Frederick E. Ehmann

Shot down over Italy, he was taken prisoner by the Germans.

By Jeff Werner, BucksLocalNews.com


Frederick E. Ehmann will never forget the day he was shot down over Northern Italy.
It was three days after Christmas in 1943. Ehmann was part of a 10-member crew flying a routine bombing mission when his B-24 came under heavy fire by enemy planes.

Within minutes, the whole back of the bomber was on fire. The tail gunner was dead and the left waist gunner had been hit. The ball turret gunner was still firing at the enemy unaware the plane was on fire.

The order was given – “Bail out.”
***

Born in 1914 in Philadelphia, Ehmann grew up and went to school in the Logan section of the city. He attended trade school before getting a job with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In September 1942 his life took a sudden and dramatic turn when he was drafted into the U.S. Air Force.

“I requested the Air Force because I loved to fly,” he said. “I had a pilot’s license and I used to go up to [Roosevelt] Boulevard and fly a plane once in a while.”

At the time of his draft interview, Ehmann said he was asked if he had any hobbies. “When I mentioned music, he said, ‘I have just the spot for you – radio operator and gunner on a heavy bomber.’”

Between September 1942 and August 1943, he went through Boot Camp at Kessler Field, Miss., Aerial Gunner School in Kingman, Ariz., Radio School at Traux Field in Madison, Wis., flight training in Casper, Wyo., and final flight training in Herrington, Kan.

In August 1943, his crew took off for Europe, spending a short time in Iceland and Belfast, Ireland, before being assigned to the 376th bomber group in Africa.

He flew numerous missions as a radio operator and top gun turret operator before his plane was shot down. He documents his service in a book, “My Longest Mission – A World War II Memory.”

“We boarded our planes and took off for Vicenza on what we thought would be a milk run,” said Ehmann, who was a fill-in at the right gunner’s position.

“I saw a large group of fighter planes going in the opposite direction. The planes were too far off to identify and I heard my pilot say they were probably our escort returning to the base. A few minute later we saw and identified enemy fighters coming from behind our group. All hell broke loose.

“The guys in the back radioed up that we were on fire and we had to get out. There was absolutely no fear of jumping out. It had to be done.”

In the urgency of the moment, he didn’t know his back was on fire as he parachuted toward the earth. Fortunately, he landed in a canal, which put out the fire. “My back was burned, but not critical,” he said.

On the ground, Ehmann was greeted by an elderly man with a small pistol pointed toward his head. “Don’t shoot. I’m an American,” said Ehmann.

“We weren’t scared,” said Ehmann. “I don’t know why I had that attitude. All the guys in the crew were the same way. We were just overly curious about what the hell was going to happen to us.”

The Germans interrogated Ehmann, but he refused to divulge any information, giving only his name, rank and serial number.

Ehmann was now a prisoner of war. He was sent to Stalag 17 in Austria. He spent about a year and a half there waiting for liberation.

“There was no brutality. If anyone tells you something other than that, they’re a liar. There was a shortage of food. We would be fed once a day. Sometimes it would be a lousy soup,” he said.
There were times in which real life mimicked “Hogan’s Heroes,” though they never had a two-way radio or a secret tunnel system. They did managed to piece together a crystal radio and listen to the BBC.

Once, said Ehmann, the guys were given a giant sausage. “It looked good from a distance but it was full of maggots. We thought, what are we going to do with this now? We dressed it up in a little uniform and laid it on a board. We named it Adolph. We marched it around camp and then had an official burial in the latrine.”

Despite the difficult conditions, Ehmann said morale was always sky-high. And the Germans couldn’t understand that. “We didn’t want them to think we were all hurt or sad. We held up and they kept shaking their heads.”

After 15 months in captivity, the Germans and POWs evacuated the camp on April 15, 1945. “They said the Russian Army was only kilometers away and that they were killng prisoners and anyone who was not Russian. We found out later they were liberating soldiers being held by the Germans.”

After nine days of walking, the prisoners arrived at their new camp in a forest at the fork of the Inns and Salzach rivers. On the other side of the river was Germany.

“On the morning of our fifth day, I was sitting by the edge of the road when a military jeep came by with four American officers and a machine gun. Several of us stood up and shouted that we were Americans ... They said they would be back within 24 hours with help. They left us and we all had a feeling I will never be able to describe.”

A group of American soldiers arrived in trucks around noon the next day and within an hour they had removed all of the German guards. “We were finally able to say we were free.”

