Prisoner of War

US Army Christmas Postcard, December 1943

Woodrow Smith never saw the hissing grenade that bounced into his foxhole on June 6, 1944. His last memory of that day was grabbing for his helmet and dropping to the dirt, expecting the shrapnel and concussion.

Smith, woke up an hour later near the Normandy Beach with fellow-soldiers scraping mud out of his eyes, also searing for the helmet he'd tried to preserve. By day's end Smith was a prisoner of war and would remain a POW until the surrender by his captors to the Allies in 1945.

Info from: http://www.506infantry.org/