A cemetery Christmas

Dutch History teacher Wiel Goertzen at the grave of Ed Forrest.

   At my office Christmas party, I mentioned to my colleague Bob Montgomery, an avid historian in the city of Bristol, Connecticut, that I’d like to give a talk at the Bristol Public Library. He asked me if I wanted to talk about my books. I said, “No, I’d like to talk about cemeteries.”

   I proceeded to tell him three stories about graves, and I was telling him a fourth when our publisher, Michael Schroeder, happened by and said, “Leave it to Aaron to talk about cemeteries at a Christmas party.”

   “Actually,” I said, “these stories are kind of uplifting.” I pointed out that the grave in the fourth story, that of an unknown German pilot, an “unbekannte flieger,” as it were, was marked by a propeller blade from the Messerschmitt 109 in which he crashed, and that a lady in the village cemetery at Heimboldshausen kept it decorated with dried flower arrangements even though she didn’t know his name. “Isn’t that kind of uplifting?” I asked. He wasn’t impressed.

The grave of the "unbekannte flieger" who, after my visit to Heimboldshausen, with the help of German historian Walter Hassenpflug, was identified as Erwin Bunk.

   But I’m getting ahead of myself. Bob said he always found cemetery stories interesting, as any historian would, so I told him that one of the stories I’d like to talk about was about Johnny Daum.

   In 1994, with the 50th anniversary of D-Day approaching, the newspaper I worked for at the time asked me to find some local D-Day veterans. So I wrote to Stephen Ambrose at the Eisenhower Center in New Orleans and asked for recommendations. He sent me a list of about a dozen.

   One of them was Ed Boccafogli, a veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division. Ed told of an incident that occurred before he boarded the plane to fly across the English Channel. There was a young paratrooper named Johnny Daum, and being that Ed was a little older and more rugged, he took Johnny under his wing. Johnny was about 19 years old, a good looking kid, tow-headed. Ed noticed Johnny staring off into space, and asked him if everything was okay.

   Johnny said matter of factly, “I’m gonna die tomorrow.”

I can still hear Ed quoting himself, ” ‘Ey, Johnny,'” he said, “‘some of us will, some of us won’t, you ain’t gonna be one of ’em.'”

   “Sure enough,” Ed said, “he was one of the first ones killed.”

   When I launched my web site tankbooks.com in 1997, I posted my full interview with Ed. Eventually the transcript of the interview was re-posted on the web site of the 508th Parachute Infantry Division, Ed’s unit, and the anecdote about Johnny Daum’s premonition was picked up in a book titled “The Americans at Normandy,” by John McManus.

   Meanwhile, in Eagle Lake, Wisconsin, a fellow named Tom Stumpner grew up knowing he had an Uncle Bud who was killed during the war. That was all he knew, as his mother would never talk about her brother.
    “Band of Brothers” was released in 2001. I don’t know when Tom saw it, probably not too long thereafter, and he suddenly remembered that his Uncle Bud was a paratrooper. His mother wouldn’t talk about it, but Tom’s interest in D-Day was piqued.

   Then his mother took ill. When she was near death, she gave Tom a box, I don’t know if it was a cigar box or a cardboard box, but in it were letters, snapshots, and other memorabilia from Uncle Bud. It was then he learned Bud wasn’t really his uncle’s name. His uncle’s name was John Daum.

   He didn’t know much beyond what was in the letters. But then he bought “The Americans at Normandy” and discovered the anecdote about Johnny Daum’s premonition. And then, I don’t know if he googled John Daum or Ed Boccafogli, but he discovered my interview on the paratroopers’ web site. He emailed the site and said he wanted to fill out his uncle’s story, and he sent them copies of the letters and snapshots his mother left him.

The American cemetery in Normandy. Photo by Mary Kay Bosshart.

   Fast forward to 2011. Mary Kay Bosshart, who writes a blog called “Out and About With Mary Kay,” took a tour of the American cemetery in Normandy. The tour guide stopped at one grave and told a story.

