Mr. Thomas was born April 6, 1924 in Livingston, Texas to parents, William Edward Thomas and Blanche (Hughes) Thomas, and passed away May 24, 2015 in Livingston, Texas. He is preceded in death by his parents; wife, Ina Thomas; son, Mark Thomas; brother, James Richard Thomas; and sisters, Kathleen Traylor and Pauline Thomas.

Jack Thomas PFC, B Company, 38 ^th Infantry, 2 ^nd Indian Head Division, US Army. Thomas served his country in WWII 1943 – 1945.

Jack always carried with him a piece of history that not many others have. The tag that reads "Stalag IV-B." It reminded him of hard days of labor, malnutrition and questions of how much longer he would live.

What he saw and experienced in World War II remained with him through seven decades. He fought in many campaigns including Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge), and Central Europe.

The journey began when Jack, who grew up and graduated from Livingston in 1941, was drafted at the age of 18.

He had a few months before reporting and chose to spend that time working for Shell Oil Company in Deer Park. When he was called, he rode the rails to San Antonio for over a year of training.

A second training stop sent Jack to North Carolina Camp Butner before loading onto a boat for Liverpool, England, Jack's unit was there as replacements after the invasion.

From England, Jack and his unit boarded another ship to cross an extremely rough English Channel onto Normandy Beach.

Jack landed about four days after D-Day. His unit suffered a lot of casualties all the time.

Jack was in Sainte-Mere-Eglise, off the coast of the English Channel when he and his unit entered France. He said the first battle he fought was in Saint Lo, about 30 miles south.

It was a bad one. His company spent about two weeks there. The Germans were not giving up. All that time, the Americans were losing men. He thought they weren't going to get out of there without being killed or wounded.

Through six and a half months of battle, Jack carried around a M1 Garand .30-06 with ammunition strapped to his person. The young soldier also served as a scout along with his partner Buck Sloan from Lufkin.

When his group was sent out to help a unit that was not in the area, Jack and his allies were in a bad spot.

He got captured.

Jack said death or injury was the way soldiers figured they would leave the war. They never thought about getting captured. But, now they were – by Nazis.

The next morning, the captured were sent marching – for seven days.

On all of those marches, if you fell out of line, you were shot. They heard it.

With no food and an occasional drink of water, Jack and the others walked to Bonn, Germany from the Belgium-France border. They got in Bonn on Christmas Eve. It was always snowing and the temperature close to zero. There, the prisoners of war were put on a train and given a bucket of water to sustain themselves. They were gone several days when an American fighter plane came in and knocked out the engine on the train. They sat there for 10 days without a bite to eat before they reached Stalag IV-B. There was blizzard weather the whole time.

Stalag IV-B was a camp at Mulhberg, Brandenburg, which lies in the east of Germany. With a bowl of turnips, two slices of bread, and the occasional drink of water in nearly three weeks, the POWs were sent to work.   And the Livingston native was not exactly accustomed to cold weather.

They got half of a blanket and were placed two to a bunk. The Germans put them to work on a railroad in a labor camp. That was tough, especially with the cold. Every day American prisoners were dying in that camp from starvation.

His small meal of heated vegetable mush had Jack dropping body mass at an alarming rate. The 160-pound soldier that was sent from the United States just a few months before had shrunk to 82 pounds.

Ukrainian and Polish women POWs were stationed not too far from where Jack was assigned. Information they received from the women kept moral from completely fading. They would leave them notes and draw them maps of where the Americans were and where the Russians were. The POWs were pulling for both sides – just whoever got to them first.

When the day finally came, Jack said he and others could see out of a factory window where they were held captive. The sight was of an American infantry marching down the street. The troops shot the locks off the doors and Jack was liberated. There were probably 140 Americans in the factory. And, about a dozen that were bedridden, waiting to die. Jack said they loaded all the sick and wounded onto trucks and no one was left behind.

Jack soon found himself back in France, this time in a hospital to recover. He spent a month in the hospital and during that time, the war ended. He wanted to go home so badly. They finally turned him loose and gave him his papers. He got on a train to go to Paris and on down to La Harve (a port city in northern France).

Jack said "It was quite an experience. It kind of amazes me how cruel they were. Germany had to be Hitler's cult. Right up to the last, the streets would be lined up with kids and women, and they would throw rocks and spit at you. I had my 21 ^st birthday in prison camp. He said, "I ought to be out chasing girls."

The local hero has received a collection of medals, including the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart for his role in the conflict. He will receive the Medal of Honor from France posthumously.

After he returned from the war, he went back to work for Shell Oil Company as a heavy equipment operator whose expertise was operating a crane. Those who worked with him at Shell remember him as a well liked and respected man. He was a good crane operator and usually ran #7 crane, which was the largest crane Shell had at Deer Park. His co-workers would put 275 feet of boom on his crane, hook up a personnel basket, put their tools and equipment in it and they would get in. Jack would lift them all the way to the top of the tallest towers in the refinery and swing them over to the handrails gently so they could grab it and get out. It took a guy with good concentration and a skillful hand to control a crane with a long boom like that in the wind. He worked for Shell 44 years before retiring and moving back to Livingston.

Shortly after returning from the war and securing his job at Shell he married the love of his life, Ina (Sims) Thomas and had two children, Terry and Mark, and one grandson, J.T. He was respected, loving and admired by everyone. If you met him; you loved him. If you needed to know how to do something – he would teach you. If you wanted to know the latest in the news – he would tell you. He was always ready to sit and tell you a story. He was an avid reader and read the Houston Chronicle every day and never missed a copy of the Polk County Enterprise. He loved reading. And, most of all he loved his family and would do anything and everything for them.

Last year Jack was more than excited to make the Honor Flight to Washington D.C. to see the WWII Memorial. Jack was part of America's Greatest Generation.

Jack Wilson Thomas will be remembered as a Proud American, Devoted Husband, Loving Father, Cherished Grand Father and True Friend.

He is survived by daughter and son-in-law, Terry and Tony Smith of Livingston, Texas; grandson and wife, J.T. and Danielle Smith of League City, Texas; sister-in-law, Kikv Thomas of Livingston, Texas; caregiver, Joan Grimes of Livingston, Texas; along with numerous other relatives and friends.

Pallbearers: J.T. Smith, Brandon O' Brien, John Jondle, Chris Wells, Edmon Benavides, Cody Hedge, Buck Sloan

Cochran Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements. Please sign our online guestbook at www.cochranfh.com .