Moultonborough’s Allan Gavan, pictured above and below spent seven-and-a-half months in a Nazi prison camp. He has dedicated himself to preserving the memory of fallen NH POWs. (Photos courtesy of Allan Gavan and the NH State Veterans Cemetery)

MOULTONBOROUGH – Allan Gavan was a fresh-faced teenager, barely out of basic training, a nature counselor at a Boy Scout camp, when his unit shipped out to Europe in the summer of 1944. His was the first boat to leave the U.S. after D-Day.

And he was among the last to return.

Two months after landing at Cherbourg, France, Gavan’s life would change forever. Just west of Paris, on a grassy hill beneath a sun-drenched blue sky, Gavan’s unit had come under heavy German artillery fire. Two days later, trapped in a foxhole with no food or means of escape, he was taken prisoner.

The next seven and a half months are not something Gavan, 84, talks about all that often.

“Every story is unique, but mine is probably as commonplace as you’ll get,” he says.

It is a story of human endurance often put to its limits; of blackened boxcar journeys from camp to camp, hard labor and dysentery in Germany’s Black Forest; of squalid conditions and servicemen cramped three to a bunk and stacked like cordwood on narrow, lice-infested planks; of worried parents tortured by the mystery of their son’s whereabouts and well-being; of forced work, patching up Munich rail lines after Allied bomb raids; of a white flag hung outside the camp by fleeing Nazi commanders and a liberation by General George Patton.

It is the story of more than 700 New Hampshire servicemen over the last century – all with a unique story to tell, all with a common bond. Today, an estimated 85 or so ex-prisoners of war still live in the Granite State, having survived confinement in far-flung conflicts, from WWII’s European and Pacific theaters to Korea and Vietnam. Each month, about 40 of them meet in a secluded back room of the Manchester VA hospital to share experiences, challenges and a connection that spans generations.

They are folks like Ralph Lavoie, a gunner whose B-17 bomber was shot down by the Germans in December, 1943 and came within inches of losing his life following an escape attempt from Austria’s infamous Stalag 17B prison camp. Lavoie would watch a fellow prisoner be gunned down by his captors before sustaining gunshot wounds, himself, to both legs, his shoulder, neck, ribs and cheek.

In 1975, shortly after moving to Rindge, Lavoie began posting ads on the Veterans page of the Union Leader each week to track down fellow ex-POWs and establish a support network. The responses were overwhelming and with work, in 1977, the state’s lone chapter of American Ex-Prisoners of War was born. They’ve been coming ever since – some arriving in wheelchairs, some with limps, some with booming voices and others who speak in hoarse whispers; some with handshakes that can still crack knuckles and cut off circulation, others whose grip long ago left them; some who are active and anxious to share recollections and others who sit quietly and are content to listen.

Pembroke’s Bob Fortnam, pictured with his B-17 unit (front row, second from left) before being shot down in 1943 over Holland and taken prisoner by the Germans, continues to work as a flight instructor and lecture about his POW experience. (Photo courtesy of Bob Fortnam, photo by David Lazar)

“I think it’s so important,” says Sheila Peters, who works in the VA’s pharmacy and doubles as the hospital’s POW coordinator. “Some of these men have been married more than 60 years and never said a word to their wives about their experiences. But they come here, and they’re able to open up… These are men who have returned after giving so much and asked for nothing in return.”

They are men like Wesley Wells, 86, of Hillsborough – sent prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor to defend Bataan and Corregidor from the Japanese – who spent more than three brutal years in prison camps throughout the Philippines and Japan in forced labor and nearly lost both legs. Wells’ wife Irene today serves as the state’s chapter president, each month checking in on members and arranging gatherings. “For the men, this has been an incredible way for them to stay connected, and I think it’s served as a big relief for the women, too,” she says.

They are men like Bob Fortnam, 86, of Pembroke, a retired mechanical engineer, who served 19 months in German camps after the fighter plane he piloted was shot down over Holland in 1943. Fortnam, who still works part-time as a flight instructor and guide at the state’s aviation museum in Manchester, travels regularly around the region speaking to groups about his experience. “I likened all of it to going through the eye of the needle,” he recalls. “One minute, you’re living one life, and then all of a sudden it’s an entirely different reality… I think I was too young to be scared. I didn’t really know any different at the time.”

For Fortnam, Wells, Lavoie and Gavan, service was never an option. It was a matter of duty – and history, too. From the opening musket-fire of the American Revolution, New Hampshire men and women have never shied from service or sacrifice on behalf of their fellow citizens. From Londonderry’s John Stark, whose defiant words, “Live free or die,” turn 200 years old this July, to the courage of soldiers like Keene’s George Dilboy, a Medal of Honor recipient, who in WWI sacrificed himself by charging a German machine gun nest to save his unit, Granite State residents have left a lasting mark on their nation’s legacy of freedom. They’ve included Manchester’s Rene Gagnon, who helped raise the American flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima in 1945; they’ve included Plymouth’s Harl Pease, who won the Medal of Honor posthumously after his B-17 was shot down over the Pacific following a successful and harrowing bombing raid in 1942. Pease was taken prisoner and ultimately beheaded by the Japanese. Today his name and bravery grace the state’s Air Force base in Portsmouth.

Plymouth’s Harl Pease won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor and ultimate sacrifice during a harrowing bombing raid over the Pacific in 1942. Today, his name graces New Hampshire’s Air Force base. (Photo courtesy of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society)

For Gavan, who would return to raise a family and spend a successful career in advertising, history is an important thing. In 2003, he recalls visiting the State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen for the first time, when he and his now late wife noticed something missing during a stroll around the site’s brick memorial walkway. Amidst the polished granite plaques bearing tribute to fallen soldiers from each branch and conflict, there was no official tribute to POWs who’d died in captivity.

“These were a bunch of guys who did something that deserves to be acknowledged,” Gavan recalls saying. “I can’t think of anything worse than being shot down, captured and then dying in an enemy prison camp. These guys did enough for (this memorial) and then some. They made the ultimate sacrifice.”

For the next four years Gavan would work tirelessly with folks in his Ex-POWs chapter and enlist the assistance of a Boston private investigator and an Iowa internet researcher – both of whom would donate their time – to compile names, build a database, contact next-of-kin and ultimately raise money for a granite marker on the memorial walkway. “I was never much of a joiner,” he says. “But I think when my wife passed away a few years ago, I sort of backed into this group and this project, and it’s kind of kept me focused. It’s been important to me.” In all, Gavan would find the names of 60 men who perished while in captivity during WWII and the Korean War – a small but significant portion of the estimated 1614 New Hampshire servicemen who didn’t return home from those conflicts. An additional 227 would fall in Vietnam, with 10 listed as having perished while POWs or still missing.

At the heart of Gavan’s mission has been the motto that emblazons thousands of POW/MIA flags in public buildings, military installations and cemeteries around the world: “You are not forgotten.” On September 22, 2007, National POW/MIA Recognition Day, a six-foot-wide mahogany granite monument was dedicated in a quiet, shaded area of the Veterans Cemetery’s memorial walkway. With twin plaques bearing the names of fallen POWs from each conflict, the marker features the Ex-POW shield, whose curves at the top portray the two massive U.S. military defeats in WWII: Bataan and the Battle of the Bulge.

This September 22, Gavan and his chapter will place a white daisy on the grave of each POW in the State Veterans Cemetery: a flower known as a forget-me-not. Thanks to their work, folks around the Granite State won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Special thanks to Allan Gavan, Wesley and Irene Wells, Bob Fortnam, Sheila Peters, the NH State Veterans Council and the NH State Veterans Cemetery for their assistance and generosity with this story.