VAN WERT YOUTH WAS IN BATTLE AGAINST ROMMEL IN TUNISIA, FEBRUARY 17th.
Pfc. Clifford Cox Reported Last Week As Missing, is a German Prisoner of War, Says Radio Message.
Source: Headline local newspaper, unknown date
List Iowans As Missing.
Missing, Prisoner
LEON, IA.—
Mr. and Mrs. Lennie Cox, who live six miles southwest of here, have received a message stating their son, Pvt. Clifford F. Cox, reported missing in action since February 17, is in a German prison camp.
Source: The Des Moines Register, March 23, 1943
War Prisoners Tell of Needs
URGE PARENTS NOT TO WORRY
Shaving Equipment, Cigarets Wanted.
(The Register’s Iowa News Service.)
Iowa parents Wednesday continued to get letters from sons in prison camps. Typical of these were the messages received by Mr. and Mrs. Lennie Cox, of Leon, and Mr. and Mrs. P. J. Knapp, of Sibley.
Pvt. (f. c.) Clifford Cox, 24, taken prisoner in Tunisia Feb. 17, wrote from a German prison camp on Mar. 18.
He told his parents not to worry and stated he was in “comfortable quarters, getting plenty of sleep and food and in good health.”
Cox asked his family to contact the Red Cross about sending letters and packages to him and said he needed “a towel, shaving brush, shaving stick, tooth brush, razor blades, cigarets and candy.”
Warrant Officer Austin L. Knapp, officially reported a German prisoner of war on Apr. 16, wrote he was “taken prisoner on St. Valentine’s day and lost everything but the clothes I had on.”
“I beg of you not to worry,” he continued, “for I am well, living inside, eating, doing a lot of reading and waiting for word from home. Save the county papers for me, please, for a month or so.”
Source: The Des Moines Register, April 29, 1943
NOTE: (Photo of Cox was located on ancestry.com)
Source: Decatur County Women's Auxilary WWI Scrapbook; Submission by Decatur County Historical Museum, Leon IA, Sara Rose Joan LeFleur, June of 2016
