Middletown’s Longest Held POW Freed By Red Captors
by Stanley Meisler
Commentary by Stanley Meisler
August 25, 1953
August 1953
Middletown, Ohio
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Four years to the week after he left home for Fort Knox, Ky., Sgt. Charles Riddell, 21, Middletown's longest interned prisoner of war, was released last night by his Communist captors. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Riddell, Myers Road, received the news yesterday at 11:15 p.m. by telephone from their daughter, Mrs. Robert Walton, who had heard it on a TV program. “She couldn't talk for crying,” was the way the daughter described Mrs. Riddell's reaction, "I was nervous then and I'm nervous now,” the ex-POW s mother said this morning. “I'm nervous, but I'm happy.” The parents' view of Sgt. Riddell's POW career has been unusual with an unidentified photograph and brief notes from their son coming before the Defense Department ever verified his prisoner status...
Four years to the week after he left home for Fort Knox, Ky., Sgt. Charles Riddell, 21, Middletown's longest interned prisoner of war, was released last night by his Communist captors. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Riddell, Myers Road, received the news yesterday at 11:15 p.m. by telephone from their daughter, Mrs. Robert Walton, who had heard it on a TV program. “She couldn't talk for crying,” was the way the daughter described Mrs. Riddell's reaction, "I was nervous then and I'm nervous now,” the ex-POW s mother said this morning. “I'm nervous, but I'm happy.” The parents' view of Sgt. Riddell's POW career has been unusual with an unidentified photograph and brief notes from their son coming before the Defense Department ever verified his prisoner status...
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