Warner Rickard Rodgers

Mr. Warner Rickard “Rick” Rodgers, Sr., 92, passed away Friday, July 19, 2013, at his home.

Funeral services are scheduled for 11:00 am Monday, July 22, 2013, at Mt. Olivet United Methodist Church, where he was a member. Rev. Cecil Donahue will officiate. The body will lie in-state at the 30 minutes prior to the service. Burial will follow in the church cemetery with military honors provided by the military honor guard.

The family will receive friends from 3 to 6:00 pm Sunday at Lady’s Funeral Home.

Mr. Rodgers was born January 28, 1921 in Cabarrus County. He was a son of the late William Floyd Rodgers, Sr. and Mable Winecoff Rodgers. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by a daughter, Rebecca Rodgers Delane. He was a 1938 graduate of Winecoff High School and attended Lenoir Rhyne College. He is also a graduate of the Carolina School of Banking at UNC-Chapel Hill and the School of Banking of the South at LSU and completed the Dale Carnegie Training.

Mr. Rodgers was heavily involved in the community for many years in various organizations including: Board of Directors for American Red Cross, Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, United Way and A.L. Brown Band Aide Club. He was Chairman of the Red Team of YMCA Membership and member of the YMCA Fundraiser Team and member of the Ambassador Club of the Chamber of Commerce. He was on the Kannapolis Planning & Zoning Committee since its beginning and served as the Assistant Chairman for several years with his term ending in 2008 at the age of 87. He was also responsible for acquiring approximately 90% of the city’s water and sewer easements.

He also served as the President of the following: Midway Merchant’s Association, Kannapolis Merchant’s Association 1974-75, Kannapolis Chamber of Commerce, Bible Teaching Association with Kannapolis City Schools, Winecoff Lion’s Club, Kannapolis Rotary Club 1978-79 and Regional Representative & Vice-President of Security Bank in Kannapolis.

Mr. Rodgers was also devoted to his church. Over the years, he held most leadership positions including; Official Board, Finance, Trustees, Superintendent of Sunday School and Lay Leader. He taught Sunday school for 55 years and was the Lay Leader for Salisbury District of the United Methodist Church and the Layperson of the Year for the District in 1993.

Before Rick gave his time and talents to serve his church and various civic organizations, he gave a generous amount of time to his entire country. Rick was a veteran of the U.S. Army and served proudly during World War II under General Patton. On October 21, 1944, Rick became a Prisoner of War to Germany. For the next 6 months and 17 days, he was transferred by train and by foot through four prison camps. He and others had to march through the heart of Berlin in front of irate Germans between camps. After suffering from malnutrition, fatigue, foot and leg injuries, on May 8, 1945, he was able to escape from Stalag VII-A compound and safely made his way out of Germany. He was discharged six months later on November 10, 1945 and was able to move forward to achieve many things throughout his life. His complete accounting of his time as a POW can be read in the online version of the obituary at the website listed below.

Mr. Rodgers is survived by his wife, Virginia Munday Rodgers; daughter, Janet Rodgers Johnson and husband Joel of Kannapolis; three sons, Rick Rodgers, Jr. and wife Delinda of Kannapolis, Bob Rodgers and wife Vickie of Hickory and Bill Rodgers and wife Cathy of Raleigh; brother, William Floyd Rodgers, Jr. and wife Faye of Kannapolis; nine grandchildren, Trip, Scott and Andy Rodgers, Hope J. Beam, Meredith J. Spry, Lee Rodgers, Paige Humble, Ginny Mann and Chip Rodgers; twelve great grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren.

Memorials may be sent to Mt. Olivet United Methodist Church, General Fund, 301 Mt. Olivet Road, Concord, NC 28025 or to Hospice and Palliative Care of Cabarrus County, 5003 Hospice Lane, Kannapolis, NC 28081.

The following is a detailed account of the time Warner Rickard Rodgers, Sr. spent as a POW during World War II.

"October 21, 1944, I was captured at Rosenburg, Germany north of Achaean. I was with the 30th Division, I Company, 120th Infantry. I was attached to General Patton. We had spearheaded with Patton's division from St. Lo toward the Siegfried Line, and were now headed for the inside of Germany. We had just gone through the fiercest fighting of the war! I was now on a combat patrol, sent for the mission of contacting the British, on our left flank. Germans surrounded me. All day long we fought, trying to get back through their lines, and had used up all our ammunition. That night, I tried to get back through their lines, and back to the American lines, and was picked up by the SS Panzers. This group interrogated me that night, trying to seek information from me, as to the movement of our group, and to what units I belonged. I did not give them anything but my name, rank and serial number, as I had been instructed to do. This made them very furious and they threatened to kill me, to do all manner of things to me. They even said that from the picture I had of my wife and child, they had contact in America, and they'd "take care" of them, if I didn't talk. I made it through the night, and the next day they took me to jail (something like jailhouse), where there were other prisoners-of-war (two I believe). Each day, for about a week, a guard would take us out to a small farm, right outside the village. We would pick up sugar beets and potatoes all day. They would return us to the jail at night. The guards and civilians were very excited and very determined to see that we did what they wanted us to do.

