Autobiography details WWII soldier’s life in POW camp

LOMBARD – Returning home from the South Pacific after more than three years in a Japanese prison camp, World War II veteran John Allen Bigelow remembers rolling past Lombard while on a train bound for Hines Veteran Hospital.

"Now that was a thrill," Bigelow recalls in his autobiography. "I told the other guys, 'Come here, look, that's where I live'."

The recollection is one of many that Bigelow, who died in 2008, recounts in his autobiography, "American Soldier: A Love Story." The book, released earlier this month on Amazon, details the life of Bigelow, a world-traveler, military veteran, avid sailor and a Lombardian.

The book was edited by Bigelow's friend and brother-in-law Leonard Biedermann, also a World War II veteran and a former Lombard resident.

"His life was so interesting," Biedermann, 89, said Monday during a phone interview. "Every time we got together, I would hear another story and I would make a note of it."

One day, the two veterans sat down with an old cassette player, and Biedermann recorded the stories that would eventually comprise the book. It took Biedermann roughly two years to edit the book, which involved putting the stories into a chronological sequence, careful fact-checking and finding maps and other visuals to illustrate the stories.

The book is broken into three sections–Pre World War II, World War II and Post-World War II– to help the reader understand that all Bigelow's pre-war experiences helped him survive, and that his traumatic accounts of the war lead to personal choices when he returned to civilian life, Bidermann explained.

"As I look back, I realize I never would have survived the war if I hadn't had some very basic experiences of travel and adventure prior to the war," Bigelow states in the book's preface.

"American Soldier" begins in Lombard in 1927, where Bigelow describes his childhood growing up in a home next to Sacred Heart Church. The Bigelow yard featured more than 40 lilac bushes. "Our yard was like a park," Bigelow said.

A youth full of pretending to sail ships in the backyard led Bigelow to the Great Lakes and eventually the oceans, where he would spend three years following high school sailing around the world on various vessels.

In 1941, Bigelow and fellow Lombardian Joe Korczyk– knowing they would soon be drafted into the military– decided to enlist. Bigelow was stationed in Baatan, a province in the Philippines north of Manila.

During a firefight with the Japanese in April 1942, Bigelow was shot in the left leg and eventually captured. He would spend the next three years as a prisoner of war to the Japanese, where he would endure starvation, forcible labor and rampant disease.

Once liberated, Bigelow would return stateside, where he would often struggle to find normalcy in the post-war world. Yet despite the challenges, he would meet his eventual wife, Emily, and continue to live a unique and exciting life.

"I think an important lesson in the book is these servicemen come back and they all have a problem," Biedermann said. "I think it's important that he survived that and showed that he did find a way to live peacefully after the war even though he had been through hell."

Along with first-hand accounts, the book contains photocopies of letters Bigelow sent to his father while he was a POW in Japan, including one where he discusses what freedom means to him.

"I would love to see every high school kid read that one paragraph," Biedermann said.

For Amy Halm, Bigelow's goddaughter, the recounts in the book are treasures that everyone should appreciate from one of the most important eras in modern history.

"I hope it helps people appreciate older people they know and probe a little bit deeper about their past–military or not," Halm said. "There is so much treasure in their memories."

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"American Soldier: A Love Story" is available for $15.91 at Amazon.com. For more information on the book, visit www.Facebook.com/AmericanSoldierALoveStory.