War Remembrance

by Olivia Bartlett, The Daily Mining Gazette

A class project connects Arkansas fifth-grader with former POW.

In 1944, POW Robert Peterson made a bet with his fellow cellmates as they huddled beneath a coarse gunny sack in a freezing German camp. 

“We all went into a lottery, choosing the date the war would end. We all picked dates in 1944, betting 30 days apart. That’s how optimistic we were.” 

During the year and three months before the May 1945 liberation, Peterson, now 78, encountered horrific memories of his time behind bars. And thanks to the Internet and a POW magazine, a 10-year old girl in Arkansas is learning about WWII through stories like Peterson’s. 

In early December 2001, Peterson, a former B-24 Liberator bombardier with the Army Air Corps, received a handwritten letter from Rachael Shinnall. The return address revealed that the girl was from Cabot Middle School North in Cabot, Ark. 

“Out of the clear blue sky, here’s this letter. I have no idea how she got my name,” Peterson said. “But it’s really something special that she’d care about what us old war vets did.” 

Shinnall’s letter explained that her fifth-grade class was writing to ex-POWs about the meaning of freedom. It read, “My class has been talking about freedom and what our flag means to us...when I see our flag it reminds me that we are a free country. Thank you for what you did to make our country free.”

It turns out that Shinnall found Peterson’s name in the American Ex-Prisoners of War Bulletin. Peterson became a member after his daughter Nancy Wilson, found the organization via the Internet and encouraged him to join. 

When Peterson received Shinnall’s letter, he replied to her with a detailed synopsis of his WWII experience. 

And now that Shinnall has made a connection with Peterson, she hopes to keep a friendly letter-relationship going.