COLUMBIA – Gov. Nikki Haley presented 13 World War II veterans and 7 World War II veterans’ widows with the newly-created South Carolina Prisoner of War Medal during a ceremony held Sept. 3.
Corp. Bill Pebley, 88, of Little Mountain, was one of those honored. Pebley, who was in the Army, was a prisoner of war for four months in Camps Stalag 12 A & B.
Haley was joined Sept. 3 by Adjutant General Robert Livingston Jr., Howard Metcalf, Director of the S.C. Division of Veterans’ Affairs, and T.J. Martin, former Commander of the S.C. Prisoner of War Commission to present 13 World War II veterans and 7 World War II veterans’ widows with the newly-created South Carolina Prisoner of War Medal.
“What we are doing today is something that makes South Carolina even more of a patriotic state, which is giving a Prisoner of War Medal to every person who sacrificed in a way that many of us will never know,” said Gov. Nikki Haley. “They taught our country so much. They taught our country what it means to really love and invest in your country. They taught what it means to love your state. They taught what it means to love your neighbors. And they taught us in a way that no sacrifice can ever live up to this. They are heroes, not for the time that they served, but for life.”
The South Carolina Prisoner of War Medal was created by S.1173, which was introduced and sponsored by Sen. Wes Hayes and signed into law by Haley on July 2, 2014. The Medal will eventually be awarded to every South Carolinian who has been officially designated as a prisoner of war by the U.S. Department of Defense.
The Medal was designed by the Ex-POW Commission, the S.C. Division of Veterans’ Affairs, and the Adjutant General’s office.
Other veterans honored included the following:
• Lt. Col. Chester Hacket, 96, Columbia, Army Air Force, 1 year P.O.W. Camp Lucky Strike
• Capt. Robert S. Dunbar, 94, Army Air Corp, 9 months P.O.W. Camp Stalag Luft 3
• First Lt. Jack Moak, 93, Columbia, 21 months P.O.W. Camps Luft 1-3 and 7A
• Lt. Ernest Jenkins, 97, Charleston, 16 months P.O.W. Camps Luft and Barth Germany
• TECH Sergeant Lou Fowler, 91, Columbia, 16 months P.O.W Camps Dulag Luft Fanfort, Stalag Luft 6, East Prussia
• Staff Sgt. James N. Gatch, 92, Army Air Corp, 1 year P.O.W. Camp Stalag Luft 4 (accepted by his son Charles Gatch)
• TECH Sergeant Emerson Roberts, 92, Columbia, U.S. Air Force, 11 months P.O.W. Camp Stalag Luft 4
• Sgt. Paul Hollen, 92, Mount Pleasant, Army, 6 months P.O.W. Camps Neunberg and Mooseburg
• Sgt. Claud D. Young, 92, Army, 5 months P.O.W.
• Corp. Pete Wylie, 91, Columbia, Army, 4 months P.O.W. Camp Stalag 13 C
• Private First Class Paul Luckadoo, 93, Fort Mill, Army, 10 months P.O.W. Camps Stalag 7 A&B
• Private Reginal Salsbury, 90, Army, 9 months P.O.W. Camp Mooseburg