Clyde Dale Vineyard

March 24, 1923 – March 22, 1990

Clyde was born in West Frankfort, Illinois, to Ed and Jewel Vineyard. [1] He was an excellent student in high school. He excelled in history and graduated in the top 10% of his class at Frankfort Community HS in 1941. He  registered in March of 1942 and was drafted as a 19-year old into the US Army on February 18, 1943.  He went for basic training at Fort Meade, Maryland, and was initially part of Company A, 15th Battalion of the 4th Replacement Regiment. Thereafter, was assigned to the US Army 45th Division's 157th Regiment, Company I. In Europe, he first saw action northeast of Nettuno, Italy, in late June of 1944. Nettuno is just south of Anzio, and about 40 miles march from Rome.  His unit fought in Italy and after Rome's fall was transferred to Southern France where they chased the retreating Germans to the French-German border in Alsace. [2]

Was Clyde captured in Italy, or southern France, or in eastern France near the German border? 

Thanks to his son, Todd, at least the circumstances are known.

His unit was in a forward position and overrun by an intense enemy counter-attack.  A mortar shell landed nearby and the blast knocked  Clyde off his feet and into a foxhole.  He black out. When he came to, a German soldier was standing over him. It took Clyde a long moment to register that he wasn't dead and that the fellow with his bayoneted Karabiner was ready to run him through if he didn't surrender. Attempting to get up the pain sure did register. He had severe shrapnel wounds; one to his side, just above the hip, and another to the calf muscle.  He slowly rose to his feet with hands raised. He looked around and surveyed the former position of his unit. The shooting was over. As far as he could tell, he was the only one alive.  At gunpoint, Clyde limped down the hill and was laid on a gurney.  After being lifted onto the back of a truck a German medic packed and patched his wounds without sufficiently cleaning, prepping and closing them. Thereafter came a long and arduous journey. It took about ten days, by truck and train, to get to the POW camp.  All the while, his bandages went unchanged. His wounds festered and got infected.  The journey was accompanied by delirium, so he never could recall the route taken.  Perhaps it was through northern Italy and Austria, then northwest to Munich, and then to Moosburg, Germany. [3]  

He received additional medical attention upon arrival at Stalag 7-A and was relegated to the hospital for the first weeks, but the infection persisted and his wounds never completely healed.  It didn't help, of course, that his captors issued its prisoners a single wool blanket during those bone-cold months. The prisoners retained their uniforms, minus all weapons and gear of course. No coats were issued. In December, he was assigned to labor detail inside the camp.  It was at that time that he became aware of other outside work opportunities.  Along with these jobs came extra rations. This appealed to Clyde, but there was much competition for the few spots available. The food at Stalag 7-A was bland and calorically insufficient, despite the fact that he had learned to hang back in the chow line because the more weighty morsels tended to sink to the bottom of the enormous soup pots. [4]

His parents were notified of his status as a POW on December 1, 1944, but they had no idea where he was being held until he sent a postcard to his parents notifying them that they could send boxes of candy and other articles through the Red Cross on December 28, 1944.  The goodies his family sent never arrived. [5]

It didn't take Clyde long, despite being a non-smoker, to master the buying, selling, and trading of the camp's most prized 'currency' - cigarettes - for material goods and favors. Unfortunately, Clyde also learned to keep his head on a swivel around the more bestial guards, after getting his top four teeth knocked out with a rifle butt!

Perhaps the most important survival lesson Clyde learned was the value incriminating information. For example, one day in February of 1945, he noticed that French girls were working in a segregated section of the camp.  Guard fraternization with these girls was forbidden. When Clyde observed inappropriate contact between a "Sergeant Schultz" and a "jolie Femme" he discreetly confronted the fellow and got his name placed high on the list of American POWs vying for outside work. By this time, Clyde had gone from a healthy 180 pounds to a weak 120! [6]

On Friday March 16, 1945, Clyde was sent by train to a tiny satellite work camp. He and 19 other POWs went from Moosburg to Munich to Rosenheim and finally stopped in Brannenburg. They clambered out and walked across the bridge over the River Inn and up the road to a small windowless building that was guarded by two men. 

Early on Saturday morning the mayor of Nussdorf, Martin Auer, and two guards arrived.  Each prisoner was assigned to a local farming family. Clyde was assigned to the Niederthanner family. Since fellow POW, Bob Kenney, was assigned to the neighboring family (Dräxl) farm, a guard walked with them for the first week.  Clyde and Bob had the longest walks of the 20 POWs - about a mile each way (1.7 km).

The worst thing that Clyle had to endure while in Nussdorf was learning by way of a letter from home that his wife had divorced him and married a fellow that he knew growing up in West Frankfort.  This was heartbreaking, but at least they hadn't had children.  He also was in very poor health. Not because of being at Nussdorf, but because of his time at Stalag 7-A.  Fortunately, in Nussdorf, a physician visited the POW camp weekly, and the family for whom Clyde worked made sure a dentist in town. This woman, "Dr. Fritz", treated his broken teeth. According to Clyde, the local civilian doctor treated many of the POWs for a variety of illnesses and wounds - sometimes even at his own office. German phone and address books for 1941-1943 list a "Dr. Wilhelm Hammer" and a dentist "Agnes Fritzsche" living in Nussdorf am Inn.

Christoph Niederthanner Interview

Christoph Niederthanner is an affable and intelligent 79-year-old. He is a well-respected member of the community and holds an advanced degree in structural engineering. He laughed about having studied English in college for four years and apologized for not being as sharp as he used to be in the language. We acknowledged our limitations in German, and, with the help of Michaela Firmkäs, both sides were understood.  

