POW/MIA Program In Clearmont Draws Good Crowd

Robert Prusak, and Rudy Pearson

On Sept. 16, in Recognition of National POW/MIA Recognition Day, The Clearmont Historical Group held a program honoring those local soldiers who were Prisoners of War and those who are still listed as Missing in Action A good crowd of area people attended the event. There was also a talk about the POW Camp in Clearmont.

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Opening ceremonies were at the Clear Creek Veteran’s Memorial and included the raising of the POW/MIA Flag while Will Betz, Arvada-Clearmont High School Band, played Taps.

The program moved into the Clearmont Community Center to hear various speakers. Cynthia Vannoy spoke on the Clearmont POW camp, and the main POW camp in Douglas. She highlighted why the camps came to be, and the agriculture help provided by the POW’s while American men were overseas.

The POW’s at the Clearmont Camp came from the Douglas Camp, and mainly worked in the sugar beet fields that were a large part of Clearmont agriculture for many years. According to Dick Lenz, Ucross, whose father was assigned some of the POW workers, said that two of the German men even coached football at the Clearmont School.

Fran Felz talked about 2nd Lt. Reba Whittle who was the only female American POW in WWII, she was flight nurse with 813th Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron, and her plane was shot down in September of 1944. She was held in several German POW camps, including Lazarett, which was a part of Stalag IX.

In January of 1945, Whittle was released and returned to the United States. In February of the same year, she received the Purple Heart for the injuries she received during the plane crash. Felz also talked about the problems that Whittle encountered trying to receive compensation from the Veteran’s Administration for her injuries. In 1981, Whittle died of cancer on and, in 1997, she was posthumously awarded the Prisoner of War Medal.

Rudy Pearson, retired sergeant first class, said he arrived in Vietnam in September of 1965, and he was a M-60 machine gunner. He was also one of the soldiers assigned the job of rooting the Vietcong out of their tunnels. He said it was a very frightening duty, but his biggest fear was of falling into Vietcong hands in a prison camp.

He also gave a rundown of the numbers of POW’s and MIA’s in all of America’s wars since the Revolutionary War.

Ira Roadifer introduced Sandy Hinz, who talked about David Dorman, a local man who was captured in the Philippines.

She added that he is still listed as MIA from the Bataan Death March.

Roadifer talked about Lowell E. Slayton POW #52285 Stalag Luft VI. Slayton worked at First National Bank in Buffalo for many years. Roadifer said that the information about Slayton came from his daughter. He said the camp that Slayton was in was an old camp, with rundown buildings. He added this about the food they ate.

Roadifer said while Slayton was in the camp, the prisoners played ping pong, cards and even softball to alleviate the boredom. Softballs served another purpose for the prisoners.

Robert Prusak Clearmont Historical group, gave the closing remarks, and a short tribute to Bruce Yates, veteran and a member of Clearmont Historical Group who recently passed away.