History Finally Catches Up
Two Valley veterans receive recognition for their war efforts
decades after the fact
It could be called closure, if there is such thing after a war.
With the help of Rep. David Dreier (R-Covina), two San Gabriel Valley veterans recently received recognition for their efforts in wars that many people today were not around to experience.
Walnut resident Octavio Sotelo fought in the Korean War while serving in the Army fiom January 1951 to December 1952.
Sotelo, 69, earned the Good Conduct Medal, Army of Occupation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Korean Service Medal with three Bronze Stars, the Combat Infantryman Badge and the United Nations Service Medal.
He was 20 when he began his service, first as a squad leader and then as a platoon sergeant.
Anthony Bernard Champion of West Covina was also recently presented with Bronze Star certificates for his efforts during World II.
According to Chris Freeland, a field representative for Dreier, the National Personnel Records Center is swamped with thousands of requests for military papers, records and overdue medals. Many records were lost in a fire years ago, he added.
Champion, 79, earned two Bronze Stars for his service as a communicationspecialist and observer for a 155-millimeter artillery battery in support of Gen. George Patton's Eighth Army.
During his service from February 1941 to October 1945, Champion participated in the invasion of Normandy, the liberation of Paris, Battle of the Bulge and the final push for Allied victory.
The first medal was awarded when the communication line connecting him and the artillery battery was cut during battle. Under enemy fire, Champion managed to leave his position and restore communications. The second medal was awarded after he hid in a church steeple to report enemy movements, while the hourly chiming of the bells wore away his hearing.
Champion's military career began early. Using his brother's birth certificate, he enlisted in the National Guard at age 16. It was not long after that he joined the Army.
A year before the World War II began, Champion received orders to attend school to learn to distribute and repair communications lines. The student soon became an instructor. Then suddenly, it was time to go.
"Before I even knew it, I was walking up the gang plank of the Queen Mary and we were on our way," he recalled.
With 13-ton guns, Champion's division hit the beach. Bombs rained down but the group was lucky, he said.
They advanced so fast their tanks ran out of gas and Patton called in the Army Air Corps to drop in food, gasoline and other supplies. It was around Christmas that they crossed the Rhine River into Germany.
T'he soldiers were forced to retreat 20 miles, and then Champion's 28-year-old captain died after taking a German sniper's bullet in the head. That was the first casualty. Christmas Day. The Battle of the Bulge.
Then it fell to Champion to decide who to send to the Bulge.
"Who do you pick?" he asked rhetorically. "I picked the guy who gave me the most trouble -- Pvt. Snyder." A month later, Snyder received a Silver Star for leading a tank attack. Champion never saw him again.
"I don't know if he finished out the war," he said, looking at his hands. "But I'm sure he did."
Champion spotted enemy targets by taking a bird's-eye view of the area, whether it was on a mountain or church steeple. Never a tree, though -- those could blow up if shelled. In the military, it’s called a tree burst, he explained.
In a situation that would earn hirn his second Bronze Star, Champion and a buddy huddled in a church steeple, aiming to flush out a nest of German soldiers hiding in the basement of a farmhouse. But first the Germans laid a round on the steeple, knocking out their communication line.
It's risky business being up in steeple. Once the Germans feel the fire, they know someone is watching from above, he said.
"The element of surprise important," Champion said. "You get that first round on target because you don't have rounds to fool with after that."
The minutes turned to hours and the hours turned to days in the steeple. Champion and his buddy spent two days and two nights taking cover there and keeping watch. But it wasn't just the sound of enemy gunfire ringing in their ears.
The steeple bell chimed every hour, alerting the whole town to the time.
"We couldn't silence the ringer, or the Germans would know we were there. When we got down, we were almost totally out of it," Champion said, shaking his head and body to demonstrate the effects. "It was almost heroic to walk without aid."
Rifling through a stack of black-and-white photographs and examining war documents, Champiob grew thoughtful.
"Sometimes I think it’s all the souvenirs that got me through the war,"he mused.
Yellowed newspapers more than a half-century old shout headlines: "Nazis surrender!" "Hitler dead!" A circular swastika patch proclaims "Heil Hitler!" in block lettered printing.
Photos depict downed enemy planes, war buddies and targets.
In one photo, Champion smiles broadly. The shadow of the photographer, clad in a long coat, is visible in the picture. Champion points out the symbolism of the long coat to a visitor.
That figure is of the German soldier who had surrendered to him minutes earlier. Champion made sure that soldier took his picture before being rounded up with the other prisoners.
Champion liked the Germans he met. The French, on the other hand, he was never sure if they knew a war was going on. It was a common sight to see French farmers out plowing their fields – turning themselves into targets – or turning their lights on at night.
In all, Champion’s infantry laid 58,000 rounds at 100 pounds each across France, Germany and Austria and helped liberate more than 100 towns.
When victory was declared, Champion found himself at a loss.
"I didn't want to go home," he said. "I spent four months in Salzburg, Austria, and I began to like it. I'd been a soldier for five long years and thought, 'I'm going to turn around, take my lunch box and go to a factory every day -- no more excitement, no more church steeples.' I Would no longer have to think about other people's welfare. It went from shooting and killing to nothing."
It became his job to protect the Allied prisoners. In search of a little excitement, Champion picked out a Dusenberg - confiscated from a Gerrnan - from a row of cars and cruised the Autobahn. The car eventually blew up when the oil went dry.
With his expertise, in communications, Champion applied for a job at the phone company when he returned to the United States. To his chagrin he wasn't hired.
Instead, he worked for 25 years at a uniform company, starting from scratch as a route man and working his way up to management.
Champion has lived in West Covina for about 40 years. He has visited Germany twice. Once on a trip he "won" as a door prize at his daughter's housewarming party. The other time, his son gave him a special father-son trip during which the two followed the path Champion took through France during the war.
As for Sotelo, he never thought much about the war or his missing medals until a group of veterans prompted him to begin his search.
"It took two years and I got no response. Someone suggested I go through Congressman Dreier, and he got it done in three months -- isn't that something? A lot of people say they're just politicians, but I guess they do earn their money."
"Medals don't matter much," added Sotelo, who will leave his medals to his grandchildren. "As long as you know what you did, that's all that matters."
