EAST TEXAS (KYTX) -- "I lost nearly 40 pounds while I was there. We didn't have any food."
Corporal Wilbur Tomlin found out how dangerous things were at a German POW camp when he saw a starving soldier take food from a German supply wagon.
"They were pulling in a wagon load of potatoes and one of the Russian POWs went out to get a potato off the wagon," he said. "A German Army guard shot him, killed him over an Irish potato."
The year was 1945. German soldiers captured Tomlin and his unit on a mission in France. Tomlin left college to enlist in the army in 1942.
"I felt like it was my duty."
After training in Texas, he arrived in France in October 1943. He was on the front lines in spring of 1944 when an explosion came way too close.
"An 8 millimeter shell exploded eight or four feet from this side of my head and I was unconscious for 24 hours."
After he healed, he went back into combat. Until a cold January day in 1945 that he'll never forget.
"In my foxhole, a German guard standing, pointed at my head with a rifle."
The Germans took him to a prisoner of war camp near Muhlberg, Germany. American, Russian and French soldiers struggled to get by on what little food the Germans gave them.
He spent three months in psychological torment, never knowing if he would live or die.
"One guard marched two of us out into the forest and I had some doubt whether or not we'd ever get out of the forest alive."
But one spring day, in March 1945, Russian soldiers freed them all. And Tomlin and some other U.S. troops took off through the villages of Germany hoping to reunite with American troops.
They were starving and encountered incredible kindness from the German people.
"An 11-year-old boy came over and told us his mother would let us spend the night with them," he said. "Afraid of the Russians and knew with Americans in the house they'd be safe. So she fed us what she could and sent us upstairs. Most comfortable beds I've ever slept in."
Finally. Tomlin and the others reunited with American forces in Germany and they sent him to a base back in France.
"They had every kind of meat, every kind of vegetable, every kind of dessert you can have."
They were nursed back to health before coming back to the U.S. But when Tomlin finally got back to Bullard in December 1945 -- his family was astonished to see him.
"My dad got a telegram that I was killed."
A congressman sent a telegram mistakenly saying Tomlin died in combat. His father couldn't believe it.
"He was full of emotions he just couldn't show it."
Now Tomlin is 89 and lives in Tyler. Looking back... He has no regrets. But he hopes all Americans, especially the young, understand the sacrifices he and others have made to maintain our way of life.
"I don't think they realize what a good country they live in and they wouldn't hesitate to do whatever they were called upon to do to maintain the freedoms we have here."
It's a lesson Tomlin learned first hand; that even a boy from Bullard can be an East Texas hero.
Tomlin says the people of Germany were always kind to American soldiers --viewing them as protectors from Hitler's forces. They would sneak them food and tell them how much they loved Americans. He corresponded for years to people he met during his time in Germany.
