Just over 81 years ago, on May 25, 1943, Jane Lancaster (Mrs. John L.) Kirkpatrick received a telegram informing her that her husband was missing in action. The telegram was received near the Rudd Hotel on St. Ann Street before being hand-delivered to Mrs. Kirkpatrick at her parent’s home on Littlewood Drive.
The telegram read as follows.
I REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT THE COMMANDING GENERAL EUROPEAN AREA REPORTS YOUR HUSBAND SECOND LIEUTENANT JOHN L KIRKPATRICK MISSING IN ACTION SINCE MAY NINETEEN IF FURTHER DETAILS OR OTHER INFORMATION OF HIS STATUS ARE RECEIVED YOU WILL BE PROMPTLY NOTIFIED.
A glimmer of hope pierced through the darkness two and a half weeks later. Mrs. Kirkpatrick received another telegram, this time bearing news that her husband was alive and imprisoned at Stalag Luft III, a German POW Camp. She was pregnant then with their firstborn, Marion Beth, commonly known as Mabeth, and this news brought a wave of relief and renewed hope for their future.
Ultimately, Kirkpatrick survived and returned to Owensboro to raise a family, but it was at a cost. After Mabeth, the Kirkpatricks had another daughter, Paddy, and two sons, John L. Jr. (Kirk) and Steve.
While Kirk wasn’t born at the time of the telegrams, he can recall his dad’s story quite vividly.
“He was a bombardier in a B-17 he named Sugar Box after my mom,” Kirk said. “He and his crew parachuted into France and were captured by the Germans. They transported them to Stalag Luft III, which was primarily for British prisoners.”
While at Stalag Luft III, Kirkpatrick played a pivotal role in supporting The Great Escape. The well-documented escape, as featured in films and documentaries, saw 76 airmen escape from the POW camp, though only three made it home at the time and 50 were murdered under Adolf Hitler’s orders.
Kirkpatrick wasn’t one of the escapees. He had been at the camp for roughly 9 months and helped dig the extensive tunnel infrastructure.
“Dad said he learned a little about the war from captured prisoners. He anticipated being there for 5 years, assuming we could win the war,” Kirk said. “He heard about D-Day a year before the war ended and ended up being there for just over 2 years.”
The iconic General George S. Patton and his Third Army liberated Kirkpatrick’s camp on May 19, 1945. Kirkpatrick told his son he saw Patton from a distance, but there certainly wasn’t any time for small talk.
Kirk recalls his dad explaining the encounter as: “He had a bullhorn, and the first thing I ever heard him say was, ‘Alright, I need every son-of-a-b—h off this g—d d—n street. We have some food for you, but we’re headed to Berlin.'”
The Germans were struggling then, and prisoners’ rations typically included a potato a day. When Patton and his crew arrived, the prisoners enjoyed bread, water, candy, and more.
“The way he explained it to me was the day before liberation, an airplane flew over and dropped thousands of leaflets — so many they thought they were going to drown in them,” Kirk said. “The leaflets told them (the Third Army) was coming tomorrow and to lie down and don’t do anything. He said you could hear the ground rumble that morning at dawn.”
Kirk said his dad spotted the tanks in the distance. It was the first time he had seen a tank with a star on it rather than a swastika in a while, and it was then that Kirk said he knew the war was over.
“So many others received that same telegram, and it was a completely different outcome,” he said. “Those are the soldiers we celebrated this past weekend, the ones who paid the ultimate sacrifice. None of us would be there if he didn’t make it out.”
Kirkpatrick was a native of Paris, Kentucky, where his father was the superintendent of schools. He attended Washington and Lee in Lexington, Virginia, where he met Lancaster, who was attending Hollins University nearby.
The two married in California while he was in basic training, just before deployment.
Kirkpatrick’s granddaughter documented his efforts with the 101st Airborne on WHAS in Louisville, where she was a reporter for 7 years. Click here to see the footage.
