When all else was lost, a joyful heart remained

In October 1942, with American forces committed to the Allied cause in World War II, Johnny A. Biberos did what so many others had done, he joined the Army Air Force at just 17 years old.

Johnny was raised in Bridgeport and was attending high school there when he was called to duty. He began his military training in Baton Rouge, La., as an airplane mechanic and was deployed to the Pacific theater.

He boarded a ship in San Francisco, a young man from rural Nebraska, with 4,000 military men for a 52-day cruise into the Philippines. Years later, he would return to the States unsure even of who he was.

John spent time in Australia, Japan, the Philippine Islands and Korea attached to the 4th Fighter Squadron, he fought to gain control of the Philippine Islands in the Battle of Leyte.

As an Air Force mechanic, Johnny worked on P 51 Mustangs, he enjoyed watching the airplanes and he took great pride in his work.

"They trusted me and I did a good job for them," he said. "My planes would always come back."

His favorite stories to tell his kids were of the airplanes, according to his son, Arnie.

"I had to learn all the airplanes. Dad worked on them and would take them out, so I know he was a pilot. He didn't take them to combat, but he did fly them," Arnie said. "He used to say that the service crews said that the planes were theirs and the pilots just borrowed them. He would get mad that they would take the planes and bring them back with holes in them."

As could be expected, when hundreds of young men are placed on an island together for months and years, they become friends.

Over the years, John told his children of the Italians that he befriended and the good times they had so far from home.

Then one day, he said, they were bombed and the next thing he knew "a man like a giant" had taken him from his friends and imprisoned him.

"He threw me," John said. "And my friends were taken the other way. Out of the whole bunch of us, 25 or so, I was the only one taken that way."

As a Prisoner of War, John recalled being assaulted, but he said they were given food three times a day – though often it was not fit to eat.

"They would line us up and kick us – and I mean really kick us – hard. They were mean. The other guys, they were hit with what looked like a bat, a club. But for some reason or another they didn't really hurt me," he said. "I lost track of how long I was there. They had this trailer, like a box, you could get 15 or 20 people in it. You couldn't sit down or get on your knees, you had to stand – all the time."

He said that at one point he was injected in his leg with an unknown substance through a very large needle. He said he couldn't walk for a couple of days after that, but it didn't have a lasting affect.

Though John remained largely unharmed, many of his friends were not as lucky.

"He lost a lot of friends. They said that he wasn't harmed because he had brown skin," his daughter Anita said.

John, along with the other POWs, were eventually liberated and he was taken to New York where he recovered for several months in a hospital, according to Anita.

"At that time, he really didn't even know who he was," she said.

John was granted two honorable discharges, the first in February 1, 1946 and the second on January 31, 1949 and he returned home to Bridgeport.

Like many men who returned home during that time, John simply began living his life nearly where he left off, just six years older, and many years wiser, than when he had left.

Once he made it back to his hometown in Western Nebraska, he met a young lady named Jeannette at a local cafe.

He told his buddies to stay away from her, that she was going to be his and two weeks later they were married. John and Jeannette had ten children, numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren. They enjoyed more than 50 years of marriage.

He moved his family to Kimball in 1960 and he put himself through school to be a certified custodian. They raised their children with the same gleeful sense of humor right here in Kimball and in the 1990s John was given an honorary diploma from Kimball High School, nearly 50 years after his own high school days were cut short.

Now, at 94, John lives in his Kimball home. He has lost the love of his life and their son, Raymond, a Viet Nam veteran. He still has his big, easy smile and his quick sense of humor and though he has seen much, his joyful heart shines brightly as he sits and chats with his loved ones.