Beaten but Not Broken: The Diary of a U.S. Pow Surviving Five Nazi Concentration Camps

By Tech Sergeant Louis Wm. Tury Jr.

There is no fear quite like the all consuming
fear of the unknown. Couple that with subzero
temperatures, being wounded, malnourished
and one of 60 other men locked in a boxcar
heading deeper into Nazi occupied Germany,
deeper into the indignation of being a P.O.W.,
deeper into the horror and moment to moment
reality of death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 24, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453521205

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Copyright © 2010 by Sandra J. Tury Timco

for Tech Sergeant Louis Wm. Tury, Jr..

Library of Congress Control Number:       2010907536

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4535-0984-5

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4535-0983-8

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4535-2120-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

Copyright @ 2005 by Sandra J. Tury Timco

for Tech Sergeant Louis Wm. Tury, Jr.

ISBN: 0-9747896-2-3

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE

PRISONER OF WAR

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In gratitude to the Holy Trinity

for sustaining my father

and for sustaining me

INTRODUCTION

The Battle of the Bulge was the largest battle ever fought by the United States Army. The brave men at the Bulge fought so valiantly that they managed to hold and halt Hitler’s final German Offensive. The 106th Infantry was especially credited with fearlessly slowing down the Germans, thus using up much of the precious time the Germans had counted on to overcome the Allies. Fought during the coldest and snowiest winter in history, this daring delay and the extended battle that followed cost the Germans valuable time and resources, causing them to lose the advantage they had in many of their previous campaigns. Because the men at the Bulge fought so heroically, Germany’s Ardennes Offensive was soundly put down, and Hitler’s downfall and Germany’s defeat by the Allies was secured.

Many of the courageous men who fought in this epic battle would never return to the ones who loved them back home. There were over 81,000 American casualties, including 23,554 captured as POWs. Many of these POWs died in captivity from battle wounds, diseases, starvation, or at the hands of the guards in the miserable Stalags of Germany. Yet some made it back to the ones they loved. One of those fortunate survivors is the author of this War Diary. The late Tech Sergeant Louis William Tury, Jr. writes on May 9, 1945:

I can say this: we all suffered plenty at the hands of the Germans and we left many behind in their shallow graves, but we are the lucky ones; we did survive this Holocaust inside Nazi Germany. One day I shall write my story and let my wife and family know what I and many like me endured as POWs.

Tech Sergeant Tury did not publish his story during his lifetime, but his daughter, Sandra Tury Timco, with the help of her mother, Sergeant Tury’s beloved wife, Margaret, have graciously given his story to be told on the pages of this book. The diary is one to be read with handkerchief in hand, for it will move you endlessly to tears. You will weep for the men who fought so heroically, for those who died in such agony at Winterspelt, for all who suffered in the infamous concentration camps[1] of Nazi Germany. You will share both sorrow and joy with Sergeant Tury as you read his War Diary and be humbled, but never will you lose hope. For each day Louis Tury never fails to do the best he can for those who are suffering more than he, and as you watch him live out his faith, your spirit will be uplifted and your own faith strengthened.

Tech Sergeant Tury’s daughter, Sandra, shares another side of the Sergeant with us, that of a beloved father. As his dearly-loved daughter, Sandra gives us a glimpse of the man after the war. One of seven children of Louis and Margaret Tury, Sandra is a born again, spirit filled, charismatic Catholic who was inspired to live in, with, and for Jesus Christ by the example of simple faith that was her father’s life.

I have personally been acquainted

with Sandra as a good friend and business associate for the past 28 years. She has received many gifts of the Holy Spirit throughout the years, including the gifts of prophecy, healing, discernment, knowledge, and tongues, and has always received the direction of a personal spiritual director. Sandra is a Christian Catholic Evangelist who has hosted and produced the multidenominational cable television show, Lumen Christi for the past 14 years, a show dedicated to spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ and highlighting the work His people are doing for Him here on earth. Sandra has also co-hosted Catholic radio and has accepted numerous speaking engagements on various Christian topics. We can be confident that the loving daughter of Sergeant Tury is being directed by the Holy Spirit in making her father’s story known through this book.

It is a book about the Battle of the Bulge during World War II and its shameful aftermath for the Prisoners of War, but it is also a story that resonates of faith, hope, and charity, inspired and written by a man who loved his Lord. When you put down this diary, you will have experienced the darkest time in the life of one man, yet you will have also witnessed his finest hour.

Melody Kleintank, Editor

PROLOGUE

Gifts come in many packages. Strange as it sounds, my greatest gifts were packaged as a storyteller, the stories he told, and the journey where those stories led me.

The storyteller was my father, the stories his true life experiences as a prisoner of war in Nazi occupied Germany during World War II. Barely surviving in five different concentration camps, he knew what it was to be demoralized and brutalized, purified and sanctified.

His amazing memoirs were secretly chronicled in a tiny pocket-address book, written in a short hand he devised. This diary he kept tucked in his rectum for safe keeping. He wrote of the horrors of war, and of the twisted minds of demented men who thought nothing of stripping others of their health, their dignity, or their sanity. They tried to strip a man of everything that he was. One thing they could not take from my father was—his faith.

