Pvt. Eddie Pfannenstiel, American CMOC
By: OM and Patricia Windholz
In Ellis County, Kansas a half dozen small ethnic German villages lie close to Hays, the county
seat. These communities were founded beginning in 1876 by settlers whose forebears first
emigrated from Germany to Russia by a manifesto of Catherine the Great, the German born
Empress of Russia. They developed the Volga region of Russia and, after some 100 years, vast
numbers took advantage of homestead land and economic opportunities in the New World. It
was 1938, before the Second World War that would touch the lives of everyone in these
communities. Edmund "Tuffy" Pfannenstiel was enjoying a beer at the Blue Lantern Tavern in
Hays. He brought a date along whose pretty and spunky cousin came in, alone and joined them.
Before the night was over Eddie took his date’s cousin, Loretta Kuhn, home. Two years later
they married at the Catholic Church in Antonino, followed by a traditional German Hochzeit
(wedding). The new couple made it back to Hays in a blizzard to spend their honeymoon night
in an apartment loaned to them. The next morning Loretta's dad loaded the newlyweds and
wedding gifts in his car and drove them to Salina where Eddie worked as a cook at the Lamer
Hotel and was a member of the Kansas National Guard.
His unit, the 130th Field Artillery, was mobilized on December 23, 1940, and on January 2, 1941
they departed for Camp Robinson, Arkansas. Fred Kuhn came to Salina to bring Loretta back to
Hays where she made plans to move to Little Rock. The following year was full of fun and
recreation for the soldiers and their families as evidenced by the pictured filled albums they
collected. Eddie cut soldiers' hair on the side to earn spending money. He was a truck driver and
his experience from the Lamer Hotel also got him assignments as a cook. His best buddy Dale
Henderson remembered their time at the Camp as one of the best years of his life. Dale said
there were "six of us guys together, we became like brothers." Their wives lived nearby Little
Rock apartments. When the sirens went off shortly after America entered the war in December
of 1941, announcements were made that all soldiers in town were to report to camp. Dale
recalled he and Eddie had been bar hopping and "the more the sirens sounded the more we
drank." When they returned to camp everyone was packing and three days later they were
heading for California for more training. It is quite an irony for Eddie that vacated facilities at
Camp Robinson were later used for holding German POWs. In California his experience as cook
and driver took a back seat to the enormous need for combat infantrymen and he was transferred
to a replacement unit.
After a couple of months, Loretta boarded a train for California and had a hard time finding a
place to stay. Eddie had to stay at camp during the week. After becoming pregnant, she returned
home where Patty was born on December 13, 1942. It was another eight months before Eddie
received leave to come home to see his baby. Loretta made another trip to California with the
baby, where she slept in a chest of drawers in her small room. The young family spent their last
time together, as Eddie was sent to several other stations, then shipped to England.
Among Eddie’s letters to home from England, he mentioned the purchase of some wonderful
gifts for Loretta, but all were lost in the mail. Loretta sent him a package with candy, sunflower
seeds [a Kansas treat], cookies and Eddie's wedding band. This was forwarded many times and
finally arrived, flattened, back in Hays in 1946, a year after he was discharged. Worms had
eaten the nut meats and everything was battered, but inside was his carefully wrapped wedding
ring. He put the ring back on for the rest of his life.
In July of 1944, Eddie boarded a "Cattle boat, scared as hell" and then "waded ashore on Omaha
Beach in about four feet of water." passing all manner of war detritus. His first engagement in
combat was in "Northern France in the hedge rows" assigned to the 112th Infantry Regiment of
the 28th Division. After the Germans fled Paris, the 28th Division assembled for the famous
march through the city promised to de Gaulle by Eisenhower. Still battle weary they marched on
sore feet right back into combat, with some units of the division encountering hostile fire that
very afternoon. Eddie in his post war log, "fought against German S.S. Troops on line for 42
days, lost several good buddies, never had a scratch but had hell scared out of me many times. I
spent 34 days in the Hürtgen forest in Germany. From October 1st till Nov 10th, lost over half
of the outfit, moved back to Belgium to rest."