   In 2007, the guide said, another tour guide found a letter propped up against the cross marking the grave at which they were stopped. The grave was that of John Daum.

   The tour guide in 2011 gave Mary Kay a copy of the letter, which she posted on her blog.

Le 1 november 2007
Dear John,
    We don’t know each other, we know nothing of each other’s lives and even so, I feel I owe you so much. I know nothing of you or so little.
    I don’t know what were your tastes, your hobbies, your favorite music or if you had a girlfriend back home. I don’t know what you loved in life, your too short life.
    John, you’ve been buried here for over 60 years, in this land of France that saw your last days. These last days where you fought for the liberation of a country, a whole continent and a civilization. When I found your picture, I started thinking a lot about you, your face, your pink cheeks, almost the face of a child. Your smile tells me you must have been mischievous, cheerful and full of life.
    Then I felt a deep sorrow because I know that on that day of June 6 th, 1944, when you jumped into the cold black night on the Normandy beach, you must have been terrified. Terrified before the unknown, terrified at the thought of never seeing your family again, of loosing your army companions, of being alone, of death itself. Nevertheless, you survived that historic night and fought for two long days, before you fell on June 8 th.
    I wonder how were the last moments of your life, with who you were. From the bottom of my heart, I hope that you were not alone. Because I know that your comrade-in-arms must have done everything to protect you, reassure you and comfort you.
    I read the letters that were addressed to your parents when you passed away and realized that you were very much appreciated by your army companions.
    Before I leave John, I would like to tell you how much I am aware that your ultimate sacrifice and the one of thousand of men like you has allowed me and all of us, to live in a land of freedom and peace.
    For all of this, I am sincerely grateful. So, I promise you that every time I will travel to Normandy, I will come visit you to honor your memory. I will lay my hand on your white cross, so that you are not alone in the dark anymore. I will keep your memory alive in my heart and I will never forget what you have done for me, for our liberty, for all of us.
    See you soon and may god bless you.

Yvan ----
Belgique

 

   Fascinated by the letter and wanting to know more about Johnny Daum, Mary Kay asked at the cemetery office if they could put her in touch with Yvan, and she asked the web master of the 508th PIR site if she could contact Tom.

   Today, Mary Kay, Tom and Yvan are great friends. Tom has been over to Normandy several times with members of his family, and has even learned a great deal more about his uncle’s experiences and the circumstances surrounding his death.

Out And About With Mary Kay: The John Daum post

   The second story is about a Gold Star mother. It was told to me in 1999 by Erlyn Jensen, who was 12 years old when her brother Bill, who was 19, went into the service. Bill became a major in the 445th Bomb Group and was killed on Sept. 27, 1944.
   Erlyn's mother took Bill's loss very hard. Her two daughters encouraged her to join the Gold Star Mothers, which she did, and that seemed to help considerably. Then one day a family friend who Erlyn said wished to remain anonymous gave her mother an all expenses paid trip to France so she could visit her son's grave in the Lorraine American Cemetery at St. Avold.
    When she told the support group about the upcoming trip, one of the other Gold Star Mothers said, “Mrs. Mohr, I’ll never be able to go to St. Avold. If I give you ten dollars, would you buy some flowers and place them on my son’s grave?”

   “Oh, I’d be delighted to,” Erlyn’s mother said, or words to that effect.

   Now, this was a pretty emotional moment in the story and as often happens, I was getting choked up. Erlyn said, “If you’re gonna cry now, just you wait.”

   Erlyn’s mother went to France and visited the cemetery at St. Avold. She checked in at the office and a guide took her to her son’s grave. He gave her a whistle and said to blow it when she was ready to leave, and he would come and get her.

The Lorraine American Cemetery at St. Avold, France.

    She spent as much time as she needed, and then blew the whistle. When the guide returned, she showed him a piece of paper with the number of the other Gold Star Mother’s son’s grave.