In fact, his faith in the provisional God he knew as Father and the consistency of Jesus who became his closest friend was sealed by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. His faith was an innocent childlike faith, the kind we are all called to live. Never assuming, just a sweet trust.

His desire to live the Gospel under such deplorable conditions made my heart hunger for this Jesus, too. Our Lord, who had suffered for my father and with my father, would allow my father the privilege of unifying his pain with the most precious pain of His crucifixion. Beyond this, He would bless him with three miracles besides the most obvious miracle, SURVIVAL. His constant grace was my father’s hope.

My little heart was certainly fertile ground to plant seeds of faith. Sitting on the arm of the living room chair in my chenille bathrobe on Saturday nights, the sowing began. I would open every fiber of my being to receive every word and nuance my father offered. I hungered for his precious eye contact to reassure him that I was willing to travel with him in frigid, below zero weather through the trenches and foxholes of the frozen wasteland that had become Nazi, Germany. I escorted him into the boxcars where men were reduced to human skeletons and would mess their pants out of sheer fear of traveling into the unknown.

I was wrapped in awe and wonder at the thought that daily, this wounded soldier was turning to Jesus for every ounce of strength; strength for dealing with the silence of starvation, the stench of death, the daily monotony of confining incarceration, and the damaging effects of an endless sameness—constant abuse which spurred the need for constant prayer. His prayer had become as important as his food, generally just one small cup of rutabaga soup and one slice of black bread daily—a perpetual fast, an opportunity to grow closer to Christ through sacrifice and ultimately, to love others more because of it.

What you are about to read and the journey you are about to embark upon is painful indeed. May I suggest using it as I did? Hunger even greater for a wondrous Lord who would allow one of His own to walk the darkness of Calvary, but would resurrect him to live a life of acceptance and forgiveness. For you see, as a child, I never heard my father utter an unkind word to anyone or about anyone, including the tyrannical soldiers who directly inflicted pain. My father accepted forgiveness and gave forgiveness for all the ill feelings and behaviors that are forced upon men during war. He frequented confession and the reception of the Holy Eucharist as often as possible to help him cope with what had become his life.

The entry chronicling his birthday is among the most touching. Never more physically and mentally desperate, the little Belgium Priest celebrates Mass for him in his billet and the Eucharist, the most magnificent gift, is given to this nearly broken soldier. Food for obedience.

Sandra, he would say years later, those young German boys were just doing what they were told to do, too. Christ and time would wash away all his confusion, anger, and pain. He would return home an even better man!

All acts of obedience lived to the fullest. Obedience needed to survive. When he was divinely directed to relinquish his boots in sub-zero weather for a trade of a loaf of black bread, we understand the Bread of Life is always sustaining.

Too humble to fully understand all the divine protection given him, until on a bleak and monumental forced march, Jesus appears and speaks—to yet suffer more . . . .

I offer you, my brothers and sisters, the two greatest gifts I received from my father after life itself. First, the seeds of faith he sowed in me to want to know, love, and live for Jesus Christ, and secondly,

My Father’s Diary.

Sandra Tury Timco

PRISONER OF WAR

by Tech Sergeant Louis Wm. Tury, Jr.

Company A—Regiment 1st Battalion

106th Division 3rd Platoon

1944-1945

November 28, 1944

On this day in Banbury, England, we are alerted to move out and prepare our equipment for travel. All day we grease our guns, roll up our gear, and get all our things in order in this friendly English town. These people have gone through some rough times the last few years. After our meal, first Sergeant Moore issues orders that every man in the outfit is restricted to his billet. Our platoon was billeted behind The Red Lion Inn. Our beds consisted of chicken wire; mattresses were made of coal sacks filled with straw. Our toilets were coal buckets that were emptied once a day by a crew of English men called honey bucket wagons. Yet the United States paid for first class billets for our troops. Alerted and ready to move out at any minute, I lay on top of my equipment, said my prayers and went to sleep. Goodnight.

November 29, 1944

We awoke this morning, and all in our Platoon headed for the dispensary for our shots and medical check-ups. In the afternoon, the Platoon was headed to a British theater to hear a Captain give a pep talk about the German Soldier—hand in hand combat—kill or be killed. They ran movies about the German Tanks and how they fought at the front lines. He never left England; he was stationed in England to educate us before we went over into France. He kept on talking, but some of the fellows fell asleep listening to his speech. I left the theater and went to church, had fish and chips, and then visited my British friends, The Family Creed. These people opened their hearts to us at all times. With the First Sergeant’s permission, I stayed and had supper with them. Slowly walked back to the billet and thought of home—my dearest wife and family. Laid down late this evening, played my harmonica a little, then said my prayers and fell asleep.

November 30, 1944

I awoke early for some unknown reason, wrote my darling wife, Margaret, a V-Mail letter. After a bit of a day dreaming of home, I went down to early breakfast in the mess hall. Had oatmeal and pancakes and a hot cup of tea. First Sergeant Moore told us after breakfast to go and say good-bye to all our British friends. He stated very soon that we would be pulling out for places unknown. I put on my light field