During this break Eddie wrote a letter dated December 12th, which reached Loretta in January of
1945, saying he “was getting along fine.” The rest ended on December 16th, 1944, when the 5th
German Panzer Division attacked the 28th Division on the first day of the Battle of the Bulge. In
the log, he recalled his "last major battle before being captured. Fought for two days in Ouren,
Belgium and was captured on December 18, 1944. Fighting was so fierce, the division band and
cooks grabbed rifles." The 112th received a presidential unit citation for their action, an award
Eddie never learned of. Eddie was kept back as part of a rear guard assigned to cover the
withdrawal of his outfit. Frequently when in danger of capture, senior officers kept a soldier
nearby who could speak German. After the small group used all their ammo and grenades they
took shelter in the second story of a house. German soldiers searched the house and did not
discover them at first. Hoping they were in the clear they continued to hide as the Germans
occupied the main floor. One came upstairs, lit a cigarette and found the men who had no choice
but to surrender. Our "Captain was captured with me and four other boys at Ouren after being
trapped for 18 hours by the German S.S. Troops, hoping our forces could return to rescue us."
The POWs walked without food or water to the town of Gerolstein where they were loaded onto
a train after receiving a hunk of bread. The livestock cars smelled of manure, soon to smell of
human excretement, and the ventilated slat siding allowed winter winds to blow through. Allied
aircraft, not aware POWs were on board, staffed the train which had to stop for repairs. On one
occasion an enraged guard fired into one car. Eddie told his wife the worst part of the whole
time as a captive was the train ride. "We were starving and if you had to relieve yourself, it was
done where you stood. Spent XMas eve in a box car cold and hungry and thirty of us arrived at
the prison camp day after Xmas still hungry, got our first meal in nine days, which was one ladle
of soup." A German officer quickly took Eddie aside to use him as an interpreter during
questioning of captives.
On January 15th, 1945, Loretta returned home from shopping and brought along ice cream cones
for her two nephews staying with baby Patty. While she was gone a neighbor saw the telegraph
agent stop at the house and went over to pick up the telegram so it wouldn't be left with the kids.
When Loretta arrived, box under one arm and two cones in hand, the lady gave her the
envelope. Eddie was missing in action. The rest of the day the large family gathered to console
her. She said "It was like a wake. After that every knock at the door, every car that pulled up
made me jump." The telegraph agent made a stop again in April when Loretta and Patty were
not home. He had left a note on the screen door about a telegram arrival, but the wind blew it
off. Loretta and two neighbor ladies, who saw the agent stop, searched and found the notice in
the back yard. A neighbor man took her to the telegraph office because she was too nervous to
drive, fearing it might report Eddie's death. He was a Prisoner of War.
Eddie was mostly quiet about his combat and POW experience although the Hays newspaper
covered it quite extensively among their post war features. Even with friends he would only say
that he was the camp leader because he spoke German. His daughter Patty first learned of it
from the nuns who taught in her grade school. She heard him tell his story for the first time 40
years after the war when the subject was brought up by her husband. He opened up a little more
about himself after the POW medal was issued in 1988. A newspaper interview about the medal
revealed more information than he had let his family and friends in on. In an interview after the
release of American POWs in Viet Nam, he said, "They will want to be left alone. I feel good for
those boys [returning] because I feel like they went through a lot more than I did. They'll have
more trouble adjusting to home life than I did. Especially the ones that have been in there five or
six years." He was silent during that war when protesters exercised their rights, dearly paid for
by him and his buddies. Eddie died in 1990. He was a life member of the Veterans of Foreign
Wars, American Legion and cooking was his life’s work. He served on the committee to erect a
Veterans memorial on the Ellis County Courthouse grounds. Eddie and Loretta raised three
daughters and three sons. He enjoyed fishing, camping and his grandchildren.