World War II: stories of holiday ordeals, also of goodwill

"This is a story about a Christmas (when) I really didn't know what I was doing.'' That's what a private in the Army infantry from southern Indiana wrote in his diary about Christmas Day of 1944, when, as a POW during World War II, he was forced into a boxcar by German soldiers. Scott Thompson, who had grown up on a farm near Evansville and was captured during the Battle of the Bulge, was taken to a stalag in eastern Germany where he spent the rest of the holiday season. He survived the ordeal and shared his account decades later with Ron May, a World War II historian, chaplain and the author of a three-volume set of books, ''Our Service Our Stories'', that feature interviews with Hoosier military veterans. In addition to interviewing Scott Thompson, who died in 2016 at age 92 after a career as a social studies teacher, Ron talked with Loren Wright, a native of Owen County who, also as an Army infantry soldier, was aboard a transport ship crossing the English Channel on Christmas Eve of 1944 when its "sister ship", the SS Leopoldville, was sunk by a German U-boat. About half of Loren Wright's regiment were among the 802 soldiers who perished in the frigid water. ''Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have been somber for me ever since,'' Loren Wright told Ron decades later. To share some accounts of what Hoosiers endured during the holiday seasons of World War II, Ron will be Nelson's studio guest. He has been a ''Hoosier History Live'' guest on several previous shows, most recently on a program last May about children and teenagers who confronted special challenges during World War II.