Back at home, Ehmann went to work for C. Schmidt and Sons in Philadelphia, where he spent his career in brewery operations. He married Kathryn Hipp on August 10, 1946 and the couple raised three children, Frederick, William and Evelyn Ehmann Pantuso.

The family moved from Philadelphia to Doylestown in 1957. He joined the Doylestown Country Club and at one point served as its president. He enjoys playing the piano and time with his dog, Cady.

J. Preston Van Artsdalen

He played seven games with major-leaguers during WWII.

By Petra Chesner Schlatter, BucksLocalNews.com


U.S. Army Air Corps Sgt. John Preston Van Artsdalen, 88, always wanted to fly airplanes and be a Major League baseball player. But at age 21, he enlisted in the military on Sept. 5, 1942 in Philadelphia. He was discharged Oct. 25, 1945.

During his time in the service in World War II, Van Artsdalen was a member of a baseball team that actually played a team of major-leaguers. There were seven games. “We won two games,” he said. “We played them in Manila Stadium.” He still has a photograph of his team. He proudly keeps it on a shelf in his office.

Van Artsdalen played short stop with the 12th Air Depot Group. “When I was playing against the major-leaguers, after seven games with them, I knew I wouldn’t make the major league,” he said.

“It was a heartbreaking experience, knowing you’re not going to be good enough to be in the Major Leagues,” he said. “I would have been too old. I would have been 25.”

Van Artsdalen’s days during the war were spent rehabbing aircraft. A native Newtowner, he said, “I didn’t want to be drafted. I wanted to get into the Air Corps. If you were drafted, they could put you anywhere.”

First, he went to Duncan Airfield in San Antonio, Texas. “We didn’t have basic training,” he said. “They put us right in repairing all sorts of planes. They put me on flight status.”

He left Stockton, Calif. for the South Pacific on a ship which was a converted Dutch luxury liner. Because of his Dutch name, he was given special accommodations and did not have to sleep in a bunk bed.

Van Artsdalen served under Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 5th Air Force in the 12th Air Depot Group. He went into the service as a private. “I was a flight engineer on a C-47,” he said. “We used it for everything.”

Everything meant using the plane for cargo, dropping paratroopers, transporting the wounded and personnel.

He said sadly that some of the parachutes did not open.

Vanartsdalen said his first assignment overseas was in Australia. “We were only there for a week,” he said about being in Brisbane.

“They brought these old planes,” he said. “They flew them out of the Philippines. We worked on them. They were B-17 and B-25 bombers.

“They would be shot up pretty good,” Van Artsdalen said. “They didn’t want the Japanese to get them.”

He went up to Townsville in northern Australia. Of all his travels during the war, Townsville was his favorite place. He said it was like the Old West.

“We evacuated all the women and children,” he recalled. “They got them out of Townsville because the Japanese were trying to invade Australia.

“The Battle of the Coral Sea was going on and we were diverted south to avoid the Japanese,” he said.

U.S. forces turned back the Japanese, Van Artsdalen said.

At one point, the U.S. advanced to the Philippines as the war progressed through New Guinea. Vanartsdalen said they went up to Leyte in the Philippines. “Ours was one of the first planes to land at Manila after the ‘Liberation.’ Runways were mined so we were very lucky,” he wrote in his memoires about the war.

As a flight engineer, Van Artsdalen replaced engines. Maintaining the aircraft was important and they made sure the planes were safe to fly.

“When they dropped the bomb, we were all given numbers,” he said. “My number was 229 to identify you when you would leave for the States. The longer you were there, the lower the number.”

In addition to Australia, the Philippines and New Guinea, Van Artsdalen went to Okinawa. He remembers when the U.S. defeated the Japanese and liberated Manila.

“Getting out alive,” was what he often thought about during the war. “Of all the fellows in the service, I had it pretty well,” he said, noting infantrymen and paratroopers had it tough. “They were fighting in the forests,” he said.

In the service, Van Artsdalen discovered he was “pretty good with a rifle.”

Baseball, airplanes and golf have been his favorite pastimes throughout his life. Van Artsdalen had played baseball for Newtown High School. He graduated in 1939.

He later played what he described as semi-professional in the area. He managed the Newtown team for several years. “We had what was called ‘The Town Team,” he said.

For years, he managed the Cardinals Little League team in Newtown.

Van Artsdalen has been a member of the Morrell Smith Post 440 of the American Legion for 64 years. He served as treasurer of the Newtown Exchange Club,

He studied business at then-Rider College as a night student while raising a family and running a successful transportation company.

