Bill Stevens enlisted in the Marine Corps on December 15, 1917 and trained at Parris Island, SC. He served in World War I and was sent to France where he was captured the following June by the Germans in the Château-Thierry engagement at the Battle of Belleau Woods, one of the bloodiest battles of the war. There were nearly 10,000 American casualties in the battle, including nearly 2,000 killed, now buried in a nearby American cemetery.

At Belleau Woods, Bill was part of a small scouting party of six or eight that fell under fire. Bill’s son recalls his father saying that the men were side-by-side in a trench or on an embankment when the Germans surprised them from the rear.

The German captain gave the order for the captives to be bayoneted. All of the soldiers were killed and Bill was the last when he thought to himself, “This is my time,”? and he said that a soldier was up over him with a bayonet ready to plunge it into him when the captain said, ?“Don’t kill him. Take him prisoner.” Not understanding German, Bill assumed the captain had given the order for him to be killed. Bill never understood why the captain spared him.

At first Bill was sent to a prisoner of war camp. In the camp, they were not beaten or abused, they were just hungry. The POW’s lived mostly on bread and water or thin soup. They were served this soup in a big barrel or kettle and the prisoners would literally fight each other to get a chance to get at it and some would almost drown trying to get their share. Bill’s grandson recalls him telling of the men fighting over any little piece of meat in the soup, even an eyeball.

Later he was sent to a German farm where he stayed for the duration of the war. He said the German couple was not cruel to him, but since food was scarce and that they themselves had little to eat, so Bill was always close to starvation. In desperation, he would sneak out in the middle of the night and dig raw potatoes and radishes out of the ground with his bare hands and eat them. After almost a year, the war came to an end and he was sent home.

During the time that he was a prisoner of war, his father and stepmother had no word from him and assumed that he was dead.

william e stevens