Editorial by Monica Seals
As this is Memorial Day, I’d like to tell you about the person I honor today.
In 1941 in Jackson County, Missouri, my grandfather Floyd Alan Ticknor enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Three years later grandpa’s plane was shot down behind enemy lines. He was captured in Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germans and held as a prisoner of war at Stalag Luft IV in what is now Poland.
Grandpa had been in the POW camp for seven months when in February 1945 the camp set out on a 600 mile march across Poland that would later be known as the Black March
For 86 days the prisoners were marched 15-20 miles a day through snow, rain and mud, with little food or shelter, and absolutely no medical care.
The POW’s ate charcoal to help stop dysentery and every POW became infected with lice. Pneumonia, diphtheria, pellagra, typhus, trench foot, tuberculosis and other diseases ran rampant among the POW’s.
The average POW lost one-third of his body weight; many didn’t survive the diseases and injuries they suffered, and German guards quickly shot those who could not keep up.
On April 3, 1945, the surviving POWs reached Stalag 357 in East Germany. But Allied forces were advancing and American artillery was getting closer, so after a week the POWs were again moved out.
After three more weeks of marching, the POWs were liberated near Lauenburg, Germany, when British troops came upon the men sitting on the banks of the River Elba.
Grandpa had been a prisoner for nearly 600 days. When he returned to the states he relocated to New Mexico where he ultimately met my grandma Beatrice.
He cursed too much, was a fan of the Dallas Cowboys, and when the doctor ordered him to cut back on his beer consumption he did so by switching to boilermakers – he said he cut his beer intake by half.
But he taught me how to fish, how to water ski, and how to work on a car. Grandpa passed away in 2011, just three days before Memorial Day and three weeks after his 96th birthday.
He outlived three wives and the efforts of Nazi Germany. He flew on numerous missions against the enemy over both North Africa and Europe.
I am so grateful to have had him in my life, and so proud of the life he lived. He was a great man and despite what some people are saying about prisoners of war, he was a hero.