Van Artsdalen was in the trucking business for 25 years and later was a school bus contractor for New Hope, Council Rock, Lower Moreland and Abington school districts.

He served on Newtown Borough Council during the 1960s. He remarked that Newtown Township and Newtown Borough did not get along.

Van Artsdalen and his wife, Jane, will celebrate their 62nd wedding anniversary on May 22. They have two grown children, Betty Jane and Edward; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. The couple now makes Washington Crossing their home.

They have spent a lot of time traveling, including taking a memorable trip to the South Pacific.
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Editor's Note: J. Preston Van Artsdalen passed away on Tuesday, May 18 at St. Mary Medical Center. Our condolences go out to Jane Van Artsdalen and her family. This article is a tribute to him and his service to our country. The news of his passing came shortly after press-time.

Richard O. Bertz

WWII vet clearly remembers his treacherous time served.

By R. Kurt Osenlund, BucksLocalNews.com


World War II veteran Richard Bertz just celebrated his 88th birthday, and his memory is as sharp as that of a 22-year-old. Easy to talk to, the Trevose resident remembers growing up in Spring City, Pa. along the Schuylkill River. He remembers his Eagle Scout training and details of his time at Royersford High School. He remembers desperately wanting to fly.

At 19, he went to Philadelphia to try out for the Air Force, only to receive a crushing blow.

“I passed everything, all the tests,” Bertz says, “until they put that [vision test] book in front of me and told me I was colorblind. I pleaded with them, but it was no use.”

With what little money he earned working at a glass factory near the home he shared with parents Otto and Ida and siblings Kenneth and Alicia, Bertz hopped a bus to California. Alone, he found a place in Ocean Park where he received free room and board and free meals for serving as the driver for a group of Army soldiers.

All the while, he was taking aeronautical drafting courses at a nearby military airport.

Returning to the Philadelphia area in 1942, Bertz got a job working on airplane prototypes and small drafting assignments.

“I just loved airplanes,” he says. “I wanted to be close to them.”

From there, Bertz was drafted into the Infantry, and sent to join the 94th Infantry Division at Camp Phillips in Kansas. Arriving on Christmas Eve, Bertz spent five months at the camp before undertaking 14 months of maneuvers across the United States. He was an Armor officer, responsible for weapons and ammunition.

In August of 1944, he and his company left the U.S. on the Queen Elizabeth II. They landed in Scotland, passed through England, then wound up in Lorient, France, a submarine base on the Normandy peninsula. There, he and his fellow soldiers were responsible for containing 25,000 Germans, before moving into Germany in the midst of the Battle of the Bulge.

Soon Bertz reached Orsholz, a village located near Germany’s Sarr Valley. Instructed to join troops who were set to invade the village, Bertz donned bedsheets so as to blend in with the snow; however, it wasn’t enough to hide from the minefield that lay before the group, or the sea of bullets the enemy would disperse from across the valley.

“I got about halfway down and all hell broke loose,” Bertz says. “Our lieutenant colonel was killed, many others were killed.”

As instructed, Bertz withdrew into the woods, but without any companions. The snow was over a foot deep and the temperature was well below zero.

Noticing an Army tank nearby, Bertz approached the hatch and asked the occupants if he could come inside, but to no avail. He was freezing and subjected to the elements.

Bertz soon noticed a superior curled up against a tree. Scouting taught Bertz never to fall asleep in freezing weather. He stayed awake; the other man didn’t. He survived; the other man didn’t.
“That was my worst night,” Bertz says.

Bertz’s division eventually took Orsholz, and from there, under the command of Gen. Patton, moved on to Trier and all the way up to the Rhine River.

In Czechoslovakia, Bertz encountered cold weather again, which left him with throat problems and frostbite. (To this day, he wears socks to bed and struggles with a lack of feeling in his feet.)
After suffering through a train disaster while en route to the French port city of Le Havre (a car derailed and was dragged for miles, dumping equipment along the way), Bertz boarded the SS George Washington, a WWI ship that would cart him back home across the Atlantic. Caught in a violent storm, the ship lost a rudder, nearly capsized, and six men were lost.

The boat finally arrived in New York Harbor, and Bertz was home by Christmas Eve – the same day he arrived at Camp Phillips in 1942. He was discharged as a Staff Sergeant. He met his wife, Helen, in 1945 at a dance hall near Pottstown. The couple had two daughters, Renae and Lynn Anne.

In 1949, Bertz graduated from Millersville University, where he studied industrial arts. He went on to become an industrial arts teacher at William Tenant High School, where he taught for 35 years and founded an adult education program.

