The Emporia Gazette

February 13, 2012

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Life-long Emporian George Mechtley stopped in at The Gazette office Friday afternoon to bring in photographs and memorabilia from World War II.

Among the items were a postcard written by Staff Sgt. Lloyd Johnson of Emporia on Feb. 16, 1945, from Stalag 17, a prisoner-of-war camp in northern Germany. Johnson wrote the letter to Mechtley’s wife, Erma Mechtley, asking how the Mechtley’s new baby, Georgene, was and telling her that he was “fine.” The Mechtleys, Johnson and his brother Clair Johnson, had been friends since they were youngsters.

“We grew up — Depression kids,” Mechtley said of the Johnson brothers. “In fact, when they bombed Pearl Harbor, we were ‘draggin’ the gut’ and we stopped in front of the Citizens Bank to buy an extra” put out by The Gazette.

“Draggin’ the gut” was a euphemism young Emporians used for driving up and down Commercial Street in cars and pickup trucks.

“I was A-1 and 21,” Mechtley said, and he was drafted. By July 14, 1942, he was serving in the Army, primarily in Germany and Austria.

Lloyd Johnson was captured by the Germans and kept prisoner for 22 months. During that time, Clair Johnson, a combat engineer, was killed in battle on Feb. 20, 1945, four days after Lloyd Johnson wrote his letter from the POW camp.

Mechtley said he looked for Lloyd Johnson on his way back from Austria, where his unit had been sent in the closing days of the war.

“They thought Hitler was going to hide in Austria,” Mechtley said. “So they shifted us real quick down there, Third Army.”

By the time Mechtley’s unit got to northern Germany, the POWs there already were marching south. He recalled what Lloyd Johnson had told him of that time when they reunited again later in Emporia.

“They just woke up in the morning and the guards were gone,” Mechtley said. Johnson weighed 97 pounds when he made it back to an American base.

“But he said their guards didn’t have much more to eat then they did. Barley soup, and sometimes not even that,” Mechtley said.

Lloyd Johnson then learned that his brother had died. Clair Johnson’s body finally was returned about a year later and brought back to Emporia for re-burial at a cemetery south of town. By then, Mechtley was home and had become involved in veterans’ group. In that role, he was allowed to take part in his friend’s funeral.

“I was the color guard commander when they shipped Clair back,” Mechtley said.