American Valor Quarterly Issue 8 - Winter 2010/2011 | Page 14

no way to clean ourselves. We sometimes unknowingly drank busiest intersections, unaware of passing cars, honking horns, and
from ditches which other prisoners had used as a toilet. Often cheering people. I drew her close to me. Our hearts were one.
we were forced to sleep on the ground covered with the crap
left behind by those who had passed before us.
“Darling, you are home,” she whispered.
The roads west were full of thousands and thousands of prisoners
of war and German refugees all trying to escape the Russians.
Along the road, a horse would fall dead and its bones would be
picked clean by starving prisoners. Exactly 87 days after we left
the prison camp, I awoke one morning to the sound of a small
American aircraft dropping leaflets in the town near where we
had spent the night. I picked one up and read, “This will give
you safe passage through the allied lines.” It was signed, “Dwight
D. Eisenhower, Commanding General.” It was a message from
heaven. We were going to be free.
The entire camp rolled up their packs
and walked out into the road and headed
west. Two miles down the highway, we
were approached by a squad of British
soldiers. We fell upon their neck and
wet their uniforms with tears of joy and
listened as they told us we were free.

Courtesy of Delbert Lambson

We waited in France for more than two
months for a ship to take us home.
After fourteen days at sea, we walked
down the gang plank at Newport News,
Virginia to the sound of a small band
playing, “Don’t Fence Me In.”

“Yes, thank God I am home,” I replied.
We left the cheering people and walked into the night. I was
home.
After the war, Delbert settled in St. Johns, Arizona where he and
his wife Maxine built their new home, using his sixteen hundred
dollar army mustering out pay and Maxine’s sixteen hundred dollar
savings. Maxine bore her husband seven sons, three of the beautiful
babies died at birth from a blood condition. The remaining four
grew to maturity to have families of their own.
Delbert has enjoyed a wide variety of
interests, which include building several
homes, operating a small farm, acting as
curator for the Apache County Museum,
overseer for the St. Johns Irrigation
Company, manager of the Apache
County fair, manager of the Apache
County exhibit at the Arizona State Fair
for twenty nine years. He and Maxine
served three full time missions for their
church, one year in West Virginia, eighteen
months in the Philippines, and one year
in Virginia.

I put in a midnight call to a little town in Delbert Lambson with his two great loves - his wife, Delbert became a private pilot after the
Arizona and a sweet