After a week at this small jail, I was taken to Stalag III-A in Bonn, Germany. There we signed up with the Red Cross. My being a non-commissioned officer, I would have to volunteer to work if I wanted to. I was told that if I didn't work the food would be very scarce and things would be "sort of bad" for me. If I'd volunteer to work, I could have better food, better clothing, and better opportunities. We did not volunteer to work. There was very little to eat, and the weather was beginning to get very cold, and we had no heat at all in our barracks that we were staying in, and we could tell that wintertime was going to be very severe. Bonn was kindly in line with Berlin and the bombers (American and British) were bombing a lot in the area at the time. Guards were all very nervous and would threaten to do something to us "very drastic", if the bombing was not stopped. However we had no control over that at all.

In November we were all gathered together and told we were all going to be sent to another camp with better facilities. We were loaded on boxcars, just as many as could get in, not leaving enough room to sit down, but standing up. Inside the boxcar, there was one can container, which was used as a latrine. There was very little to eat at all, in fact practically nothing. There was no water. We stopped near a place we guessed to be Berlin. Later we found out that it was. American planes strafed us time after time. It was a terrible ordeal, to be in a boxcar, and couldn't do anything, knowing what was going on outside. And then we had a surprise! We were taken off the boxcars and marched though Berlin, a "demonstration", something to behold. The German people were all excited and would throw things at us, run up and spit on us, one man even throwing a pitchfork on the crowd. This type of action was very hard for us to understand. There was no control of the crowd and we didn't know what might happen next. It was just like throwing a rabbit or something out to a bunch of hungry dogs.

We were then loaded back on the boxcars, after the march though Berlin, and taken to Stalag III-B, at Furstenburg, on the Oder River, the eastern part of Germany. But instead of finding conditions better there in camp we found that they were worse. We had just very little to eat. We were issued five bed slats apiece to go on our bunks, along with a little small blanket, that was about four foot by four foot, I guess. The bed slats, you could put one under your head, two under your shoulders, one under your hip, one under your knees and one under your ankles. You know the GI's though, they'd always make the best of whatever they have. About three of us would go together,j put the slats all together, and that would almost make a solid bed. Then we'd pile up and put all three blankets on us. That would make it so much better, the warmth of one body, helping to warm the other. We did not have any type of heat in the building.

There was now snow on the ground and it was bitterly cold! In the mornings, they would give us one little thin slice of bread that was about three or four years old, real dry type of bread. Bread they could pack away and save. Then we would have a half a cup of tea. The tea, we were told, was made out of wheat. I'd never tasted anything like it before in my life. At lunchtime we'd have one half cup of either dehydrated rutabaga soup or grass soup, grass like you'd mow out of the yard. This soup always had a lot of white worms in it. Then at night, we'd have one thin slice of bread with a little bit of margarine or cheese, old rank cheese of some kind, or marmalade, and another half cup of tea. Then occasionally, we would have a treat! The Red Cross parcels would come in and they (guards) would open up the boxes, and open up the cans and give us maybe one or two cans. This was really a treat! This probably really saved our lives! That's the only time we ever got any nutrition at all. Today we speak of "Weight Watchers Program"! Sometimes we were wondering if we were going to have anything to watch.

For punishment they would place the prisoners in solitary confinement, or strap their wrist to the fence and leave them for hours in the cold. I tried, as did the others, to avoid any extra punishment. However, they would punish a group for the actions of one person.

