PROLOGUE
Past POW Exchange Ships
by Eugene Floyd Riebling, PhD
(October 2006)

During WW II, the MV "Gripsholm" (Swedish American Line) was chartered by the U S Department of State for repatriation trips. The Aug-Sept 1944 voyage carried wounded German POWs to Sweden and returned with wounded Allied POWs to Liverpool and New York. However, the Nazi's violated an agreed-to protocol for the neutral exchange ship. On 11 Sept 1944, the "Gripsholm" was forced into a Norwegian port by the Nazis, was boarded, and two crew members (a Dane and an American) were removed. This episode is vividly described by my father, Floyd Randall Riebling, in this account of that WW II voyage which he served on as a 38 year-old nurse (RN).

Floyd Randall Riebling, RN & MA (1960 photo)

Coincidentally, two of Dad's grandparents came from Germany. Henry Riebling was a Hanover, PA farmer who had left Rollshausen in Hesse in 1854. His future wife Anna Blumenauer arrived in 1856. Henry actually served in the Union Army during the U S Civil War, but was not our only ancestor to do so. Dad's great grandfather, Rufus Norris and his two sons from La Harpe, IL, also served in the Union Army. One of those sons was captured by the Confederates and then repatriated on an exchange ship!

On 31 Dec 1862, Thomas Norris of the Illinois 88th Infantry Regiment was wounded and captured by Confederate forces at the Battle of Stones River, TN. Instead of providing prompt & humane medical care, the always short-handed Confederates used him to get back a southern soldier. This was because the exchanged southern POWs would ignore their parole restrictions and fight again. Hence, Thomas was rapidly moved 600 miles east to the exchange point at Aiken's Landing on the James River, VA.

There, Thomas boarded the white flag, paddle wheel exchange ship the "New York" for a 60 mile trip down to Fort Monroe, Hampton, VA [F. T. Miller (Ed. in-Chief), "Photographic History of the Civil War", Vol. 7/8, Thomas Yoseloff Publ., N Y, 1957; Chap. by H. Thompson, pp. 98-114]. He was then sent north up Chesapeake Bay to Camp Parole, MD where he died on 21 Feb 1863. In 1965, my father showed me several surviving letters from Thomas. During 2000, I was able to locate and visit Thomas's grave in Annapolis National Cemetery. As far as I know, I was his first relative to do so.

Eighty-seven years earlier, my father's great-great-great-great grandfather had served under Gen. John Stark at the Battle of Bunker Hill, Boston on 17 Jun 1775. William Fifield from Concord, N H managed to survive three British attacks of the fence-beach defensive line. But, William's good fortune was in sharp contrast to what two brothers of my father's great-great-great grandfather, Revolutionary soldier Mark Randall of N H, encountered on British POW prison ships in New York Harbor during 1781.

John (age 19) and Joses (age 30) Randall were captured from a privateer ship that had sailed out of the Portsmouth, N H harbor to prey upon British shipping. Joses name is on an incomplete list of 8,000 seamen who had been held on just one British POW prison ship, the infamous "Old Jersey" [Danske Dandridge, "American Prisoners of the Revolution", Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1967]. That hulk was moored in Wallabout Bay, N Y, the future home of the Brooklyn, N Y Naval Yard. American sailors were offered their freedom daily. It was so simple. All that they had to do was join the British Navy. But, over 95 % refused to become traitors! So, what was their fate

About 12,000 American sailors died of starvation or over crowding-induced yellow fever or typhoid fever at the rate of ten per day on the "Old Jersey" alone! Joses Randall died on 16 Oct 1781 (three days later, John died on another prison ship). The dead were buried on a nearby beach by their fellow POWs. Years later, their bones washed loose and were collected. In 1908, a 150 ft. granite Monument was built on a knoll above a permanent Burial Crypt containing those bones in Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn, N Y. It was dedicated by President-elect William H. Taft [New York Times, 15 Nov 1908]. Sadly, when I visited the Monument and Crypt in Oct 2000, the grounds were in a state of complete benign neglect.

One mile south of Wallabout Bay is the 1908 Monument in Greene Park, Brooklyn. Dandridge's book first appeared in 1967. My father was not aware of our link to Wallabout Bay before he died in 1966, so he never realized its close proximity to major events in his own life. Thus, just two miles north up the East River from Wallabout Bay is Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan where my father obtained his RN degree in 1929. And, I was born two miles northeast of Bellevue Hospital. Two miles due west across the East River and lower Manhattan from Wallabout Bay, sat the future World Trade Center (WTC) site. My mother worked in the area before she married my father nearby.

And, across the Hudson River in N J, just one-half mile west of the WTC site, sat the Pennsylvania RR Piers & American Export Line Piers. Between Manhattan and those N J Piers one could take either the Cortland St. Ferry or the underwater Hudson & Manhattan RR ("Hudson Tubes", later "PATH"). The Manhattan end of the PATH line sat directly beneath the WTC twin towers which were collapsed by terrorists on 9/11/O1. Near the western end of the PATH Tubes in N J sat the American Export Line Piers where the "Gripsholm" docked in WW II. My father's story starts and ends at those Piers.

Front of Port of New York Coast Guard ID Card

I have inserted sub-headings and also placed brackets around any added italicized words. Microfilm files of the New York Times (Aug to Oct 1944) at the University of Arizona and selected National Archives Records of the State Department provided the pertinent material for footnotes denoted by [xx]. These State Department records were only declassified in August 2006 after 62 years.

>> Next page >>