Think Faith

by his daughter Karen K. Spooner

The following journal entry was written by Pvt. John W. Kellogg in Dec. 1944 in Belgium.

“The morning of Dec. 17th or 18th, memory fails me as to date, I found myself alone with three buddies on the east side of a swift moving stream in the Ardennes, near Clerveau. It had been an exceedingly tough night. The remnants of our battalion had fought all day in a small village east of Clervaux and we had finally been pushed out of the village into the meadow beyond where we dug in for what the morning might bring. The line such as it was had gone far beyond us and as far as we knew we were an isolated unit. We expected nothing but to fight until the end whatever that might be. The outlook was anything but heartening. The village we had just left was but a mass of flame. God knows whatever became of the villagers. The last I saw of them they were all huddled in the basement of the last house in the village. They weren’t a bad bunch. I only hope that when I can look into the face of utter ruin I can be as stoical as they.

To get back to my story : The terrain was fairly well-lighted from the flames of the village and it was possible to see our outfit digging in for quite some distance. We had dug our machine guns in on the perimeter and Johnny Zero, my buddy and I had dug a slit trench nearby and failed it with straw to lie on. We stood guard on the guns for quite some time. When we considered our duty was about up, I endeavored to find our relief. It was quite a job as the ground was covered with slit trenches and the platoons and companies pretty well intermingled. We finally found our relief and them retired to our own private slit trench. Johnny had left his coat with our jeep which was back in the burning village, as were our packs, so my overcoat had to cover the two of us. It had been two nights since I had had any sleep and now I can’t remember whether I dropped off or not, but I recall Lieutenant Mason, our platoon leader telling us to knock our gun down and load it on the jeep of H company and to round up the rest of our boys. As we were pulling out, finding the boys was a difficult job but I know all of our squad was there. The boys burrowed so in the……..”

After about 10 days avoiding the enemy behind the German lines, Pvt. Kellogg was taken prisoner and place in a POW camp. They were forced to march from camp to camp, in snow and wet. John had no overshoes as he had traded them earlier for a loaf of bread. He suffered from frost bitten feet. It was February 22, 1945 when my mother, Margery, received word from him that he was a POW. On April 5th she received a letter saying the Allies had freed him. He reported later that he had been left behind when the Germans fled the coming Allies as he was too ill to walk. He was transferred to a hospital in Liege, Belgium, where he weighed 125 pounds and had pneumonia. Unable to walk, he eventually was able to move about a little in a wheelchair. On May 13th he wrote he was able to take a few steps and on May 30, he was transferred to a hospital in Paris before being shipped to the U.S. He then spent several months in Rhodes Hospital in Utica before returning home to Adams Center.

I was only two when my dad returned home. My brother, Dave, was three. It had been a rough year for my mother and dad’s family. The winter had been terrible; food and gas were scarce. However, nothing was as bad as the winter my father had endured. He had dreamed of banana cream pie and homemade meals. He worried about his brothers and brothers-in-law who were still involved in the war. The people of Adams Center and area prayed for all their men who were serving their country. Some made it home, some didn’t. Those who came home were glad to be there as they struggled to put their lives back together.

Dad was a lawyer and eventually went back to Watertown to practice. I remember many nights when he would come home from work and make the rounds of Adams Center visiting widows, making sure they didn’t need anything. In 1974 when he passed away, we received many calls and letters and people stopping by asking what they owed Dad for legal work he had done for them. My mother would smile and say they owed nothing. Dad left no bills for many folks. He was just glad to be able to serve –first his country, then those who needed his help at home.

I never heard Dad say a bad word about anyone. He never spoke ill about the Germans. He was a proud American. On this Veterans Day, let us remember those who have served
this country and those who serve it now to protect our country and to make a better world for all the peoples of the world. God Bless America!

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