The Fairmont Times graciously sent this story it ran on Okey Edgell, Class of 1944, so that I could run it on this Monongah High Alumni blog on the 4^th of July, when we express our gratitude to those who created America and kept it safe from 1776 till 2015 and, hopefully, forever.

There’s no better day to run this tribute to Okey, the Hero from Harter Hill, than Independence Day.

His wife, Arlene Marteney Edgell, Class of 1951, attributes some of his current medical problems to the 1945 day when he was wounded when his plane was shot down, but able somehow to land.  Okey was a POW of the Germans after his plane had to land after a World War II bombing mission.

Okey, 89, was just released from the hospital after another heart catherization. He faces eye surgery in August.

Okey and Arlene hope he’ll be able to make the 446^th Bomb Group convention in Atlanta.

Recently Okla “Okey” Edgell was among 11 former prisoners of war honored at a POW/MIA Recognition Ceremony in Bridgeport. Okey and Arlene live in the Watson area of Fairmont.

Okey’s parents were Ray and Lucy Cain Edgell. His siblings were the late Lillieray May “Pickle” Edgell Hall, Jeanette J. Edgell Lane of Three Rivers, Michigan, the late Doak Edgell and the late James Edgell.

Okey and Arlene attended the 70^th anniversary reunion of the Class of 1944 at the 2014 Monongah High Alumni Reunion in Knights of Columbus Hall in Fairmont.

Arlene keeps busy with her sewing, quilting and cooking, which is so good that she shares her recipes with owner Kenny Sabo at Say-Boy Restaurant. There’s been that connection a long time because Say-Boy bought Okey’s house when the Lion moved out West.

I phoned Arlene to tell her how proud I was of Okey, as brave as any Lion in an MHS sports uniform – which he was, too, on the Monongah High football squad.

If you want to congratulate Okey, his phone number is (304) 363-5790 and his email address is oaedgell@ma.rr.com

Here’s the Fairmont Times story about Okey and his remarkable escape from death – and more than once:

By Shawnee Moran

Times West Virginian

 

FAIRMONT — Okla Edgell took five steps up to the execution platform.

He counted them one by one because he was sure they were going to be 

his last.

 

As he was walking, Edgell began to wonder how the firing squad was 

going to kill him.

 

“I didn’t know if I was going to be shot in the heart or in the 

head,” he said.

 

But then something extraordinary happened — he was spared.

 

Edgell, an 89-year-old World War II veteran and ex-prisoner of war 

(POW), recalled the event from the safety of his living room in 

Fairmont about 70 years later.

 

The Worthington native said his story began when he received a letter 

in 1943.

 

At the time, Edgell had enough credits from taking extra courses at 

Fairmont State to graduate from high school.

 

But instead of searching for a job, when he opened the envelope his 

future was already decided.

 

He was going to be drafted into the U.S. Army on his 18th birthday.

 

After that moment, Edgell decided to join the Air Force and completed 

his final training in Charleston, South Carolina.

 

When Edgell and the crew he was assigned to work with arrived 

overseas, they were assigned to the 446th Bomb Group, where they flew 

their first bombing missions in B-24s.

 

On April 4, 1945, the eight-person crew left in a B-24 from Bungay, 

England, to bomb a target in Germany.

 

It was a stormy day, Edgell recalled, and they had to turn around to 

get back to the base. They were more than 20,000 feet above the worst 

part of the storm when a German aircraft spotted them and opened fire.

 

The crew made a valiant effort to stay in the sky. He said some 

members fought flames in the radio room as others continued to open 

fire.

 

The co-pilot, Lt. Edward Bebee, jumped back into the cockpit to help 

the pilot, Lt. Robert LaJoie, only to find he had been shot and killed.

 

Bebee regained control of the aircraft, but the plane lost more 

altitude and another engine was shot. Bebee saw they were not going to 

make it and gave the signal for the crew to bail out.

 

That’s when the plane was shot down by Germans over Barendrecht, 

Holland.

 

“We broke out of the clouds, right over the tulip fields. I was 

thinking how nice and peaceful they looked,” Edgell said. “However, 

at the edge of the fields there seemed to be a thousand guns opening up.

 

“At about 40 feet everything went quiet. The co-pilot feathered the 

two screaming engines and the Germans stopped firing. We hit the 

ground. ...

 

“Before I came to, I seemed to be floating above the crash and I 

smelled the scent of fresh flowers.”

 

During the impact Edgell had bounced off the ground and struck the 

landing gear that had torn away from the plane’s wing before he was 

knocked out cold.

