American Red Cross - Behind Nazi lines: my fathers heroic quest to save 149 World War II POWs

Thursday, 23 November 1944, Thanksgiving Day, 94th Infantry Division Headquarters, Chteaubriant, France

Andy Hodges had been handed a job no one else dared to accepta direct order from Major General Harry J. Malony, commander of the 94th Infantry Division, headquartered in Chteaubriant, France.

Its a suicide mission, Malonys chief of staff, Colonel Earl Bergquist, had told him. But Andy had his orders, even if hed most likely become the target of a German bullet.

However dangerous the assignment, deep down Hodges welcomed the opportunity to serve his country. He thought about the lives that were depending on himmen with families in America, France, and Britainmothers, fathers, wives, and siblings who waited for a word of hope about their loved ones recently declared missing in action. He hoped he could save the POWs held in the St. Nazaire prison camp. The prisoners were cold, hungry, and becoming deathly ill. They needed help, and quickly.

On that dismal predawn morning in late November, a cold rain spattered the sleeping French countryside. Andy placed a white flag in the jeeps front holder, climbed inside, and began his trek toward enemy lines. Probably, no one expected his arrival on this day. In his hand, he carried a copy of a letter, dated November 21, 1944, typed in German on American Red Cross stationery. It was addressed to the camps Kommandantwhoever he was.

An den Deutschen Kommandanten, St. Nazaire, it said. Thats all. No specific name.

I hope the Kommandant has already received the original letter I sent beforehand. But I have no way to know.

The letter he held was his protection, his only defense, if he were stopped, questioned, and searched. But he knew it would provide little security against so brutal an enemy.

In seven or eight hours, back home in Geneva, South Alabama, Thanksgiving Day would dawn. He wanted to be there, sitting in his chair around the big family table, with his new bride and toddler son, his parents, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and longtime friends. He could almost smell and taste the traditional oven-baked turkey and cornbread dressing, marshmallow-crowned sweet potato casserole, last summers homegrown canned tomatoes, and pumpkin pies his family would feast on that day. But the whole world was at war, and he had his orders.

Dinners at home will have to waittill next year, or the year after that. I sure hope I get to sit at my familys Thanksgiving table again one day.

As he drove slowly down the narrow path from Chteaubriant, he shined his flashlight on the old, crinkled map of France, the only one he could find. When he reached Chauve, he stopped and checked the tangle of thread-like roads that branched out like a spiders web from the small Allied-occupied village southeast of St. Nazaire on the western coast of central France.