The guide looked at the paper and said, “Mrs. Mohr, he’s buried right across the walkway from your son!” So she was able to come home and tell the other Gold Star Mother that your son and my son are neighbors.

   Over the years I’ve posted a lot of stories and transcripts from my interviews. On June 3, 2010, I received the following email:

Dear sir,
    My name is William Goertzen and I’m a teacher at a college for 12 till 17 year olds. I teach History and each year we spent about 10 weeks on World War Two. One of our fieldtrips is to Margraten, an American Burial site for soldiers killed in action; our school adopted the grave of one of these soldiers. With our classes we visit the grave once or twice a year, we pray for this man and we put some flowers at his grave in order to honor him and all those who died for the freedom of Europe and the Netherlands.
    Since October 2007 i have seen searching for information on Edward L. Forrest, 1Lt of the 712 th Tank Batallion. All I know is that he was killed in action on 3rd April 1945 and his ASN = O1017955. Now our idea is to make a wall inside the school with information and photos of Ed Forrest, so the War becomes ‘touchable’ for our pupils; it becomes more ‘real’ if they can look at and read about this lieutenant. We also hope to honor this particular soldier by creating this wall in our school, at
a place where pupils pass every hour/lesson.
    My problem is that I cannot seem to get any further on the internet. All trails lead to dead ends. I’ve sent forms with requests to the Department of the Army Administration section in Virginia, I’ve filled in a form of the NARA in Missouri, but no news yet. A mister Paul Wilson of North Carolina helped me on my way; Aparently Ed Forrest lived in Stockbridge, Berkshire County, MA., but all my internet searches lead to dead ends.
   In all of your interviews with veterans of 712th TB, I only once came across the name of 1LT Ed Forrest, mentioned by one of the veterans.
    Perhaps You could help me on my way, so I could learn more about his death but especially about the man behind the name; he also has or had family; I’d like to obtain information and pictures in order to make my remembrance wall and to use it in order to point out to 12 till 17 year olds that WW2 must never be forgotten.
    I hope to hear from you very soon and I would like to thank you already for reading my mail.
Yours sincerely
William Goertzen, teacher at Carbooncollege in the Netherlands.

   I didn’t know how to say “mother lode” in Dutch, but that is what Wiel had struck. Although my father’s time in combat was barely long enough to get a cup of coffee and two Purple Hearts, he managed to bond with a fellow lieutenant, Ed Forrest, who was killed near the very end of the war. As I recorded and preserved the stories of the veterans of my father’s battalion, I always asked veterans of my father's company about Ed Forrest. As Ed was an original member of the battalion while my father was a replacement, I heard many more stories about Ed than about my dad.

   And then in 1995, I decided to see if I could find Ed’s family. Within a couple of phone calls, I was on the line with Ed’s brother, Elmer Forrest. I went up to Lee, Massachusetts, and interviewed Elmer. I subsequently interviewed Dorothy Cooney, who had a secret romance with Ed and never married. I learned Ed had a falling out with his father and moved in with an Episcopalian minister when he was 14, and that the minister left a diary which I was able to read at the Stockbridge Library.

   Elmer Forrest had passed away, but I was able to put Wiel in touch with David Forrest, Elmer’s son, and David sent him a family photograph, which, along with some material I sent, was placed in a display case in the school.

The Ed Forrest display at Carbooncollege in the Netherlands.

   There you have it: three stories about cemeteries, each uplifting in its own special way, and each of which I had a role, however small, in preserving. If you’d like to know more about Johnny Daum, please visit the web site of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

   If you’d like to read or hear more, please explore the pages of my new web site, aaronelson.com, and check out the great prices in my eBay store.