We discovered Christoph was Vice-Mayor of Nussdorf am Inn from 2002 to 2014, served on the  District Council for many years, and that he had a keen interest in our project. He was born in 1944, so he doesn't remember the war. However,  he knew about Clyde Vineyard because Clyde worked on his parents' farm during the last two months of the war. His father, Mattias, and his grandparents and older cousins shared stories about Clyde over the years. Moreover, Christoph met Clyde when he returned to Nussdorf to visit; the first time in 1957 and then again 1986.  Christoph graciously shared a family photo album with us, which included a charming group picture of Clyde and his wife seated on a bench in front of the family farmhouse and surrounded by the Niederthanners. [7]

Bernard and Maria Niederthanner Interview

After lunch we drove to the home of Bernhard and Maria Niederthanner. Bernhard owns and runs the family homestead and farm that Clyde worked on in 1945. The Niederthanner Hof [4] is nestled in the Sameberg (mountain) foothills, and has been owned by the family since 1463. 

We were accompanied by Michaela Firmkas and Karin Nickol, who did an outstanding job with translation. [8]

Bernhard shared family photo albums  and stories about Clyde that had been passed down to him by his parents and grandparents. The positive relationship that Clyde told his family about over the years was confirmed and amplified by Bernhard and Maria.  

Clyde worked alongside family members most days and took meals with them at the family table.  The Niederthanner children would bring buttered bread and fresh milk to Clyde on especially hot days in the fields. When Clyde arrived in Nussdorf from Stalag 7-A  he was in very poor health. As mentioned, he had lost substantial weight and was sickly and weak from malnutrition. He had also had his top 4 front teeth knocked out by a guard at Stalag 7-A. The Niederthanners nursed him back to health, a fact corroborated by Clyde's oft-repeated stories to his family after the war.  Clyde credited the Niederthanners with saving his life. They made sure that the local doctor and dentist took more than just a cursory look at him.  

The Niederthanner family treated Clyde with kindness and dignity, in keeping with their deep Christian faith and values. The Niederthanners had some religious questions for Clyde, and vice versa, because they were Bavarian Catholics and Clyde was a Mormon.  

We learned that Clyde's most common daily task was forking hay into wagons and transporting it to other locations, but he was involved in "the full assortment of regular farm duties". Bernhard and Maria confirmed that Clyde occasionally worked in Nussdorf with a few other American POWs plowing and planting a communal potato patch and we shared a laugh about Clyde's appreciation for Oma Niederthannner's Sunday special: potato, turnip, and carrot soup.  To Clyde, after the "grass soup" at Stalag 7-A, this was "a bowl of heaven on earth."

Initially, Clyde was accompanied on his morning walk from the prison camp to the Niederthanner Hof by one of the German guards. Because fellow POW, Bob Kenney, was assigned to the neighboring farm, owned by the Dräxl family, they walked part of the way to work together with the guard.  However, beyond the first week, Clyde was trusted to walk without the guard and Bob Kenney was taken by the guard on a different path through the forested hills above Entbach and Burg Ramsau to the Dräxl farm.

The Post-War Years

After the war, Clyde was awarded two Purple hearts.

He studied for 2 years at Emmanuel Missionary College (Now Andrews University) and then 2 years at La Sierra College, in Riverside, California. [9] There, in 1948, he met and married Phyllis Eileen Williams. He was a history and education major and she was a music major.  They graduated together in 1950. Later, he earned his Masters Degree at USC. [10] 

Clyde was a well respected teacher of US History and World History at Anaheim Union and Loara High Schools for many years. [11]

[1] NARA: US Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010.

[2] 1941 HS yearbook, "The Red Bird"; NARA: Company Morning Report of 17 April '44 at Ft. George G. Meade, MD, listed with "Co. A 15th Bt., 4th Replacement Reg.";  NARA: Company Morning Report of 28 May '44, newly assigned from 407th Replacement Co. to 157th Infantry Reg./45th Division; Company Morning Report of 21 June 1944, location listed in report: "2 miles N.E. of Nettuno, Italy", Company I/157th Inf. Reg./45th Div.

[3]  Author telephone interview with Todd Vineyard (Clyde's son) of Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025.

[4] Ibid.

[5] The Daily Register (Harrisburg, Illinois) Feb. 27, 1945, p. 6.

[6] Author telephone interview with Todd Vineyard (Clyde's son) of Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025.

[7] Interview of Christoph Niederthanner (10:35 – 11:45 AM) of Friday, July 26, 2024, at his house on the Seilenauweg 13, Nussdorf am Inn. Participants: Peter Orr, Andrea Orr, Michaela Firmkäs. 

[8] Interview of Bernhard Niederthanner (2:00 – 3:00 PM) of Friday, July 26, 2024, at the Niederthanner Hof/Nussdorf am Inn. Participants: Peter Orr, Andrea Orr, Michaela Firmkäs, and Karin Nickol (translator). Note: The Bernhard Niederthanner family operates a guest house, dairy farm, orchards (for Schnapps) and a lumber mill and wood shop.

[9] Riverside Daily Press, Sept. 8, 1948, p. 7. Note: Emmanuel Missionary College was a Seventh-day Adventist college in Battle Creek, Michigan.

[10] Commencement program, USC (77th: 1960: Alumni Memorial Park): History Collection USC Libraries.

[11] Obituary in The Los Angeles Times, Sat., Mar 24, 1990; Author telephone interview with Todd Vineyard (Clyde's son) of Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025; Graduation photos from La Sierra College 1950 yearbook, "Meteor".