Thursday, July 07, 2011
Today was quite extraordinary. First of all there was rain and at times a
lot of rain. This was spectacular and
although the region looks pretty green to us, everyone is excited that their
drought appears to be finished.
For touring today, we were fortunate to spend the day with a
gentleman named William Jordan (no relation).
He was encyclopedic about WWII and D-day in particular. Not only was he filled with information, but
he was an uncanny impersonator switching from Winston Churchill, to Montgomery
to Roosevelt imitations in an instant.
Fantastic way to learn!
We toured the beaches of Normandy and visited the American Cemetery
at Sur la Mer. This is the cemetery where
Bill’s uncle, 1st Lt. Nelson D. Willis is interred. As far as we know, we are the first family to
have visited Nelson’s grave.
It was an interesting process so I’ll give a little outline
of what happened. After passing through
security to get into the memorial, there is a desk at which families can
request an escort to the grave site.
After a few questions, the staff pulls up the necessary information
about the soldier interred, puts together a packet of information and they
whisk you away in a special golf cart – it’s enclosed and is extended so that
it can carry 6 people. You go directly
to the gravesite.
Once at the gravesite (and anywhere you go there are a sea
of graves – it is an incredible sight to see and it really cuts to the heart)
the staff member places an American flag “in the right hand of the fallen
soldier” and a French flag “in the left hand of the fallen soldier”, they then
take moistened sand from Omaha Beach and rub it into the etched letters and
numbers that identify and mark the grave – the sand allows one to see the
information better on the beautiful white Italian marble of the marker. This also provides for better photos.
It is impossible to describe the feelings of being there.
Once we finished, I inquired how we might find out more information
about the circumstances of Nelsons’ service and death. It turns out that they had several pages of
information about the mission that he was on and specific information about how
he was killed. A wonderful young
historian was eager to speak with us and here is a brief synopsis of what he
found for us:
Nelson is the only man buried among the more than 9,000 at
the Normandy cemetery who flew with a Night Fighting Squadron (in fact there is
only one other pilot from his squadron buried in France and that gentleman is
interred in the very far eastern part of France). Nelson piloted a plane nicknamed the ‘widow
maker’, the P38. Sadly it turns out that
Nelson was killed the day after Paris was liberated, on August 25, 1944. His squad had flown across the channel and
was working reconnaissance for infantry and (I think) bombers. The squad encountered some flak and
apparently Nelson began losing altitude – the cause is not clear but one can
imagine. One wing of the P38 clipped a
post and he crashed into a bridge. He
was 20 when he died and he had been a pilot for a little over a year.
Bill will be able to supply them with photos of Nelson for
the archive. They’ve also asked for pictures of his widow and family, so we
will work on getting permission for adding his widow’s picture to the archive.
Nelson’s widow lives about 5 miles from us and has never
remarried. So we are eager to share the
information we’ve found.
It’s a funny thing.
Bill only met Nelson when he was a toddler and Sterling and I have never
met him. But after the time we’ve spent
with Jane (Bill’s mom and Nelson’s sister) and Shirley (Nelson’s widow), and
then way back with the oldest brother Wally we feel like Nelson has always and
in some odd way been a presence in and with the family. Jane and Shirley remained very close until
Jane’s death, speaking daily on the phone and calling each other sister until
the end. There was no family gathering without
some mention of Nelson or how Jane, her parents and Shirley came to rely upon
each other after losing Nelson.
I was overcome with such a sad feeling knowing that there is a similar
story for each of the crosses and stars of David we saw today. There was a mom, a dad, a wife, kids,
sweetheart, and/or siblings for each of the graves.
