Prisoner Ranks Expand As War Grows Intense In France and Germany
Hopes for an eventual happy reunion at the conclusion of hostilities with father, brother, son or husband, initially reported as “missing in action” has been spurred in a number of homes in Muscatine and nearby communities in southeastern Iowa and western Illinois by later information, advising that the missing service man was listed as a prisoner of war.
Anxious hours of hopeful waiting after official information listing men as “missing in action” has been followed in repeated instances by such data during the past year, as it was in former years of World War No. 2, as the number of men who have become members of the “Barbed Wire Legion”—prisoners of war—has increased.
Then, for families and for the members of the Barbed Wire Legion, as well, has followed a second interval of waiting—until through the channels of the International Red Cross, letters and communications have been re-established.
This, in turn, is followed by further waiting—waiting for that day when peace will return and the guns of war are silenced—when long days of confinement in distant camps and restriction of privileges will come to an end and families and friends may be reunited.
As the period of America’s participation in the war has lengthened, so has the number of men listed from this community as prisoners of war.
For some, stationed in the Pacific theater of action, three years have passed in prison camps. For others, captured in other fields of action, one year in a prisoner of war camp is stretching to a second. Others, participating in more recent actions, have spent lesser periods in prison camps.
From some of these men, relatives have received fairly regular, although restricted letters, advising of their treatment, the receipt of certain items of clothing, food and for recreational purposes through the Red Cross. From others only scratches of information have been received.
From official sources and from members of their families, brief sketches of the following men reported as prisoners, have been obtained:
LT. ARTHUR MITTMAN—A pilot of a U. S. Flying Fortress, Lt. Arthur Mittman, who was reported missing in a daylight air raid on Berlin in March, 1944, was listed as a German prisoner, according to word received by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Mittman, 708 Newell avenue.
Source: Muscatine Journal and News-Tribune, Friday, December 29, 1944 (photo included)
Arthur Mittman was born Sept. 9, 1922 to Walter J. and Clara Anna Martha Kothke Mittman. He died May 14, 2003 and is buried in Salem UCC Cemetery, Lena, IL.
Lt. Mittman served in World War II with the U.S. Army Air Corps flying B-17s. He became a German POW when his plane was shot down.
Source: ancestry.com
