Author and POW survivor share unique connection at Tucson WWII Museum

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — A routine speaking event at the 390th Memorial Museum, located inside the Pima Air & Space Museum, turned into an extraordinary reunion of shared history.

Author Maureen Buick and WWII veteran Walter Ram discovered they had a deeper connection than initially expected: Buick's father and Ram were imprisoned in the same POW camp, and the same barracks, during World War II.

It all began when Glenn Rosati, director of volunteer services at the museum, stumbled upon Buick's book "Finding Bomb Boogie: A Daughter’s Search to Rediscover Her Father — the World War II Bomber Boy, Prisoner of War, and American Veteran," which chronicles her father’s experiences as a WWII bomber pilot shot down and captured.

“I came to a part where she mentioned her father was a POW,” said Rosati. “I thought of Walter, one of our docents and a veteran, and I realized they might have crossed paths.”

Rosati sent Ram’s own memoir to Buick, setting off a remarkable chain of events.

Buick, upon reading Ram’s book, learned that her father not only shared the same camp, Stalag 17B in Austria, but also the same barracks with Ram.

When the two met for the first time at the museum’s event, it was an emotional and illuminating experience.

“It has been a delight meeting Walter and just having this experience,” said Buick, adding that the two had spoken all morning about Ram’s experiences and the connections to her father.

Ram, meanwhile, expressed amazement at the discovery. While he did not recall Buick’s father specifically, he remembered his bunkmate, who happened to be Buick’s father’s close friend.

Ram was captured on June 13, 1943, and was held prisoner until September. A ham radio operator based in Boston was the first to discover that he was captured by the German military. The operator later sent a postcard to Ram’s family, notifying them of the news.

Before being held at Stalag 17B, Ram and his fellow prisoners were forced to march for days in front of German citizens, who jeered them along the way. Ram says, improbably, that he was lucky to be caught by the military rather than the German people, as he would have certainly been killed.

The prisoners were later forced onto a packed train that eventually led transported them to Stalag 17B, a particularly squalid camp where prisoners were given meager food rations. Ram says that he lost nearly 70 pounds while at the camp.

Buick’s father was able to escape while on the march, eventually meeting up with escaped Russian prisoners of war. For this reason, her father returned home a bit later than those captured at Stalag 17B, who were freed when the German military was defeated.

Buick is now working on a follow-up to her book, focusing on Kurt Kurtenbach, the troop leader of Stalag 17B, who passed away in Tucson in 1999.

The 390th Memorial Museum regularly hosts talks with WWII veterans, preserving their stories for future generations. For more details about upcoming events, visit the museum’s website.