After going through this for a couple of months then all of a sudden the guards became anxious. We could tell that something was really going on. At this time the Russians were coming in on the East side they (German guards) got us together, moved us out of the camp and onto the road. We marched in the snow for a week. In this march, after being out a couple of days, my feet froze and were swollen, bursting open with blood in my shoes. The pain was just terrible. A couple of us, about three or four, decided to just stop beside the road. They were marching us in fifties. One group would be a good little way from the other. I guess they thought they could keep us under control better that way. We got the idea that we'd stop and sit down beside the road for just a minute and wait for the next fifty, to rest our feet. When we did this, the guard back in the other area threw up his rifle and shot. We got all excited! He shot and killed one of the boys there with me. When this happened the other boys got up, and like we were in shock the rest of the time. We didn't feel any pain or anything. It had really scared us. We continued on and found out later when we arrived that we were in Lukenwald, at Stalag VII-A, located West of Berlin. On this trip we encountered so many different things that caused us to become very tense. We were marching with the Jews! Some of them were along the road, black and white striped uniforms, and of course the guards were hollering at them and being very mean to them. We also were seeing a lot of civilians that were moving to the West, to get away from the Russian soldiers coming in. It was a "state of confusion" and this in itself made the guards very nervous and tense. I know one night we stopped around a barn, an old bar, to get out of a snowstorm that was coming in. They had eggs, nest eggs (glass), in the hen nests. Some of the boys got those eggs, thinking they were real, and the guard came and said that the next morning, if those eggs were not back in the nests, that they would just take the first fifty men they came to and shoot them. Believe you me, we were happy the next morning, when those eggs were found back in the nest. This march was a very terrible experience for us all. When we got back into the camp at Lukenwald, it was about 30 days before I was able to get on my feet and walk. They were frozen so bad. We didn't find the conditions at Lukenwald any better than what we'd been having because the war was kindly at its end. The supplies for the German people were beginning to get very scarce. Of course they really cut down in the prison camps. We just continued to look for the Red Cross parcels to come. However,j we were finding out from sources that the food parcels that were coming, were being confiscated by the German's themselves.

Then one day in April we heard machine gunfire and artillery. We could tell by the sound that it was not of German make, so we began to feel that the Allied soldiers were coming in on the West side. We continued to listen and then it ceased to be. We found out later, after liberation, that Americans had crossed the Elbe River, pulled back to the river and waiting on the Russians. Then the Russians came in on the East side. This was a disappointment for us. Instead of liberating us, they put people in the towers with machine guns, like the Germans had done. We tried to save what little bit of food that was in the kitchen (the American compound). This big Russian soldier ran over me, just by force. It didn't take much force as weak as I was. He hurt my left leg, and it was a couple of weeks before I was able to get up and walk again. Then during the couple of weeks that I was down and couldn't get up, American trucks came to the gate compound. The Russians would not let us leave the compound at all, so the trucks left. This in itself excited us because we didn't know what to expect. Our own allies keeping us under guard, like they were.

When my leg got better, John DeSetta and I got hold of some wire cutters. We cut a hole through the fence of the compound. Early one morning, in fact it was on May 8th, 1945, we cut a hole in the fence, crawled out, and crawled across the field into some woods. We proceeded to go to the Autobahn Highway, which was nearby. We got down into the ditch, by the highway. Then we noticed this GI truck coming down the road. That was excitement for us, and we got out and stopped it! The driver was trying to get back across the river. He had come across for the prisoners and they would not release them, and then they would not let the truck go back across the river. He was, at that time, as scared as we were. He knew where the river was and we went along in the truck to the river. When we reached the river, there were Russian guards everywhere at the crossing. We saw a war correspondent jeep. There were about three of them (correspondents) in the jeep. We contacted them. They had been waiting there three days trying to get back across. They had just gotten permission to go back through the Russians. They told us to go up into the woods until they returned with some type of information. So we went up in the woods and watched the bridge all afternoon. Then late, just before dark, we saw the jeep, with the correspondent coming across. We waved. He told us to go up the river, about one half mile and that there was a railroad bridge blown out and down into the river. It was just under the water. If we'd hang onto that, we could cross the river right there. So we did that and crossed the river on the old blown out bridge. When we got to the other side, I saw that there was my old "outfit", the 30th Division! They seemed to be so happy, just as we were happy. I wondered why all the excitement. I learned that the German's had just surrendered.

That night I went to the barracks and found a couple of my old buddies. They gave me some Milky Ways (candy bars), and I ate about three that night, not realizing what I was doing. I guess they didn't realize the condition my stomach was in. After eating Milky Ways my stomach started hemorrhaging. The next morning, after about three "de-lousing" they put me through, they put me on a plane and flew me to Camp Lucky Strike. At Le Harvre, France. There I ate cream of wheat,j chicken, things of that sort, for about a month, until I was in condition to come home. In the meantime, my only thought was, to in some way, get in touch with my family. I had not received a letter, or any kind of correspondence all the time I was in prison. I found out later that the letters, one little card that I could write each week, had never reached my wife. We did not have any correspondence at all during my time in prison. I ran into Nina Binder, my French teacher in high school. She was working with the Red Cross at Le Harvre. She contacted my wife to let her know that I was safe. The examinations that I got, when coming out, both in France and the United States, were king of "skimpy". Really all that we were thinking about was getting out of service. The least that they would find wrong with us, the quicker we would get out. So we tried to cooperate with them, in that way, in order to get out. Not knowing really, or having any guidance as to what we really should do.

We were sen to Miami on recuperation. While down there, we were checked out physically, but is it was a very mild check-up. Things that were really serious or in depth, were not detected. I was sent to Fort Bragg and was discharged on November 10th, 1945."

Documented by Warner Rickard Rodgers, Sr. April 26th, 1985.