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April 26, 1945
MASKELL—Pfc. Andy Erick Taute, 22, a member of the Marine Corps, was killed in action on Iwo Jima March 12, his wife and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. B. H. Taute, have been advised by the war department.
He joined the marines about a year ago and was sent to the Pacific war theater last July.
In addition to his widow and parents, he is survived by one brother, Cpl. Zearl Taute, who is stationed in the Aleutians, and four sisters, Mrs. Russell Hallen, Mrs. Edwin Bengston and Mrs. Warren Pearson, all of Wausa, and Mrs. Evert Surber of Friend, Nebr.
Pfc. Taute was born on a farm near Maskell in 1922. He was baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran church here and was graduated from Maskell high school in 1939. He was employed in Chicago but returned here sometime before entering military service.
Pfc. Taute was married in Los Angeles, Calif., July 15, 1944 to Miss Geraldine Bishop, grammar room teacher in the Maskell school.
His gold star is the second one to be placed on the service flag at the Maskell Lutheran church. The other gold star is for Lt. Owen Anderson.
April 26, 1945
HARTINGTON - Sgt. Clifford Thoene, former Hartington national guardsman who has been in the army since January 1941 and who has seen service in both Asiatic and European war theaters, is back in the United States for treatment of wounds after a harrowing experience in a German prison camp.
Sgt. Thoene telephoned his parents last Thursday afternoon from Fitzsimmons army hospital in Denver, where he is being treated for shrapnel wounds in his left hip. He was flown from Paris to Denver and in a letter received by his parents this week he related details of some of his experiences.
Reported missing March 3, Sgt. Thoene was not heard of again until March 27 when the prison camp in which he was confined was taken by the Third Army.
During the 24 days he was in the German prison camp he lost 42 pounds. Although wounded, he received very little medical attention. He told his parents the American prisoners were given very little to eat.
“On the third of March I was wounded,” he wrote. “Six of us guys were on the way to a hospital when we were captured by the Germans. I couldn’t walk for seven or eight days. I was really a mess but finally was able to get around pretty good.
“We were liberated by the Third Army around the end of March. It was a happy day. Three of us had tried to escape one night but got caught. They didn’t do anything about it. We were really lucky, I guess.”
Sgt. Thoene said after he was liberated he was flown to Paris and after a few days there was flown to New York City and then to Denver. “It took only about 28 hours to fly from Paris to New York,” he wrote. “We stopped in Newfoundland and the Azores. After we left New York we stayed in Dayton, O., over night and stopped in Louisville, Ky., and Kansas City.”
Sgt. Thoene informed his parents that the doctors might “leave the shrapnel in me and let it work out by itself. They do that a lot. It saves a lot of pain.”
“I’ll stay here a while and then go where I can build myself up and then back to duty,” he wrote. “If they take out the shrapnel I’ll be here quite a while. It makes no difference because I know they know what they are doing.”
Sgt. Thoene, who can speak a little German, said some of the German soldiers are really in bad shape.
“A lot of them are Dad’s age, all busted to hell,” he wrote. “Germany is using every available man to fight.”
Sgt. Thoene described some of the atrocities inflicted on American soldiers in the German prison camp but asked his parents not to make them public because he was under oath not to reveal them for publication.
“I thought I’d go nuts,” he wrote in the telling of some of the things that happened. “Maybe I did a little once in a while. I’ve seen plenty. Wouldn’t care to go through the same experience again, but wouldn’t trade it for a million dollars.”
April, 26, 1945
HARTINGTON- Staff Sgt. Lorton L. Burton, son of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence A. Burton of Hartington, is in an army hospital at Hamilton Field, Calif., receiving treatment for wounds which resulted in the loss of his right leg.
Sgt. Burton’s leg was cut off below the knee by shrapnel but the amputation was made above the knee. He was wounded in the Philippines March 27.
While being flown from the Philippines to the United States, Sgt. Burton visited with his brother, Tech. Sgt. Bernard Burton, who is stationed in Hawaii.
Bernard was notified by the Red Cross that if he could get to Hickman Field, near Honolulu, quickly he could see Lorton before he was taken to the states.
In a letter to his parents, Bernard wrote that he found Lorton in the first ambulance into which he looked.
“It was quite a shock,” he wrote, “but Lorton was in very good spirits and we had an hour’s visit before the plane took off. I went on the plane with him when he was loaded and I had to fight to get off. I guess they thought I belonged on the plane, too.”
This week the Burtons received a picture of Lorton from the army hospital.
World War II
