Natasha Hutton
Tanner Trapp
Shannon Voss
Corona
U.S. History P.1
3/26/05
ESLR# 1, 2, 3,4,5,7
C.S. #11.8
Anthony Acevedo
Anthony Acevedo was drafted
into World War II at the age of 18 as a Medical Technician. Mr. Acevedo was
also ranked in corporal 275th regiment COB. Although he was so young
he was all the more willing to go and fight in the war.
Mr. Acevedo was born on
July 31, 1924 in San Bernardino CA. During his early youth his parents moved
him to Durango, Mexico in 1937. During his time in Mexico he went to Poly Tech.
where he studied medicine. Mr. Acevedo shares a story about his time in Mexico,
about how one day he and his friends were swimming at the pool that his dad had
built for the city. And next to the pool was a radio tower, one of his friends
knew how to interpret Morse code. So while they were swimming they heard a
message coming in from this radio. Mr. Acevedo’s friend who knew Morse code
determined that it was some kind message being sent from spies. Later that
night Mr. Acevedo told his dad about the message they had heard, so his dad
went and told the police and they found out that the people who had sent this
message were German spies. After his time in Mexico he came back to the United
States of America and attended Pasadena City College for a semester before he
was drafted.
When Mr. Acevedo first
went into the service he was in the infantry division to fight, but what Mr.
Acevedo wanted was to be a medic. He would get his wish and was sent to school
to study medicine in O’Reilly General Hospital in Springfield, Mo. The school was
ten hours a day; there he learned everything he needed to learn that would have
taken a couple years, in about three and a half months. After his training Mr.
Acevedo was sent for combat. Then early in December of 1945, Mr. Acevedo left
from Boston on a ship called the “West Point S.S. America” which was headed for
France. This led him to end up at the Battle of the Bulge. This time was said
to have been the coldest winter in over a 100 years and neither him nor the men
were prepared with clothes and equipment for the winter.
His platoon was assigned to head for
the front line. During this Battle of the Bulge Mr. Acevedo found his company
commander seriously wounded and the other medic was killed. Mr. Acevedo did
everything he could to save the injured solders. The battle went on for six
days and six nights, and the men went without food and water, so they ate snow
to stay alive. For them there was no way to escape from the cold. In the end
Mr. Acevedo and his fellow solders were surrounded at Fackenberg Heights on
January 6, 1947 by German soldiers, they were pushed up the hill till they had
to surrender. The first thing the Germans had them do was take there boots off
and walk barefooted down the snowy hill. When they had reached the bottom of the
hill they were told to put the boots back on.
Mr. Acevedo was one of 40,000 POW's
captured by the Germans. All the 40,000 POW's were ordered to walk to a camp
called Bad Orb-Stalag 9B which is known for the horrific things they did to
prisoners. Upon arriving at the camp they were split up into several groups and
put into rooms were they had to sleep on concrete floors and if they were fed,
which wasn’t often, it was mostly dry hard bread, nasty rotten soup, and this
nasty tea. When he went into this camp he weight 149 pounds and left weight a
mere 87 pounds due to the horrendous conditions.
One day two Germans
walked into the room pointing their guns at Mr. Acevedo and told him to get up
and they walked him into another room. A man dressed in a white and black
leather coat as the Gestapo started his interrogations on Avecedo. Mr. Acevedo
stated that “he knew more about him than he knew about himself”, at first he
asked Mr. Acevedo a few questions witch he did not answer to the fullest.
Gestapo knew he wasn’t being truthful, so to get answers out of Mr. Acevedo
they stuck needles in his fingernails. They finally let him go. Mr. Acevedo
said that the Gestapo knew about the incident in Mexico with the German spies,
also they knew everything about his family. What is so amazing Mr. Acevedo said
was that he never told him anything about himself.
While his long time as a POW Mr.
Acevedo kept a journal of drawings of the German soldiers beating the
prisoners, and he also had lists of all the people he had treated and helped as
a medic. To this day Mr. Acevedo still has his medic arm band and his journal.
During his time in the prison he was sent on what is known as the Death March.
The German soldiers told them that their new camp was nice and beautiful but it
was anything but that. The showers were outside and could easily be switched from
water to gas and to even a flame. At night when they slept on the hard floors
they were ordered to take there clothes off and Mr. Acevedo was in charge of
gather up their clothes and putting then away so that the men wouldn’t
escape. Many soldiers were not healthy
or strong enough to continue and died on the way there. With guns in there
faces and soldiers all around escaping was not and option.
On April 23 Mr. Acevedo and his men
were liberated by the 11th armor division. Mr. Acevedo and the POWs
were ordered to sign papers saying that they were no to speak of any of their
imprisonment, they were restricted from opening their mouths about anything
that went on. When Mr. Acevedo was sent back to the United States he went back on
a ship they called “sardines.” They arrived to Camp Davis, where the Red
Cross wasn’t welcoming them home. The POW's were starving while the Red Cross
charged us them for coffee, doughnuts and candy, but they didn’t have a cent to
their name. Mr. Acevedo received many medals, ribbons and badges for his
courageous attributes to the war. Mr. Acevedo did everything he could to save
lives and help our country and we are truly thankful for the time he spent to
share his story with the world.