Heimboldshausen, April 3, 1945

The railroad tracks at Heimboldshausen, April 4, 1945

I've never been big on birthdays or anniversaries. I'd probably forget it was my birthday if my four siblings didn't all call me and my sister Arleen Wiener didn't send me an annual card with a funny picture of a wiener dog on it or my colleagues Nancy and Erica didn't always remember to bring me a cake or some other confection. I've worked at one newspaper or another as a copy editor so many Thanksgivings and New Year's Eves and other holidays that now that Sunday is a regular day off I still don't get invited to Super Bowl or Academy Award watching parties because those traditional events started so long ago among my friends and colleagues that their rosters of invitees are pretty well set.

But give me an anniversary from World War II and fuhgeddaboudit. Seventy-two years ago today, on April 3, 1945, my father's 712th Tank Battalion, attached to the 90th Infantry Division, rolled into the village of Heimboldshausen on the west bank of the Werra River in Germany. Heimboldshausen never makes the lists of "This day in history" or even "This day in World War II," which is understandable because there were a thousand Heimboldshausens in World War II and there was only one Okinawa, for instance, where the invasion began on April 1 and there were other major events going on. But if there were a list of days that stand out in the history of the 712th Tank Battalion, April 3, 1945 would be right up there with July 10, the day Lt. Jim Flowers and his four tanks helped turn the tide of the weeklong battle for Hill 122 in Normandy or Jan. 9, 1945, when the battalion's beloved commander, Lt. Col. George B. Randolph, was killed at Nothum, Luxembourg, during the Battle of the Bulge, or Jan. 18 and 19, 1945, when the battalion's A Company withstood nine German counterattacks at Oberwampach, or March 16, 1945, when Lieutenant Snuffy Fuller had his worst day in combat, losing four men in his platoon killed in action at Pfaffenheck in the Rhine Moselle Triangle.

There was a firefight with some diehard SS troops on the way into Heimboldshausen but they were no match for the so-called "armored fist" of the 90th Division and the Germans retreated out the far side of the town, with the tanks and infantry in pursuit. It was late in the afternoon and the service troops of both the infantry and the tank battalion were billeted in the town overnight.

Heimboldshausen in 1999

 
There was a small railroad depot in the village. On one side of the tracks was a row of houses, while on the other was a wide open field with a copse of trees on a hill made from slag from a nearby potash mine off in the distance.

My father was not with the battalion at the time, having been wounded and evacuated at Dillingen in early December, just before the Battle of the Bulge. But Lt. Edward L. Forrest, who my father, a replacement, had bonded with, was the A Company executive officer. Ed was wounded in Normandy, at about the same time my dad received his first of two wounds, and returned in November, just in time for Dillingen and the Bulge.

As the executive officer, it was Ed Forrest's job to select houses in which to billet some 32 men of the battalion, which included cooks, mechanics, clerks, truck drivers and the crews of one or two disabled tanks. He set up his headquarters in the basement of a house opposite the railroad tracks.

A gasoline truck was parked outside the house, filled with rows of five-gallon jerry cans of fuel, some 250 jerry cans in all, although its driver, Joseph Fetsch of Baltimore, said he found a way to arrange the cans so the truck could carry 300 of the cans. The truck had a ring-mounted .50-caliber machine gun on the top. At about 6 p.m., two mechanics, Pete Borsenik and Steve Szirony, were standing in or near the doorway of the house when someone shouted "Plane!"

Here lies an "unbekannte flieger," or unknown flier, later identified as Erwin Bunk.

The plane was a Messerschmitt 109, flying low over the wide open field toward the village. Its mission was to attack a boxcar in the village's small railroad depot, not far from the house Forrest chose as his headquarters. There were several railroad cars at the depot. They included a half-dozen empty ore cars from the nearby mine, as well as a boxcar full of material for making uniforms and another boxcar which was full of bags of black powder for use in artillery shells. There also were gasoline tanker cars which were empty but were filled with fumes.

