Ex-POW had deep appreciation for life
By AMY RABIDEAU SILVERS
asilvers@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Oct. 11, 2005
Jack Maher didn't expect to survive his experience as a German prisoner of war.

Survive he did. He survived all the battles and being wounded. He survived capture and imprisonment, forced marches and escape attempts in Germany.

It gave him a deep appreciation of the next 60 years.

"It was something that shaped his whole life," said son Tim Maher. "He realized that he was alive. He was close enough to the other side. He never thought he'd survive the war."

John G. Maher died Friday, from complications of liver cancer. He was 84.

"I would say it was a good 20 years before he began to talk to us about it," Tim said of the war. "Once he got it out, it became important for him to talk."

That came in different forms. He sometimes spoke publicly about his time as a POW. He was a regular speaker at Memorial Day events, especially in his adopted hometown of Mukwonago, and was active with many veterans groups.

Maher volunteered at the veterans hospital. A good listener for anyone who wanted to talk, he felt a special bond with the Vietnam vets, sympathetic because they did not have the public support that his generation did.

Maher also was known in Mukwonago-area politics, serving as village president in the 1960s. His job took him to California for a few years, but he returned to politics, this time as chairman in the Town of Mukwonago, from about 1987 to 1991.

He grew up in small-town Watersmeet, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. He began studying at St. Norbert College in De Pere and completed about three years there.

"He was actually considering becoming a priest at that time," his son said.

Instead, in the months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he felt called to serve his country. He enlisted with the U.S. Army in September 1942. He was sent to the Army War College and assigned to counterintelligence.

After serving in North Africa, he became part of the invasion of Salerno, Italy. Many of those involved in the amphibious landing did not survive. Those who did fought on.

"We were out of men, out of ammo and in a battle fighting for our lives when I was captured," he said, speaking in a newly published book, "Prisoners of Hope: A Gathering of Eagles."

"I was hiding out in a manger in an old barn when somebody kicked me in the foot," Maher said in an earlier interview with the Mukwonago Chief newspaper. "I looked up and saw a man with a machine gun and another German with several rounds of ammunition wrapped around his neck. The man with the gun looked at me and said, in English, 'For you, the war is over.' "

Maher and other captives ended up in Germany. In a true small-world moment, Maher realized that the German officer interrogating him looked familiar.

"All of a sudden, it dawned on me that the German officer had been a supervisor at the Monroe nursery in Monroe, Mich.," he said in the book. "He had done landscaping at my uncle's new home in Saline, Mich."

Maher was a prisoner of war for 19 months, seven of them in solitary confinement.

"I guess I raised a lot of heck," he said in one interview. "I would argue for the good of the prisoners and they would lock me up with nothing but bread and water."

"He was constantly making escape attempts," his son said, telling the other half of the story. The most promising - and frustrating - attempt took him to within just a few hundred yards of the Swiss border.

In the final months of the war, Maher and other prisoners were forced to march across Germany in advance of Allied troops. Raised in the chill of the Upper Peninsula, Maher warned his fellow POWs to huddle together under their blankets. Some of those who did not, did not survive the night.

Liberation came on April 3, 1945, only hours after the prisoners convinced their remaining guards to give up their weapons and overcame their Nazi SS troops.

"My dad was one of the stronger ones," Tim said. "He had been 6-foot-1 and weighed 180 or 190 when he went in. He weighed under 100 pounds when he was liberated."

Back home in Watersmeet, he met a schoolteacher named Mildred Wandmaker, who became his wife. Maher worked a few years as a game warden, then switched to industrial sales. In 1952, the Mahers moved to Mukwonago. Maher last worked as vice president of Centurion Industries, a heavy equipment manufacturer.

He remained active with veterans and POW organizations, serving for a time as a commander of the Milwaukee Barbed Wire Chapter and commander of American Legion Post No. 375.

"When you have 'the Man Upstairs' walking with you, life is much easier," Maher said in the "Prisoners of Hope" book.

In addition to his wife and son, survivors include daughter Mary Kreple; son Jack; sisters Pat Vidmar, Sister Johnetta Maher and Fran Kessel; grandchildren and other relatives.

Visitation will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Thursday at St. James Catholic Church, 830 Highway NN East, in Mukwonago. The funeral service follows at 4 p.m.