#11 Niece
by Theresa M. Ripley
Niece #11 was the youngest person at the family dinner in 1945 being almost 9 months old. She and Don maintained an almost 20-year frequent correspondence from 1977-1995. As Don’s health waned in summer of 1995, she visited Don and Sally in Sun City West. During the visit Sally gave her a set of materials from the 50th reunion of Stalag Luft III which had just been celebrated four months earlier in Cincinnati. After returning home she started writing Don and Sally daily. To add a focus to the writing she enclosed a postcard each day with a question about Don’s POW experiences.
Don and Sally responded to all the postcards. Don’s writing was failing, but he did write on five on those cards in the fall of 1995. The rest were dictated to Sally who either wrote or typed what Don said.
A total of 49 postcards went back and forth between uncle and aunt and niece. A few are quoted below.
Where were you stationed in England? How many missions did you have prior to September 6, 1943?
Thurleigh Bombing Base. A large plaque now stands where base existed. One mission – a day or two before the one on 9/6/43.
In your piece you wrote for Hillary you said you were shot down September 6, 1943. What were you doing between November 1941 and September 43?
I went into service in November 1941. During years 1942 and 1943 I was first stationed at Chanute Air Force Base at Rantoul, Illinois, and attended air mechanic school. Then I was sent to Texas and I graduated in the very first class held at Army Air Force Navigator School at San Marcos Army Air Force Base, San Marcos, Texas. Commission received in July 1943. I have a class book.
Did you want to be a pilot? (This is one of the cards written by Don on November 2, 1995.) Yes, Imperfect eyesight in my final phase training precluded that and as a later choice, I chose navigation training.
Who was the best cook in the combine? Martin Fetherolf, some of his recipes appear in his log kept by him through his POW experience.
Did prisoners feel a sense of guilt over being POW’s? Yes, after all the training unable to help defeat the Germans.
I recall once when I visited you both in Urbana we talked briefly about your POW experience. At that time you said one of your main memories was the boredom you and others experienced. I ask again, what are your main memories? Along with boredom, frustration – also, the close and wonderful friendship with some of the men.
Were you aware of escape efforts planned by Committee X? Were others in your combine? No – the escape was from North compound and the average kriegie was not aware of it until it came off.
Do you recall your assigned POW number? (This is another postcard written by Don after what appeared great effort and erasing on October 30, 1995.) #2512 dienst grad II
What did you weigh when you arrived at POW camp? When you left? How about the rest of your combine? 175# 160# We all seemed to lose the same percentage.
What about the men in your combine? Asked over a series of postcards. Our combine began with just 3 of us (Bob Curtis, navigator; Orville Huff, pilot and myself) and as more were captured, we were assigned to take on more and more in each combine. Others included Verl Fisher, warrant officer; Tommy Thompson, bombardier; Marty Fetherolf, navigator in war and stayed in service to become a pilot; Wes Peterson, pilot who completed 23 missions and down on the 24th; Ed Johnson, navigator and Don’s partner for the forced march in January 1945.
After being released and given a 60-day furlough, did you anticipate going to the Pacific front in 1945? Was anyone there to greet you at the Pontiac bus station when you came home? No. Not knowing how (bus or train) or exact arrival time, Mr. McCarty, a local farmer, told my folks he would meet all buses and trains. I arrived by bus; I called the folks and they came to the station to pick me up.
Has your combine held reunions? Have you kept in touch with these men through the years? In 1987, 4 of us (and wives) got together in Decatur, Il. Fisher (IL), Phillips (AZ), Thompson (OH), Huff (IL). In 1986, 3 of us got together in Florida. (Phillips, Fisher, Fetherolf). Many of us kept in touch at Christmas time.
Some Thoughts
I am the #11 niece of the eventual 13 nieces and nephews that called Don Uncle. (Eric and Marilyn Rittenhouse were born after WWII.) I think I can say he was the favorite uncle for all of us. That does not mean that Raymond, Eddie, and Floyd were not special; but they were not Don. Don had a way about him that seemed quite exotic to the 13 nieces and nephews all raised on farms within 10 miles of each other in the corn belt of Illinois. Even though Don, too, had those roots, he seemed a bit bigger than life. He managed to carry this image to the second generation of great nieces and nephews. As Jerry Ripley, his great nephew said when I told him of Don’s critical illness in 1995, “he’s someone you just could not get enough of.”
As I processed these words into this piece, I realized Don had carefully established his role of uncle early on. I knew I had experienced that personally, but until I read these letters carefully, I had been unaware at how planfully, without being calculating, he had established this role at a young age in his 20s and before going off to serve in WWII. He had already established the practice of writing each niece or nephew on their birthday and including some change with that letter.
In his POW letters written home he referred often to his nieces and nephews as the children and mentioned a number of them by name in his short allotment of 130 words per letter. Perhaps it was his way to think of the future when he was in camp. Perhaps he just cared.
Don was a man who thought about words and how to convey his thoughts. That is obvious in the collection which he left. So far this year I have typed over 100 of his poems into a collection entitled Poems by Don and now his words on his WWII experience. I also have over 100 letters he wrote to me over an almost 20-year period. Each carefully thought out. Each carefully constructed.
Words do make a difference. They tell a story. They describe a man. They describe the times. They demonstrate the web of connections between people, places, and ideas. I hope these words by Don help the reader understand this man and these times a little bit better.
References
For those that are motivated to know more about this experience, the following video and books are recommended:
Behind the Wire. Video produced by the 8th Air Force Historical Society, 1994. Excellent documentary by the men who lived through the experience.
Burton, Paul. Escape From Terror. Murfreesboro, AR: Looking Glass Graphics, 1995. A self-published book by the author about his war experience.
Daniel, Eugene. L. Jr. In the Presence of Mine Enemies: An American Chaplain in World War II German Prison Camps. Attleboro, Mass., 1985. An account written by the chaplain in Center Compound of Stalag Luft III.
Durand, Arthur A. Stalag Luft III: The Secret Story. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988. A well documented account of the entire history of the Stalag Luft III, scholarly and well done.
Kimball, R. W. Clipped Wings. 1948. Self-published with pictures of the camp.
O’Bannon, Robert E. Return to Sagan. La Mirada, Ca.: La Mirada Press, 1994. Another self-published fictionalized story of the camp.
Simmons, Kenneth W. Kriegie. New York, 1960. A good description of daily life in Center Compound which gives the reader a sense of what it was like in camp from the prisoner point of view. Excellent description of the March of Death in January-February 1945.
Spivey, Delmar T. Major General. POW Odyssey: Recollections of Center Compound, Stalag Luft III and the Secret German Peace Mission in World War II. Attleboro, Mass: Colonial Lithograph, Inc. 1984. Another self-published effort, wonderfully done, by the senior American officer in charge of Center Compound.
