Remembering a WWII Veteran
Donald Lewis stood crammed among a group of friends and fellow soldiers trying not to lose his balance. The landing craft they were on was pushing toward its destination on Omaha Beach at Normandy, France. A strong current threatened to pull them away from their destination. Lewis was a long way from his hometown of Thurmont, but he along with millions of other young men had been drafted to serve in the armed forces during World War II. Though he had entered the army as a private, he had risen to the rank of staff sergeant. Lewis stood at the front of the landing craft hanging onto the edge of the wall. Around him, he could hear the explosion of artillery and see the explosions on the water or beach. Things seemed a mass of confusion, but it was all Read more…
Rejected four times, Menchey becomes a decorated veteran
Before Francis J. Menchey could fight for his country amid the islands of the Pacific Ocean during World War II, he first had the win the battles against the draft boards at home that didn’t want him to fight. When Menchey graduated from Gettysburg High School in 1943, the U.S. had been at war with the Axis Powers for about 18 months. Like many Americans, the young man wanted to do his part to help his country. Shortly before his graduation, he traveled to Baltimore to try and enlist in the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Navy rejected him because the physician at the enlistment center said Menchey had a hernia. That was news to Menchey who felt perfectly fine and had never had any indication that he had a hernia. “Returning to Gettysburg, Menchey consulted his family physician who declared Read more…
The Return of a Ritchie Boy
Cascade may be a small community nestled in the mountains, but what happened there 75 years ago helped changed the world. Guy Stern fled Nazi Germany in 1937 as a young man of 15. He left behind his parents and two siblings. “I made efforts to get the papers for my family to emigrate and I almost succeeded, but in the end it did not work,” said Stern in an interview with the Waynesboro Record Herald. Stern’s family eventually perished in the Holocaust. Meanwhile, Stern attended St. Louis University and was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942. Only a few months after his basic training in Texas, he received secret orders to transfer to Camp Ritchie in 1943. Because of his German heritage, he had been selected as part of a military intelligence training program. Using the knowledge of Read more…
Don’t let the flu get you!
So it seems like everyone lately has the flu. Schools are sending warnings home to parents. Hospitals are telling patients with the flu not to come in. The Centers for Disease Control has said that is has hit epidemic level. So how bad can it get? The worst to date has been the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. It left about 50 million dead after just a couple months. I wrote about it in my novel October Mourning. I’ve also written about half a dozen articles about it and given a couple talks about it.I continue to be fascinated (scared?) by it. It killed more people than World War I and in a shorter time frame, too, yet the war had the headlines during 1918. It was estimated that 675,000 Americans died from the Spanish Flu or 10 times more Read more…
Why "Unbroken" the book is better than the movie
My wife and I went to see Unbroken last night. I loved the book and was very excited to see the movie, but it didn’t live up to the book. As my wife pointed out, “The book is always better.” But why is that? The movie was well acted and the effects looked good. So I was trying to think about why it left me disappointed. Part of it was definitely because a lot needed to be cut from the book. The movie focuses on Louis Zamperini’s prison-camp experiences. It certainly is the most-exciting part of the book when Zamperini is facing life-or-death consequences. It only gives his running career and change from petty thief to Olympic champion a partial look and pretty much ignores his battle and recovery from post-traumatic stress. By giving those two sections of his life Read more…
Stepping outside my comfort zone
I am still trying to get my head around an interview I conducted this afternoon. It was the first of what will probably be many as I start working on a biography of a WWII veteran. There’s so much information to take in and digest that it’s overwhelming me at the moment. I need to digest what he told me and start to shape how I want to present his story. I’m looking at a few different directions that don’t seem like they would connect—World War II, Civil War, Art. Yet, they all do connect with this man. I want to do this man’s story justice. I think it is pretty interesting. This is the first time that I’ve worked on a true biography. Saving Shallmar was sort of a biography about a coal town. This book will be a Read more…
German POWs worked in Gettysburg during WWII
Though no battles were ever fought in Gettysburg during World War II, German soldiers were sent to the county and other locations around the country. It wasn’t to fight, though. The soldiers were sent here as prisoners of war. On May 31, 1944, 50 prisoners of war were transferred from Camp Meade in Maryland to Gettysburg. The U. S. War Department set up hundreds of POW camps throughout the country during the war. Similar camps could also be found nearby in Frederick, Md., and Pine Grove Furnace Park. However, when the prisoners arrived in Gettysburg, there was no camp in which to house them. The POWs were set to work building a 400-foot by 600-foot stockade surrounding the camp along Emmitsburg Road next to the old Home Sweet Home Motel. During this construction phase, the prisoners were housed at the Read more…
There was no stopping “Commando” Kelly during WWII
Ralph F. Kelly of Emmitsburg, Md., was a battle-hardened veteran of World War II by the age of 24. It only prepared him for what was to come. “He was with the first Allied troops which invaded the North African coast last November, and has been fighting steadily since with the exception of a two-week period spent in a hospital recovering from wounds received in initial engagements,” the Gettysburg Times reported in 1943. In August of 1943, the Allied Forced invaded Sicily. The soldiers met strong resistance from the Italian and German armies as each side battled to control the high ground in the hilly country. During the fighting, Sgt. Kelly found himself behind a machine gun firing on the enemy. He fired on the enemy time and again, but eventually, he and the other riflemen in his machine gun nest Read more…
Read about Gettysburg's forgotten history
Home to a U.S. president, Hall of Fame pitcher and a classic automobile inventor, there’s so much more to Gettysburg than just a three-day battle. Sure Gettysburg is best-known for the epic Civil War battle that was fought there in 1863. It tends to overshadow many of the other interesting and important stories that have taken place in Gettysburg and the vicinity. Gettysburg was also home to one of the first tank training camps in the country during World War I. This camp brought a young army officer to Gettysburg who would play a very important role in town but also the world. His name was Dwight David Eisenhower. Hall of Fame pitcher Eddie Plank called Gettysburg home. He even owned a garage in town after he retired. Gettysburg is filled with stories of the famous and the not so Read more…
$1.35 Billion in art work stolen by the Nazis recovered
I just saw an episode of “Bones” where an old Nazi was murdered in South America and in his basement they found art work, gold, pictures and other items he had been hiding. Then a real-life story of Nazi theft caught my attention. Just recently more than 1,500 paintings that haven’t been seen in 75 years were recovered. Many of them had been believed destroyed during the war. Three years ago customs officials doing a routine check on a train from Switzerland met an man from Munich, Germany, named Hildebrant Gurlitt. It turns out the Gurlitt was a fake name. Officials tracked him down in 2011 to an small apartment. “Behind “mountains of rotting food and decades-old tin cans” lay a collection of artworks thought to be worth over $1.35 billion, including paintings by Picasso, Matisse, and Renoir,” reported TheVerge.com. Read more…
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