World War II: stories of holiday ordeals, also of goodwill

<p dir="ltr">"This is a story about a Christmas (when) I really didn’t know what I was doing.''</p> <p dir="ltr">That’s what a private in the Army infantry from southern Indiana wrote in his diary about Christmas Day of 1944, when, as a <a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war"><strong>POW</strong></a> during <strong><a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/world-war-ii-history">World War II</a></strong>, he was forced into a boxcar by German soldiers. Scott Thompson, who had grown up on a farm near <a href= "https://www.visitevansville.com/"><strong>Evansville</strong></a> and was captured during the <strong><a href= "https://www.army.mil/botb/">Battle of the Bulge</a></strong>, was taken to a <a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalag"><strong>stalag</strong></a> in eastern Germany where he spent the rest of the holiday season.</p> <p dir="ltr">He survived the ordeal and shared his account decades later with <strong><a href="https://ronaldpmay.com/">Ron May</a></strong>, a World War II historian, chaplain and the author of a three-volume set of books, ''<strong><a href= "https://ronaldpmay.com/product/our-service-our-stories-volume-1/">Our Service Our Stories</a></strong>'', that feature interviews with Hoosier military veterans. In addition to interviewing Scott Thompson, who died in 2016 at age 92 after a career as a social studies teacher, Ron talked with Loren Wright, a native of <strong><a href="https://www.owencounty.in.gov/">Owen County</a></strong> who, also as an Army infantry soldier, was aboard a transport ship crossing the English Channel on Christmas Eve of 1944 when its “sister ship”, the <strong><a href= "https://www.armed-guard.com/leopold.html">SS Leopoldville</a></strong>, was sunk by a German U-boat. About half of Loren Wright’s regiment were among the 802 soldiers who perished in the frigid water.</p> <p dir="ltr">''Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have been somber for me ever since,'' Loren Wright told Ron decades later. To share some accounts of what Hoosiers