North Huntingdon Widow Touched By POW Flag

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - Pittsburgh, PA, USA

North Huntingdon widow touched by POW flag
By Leann Junker
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, November 21, 2008

While honoring all veterans last week at the monthly meeting of the North Huntingdon AARP, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 781 Commander Don Kattic called Betty Gonos to the podium.

"We have a tendency to forget those who have dedicated their life to community service and our country as well," Kattic said as he surprised her with a POW flag.

"Betty, your husband George, who is looking down on us today was one of those dedicated persons," Kattic said. "The officers and the members of the AARP want you to have this flag to be flown below the one at your church. We all know that George was a prisoner of war by the Japanese in World War II."

"It's such a pleasure for me to receive this flag from you to remember George," Gonos told the group of about 200 people. "He was so proud to be an American, so proud of the American flag and the POW flag. He loved all you veterans and you all should be so proud of yourselves today. I thank you so very, very much."

When George Gonos died in July 2007, Betty Gonos decided to use the memorial donations sent to their church -- Circleville United Methodist Church -- to fulfill her husband's wish to erect a flagpole.

About a year after his death, parishioners gathered at the North Huntingdon church to dedicate the flag in his memory.

The 83-year-old North Huntingdon woman was so surprised by the honor.

"I was so proud and so honored. To think that they would do such a thing ... I don't ever recall them doing anything like that," said Gonos, who's been a member of the AARP since the early 1980s.

Gonos, a native of Charleroi, said she and her husband were both widowed when they were introduced in 1975 by her pastor the Rev. Frank Bodnar, pastor of the Charleroi United Methodist Church.

The two were married a year later and enjoyed active membership at the Circleville church where George served as head usher. He was also known as "lollipop man," giving out sweet treats to youngsters in church.

Gonos said she did not even know George was a prisoner of war until about a year after they met. He didn't like to talk about it much, but she encouraged him to not only share his thoughts, but also attend reunions with his Army buddies.

She explained that after George completed his basic training, he was put in with a group from Texas, so all of his reunions took place there.

"Most of those men were very religious men. They were very caring," she said. "The first time we went to a reunion, I said I never saw so many men cry. They were so happy to see each other."

The men did not take much for granted, she said.

She explained George was part of the Lost Battalion.

"For a long time the Army did not know where they were," she said.

George was captured during battle and forced to labor for the Japanese, mostly in shipyards being targeted by American bombers.

"They were fed a handful of rice in the morning and a handful of rice at night," she said.

Gonos said her husband told her there were three rooms where the men stayed. The first room was for the healthy. Those who were sick were placed in room number two and given half the rations.

She said the men in room number one would share their rations with the sick men, "hoping and praying they would get strong and recover."


"If they (the Japanese) saw that they were not going to get well, they put them in a third room and they padlocked it so the men could not help them," she said.

It was hard for all the men, even those who were healthy because they heard the men crying, moaning and groaning and there was nothing they could do.

"They put them in there to die. The Japanese were terrible," she said. "It was very hard for these men to forgive them."

Gonos said her husband learned to forgive these enemies and gave credit for his survival to his love of God.

He was also thankful that he and fellow prisoners were working in a mine in Nagasaki when the second atomic bomb was dropped on Aug. 9, 1945.

When he returned to American soil, George was not discharged until about a year later in 1946.

"He was at Woodrow Wilson Hospital (in Fisherville, Va.,) for 11 months. Those men were quarantined for a long time after they were put in the hospital," she said. "He was so grateful to be back in the United States. He loved that American flag. He was very proud of the POW flag and just proud to be an American."

During his time as a prisoner, Gonos said, "he never had a toothbrush; he never had a cake of soap; they never had a washcloth in all those three and a half years," she said. "They never even had a book to read."

They were eventually given boxes full of mail and each one that had a picture in it, the faces were cut out.

Because of the quarantine, George did not enjoy a reunion with his family right away.

"When they went to see him, they didn't recognize him. He weighed 85 pounds," she said.

To say George was patriotic is an understatement.

"He wanted everybody to know how blessed they were to be in this country. People take so much for granted," she said.

Leann Junker can be reached at ljunker@tribweb.com or 724-489-4415.