Bill Diehl
106th Infantry Division

July 5, 2005 - Veterans, children enjoy Greencastle's holiday fun.

GREENCASTLE, Pa. - A few weeks after he escaped from his German captors at the very end of World War II, Bill Diehl of Greencastle was in an English barbershop and wanted to weigh himself.

"I put a farthing in the scale and out came a slip of paper that said I weighed so many stone," the 80-year-old Diehl said Monday as he watched events at the fourth annual Greencastle-Antrim July Fourth Celebration. The barber told him it came to about 123 pounds.

At the time, he and thousands of other members of the 106th Infantry Division were ordered by their commanders to surrender a few days before Christmas 1944. Diehl said he weighed 185 pounds.

More than 60 years later and a few pounds heavier, Diehl was having a more enjoyable afternoon, along with about 40 members of his family and a few hundred others who gathered at the Tayamentasachta Environmental Center for a day of patriotic fun.

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