jerked them off of them and told he and his friend to get to the American lines. He had lost about 50 lbs. He was lucky to survive. Charles had been a college student wanting to get into medical school when he left Kansas. After the war all he could think about was returning home to Kiowa Kansas, where he lived until his death in 2009. I would like to know of anyone else has heard a similar story. Add to this record.  Additional Information: Dad also talked about saving a mans life. The man had been shot in the legs. Dad who was a small man carried him to a truck and rode with him to an aide station. He never saw the man again. My dad was a good, brave man his whole life. At the end of his life he was obsessed with keeping warm. If he was cold he was miserable. He was sick for a long time after he returned home. I’m told h could no tolerate fireworks for several years. He had to have his appendix removed shortly after he returned from Germany. He earned two bronze stars and the combat medical badge. I don’t know what he did to earn them. Becky cole Reply Dad is second from the right on the first row. Rebecca Cole Reply Related Content: Stalag 3B Prisoner of War Camp Can you help us to add to our records? Add a record to our website. The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area? If so please let us know. Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice. Contact us. Celebrate your own Family History Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc. Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.

The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items. The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions. If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running. Hosted by: The Wartime Memories Project Website is archived for preservation by the British Library Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV - All Rights Reserved We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.