 

When he came to, Edgell felt an excruciating pain and assumed the 

worst about his left leg. He thought it had been blown or shot off.

But when he looked down, he was relieved — it was still there. Edgell 

was so excited he yelled out, “I’ve still got it!”

 

However, his celebration was cut short when he looked up to see 

hundreds of German soldiers approaching with three tanks.

 

“It looked like a hundred men were looking at us through their rifle 

scopes,” he said.

 

Four Dutch teenagers who had been helping the wounded men were yelled 

at by the approaching German troops. They quickly rushed away.

 

Edgell then saw Bebee sitting on his opened parachute trying to 

bandage his wounds.

 

Because Bebee’s left hip was pulled out of his socket, Edgell crawled 

over to help him. It was difficult to tighten a tourniquet around 

Bebee’s compound fracture, Edgell recalled, because his fingernails 

were burned off.

 

The first German solider to approach Edgell ordered him to surrender 

his weapon.

 

Edgell then bribed the solider with six packages of cigarettes to go 

and retrieve Bebee and the others from the burning wreckage. Four of 

the crew members from that crash did not survive.

 

Instead of taking the injured soldiers directly to the hospital, the 

German soldiers held them in a house that evening so the Dutch 

underground fighters wouldn’t try to rescue them.

 

The next morning, the remaining crew members were placed in a 

makeshift ambulance — a flatbed truck — and taken to the hospital.

 

Doctors examined Edgell and said he had at least 12 bullet holes in 

his clothes, but they had just nicked him enough to make him bleed. A 

piece of shrapnel had also hit him but missed his vital organs.

 

While he was at the hospital, a German soldier in a wheelchair came to 

visit him several times a day for a week. Edgell said that solider was 

from Austria, and the Germans made him join the army after he 

graduated from high school.

 

“One evening the German soldier came into my room and said the 

hospital was releasing me the next morning. He told me not to let the 

SS (Schutzstaffel, an elite force that served Adolf Hitler) get hold 

of me,” he said.

 

The next day he was put in a Studebaker — a small limousine — and 

driven to a large jail in Rotterdam.

 

That’s when he was walked up to the execution platform.

 

But a group of regular German soldiers had a different plan for him. 

They argued with the SS and fought for his life.

 

Edgell was thrown into a solitary cell for two days before the regular 

German troops threw a blanket over his head and smuggled him out of 

the cell.

 

 From there he was driven to Camp Aalsmeer where he remained for the 

last five weeks of the war.

 

At the camp, Edgell said he tried to play it cool and stay away from 

the guards as much as he could.

 

He said being hungry constantly was one of the worst parts about the 

camp.

 

“The food consisted of one bowl of soup a day, which was actually 

just a broth. You might find a real tiny piece of a carrot in it 

sometimes if you were lucky,” he said.

 

“Of course you had water, and you got one slice of bread a day. The 

bread was kind of coarse because it consisted of sawdust, about 10-15 

percent sawdust. Almost all the guys were losing an average of one 

pound a day. I lost 30 pounds in 34 days.”

 

After he was released and returned to the U.S., one of the first 

things Edgell did was get off the train and hug his mother.

 

In 1958, he moved to Oregon and Washington and worked there until he 

retired in 1990. He worked for the government on the dams on the 

Columbia River.

 

Now Edgell finds happiness traveling and making quilts with his wife, 

Arlene.

 

The couple laugh about the fact that they have only been married since 

2006.

 

The first time Edgell asked her to be his wife, in 1950, she declined 

because of her young age, and they went their separate ways.

 

In March 2006, they were brought back together through his daughter, 

Lois. Arlene flew to Arizona to meet him again, and they became 

engaged and married.

 

In 2008, the couple took a two-week vacation overseas where Edgell 

stood in the same room where he was held prisoner. He also visited the execution platform where he almost lost his life.

 

Edgell was informed that more than 1,100 prisoners were executed there 

during the war.

 

And earlier this year, Edgell was invited to Holland to participate in 

the 70th anniversary of V-E Day — the end of World War II.

 

On this trip Edgell and his wife traveled more than 2,000 miles 

through Germany, Switzerland and Austria as guests of his niece, Karen.

 

He was thanked for his service years ago by many people who saluted 

him and shook his hand.

 

Edgell said one of the most memorable moments from the trip was when 

the couple was checking out from the hotel. He was getting ready to 

pay the bill when the manager told him his debt had been paid many 

years before and didn’t charge them for their stay.

 

“God is good,” he said. “I’m glad things turned out the way they did.”

 

So are we, Okey. You are the Lion king among Lions today.

 

We salute you.