'It was like, wow, my dad did this,' Diana Halstead said. 'I never saw my dad write a poem. I never saw him write anything.”
Almost every item left her wanting to know more. That led to research on POW camps, on airplanes, on the forced march he and other prisoners made. She found her father's wartime documents. She found a once-classified 110-page report produced by the military after the war, the result of interviews with many thousands of POWs held by the Germans. She reached out to his old classmates.
She started to think of it as her coronavirus project. And it resulted in a book,"Diary of Henry Eugene Maul: Prisoner of War," which she self-published for family or anyone interested in the life of a World War II POW. She recently went back to Alton for a visit and donated a copy to the library there.It's a big book, with a big story to tell.
Maul landed in a tree, breaking his ribs. He and the surviving crew members were taken prisoner by German scouts. He remained a POW until May 12, 1945.Another,"Barbed Wire Hotel," told of the menu the prisoners were served there:"Fourth of a loaf of bread per day/A bowl of German stew/A small chunk of horse meat/A can of weak English brew."
He drew pictures of life in camp: roll call, the library, a football game, the delivery of treats from the Red Cross. He wrote down the names and addresses of fellow prisoners. Kriegies, they called themselves, short for the German word for POW.
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