World War II prisoner of war diary uncovered

Louis Pape returned from World War II with stories he rarely talked about. Years later, his daughter and son-in-law opened a box he left behind and found a diary of his life as a prisoner of war written on toilet paper.

The visit

It started with a visit to the family farm in Illinois in the late 1970s. Cheryl Denslow and her husband David had come to see her parents. Her father, Pape, had served in World War II as a P-38 fighter pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps and was a prisoner of war (POW).

Like many Veterans of that generation, he didn’t talk about it much.

That day, Pape brought out an old cardboard box. It was one of the Red Cross boxes sent to Allied prisoners during the war. These boxes were packed with food and basic supplies, such as powdered milk, cigarettes and canned meat. Most prisoners reused the empty tins. Pape used his to make a cover for a diary written in pencil on sheets of toilet paper.

David remembers Pape showing a few items and quietly putting the box away.

“I was humbled by some of the stories he told,” David said. “Cheryl told me I should feel privileged. She had never seen some of those items herself.”

When Cheryl’s mother died in 2013, the box was given to them. They didn’t open it for years.

Documenting history

In 2024, Cheryl and David took a cruise that stopped in Norway. At a war museum, David met a woman whose father had also been a POW at Stalag Luft III, the same camp where Pape was held.

“When we got home, I told Cheryl, ‘I want to go through the box again,’” he said.

David built a phone stand from scrap wood and began photographing each page of the diary. He enlarged the images on a screen to read Pape’s writing.

“It was slow work,” he said. “But I didn’t want to miss anything.”

Shot down

On Sept. 2, 1943, Pape was flying a mission over Naples, Italy, escorting B-25 bombers when more than 200 German fighters attacked. He shot down two enemy aircraft before taking hits from enemy and friendly fire.

He lost both engines and crash-landed in the Mediterranean Sea.

He regained consciousness underwater. After freeing himself from the cockpit, he floated for hours before being picked up by a German-controlled, Italian flying boat near the Isle of Capri.

He was processed in Italy through Naples, Capua, and Rome, and in Germany through Munich, and a transit camp called Dulag Luft, near Frankfurt. He was eventually moved by boxcar to Stalag Luft III in what is now Żagań, Poland.

Pape spent the next 20 months as a prisoner of war.

Camp life

Stalag Luft III held thousands of captured Allied pilots. Inside, prisoners called themselves Kriegies—short for Kriegsgefangener, the German word for POW.

Each day began with Appel, the roll call.

“Each person had a specific spot in line, and we were not to move under any circumstances,” Pape wrote. “The guards would walk in front and behind to count heads. Some liked to count using their rifles.”

Appel happened twice daily, at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.

“We lived Appel to Appel,” Pape wrote. “It was a vicious cycle.”

Prisoners taught each other to stay focused. They used hip-pocket classes—short, informal teaching sessions—to stay sharp. Pape taught agriculture and electrical engineering. Others covered languages, mechanics or whatever skills they could offer.

Prisoners built stoves out of tin cans. They carved toothbrushes by hand. Pape kept writing because it helped him hold on.

Delicately written on toilet paper, he wrote: “This little book should contain a few notes and diagrams that sort of describe my life and experiences since I was shot down.”

The forced march

In late January 1945, the prisoners were ordered to evacuate Stalag Luft III ahead of the Soviet advance. Pape and thousands of others were forced to march over 58 miles through snow and subzero temperatures, pulling their gear on makeshift sleds.

They slept in barns, churches and empty buildings—often without food or firewood. Many became ill. The journey ended at Spremberg, where they were crammed 52 to a boxcar and transported to Moosburg, Germany.

Pape described the conditions as “deplorable.” Still, the men stuck together. Every mile of that march was survived the same way they had survived captivity—side by side.

Life after war

Pape was liberated on April 29, 1945, when American forces reached the camp.

Soon after, he and a group of fellow POWs visited the Dachau concentration camp, where over 41,000 people perished. Pape never said much about that day.

“All he ever said,” David recalled, “was that he saw things no one should ever see.”

He returned to Illinois, took over the family farm and raised a family. He lived to be 91.

Cheryl said she wished she’d asked more questions.

“It was a part of his life that wasn’t discussed,” she said. “I regret not asking more questions of both my parents.”

The brick

After her father passed, Cheryl came across a reunion newsletter from his old squadron. It mentioned a commemorative brick program at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, so she ordered one in Pape’s name.

During his time as a prisoner, Pape had been listed as missing in action. For a while, no one knew if he was alive.

When Cheryl visited the museum and followed the directions to her dad’s brick, it wasn’t where it should be. 

Emotional, she went to the front desk and said, “He appears to be MIA once again.”

They eventually found it, but the moment stayed with her.

“It reminded me how easy it is for someone’s story to disappear if no one keeps track of it,” she said.

The story continues

Cheryl and David have shared the diary with their son and are still deciding whether to donate it. For now, it stays with them—kept safe.

They’ve gone line-by-line through Pape’s handwriting. Each page brought new understanding—about the war, the man he was and the silence he lived with after coming home.

Cheryl emphasized that Pape’s service is part of their family’s and our country’s history and wants America to learn of it.

“His story doesn’t belong in a box,” Cheryl said. “It belongs to the country he fought for.”

For those still carrying it

Pape didn’t talk about the hard parts. A lot of us don’t. If you’re carrying something, you don’t have to do it alone.

Find mental health support at VA. You can also contact your local Vet Center to speak confidentially with another Veteran—no service connection or medical record is required. Help is here. Healing is possible.