Column | WWII enlistee suffers capture by Germans

Twenty-one-year-old Warren Shaw enlisted in the 82nd Army Airborne on May 9, 1942. In December 1943, Shaw would head to Ireland to train for the invasion of France, leaving his wife Helen and unborn child.

On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Warren and the 507th parachute Infantry, would drop behind the German lines in France. The landings did not go as planned due to the artillery fire on the planes; men were dropped sometimes miles from the drop zone they expected. Warren would find himself 60 miles from where he was supposed to be. On June 7, he and 17 others tried to find their way back to the American lines; Shaw jumped off a bridge and broke his ankle. Later in the day, they took sanctuary in a farmhouse, a plan was devised on how to get through the German lines, but Shaw had to be left behind, because of his injury. Shaw and six others would be captured by the Germans on June 18.

His mother not yet knowing his fate would send him V-Mail on July 15, 1944, which reads in part, “Dear Warren, Helen had her little girl at 11:50 today. The baby is darling and has fair complexion and dark hair and lots of it. Lots of Love, Mother.”

Eventually, word would reach the family of his being a prisoner. He was moved from one camp to another, reaching his last camp, Stalag 3-C in November 1944. On Sept. 8, he would write a short note home to his wife. “Dearest Helen, Ten days from now I will have been a prisoner three months, it has been a long time but things are pretty nice where we have been for the past week. All nationalities are here, but we are planning to return home soon. Love Warren”

In January 1945, the Germans decided to move their prisoners farther west from the advancing American troops; however the Germans and the prisoners encountered the Russian army advancing from the west. The POWS, seeing their chance, escaped through the Russian lines. Shaw and others eventually were caught by the Russians and temporarily put in prison camps before transporting them to Odessa on the Black Sea, where they would be released into American hands.

Warren would return home to Newark on a 60-day furlough in March 1945 and finally get to meet his 8-month-old daughter.

Shaw would leave the army and return to the area to farm and serve his community on various school boards for over 40 years and many other service organizations. Warren Shaw died in 2009 at the age of 88 and is buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery.

Doug Stout is Heroes Project Coordinator and Head of Circulation for the Licking County Library. You may contact him at 740-349-5571 dstout@lickingcountylibrary.info