Photo by Scott Cunningham
Liberated
Pickerington veteran forever carries the memory of his time in an Axis prison camp
This year has marked a major milestone for Pickerington resident Edwin “Eddie” Leibbrand.
April 2 was the 70-year anniversary of the day he and 3,363 other American troops were liberated from Nazi prison camp Stalag IX-B.
Leibbrand, 91, maintains vivid memories of his time in that hellish place – making him all the more appreciative of what he has now, and making all the more poignant for him the volunteer work he does at Motts Military Museum in Groveport.
Though he has lived in Pickerington for about 40 years, Leibbrand was born and raised in south Columbus. He was drafted in 1943, three days after his 19th birthday, to fight in World War II.
He was trained as a machine gunner and instructed in use of the Browning .30 caliber water-cooled machine gun, which fired 230 rounds per minute. He was eventually assigned to Pennsylvania’s 110th Regiment of the 28th Infantry Division, holding the rank of private, and deployed to Europe on Aug. 17, 1944, departing from New York City on the Queen Elizabeth.
Among his shipmates were Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and members of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
Leibbrand and his fellow troops landed in England and quickly crossed into France. They were part of the liberation of Paris before proceeding into Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.
It was in a small town in Belgium that the troops came under heavy fire from German tanks in the first Nazi offensive of the Battle of the Bulge, losing about 2,700 of their number. Many of them were killed, and the others – including Leibbrand – captured, when they were led into a trap on Dec. 18, 1944.
Photo by Scott Cunningham
Liberated
The prisoners were marched by day and crammed into schools and churches to sleep at night – in freezing cold, with no food or water. On one occasion, Leibbrand was one of 300 prisoners repeatedly marched in a circle through one village as part of a propaganda campaign; the Nazis claimed they had captured more than 450,000 Allied troops.
They were then loaded into railroad cars. The cars were known as “40 & 8” cars, because each was designed to hold 40 men and eight horses, but the Germans forced as many as 100 prisoners into them.
“We went five days and five nights without a thing to eat or drink,” Leibbrand says.
Because American planes made runs during the day, the trains only moved at night. During the day, the cars simply sat idle with the men inside them growing continually weaker. One soldier convinced the men in Leibbrand’s car to pray with him, and about an hour later, Leibbrand says, they were finally given food and water.
Stalag IX-B – located in Bad Orb, Hessen, Germany, near Frankfurt – was one of the Nazis’ worst prison camps, and had previously been used as a concentration camp.
“They still had the ovens in there,” Leibbrand says.
Prisoners had to deal with lice-infested sleeping mats, no sanitary services and very little food.
“I went from 168 pounds down to 98 pounds in four months,” Leibbrand says. “Three little potatoes a day.”
There was no heat, and prisoners were never issued warm clothing to combat the cold of winter.
“What kept me going was the idea that maybe I would be going home someday,” says Leibbrand.
Photo by Scott Cunningham
Liberated
One night, a prisoner who had broken into the mess hall killed a guard with a meat cleaver. Afterward, all the prisoners were forced at bayonet-point to stand outside in knee-high snow in the middle of the night until the guilty man stepped forward. They were allowed back indoors when blood was found on one man’s clothes, but Leibbrand still suffered serious damage to his feet from the cold.
About 6,000 prisoners – including 3,364 Americans, one of them Leibbrand – were freed when the camp was liberated on April 2, 1945.
“They didn’t even open up the gate; they just came through with tanks,” he says. “I said to myself, ‘Oh my gosh, the good Lord was with us.’”
It was not a moment too soon for Leibbrand, who walked 100 feet toward his liberators and collapsed from yellow jaundice and malnutrition. He spent three months in a hospital in France before he was ready to begin his return trip. On Aug. 1, 1945, he finally returned to American soil on a destroyer.
After a 60-day leave in Columbus and another two weeks in Miami Beach, Leibbrand was given orders to report to Ft. Bragg, N.C. for training on the 60-mm mortar. He was going to be redeployed in the Pacific theater, but after an appeal, he was honorably discharged on Nov. 28, 1945.
Leibbrand worked for 10 years as a machine repairman on the C&O Railroad, where his father worked, and for 28 years as a machinist at Columbus Boltworks, near what is today the Arena District.
Leibbrand married his first wife, Billie, in 1946. The couple had one son. Billie died in 1981, and in 1983, Leibbrand married his second wife, Jane. Leibbrand has remained close to Jane’s two daughters – and their three children – since Jane died in 2007.
Leibbrand has kept a couple of artifacts on hand, including a showcase with his POW ribbon and dog tags. He has donated other items to Motts Military Museum.
“Mr. (Warren, museum founder) Motts has a dagger and … some good conduct medals I gave to him,” says Leibbrand.
The dagger, emblazoned with a swastika, was taken from a teenage girl in Germany, he says.
The museum has been in operation since 1987 and in its current location since 1999. It displays artifacts from wars spanning from the colonial era to the modern day.
Leibbrand takes a weekly four-hour volunteer shift on Wednesdays at the museum, greeting visitors as they come in the door and assisting them however he can.
“It gives me something to do, even though I am 91 years old,” he says.
It also helps him support the museum’s mission, which he says is very important, teaching visitors about the wars that have shaped the U.S.
He is also a member of the American Legion’s David Johnston Memorial Post #283 in Pickerington and Baltimore VFW 3761.
Leibbrand received an honorary high school diploma from Pickerington City Schools in 2007. He was drafted before he could finish high school, as a health condition had left him a year behind in his studies.
Garth Bishop is managing editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
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