Last week, we left our story with the tragic news that Sgt. George Cleveland Agee Jr.’s B-24 Liberator, the Jackass Male, had been shot down by German forces on April 1, 1944. Sgt. Agee parachuted to the ground, suffering a severely injured ankle during his descent.
After six agonizing weeks, Sgt. Agee’s parents, George Sr. and Eula Gay Hylton Agee of Stuart, finally received confirmation that their son was alive—but he was being held in the dark forests near Krems, Austria, at the notorious Stalag XVII-B, a German prisoner-of-war camp.
Sgt. Agee’s eldest son, G. Steven Agee, recalls that his father rarely spoke of his time in captivity, except to say that he was always hungry. The horrors of this camp, like so many others under Nazi control, remained largely hidden until the spring of 1945. As General George S. Patton’s Third Army pushed in from the west, Hitler’s crumbling empire began to reveal its darkest secrets. As American troops liberated territory, they uncovered starving, emaciated prisoners—both political captives and Allied soldiers.
On April 8, 1945, more than 4,000 Allied airmen were forced out of Stalag XVII-B and marched west at gunpoint, prodded by the rifle butts and bayonets of German guards. The prisoners trudged through rain and snow with nothing to eat but the occasional uncooked potato scavenged along the way. Sgt. Agee shared with his son Steve that, along the march by the Danube River, the soldiers had to step over the bodies of murdered Jews near the Mauthausen concentration camp.
Nearly a month later, the column of prisoners was ordered to set up camp near Braunau, Austria. The German guards remained in control until the night before the long-awaited jeeps and tanks of the 13th Armored Division rolled into the area, bringing liberation at last. The starving men had marched 281 miles in 18 days.
Life began to change quickly after Sgt. Agee’s liberation. The Martinsville Bulletin reported on June 13, 1945, that the Red Cross had notified Mr. and Mrs. Agee that their son, Tech. Sgt. George C. Agee Jr., had been freed.
Only four days later, Sgt. Agee and his childhood sweetheart, Miss Eva Irene Baliles, were married at Stuart Baptist Church by Reverend Robert J. Mann.
Eva was the daughter of James Lee Baliles and Martha Emma Shelton Baliles, who lived on Route 8 near Wood’s Cold Storage. James Lee Baliles was the son of John Henry Baliles and Mary Jeanette Morrison, and Martha Emma Shelton was the daughter of James Henry Shelton and Wilmouth Walker, all of the Buffalo Ridge area. Eva was the fifth of seven children born to James and Martha Shelton Baliles:
Carrie Ellen Baliles (1912–2002)
Mary Addieleene Texas Baliles (1915–1991)
James Curtis Baliles (1916–2009)
Syrus Lee Baliles (1919–1967)
Eva Irene Baliles (1921–2019)
Dorothy Mae Baliles (1923–2018)
Herman Shelton Baliles (1928–1941)
Next week, we will look at the accomplishments of Sgt. Agee after the war. I am deeply grateful for the contributions of Agee’s son, G. Steven Agee, in bringing this remarkable story to light.
His courage, resilience, and sacrifice stand as a shining example of the Greatest Generation—one whose legacy continues to inspire us all.
For questions, comments, or story ideas, Beverly Woody may be reached at rockcastlecreek1@gmail.com or 276-692-9626.
