259015 Sgt. Robert Wheeler Coston US Army 423rd Infantry Regiment 106th Infantry Division My father, Robert W. Coston Sr., was a buck sergeant in 1944. His company was captured at the Battle of the Bulge and his men marched into Germany. While housed in Stalag 9B, many starving soldiers contracted cholera or dysentery, my dad included. He described how the floorboards had gaps so wide that the waste from the ill men fell onto people he believed were Jewish or Jewish sympathizers. The intent of those in charge, he perceived, was to humiliate and degrade those poor people. My dad credited his survival to an African-American private who caught rats, cooked them, and fed him. I could never recall the name of this man. If anyone knows who this unselfish soldier was, I would like to know. This unnamed soldier was a big hero in my dad's eyes.
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