103-year-old WWII prisoner of war still lives by one motto: 'Stay calm, you live'

TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WIVB) -- Less than one percent of the 16 million Americans who served in WWII are still alive today, and that includes a 103-year-old prisoner of war in the Town of Tonawanda.

"We were told growing up, never to question him," Donna Zwack said, Bill Dibble's daughter. "When he was ready to talk about it -- he would tell us."

For many years, Bill Dibble didn't tell his story. But on a recent day in October, he was willing to share anything.

"It was amazing to hear what he went through," Zwack said.

At just 17 years old, Dibble was sent to Africa and Europe to fight in WWII. In Sicily, he remembers vividly the moment he was captured.

"They had us pinned down from the top of the mountain," Dibble said.

He became a POW, doing hard labor at a farm, surrounded by barbed wire fencing in Germany.

"It was rough," he said. "We worked in all sorts of weather, no matter how bad it was."

The only food he was given were potatoes from that farm. His dentist would have to pull many of his teeth years later due to that poor diet.

"At one point, they had notified my grandmother that my father had died," Zwack said. "And then somebody who was going through the prison, my father had written his name on the wall in the bathroom and said, 'I'm alive,' and a gentleman that happened to be from Jamestown found the writing on the wall and got word through that he was alive."

That was miracle number one for Bill Dibble and his family.

Miracle number two came one day on the farm. At one point, Bill said a guard told him to go over to a barn and grab something.

That was it, he thought. That barn was where his life would end.

"He kept walking and stopping to light a cigarette," Zwack said. "He'd stop, walk a little farther and ya know, he thought that was going to be it."

However, when he got to the barn, he was handed a camera. The guard wanted to take a picture of the 20+ prisoners on the farm.

"Everyone he told this story to thought it was a lie, until he pulled out the picture and showed it to us," said Zwack.

The guard gave him the picture and told him to make copies one day and get it to the other men. He held onto it for the 21 months he spent as a POW.

What came at the end of that time was something none of them expected.

For three months, near the end of the war, the prisoners were marched more than 500 miles in treacherous weather. Dibble said they walked 20 to 30 miles a day. Many nights he left his shoes on because he feared he wouldn't get them back on his swollen, bloody feet. As they walked, they stole food to eat. He lost more than 60 pounds, weighing less than 100 pounds when he was finally set free to the allied forces.

"I live by one motto -- if you get nervous or upset, you're a dead man," Dibble said. "You stay calm, you think and you live."