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Several year ago, I told my friend, Dr. Jim Gifford, as much as I knew about my Dad’s experience in the WWII, and he thought it would make a wonderful story for publication. He wanted me to write the story. I kept telling him that I liked working with computers and accounting, but a writer I was not. He is CEO and Senior Editor of the Jesse Stuart Foundation which specializes in publishing, selling, and promoting Appalachian values and literature. Finally, he said he would write the story with my help—with me providing the material and him writing. He even had a researcher try to locate my Dad’s debriefing in Washington, DC and College Park, MD. The military people with whom he talked said the debriefing had to have been extensive for him to have been kept in Europe for four months after being reunited with the Allied Forces. All to no avail, nothing was found.
Click on the following link to access Dr. Gifford’s article about my Dad:
This article and photo of my father appeared in the Williamson Daily News. He had been ill for some time with what is now know as PTSD. About this time he began sharing more of his experience in Italy and Camp 59.
Ethel Cox Stafford
In June 1943, U.S. Senator Robert M. La Follette, Jr. of Wisconsin wrote this letter to Hilda Hill expressing his sympathy and encouragement.
Senator Robert M. La Follete, Jr.
Robert M. La Follete, Jr. was elected to Congress in 1925 to fill the vacancy that resulted from the death of his father, Senator Robert M. (“Fighting Bob”) La Follette, Sr. “Young Bob” La Follette, as he was known, served in the U.S. Senate for over two decades.
In 1946, he ran unsuccessfully for reelection against Joseph McCarthy. He lost the 1946 election by about 5,000 votes.
This first word to reach Hilda Hill of her son Armie’s capture was a record of a broadcast by short wave radio from Berlin on March 24, 1943. Note that Armie’s name is given incorrectly as “Arnold” and “Arnie.”
The following postcard, sent from Camp 98 on Sicily, is dated March 31, 1943. The mimeographed form that accompanied the card was from Colonel Howard F. Bresee of the Prisoner of War Information Bureau in Washington, D.C.
This later correspondence from Colonel Bresee does not give a great deal of information, but it must have been a reassurance all the same.
Ethel Stafford speaks of her father, Raymond Cox, World War II prisoner of war, on November 2, 2006 at Fairland West Elementary School in Proctorville, Ohio.
At a Veterans Day 2006 assembly, Raymond E. Cox received a posthumous honor: the Prisoner of War Medal, a military decoration of the United States Armed Forces.
Eloise Cox accepted the medal on behalf of her husband.
The event was covered by The Daily Independent of Ashland. The article “WW II vet receives posthumous honor” is available online. The article tells the story of Raymond Cox’s emprisonment and escape, and how he was sheltered for nine months at an Italian farm by the family of Primo Mecossi.
The Prisoner of War Medal was authorized by Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. You can find more information about the medal at the “Prisoner of War Medal” entry on Wikipedia.
Army Identification
This official military ID was issued to Armie on July 31, 1942, one month before he left the U.S. for the invasion of North Africa. Armie carried the ID during his imprisonment and during his crosscountry escape.
Armie’s Second Account of the Escape
Of the two audio recordings of the POW experience that I made with my father, Armie Hill, this is the second, taped in 1987. Some stories from the first account are repeated here, but there are new details, too. The recall of some of the same events, such as the encounter with the man with the butcher knife in Roccafluvione and the crossing of the Pescara River, are subtly different.
Here is Armie’s 1987 account of the escape. It is a continuation of the entry describing the camp entitled “A First-Hand Account of Camp 59.”
“It was a bright moonlit night. All of a sudden there was shooting at the main gate and somebody got on the loud speaker and said, ‘The Germans are here taking over the camp.’
“He said, ‘Get out of here any way that you can. Try to get out!’ And he added, ‘God be with you.’
“I looked around. The guys were all milling around. They were running to the front gate. I had noticed someone had made a hole in the wall at the back. I think the Italians had helped to dig it out. They used big sledgehammers or something to knock the hole through the back wall. The Germans were there—they had just arrived there.
“I didn’t know who to go with and but I figured I was going to get through there, get outside the gate. I had quite a bit of food with me when I got outside. A bunch of us stood around. I told them, ‘We’re all safe here for now. But the best thing will be to get away from here fast as we can.’
“They said, ‘Let’s all go.’
“I said, ‘We can’t all go together, or surely we’ll all get caught. The best way is to break up into small groups. The best way is to break up into pairs—and each go in a little bit different direction. Some of us will get through.’