Joe Fetsch, the gasoline truck driver, climbed atop his truck and manned the .50-caliber machine gun but it was rusted into place and he couldn't turn it. The next thing he knew he woke up in a field hospital a day and a half later. Ervin Ullrich, a cook who was preparing a rare hot meal for the men, was killed in the explosion. Borsenik and Szirony were both seriously wounded. The house in which Ed Forrest had just set up his headquarters in the basement, collapsed, along with three nearby houses that sustained major damage. In all, five members of the tank battalion were killed, and of the 32 personnel in the village, only three were unhurt. The service personnel of the 90th Division sustained even greater casualties.

The battalion's unit history attributes the explosion to the carload of black powder, but it was more likely the fume-filled tanker cars that exploded, the same sort of explosion that was attributed to the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 into the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of New York's Long Island. That would explain the lack of a fire and the fact that the gasoline didn't ignite, but rather it was the concussion that caused the extensive damage.

Four houses after the explosion.

The pilot of the Messerschmitt-109, was caught up in the explosion and crashed into a barn in the adjacent village. Harry Moody, a truck driver who was delivering supplies to the front but turned around when he heard the explosion and saw the plume of smoke, turned around and returned. He saw the wreckage of the plane in the barn, and recalled that all he could see of the pilot were his boots, which were still smoking.

I visited Heimboldshausen in 1999, and through the Internet lined up two German historians to meet me there. I hoped to find elderly villagers who remembered the explosion, but we only found one woman, Josephine Escher, who had celebrated her 19th birthday in one of the destroyed houses some months before the explosion. The house was rebuilt after the war. She gave me a snapshot of her standing on the balcony on her birthday.

Josephine Escher

I also found an elderly gentleman who had been in a German anti-aircraft unit who, with the war winding down, was released from his unit and returned home to Heimboldshausen, arriving a few days before the explosion. I asked him if anyybody had photos of the scene, and he said the Americans had confiscated all the cameras. So I left the village with copies of the photos taken by the soldiers that I had brought with me.

Ed Forrest grew up in Stockbridge, Mass., raised by an Episcopalian minister, the Rev. Edmund Randolph Laine, from the time he was 14. There was friction between the minister, who wanted to adopt Ed, and Ed's biological father. Before going overseas Ed proposed to his girlfriend, Dorothy Cooney, a seamstress, who never married and died in her nineties. The Norman Rockwell Museum used to show a video in which Dorothy can be seen riding a bicycle down Main Street. Ed's best friend, Dave Braman, who was a fighter pilot during the war, became the Stockbridge postmaster. Dave's wife, Ann Braman, posed as the schoolteacher in a famous Rockwell painting, and Dave's father, who ran a general store in town, posed as the village clerk in "The Marriage License," another Rockwell painting.

The Schoolteacher

Ed is buried in the American cemetery at Margraten, the Netherlands. In 2010, Carbooncollege, a school in the Netherlands, adopted his grave, and would decorate it with flowers and say a prayer for Ed during field trips to the cemetery. It's my understanding that due to budget constraints, the field trips are fewer and farther between if they are made at all. But the students and teachers put up a display about Ed's life in their school.

Teacher Wiel Goertzen and his family at Ed's grave

The display about Ed's life

In 1995, I interviewed Ed's brother, Elmer Forrest, and visited St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Main Street in Stockbridge. It was a Saturday and the church was empty, but I found Ed's name on an honor roll on a wall of the church, and I signed the guestbook in the front. A few days later I contacted the current pastor, who said he didn't know much about Edmund Laine but if I contacted the library, they had a diary that he left.

I immediately wondered what he wrote on April 3, 1945, the day Ed was killed. So I made an appointment with the town historian, who met me in the library's history room with the diary. This was the entry for the date:

"Eddie killed this day in action in Germany ..." It was added as a footnote because it would be 13 days before Reverend Laine learned of Ed's death.

I wound up photocopying the entire diary -- more of a daybook, really, with eight or nine lines for each of five years, from 1941 to 1945, on every page. That's 365 times 5 of entries like the one above, although not all of them are as crammed with information. The diary itself is a remarkable document of life in small town America during the war. But that's a project for another day.