Ted Honsler story

From: Archie Bleyer

Subject: Re: WWII in Park Record

Date: May 27, 2008 11:06:20 AM MDT

To: Ralph Gates

Cc: Moe Bleyer

Ralph,

What a wonderful story and congratulations to you for helping Ted.  HIs daughter must be most appreciative.  You have helped resolve in Ted two-thirds of a century of life of guilt, anquish, and embarassment that I saw in my parents. 

 

My father was 19 when he left Germany.  About the only experience he talked about was Ellis Island and the Statue of LIberty.  Moe's father was a WWII Vet and always talked about his experiences.  I worried much about the two of them meeting for the first time at our wedding.  They had a great time while we were on our honeymoon.

Archie

On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 8:43 PM, Ralph Gates <frkenn@comcast.net> wrote:

On May 25, 2008, at 10:04 AM, Archie Bleyer wrote:

Ralph,
Thanks for sending me the issue with you and Max Miller on the front cover.
I was particularly impressed that you encouraged Ted Honseler to be featured.
My paternal grandfather died during WWI fighting for the Germans.
My father left Germany in 1929 to avoid being recruited by oppression into the uprising campaign.
My parents were unable to speak about their experiences throughout their lives; it was too painful.
Archie

Thanks for the response, Archie!

       Maybe you will it interested in how I happened to get Ted Honseler to the meeting of WW11 vets.
       I had heard about Ted from a friend of his daughter who lives here in Park City.  About a month before our get together to celebrate Armistice Day (now Veteran's Day, of course) I had contacted his daughter and told her I wanted to invite him to our group.  She vetoed it in no uncertain terms because, as she said, he didn't want people to know he was on the other side of the fence.  So I did not make any further attempt until the day before our special meeting when I attempted to call the daughter one more time.  She wasn't there but Ted answered the phone!!  I was a little reluctant to ask him directly so I told him that we old Vets were getting together for dinner.  I guess I squeezed him a little  but eventually he said yes he would be willing to come.
       None of the rest of the group knew anything about him or my contacts with him.  So when I picked him up and brought him no one had any idea who he was and certainly no inkling that he was a German vet.
       He and I were the last two to arrive in the special dinning room and, in turn, the other guys were one at a time giving a very short synopsis of their war time experience.  When it became Ted's term I stood up and said I wanted to introduce a new found friend who had also been in the war for a couple of years.  I proceeded to inform them that "Ted" and I had a couple of things in common.  Firstly, that both our fathers had been in the trenches in France in the First WW!   Secondly, that we were probably the youngest two vets here who had seen two years of service.  And on top of that he was only 80 and I, 82.  They immediately realized that Ted must have gone in when he was only 16 (Later they found out that was indeed true and he hadn't lied about his age.)
       Please realize that the group still had no idea that he was German.  So next I said there was something quite dissimilar about Ted's and my experience.  Namely, when I returned home to Nashville,  everything was as peaceful and as undisturbed as when I had left two years earlier.  But when Ted returned to his home, it wasn't there.  It and the whole town had been totally destroyed!  There faces showed bewilderment and as I found out shortly,  they were wondering where earthquakes or hurricanes had done this back then.
       But when I said his hometown was Essen, Germany there were a couple of soft gasps of realization.  Particularly from the four or so of the group who had been in the 8th Airforce  -- two as pilots of B-17's and two as P-38 or P-51 fighter pilots who had escorted the bombers as they leveled Essen!!
       My last part of his story was letting them now that Ted was a little reluctant earlier to come tonight because he always felt he had been on the "other side of the fence" but I had tried to assure him there was no longer any fence.  There was actually evidence of tears in some of the eyes when Ted, in his strong German accent, told of his mother not letting him join the "Hitler Youth" when he was of typical Boy Scout age and that was where the fun seemed to be when 12 years old.  He was drafted when 16 and sent to the Eastern Front to fight the Russians where he was eventually captured when the Russians, shortly before the end of the war, over ran their defenses near Budapest.  The Russians were racing for Berlin and he and many others were lucky and left to fend for themselves rather than winding up in the hands of Russians as prisoners.  So he made his way to Salz!burg where he surrendered to an American Prisoner of war camp.
       Eventually American trucks took him back to Essen.  He said there were no buildings standing but his parents were alive and living in a bunker.  Rebuilding his town started immediately but he emigrated to the US in a few years with his young wife, sponsored by a relative who had already been here for a number of years
       A couple of weeks later, I got his visual autobiography down with my camcorder.  How great for me has been this whole experience!!     --  Ralph

--
Archie Bleyer, MD
St. Charles Medical Center, Bend, Oregon
Cell 541-610-4782
Office 541-383-6998