Oliver Pryor Johnson II 

January 9, 1921 – September 13, 2004

Oliver was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Oliver and Clara Johnson. [1] Oliver Johnson, Sr., was a decorated US Army veteran who saw action during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive - the bloodiest battle for the US Army in France during World War I. [2]

Oliver Johnson, Jr., was raised in Morgan Township, Scioto County, Ohio, and attended school through the 8th grade. Times were tough in rural Ohio in those days. Oliver held a variety of jobs to keep his family from losing their home to the bank and to help put food on the table, including working as a welder, produce clerk at Schaeffer's Supermarket, and loading and unloading freight for B&O Railroad.

He married Helen "Louise" Van Kirk in May of 1941, right after she graduate from Valley High School in Portsmouth. [h] Tragically, Oliver and Louise's first son, James, died before his first birthday. Their second son, Oliver Pryor Johnson III, was born a few months before Oliver, Jr., was drafted in 1943.

After basic training at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, he was shipped off to England. He was part of the second wave of troops landing at Omaha Beach, Normandy, on June 9, 1944.  He saw major combat during the Allied efforts to entrap the German forces in the Cotentin Peninsula.

Although Oliver was a truck driver for his unit, during the Battle of Mortain they were in a defensive position that was among the first to be overrun by German forces on August 12, 1944. He was with Company C, 117th Infantry Regiment of the 30th Infantry Division, at the time of his capture. [3]  His father received a telegram on August 26, 1944 reporting that Oliver was a POW, but for two months there was no news about where he was imprisoned.

Oliver was taken by truck to Paris. At the main train station, he and hundreds of other POWs were put on a train heading east to Germany. About ten days later,  stopping at least ten times for an assortment of reasons (including being strafed repeatedly by Allied planes) they arrived at Stalag 7-A in Moosburg.

His first letter home to Louise was sent in September, too, but it never got through. His second letter reached her in late October of 1944.

Oliver's Experiences as a POW

According to his family, Oliver rarely talked about his wartime experiences. However he did say that worked for "A family that owned the very first farm on the left after crossing the bridge ." Oliver couldn't recall or never mentioned the name of the family, but based on his description and an old postcard that was among his possessions, there's little doubt that he worked for the Mayer family.

After the war, Oliver was an auto mechanic for a taxi cab company in Ohio after the war. He lived in Lucasville, Ohio, for many years, and then Portsmouth, Ohio, in the last years of his life.

[1] Records of the NARA: Selective Service System: Draft Registration Card: Roll 44030_03_00080 

[2] Note: This campaign, which took place from September 26 to November 11, 1918, resulted in over 26,000 American soldiers killed in action and over 120,000 total casualties.

[h] Obituary of Helen Louise Johnson - The Daily Times (Oct. 8 , 2017). https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/portsmouth-dailytimes/name/helen-johnson-obituary?id=15191925

[3] Robert L. Hewitt, Work Horse of the Western Front: The Story of the 30th Infantry Division (1980) p. 343.