In 2005, Bertz lost Helen to cardiac problems. He now lives alone in a home filled with his handmade furniture and woodworking creations. In two weeks, he’ll be heading to Charleston, S.C. for the reunion of the 94th Infantry Division. He’s active with the VFW, and says he wants to be buried in the new Washington Crossing Cemetery, where other soldiers like him have been laid to rest.

“I don’t think people appreciate what service men do,” Bertz says. “I got an awful lot of experience, and I wouldn’t want to go through it again, but I wouldn’t want to give it back, either. I wish people would look back and appreciate what the WWII soldiers did. People need to remember.”

Just ask Bertz. He remembers.

Peter J. Cugasi Sr.

WWII Armed Guard tells about the convoys to Europe.

By Matthew Fleishman, BucksLocalNews.com


Drafted into the United States Navy at just 17 years old, Peter J. Cugasi Sr. wound up spending nearly three years in the secret Armed Guard during World War II.

“The Armed Guard is special services,” said Cugasi. “In World War II, the Navy put guns on merchant ships to get personnel and supplies to the war zone. The Armed Guard manned the guns on those ships. There was one Armed Guard officer, about 25 gunners, like myself, and also a few radiomen and signalmen on each ship.

“We were told, ‘Don’t talk about where you have been and don’t talk about the Armed Guard to anybody,’” continued Cugasi.

When the Navy came calling for Cugasi, he told them that he would be happy to serve, but he needed to take care of his mother at home, so the Navy helped him do both at the same time.

“I said, ‘You people don’t understand, I’m taking care of my mother,’” said Cugasi. “The officer made me a deal. My pay was going to be $49 per month, which was a lot back then, so he took $25 from my paycheck each month, and the Navy matched it and sent it home to my mother.”
After being drafted, Cugasi had one more concern, which was the possibility of having to shoot a gun.

“On April 3, 1943, I saw a big bulletin board with my name on it, so I asked the chief why it was there, and he said ‘You’re going to be in the Armed Guard, and we’re going to make a gunner out of you,’” said Cugasi. “I told him that I didn’t want anything to do with guns. I said I would be a radioman or signal man, but I didn’t want to have to explain to my family that I would be shooting a gun. He told me that I didn’t have a choice.”

As part of the Armed Guard, Cugasi would be part of a convoy of about 100 merchant ships, which would depart from Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada. The ships secretly carried reinforcements to Europe.

“The United States government didn’t want the enemy to know that there were Navy guns and personnel on the merchant ships,” said Cugasi. “Ships from all over the world were used in this because many of them couldn’t go back to their home countries because of the war.”

During his three years, Cugasi served aboard the S.S. Edward Paine, the Simon Willard, and the Thomas Sim Lee. On the Lee, Cugasi made the Murmansk Run, which delivered vital supplies to Russian troops on the Eastern Front as the war was turning in the favor of the Allies.

“Our convoy crossed the Arctic Circle to get the supplies to the Russian units,” said Cugasi. “The Russians told President Roosevelt that they needed everything we could produce. They didn’t have the money or the ability to make the supplies, but they had the soldiers ready to continue fighting.”

Fifty years after the war ended, members of the Armed Guard received medals and commendations from the Russian government for their heroic Murmansk Run, which saved the lives of thousands of Russian soldiers, and possibly the entire nation. The ceremony took place on the Liberty Ship John W. Brown.

“The Russian commander told us that if it wasn’t for the convoys, the war would have been lost,” said Cugasi. “The convoys were so secretive, that the Russian soldiers at the ceremony didn’t know much about them.”

After nearly three years in the Armed Guard, and having crossed both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Cugasi was discharged from the Armed Guard.

“I had three years and three ships, so I said a lot of prayers in that time,” said Cugasi. “I had enough war by then, and on November 11, 1945, I got my discharge from the Armed Guard. I was one of the first guys to get out.”

Cugasi, who reached the rank of Seaman 1st Class, is the Chairman of the Delaware Valley Armed Guard, which holds a monthly meeting for veterans who served in the Armed Guard. During his time in the Navy, he received the World War II Service Medal, Distinguished Service Medal, State of New Jersey Distinguished Service Medal, Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, American Campaign Medal, and also received recognition for his time in the China-Burma-India Theatre.

Currently, Cugasi, who spent 41 years working as an electrician in Trenton, lives in Levittown with his wife. Together, they have three children and nine grandchildren. In an “odd coincidence,” according to Cugasi, each of his three children are blessed with two boys and one girl.