It’s been 70 years, but James Bryant can still clearly recall his 10-month ordeal as a prisoner of Nazi Germany during World War II.

At the age of 92, the former La Plata resident is the last WWII prisoner of war residing at the Charlotte Hall Maryland Veterans Home.

Bryant, a native of Montrose, Va., was the youngest of seven children, the son of a farmer and fisherman.

In 1943, newly engaged, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, trained as an infantry foot soldier, and sent overseas to Italy with the 88th Infantry Division, 349th Regiment. In early 1944, he joined Lt. Gen. Mark Clark’s Fifth Army after a month-long Atlantic crossing and a stopover in northern Africa.

“We were known as the Blue Devils and the Kraut Killers,” Bryant said, referring to the names given to soldiers of the 88th and 349th, respectively.

In the summer of 1944, Bryant and 18 other men were captured during an attempt to rescue prisoners.

“The Germans had 20 of our men, wounded, so we went up there and tried to rescue them. In the meantime, the Germans mounted a counterattack. There were 21 of us and 250 of them,” Bryant said, adding that two men in his unit escaped. “So I got captured in combat.”

At one point, he and the other men thought they were going to be shot.

“The Germans took all of us into a ditch, and they were going to shoot us. I heard them talking in English,” Bryant said. “but in the end, they didn’t shoot us.”

Bryant was sent to Stalag 7A near Munich, Germany, the largest German POW camp.

Bryant said he and other POWs at the camp were organized into work groups, but had very little food. They were reliant on Red Cross food parcels.

“The Germans, they gave us one box for about every seven men. Split seven ways, you only got maybe a slice of bread, a little bit of butter, very little,” Bryant said.

Once, he said, a plane overhead dropped rations for a POW work group.

“An American fighter pilot fighter came over, tilted his wings to let us know he was friendly. He dropped all his rations, but the Germans took every single one of the rations. We got nothing,” Bryant said.

Bryant said he sewed a pocket into his overcoat, in which he was able to hide bread stolen from the guards.

“I’d get a bit of bread, stick it in that pocket. I never was caught. They searched me close, but I never got caught. That was how I survived,” he said.

Through it all, Bryant said he didn’t lose hope.

“I never did think for once that I wasn’t going to come back and see home,” he recalled.

On April 29, the camp was liberated by Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army as they advanced through Germany. By that point, most of the German guards had already left.

“The Germans knew ahead of time, they heard the guns going off, and the ones guarding us, they took off and left,” Bryant said. “We could’ve gotten away, but where would we go? We couldn’t speak German, we knew the war was ending, so we stayed put.”

Bryant said he met Patton when the general visited the camp two days later.

“I saw him in person, shook his hand,” Bryant said.

During his 10 months in captivity, Bryant said he lost 70 pounds, one-third of his initial body weight.

“When I got out of the camp, I weighed 150 [pounds], when I went in there, I weighed 220 [pounds],” Bryant said.

Germany surrendered unconditionally May 8, 1945. Bryant said he was transported by hospital ship in June, a seven-day journey.

“On the hospital ship, they treated me real good,” Bryant said. “But my stomach had shrunk so much, I couldn’t eat a full meal. I still have problems from that.”

Bryant said he was taken to Walter Reed General Hospital Army Medical Center in Bethesda for six months for treatment due to the trauma of captivity.

It was while he was there that he got the news from his brother; while he’d been missing in action and a POW, his fiancée had married someone else.

“My brother called me and said, ‘Do you know what happened?’ and I said, ‘No, I don’t’, and he said, ‘Your old girlfriend got married,’ ” Bryant said.

She got an annulment and the two were married in 1946, and stayed married until her death in 2013.

Bryant was awarded the Bronze Star, the Combat Infantryman Badge and other awards, he said.

Following the war, Bryant worked as a tugboat captain for 25 years.

“We brought up sand and gravel for the foundations of the Kennedy Center, the Pentagon, and most all of the bridges,” Bryant said.

Other than health impacts from his ordeal, Bryant has generally been healthy, something he attributes to his childhood.

“We had a good life, plenty to eat on the farm. Pigs, hogs, and all that, plenty of vegetables to eat. We caught crabs and fish. Good eating, I called it,” Bryant said. “I told my doctor I’m going to live to be 100 years old. He said go for it. At 92, I’ve got a good start.”

janfenson-comeau@somdnews.com