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WWII a ‘great learning experience’

Dec 1, 2009

— Learning to survive with very little food while being confined in a German prisoner of war camp is just one of the things Dr. James Marvin “Doc” Moye has had to endure in his life while striving to fight for his native land.
Moye, who is 88 years young, is a retired Laurel optometrist. However, he recalls his days in the United States Armed Forces during World War II “as a great learning experience.”
While Dr. Moye’s time in the military was approximately 67 years ago, he can still recall much of that time with much retention.
Moye lives in Laurel with his bride of nearly 66 years Mae Eleanor Freeman Moye.
The Moyes, who grew up in Laurel together, both graduated from Laurel High School in 1940.
Dr. Moye then went to Jones County Junior College for two years. During that time at JCJC, Moye took a civilian pilot course and earned his pilot license.
It was in 1942 that Moye enlisted into World War II.
After enlisting, Moye was sent to Santa Ana, California for training.
“I had not been far from home before that trip,” Moye recalls. “I remember Santa Ana as being a long way from home.”
After that, Moye was assigned to Mather Field in Sacramento, California where he went through an instructor’s school. He then was assigned to a base in Taft, California where he instructed pilots’ basic training courses for two years.
It was while he was stationed in Taft that Moye married his high school sweetheart Mae Eleanor Freeman Moye. The couple exchanged their vows on Feb. 5, 1944 at the First Presbyterian Church in Laurel.
Then, Moye was transferred to the base in Sumner, Tennessee where he underwent B-24 training. He then went to Springfield, Massachusetts and got more training to prepare to go overseas.
Moye would then find himself in a unit being sent to Italy.
“We landed in North Africa and then went to an air base in Italy,” he said. “It was there that it all happened.”
Moye was among a fleet of aircrafts performing missions in World War II when his plane was shot down.
It all occurred on Friday the 13th, in October of 1944.
“It was a whole lot of 13s that day,” Moye recalls. “That was my 13th mission. The plane number was 13 and we were shot down at the 1300 hour.”

Tough on the homefront
“When he went overseas, I came home here to Laurel and lived with my mother and taught at Central School,” Mae Moye said. “Then, I got the telegraph that came from the general saying that ‘First Lt. James Moye is missing in action.’
“For six weeks, we didn’t know whether he was living or dead. We didn’t know anything except he didn’t make it back to his base,” the wife recalls. “I remember that I just cried a lot. ... I wouldn’t have made it without my family, my husband’s family and the people at Central School.”
Mae Moye said although she was upset and unsure about her husband’s fate for eight and half months, she realizes that she wasn’t alone.
“I was just one of many, and I realized that,” she said. “There were many people experiencing the same things I were, but that didn’t make it any easier.”
Meanwhile, James Moye was among several soldiers trying to survive in their fight for peace.
‘We were shot down over Vienna, Australia,” Moye recalls that infamous day. “We were flying in. We had been hit three or four times. Then, by the time we dropped our bomb, my right wing man’s plane had gotten hit and it just exploded and damaged our plane.”
Moye said it was then his job as pilot to get his 10-member crew onboard the B-24 to safety.
“I immediately thought about getting the crew out of the plane,” he said. “I got them out and then I got down to 3,000 feet and then dropped out.
“The ‘chute opened and I swung down and hit the ground,” he said, adding that the short landing damaged his back. “We all became Prisoners of War (POWs). ... I was picked up by Germans in about 30 minutes and taken to a German camp and kept in a warehouse. ... Then, I was taken to another German camp for interrogations, but we never told.”
Moye said after several days of interrogations, he was taken to Stalag Luft III on the Polish border.
“Stalag Luft III was a British camp that was about 90 percent Royal Air Force and 10 percent American,” he recalled. “It was the North Compound. They also had a South Compound, where several Laurel men were being held.”

‘Lord took care of me’
Moye said for the next eight and half months, he would learn how to survive with very little to eat.
“I learned more about my relationship with the Lord than I ever had before,” he said. “When you have difficult times in your life, the Lord is trying to teach you something.
“There were times that things got rough,” Moye proclaimed. “The Lord took care of me.”
Moye said during his captivity he learned to take one day at a time.
Moye said the camps had several thousand people in them. He said several of the prisoners often tried to escape.
He confessed that he and Jesse T. Jumper of Meridian were able to escape from the prison camp three different times. However, they were recaptured on two occasions. On the third time, Moye said they were being marched from the Polish Border across all of Germany down into France. He said it was during this long, several weeks journey where they had to walk in snow that was two and three feet deep.
“It was not a pleasure stroll by no means,” Moye recalls. “The snow was deep and it was cold.”
Moye said it was during this excursion that he and Jumper were able to make a successful get-a-way.
“We were able to get to some Americans and we were able to get to an American ship that later docked in Boston, Massachusetts,” he recalls with a smile. “Peace was declared in the war while we were on that boat on our way home.”
Moye said although he was being held in a German camp, it was the help of Americans that enabled him and the other prisoners to survive.
“If it had not been for the American Red Cross, we probably wouldn’t have made it,” Moye said. “The Germans didn’t have enough food for themselves. So, those Red Cross parcels were invaluable.”
After the war, Moye returned to Laurel and later enrolled in Southern College of Optometry in Memphis. He came back to Laurel and established his private practice in 1947 that he named Eye Care Associates.
Moye retired from his optometry career in 2000.
He and his wife have two daughters — Mrs. Joel (Marilyn) Thoms of Richton and Mrs. Brad (Jamie) Farber of St. Peters, Missouri. The couple, who are members of Covenant Presbyterian Church of Laurel, have five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Because of his family’s desire to know his story, Moye wrote a book titled “God, Family, Country.”
“Through my experience, I learned that God is in control and He protects His children,” Moye said. “There were times that I could have been killed but the Lord took care of me.”

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