![]() When you believe in something so strong, it goes a long way. They believe that they won’t be able to break them. Why? They are used to being chained with the same chain since they were small. Still, the elephants never try to break them. Megellas was born March 11, 1917, in Fond du Lac, Wis., one of seven children of Greek immigrants.Have you ever noticed how big elephants are chained using small, thin chains? These chains are not strong enough to hold them. He learned to sail and fish on nearby Lake Winnebago, a love that would remain for the rest of his life, his family said. To help support his family during the Great Depression, he went to work with the Civilian Conservation Corps and later entered Ripon College and its ROTC program. Megellas received a commission as a 2nd lieutenant in May 1942 and volunteered for the 82nd Airborne, whose lightly armed infantry parachuted into hot zones or behind enemy lines. They carried at least 80 pounds of gear and bailed out from heights of about 500 feet, often under fire and at a rate of descent significantly faster than parachutists today, Cinatl said. Their transports were often shot up with flak and sometimes downed. Megellas - who led H Company of the 3rd battalion of 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment - first saw action in Italy, where he was wounded twice, Cinatl said. ![]() The 504th became known as the "Devils in Baggy Pants," a nickname taken from a German soldier's diary describing troops that seemed to pop out of nowhere, determined to fight. His first parachute combat mission came with Operation Market Garden, the largest airborne assault in history, Cinatl said. The ill-fated plan, which aimed to sweep around heavy German defenses by cutting through the Low Countries, required Allied airborne forces to seize key bridges behind enemy lines and hold them until armor could advance. Megellas took part in the Waal River crossing - a desperate effort to outflank an SS Panzer division holding an important bridge in Nijmegen, Cinatl said. ![]() The paratroopers, using canvas-sided, wood bottom boats, crossed in daylight under heavy fire. ![]() Megellas also fought during the Battle of the Bulge and its aftermath. 28, 1945, he was leading his platoon into the Belgian town of Herresbach following a 10-mile march through heavy snow when the unit encountered a Mark V Panther tank with its machine gun blazing. Megellas, armed with only a Thompson submachine gun and grenades, ran toward the tank, halted it with a grenade, climbed onto its turret and pitched another grenade inside, knocking out the Panther and leaving his men in awe. "I saw a figure run up to the tank and heard an explosion and saw a flash of light," George Heib told the Milwaukee Journal years later. Megellas then led an assault on German forces in the town. For his heroism, he was nominated for a Medal of Honor, but received a Silver Star instead because of omissions in the original paperwork submitted for commendation, according to an account of his wartime experience that Megellas recorded for the nonprofit American Veterans Center in 2015. On May 2, 1945, Megellas and several paratroopers entered Wöbbelin, a satellite of the Neuengamme concentration camp near Ludwigslust, and wasn't even sure what he had found when he encountered skeletal prisoners like Salton, who was then 17 years old and all of 75 pounds. Salton - who had been born Lucjan Salzman, with the nickname "Lucek," in the Polish village of Tyczyn - had been separated from his family three years earlier after the German invaders started rounding up Jews. "We didn't know about concentration camps," Megellas told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. But this was a horror you'd never forget - men weighing 50 or 60 pounds." "We'd been in combat two years, and we'd seen a lot of men killed in battle. That first meeting between the paratrooper and the prisoner would eventually lead to others, including a face-to-face reunion 60 years later in Texas. "In you, I see living proof of what we fought for in World War II," Megellas was quoted as saying by the Star-Telegram when the two men met again in 2005.Īrmy honor guards fold the flag during Megellas’ funeral. (Astrid Riecken/for The Washington Post)Įach had gone on after the war to marry, raise children and build successful careers in the government and private sectors.
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