MY PICTURE TAKEN BY A NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT DURING WORLD WAR II by Willie D Frady as told to Beva Jean Wisenbaker. March 1980

We were taking a town in Germany. We had checked all the other buildings for Germans hiding out, and had one building left to search. My buddy and I began the search in it. I took the first floor and He took the upstairs. Neither of us found anyone. No one had searched the basement yet so I took off down the stairs taking them 2 at a time not expecting to find anyone. You made a turn to the left at the bottom to go into the room, and there I was brought up short by a group - both men and women - staring me in the face. I made a fast retreat back up the stairs a few steps, got my gun ready, and advanced again. I ordered them to drop their guns and come out with their hands on their heads (I let the women stay there.) They obeyed and followed me as I backed up the stairs. There were about 7 men. There was a newspaper correspondent who was with us at the time and he took my picture with the prisoners. He took my name and where I was from, etc. He asked if I would like to have a copy of the pictures. I gave him an address in Horatio, Arkansas as well as Humble, Texas to send the picture to my family, but neither of them ever received a copy of the picture. There were other men in my outfit who had their pictures made with the prisoners, too, even though they didn’t have anything to do with their capture. They wanted a piece of the action. Note: These men were SS troopers. They were all under oath never to be taken alive. They all wore black clothing and had SS branded on their arms. They had a regular arsenal of guns and ammunition down there with them. We had them bring them all up and pile them in a pile outside. The pile was 3 feet high and 6 feet wide.

Willie Frady (1915)