Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
Today marks the 70th anniversary of what is officially known as Victory in Europe Day or V-E Day and World War II veterans and their families are celebrating, including Alton attorney Robert Ryan.
Ryan has fond memories of V-E Day but it was a few days after April 29, 1945, that truthfully stands out in his mind as a memorable anniversary for him.
On April 30, Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader killed himself during the Battle of Berlin and German’s surrender was authorized by his successor Karl Donitz. The act of military surrender was signed on May 7, 1945, in Reims, France, and Berlin, Germany, on May 8, 1945.
Ryan, 91, still practices law and has a third-floor office in the Riverbender.com Building. He can recall like yesterday American troops closing in on his prison camp in Germany and crashing with tanks into the front gate of the camp and quickly getting surrender from the Nazi prison guards. Soon after, he witnessed something the etched n his 91-year memory – the Nazi Swastika going down and the American flag going up to fly for freedom above the camp.
“I was being held in a German prison just north of Munich, in a town called Mooseburg,” he said. “I was there probably two months and prior to that in a different camp. Watching the Swastika go down was fantastic and very emotional. It was something to see.”
Ryan spent 11 months in Nazi prison camps after being shot down in the area of Dessau, Germany.
“Somebody had a rifle pointed at me before I hit the ground with my parachute,” he said. “Nine of us in the plane got out, all were captured and all survived. I felt lucky to survive.”
Ryan was an air navigator and he was 20 at the time he was captured as a prisoner of war.
“Officers were separated from the enlistment men as prisoners,” Ryan said.
“The one thing I remember most vividly from being in the prison camp, was not enough food, water, heat, everything still stays in my mind.”
Ryan received his degree from St. Louis University and he began practicing law in 1953 and has continued ever since. He still practices law today at age 91 and looks 10 or 15 years younger than his true age.
As he reflects today on the 70th anniversary of V-E Day, he said he is proud of being able to contribute to what Americans did in World War II.
“I suppose what I felt most on V-E Day was relief and joy,” he said. “You have to recall the Pacific War was still going on, so we didn’t think we were out of the woods for military service yet, but by the time I got through my 90-day leave and so forth, the Pacific part of the war had come to a close.”
