Readers, I write this sitting in a dear friend’s flat in Glasgow, Scotland with a second cup of tea as the rain slows to a lazy drizzle and the day has darkened into evening.
It seems appropriate I’m writing from the U.K. — since I first fell in love with England as a Chico State student during London Semester, I’ve been returning at least once a year for the last 21 years or so. What a thrill to see the world and encounter the people in it — every day delivers something fascinating, if I’m open to it.
Before visiting a good friend in Germany, I took the train to Strasbourg, France, a journey I’ve wished to take for several years, as it holds particular significance for my family.
Seventy nine years ago, on the 25th of this month, this newspaper reported that my grandfather, 21-year-old George Addison Posey, Jr., a graduate of Chico High, had been missing since October 29 on a tactical reconnaissance mission somewhere over France. Coincidentally, I’m writing this column exactly 79 years after he was shot down in his P-51 Mustang by a Nazi flying a captured American aircraft, a P-47.
Some 20 odd years ago, my father had the good sense to capture my grandfather sharing his testimony on video. I marvel at how relaxed my grandfather seemed about the whole experience, especially about parachuting out at 12,000 feet.
Once safely on the ground, he followed a stream bed but froze after spotting a wire across a ravine. Looking up, he saw Germans with rifles pointed at him. Eventually taken to a hospital in Strasbourg, right on Germany’s border, he joined 30 other American prisoners on the 3rd floor. He was taken into surgery, and spoke of playing cards and talking with the other prisoners.
His luck would nearly run out when the Commandant arrived to find him “well” and ranted and raved that he would be going “over the Rhine” to a POW camp. Inspection arrived the next day — if my grandfather’s X-rays were clean, he would be shipped out. He looked at his X-rays: clean as could be. But when the inspecting colonel perused them, something happened. There now appeared a piece of metal about an inch long.
Livid, he ordered my grandfather back into surgery. He wouldn’t be going over the Rhine just yet.
“To me it’s a miracle and God was certainly working it out in some way.” Perhaps you wouldn’t be reading this column if that miracle hadn’t taken place.
Fifteen days passed and my grandfather was again ready to be sent to Germany, but the American forces were on the edge of the city, poised to liberate Strasbourg. Had they waited an extra day, it might have been too late, but several overly eager tanks triggered the Germans to assume the rest were behind. My grandfather, a Second Lieutenant, was one of two American lieutenants the Germans surrendered the hospital to before they left.
My grandfather remarked, “I just kind of liked it there, to tell you the truth.”
Part of my journey to Strasbourg involved uncovering more of why he liked it. The truth is: it’s a wonderful and fascinating city.
His stay in Strasbourg eventually came to an end — one day he walked into the lobby and a 6’10” American colonel called him over, smoke pouring from his 2-inchthick Havana cigar into my grandfather’s face.
“Lieutenant, what in the hell are you doing here?”
“I just liked it here,” the 21-year-old replied. The colonel then “blew his top” and cussed him out, “one side down and out the other.” That afternoon he was on a jeep back to his outfit.
My grandfather has since passed away so I can’t ask him questions about the experience, but it’s an extraordinary and miraculous story. I loved Strasbourg and know I’ll be back.
I’m proud of the contribution my grandfather made in the war effort — 79 years ago many said no to the evil ideology of the Nazis. We find ourselves again opposing such evil as seen in the October terrorist massacre by Hamas in Israel and rampant antisemitism.
And the story continues: My investigation at the city archives looking for the exact hospital in Strasbourg invites me to further research at the military archives in Paris, perhaps a trip in 2024.
