With Love From Mother -- A WWII Soldier's Bible

During WWII, it was common for newly enlisted soldiers to be presented with a pocket Bible given by their family or church. Many of these Bibles had a message from President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the front. Some had a metal cover and were called "heart shield Bibles." Such Bibles seem to be appearing on eBay with increasing frequency. The soldiers are dying out, and these Bibles are probably being sold at estate sales, especially in cases where the soldier had no children who would want to keep them.

A couple of times recently I've purchased one of these Bibles and returned it to the family. Today I ran across one that struck me as particularly poignant. It was a tiny New Testament and Psalms inscribed with the name "Robert H. Thompson, Co. K, 12th Infantry." It was signed, "With Love From Mother."

Any thought of returning it to the family disappeared quickly when I started researching. There was no indication of his Army Service Number, where he lived, or when he joined the service, the clues that help find people. The unit number is little help, because soldiers changed units often and there are no comprehensive databases that list that information. My primary source of information is the National Archives' database of WWII enlistments, which contains more than nine million names. Unfortunately, there are 75 men named "Robert H. Thompson" in the database. Four men by that name were killed in the war. I suppose this Bible will become one more piece of lost history for some family.

Gene and Adeleen Bangs -- A WWII Love Story

It took more than five years, but I finally found "the rest of the story"
of an intriguing WWII postcard that I

Scrapbook with Gene Bangs' postcard and postmarks

picked up in an antique store.

 

Sometime around 2009, while living in Richmond, Kentucky, I found a scrapbook page in an antique store near Lexington, Kentucky. The page contained a postcard written by Corporal Eugene Bangs to his wife, Adeleen, in Lexington, along with a photo of a man in uniform, presumably Corporal Bangs. The page also contained about 70 postmarks that were meticulously cut out and pasted on the page.

Try as I might, I couldn’t find information on Gene or Adeleen. The scrapbook page and postcard went into my “too tough” pile, and there it stayed for several years. A year or so ago I revisited the file and, with information found in obituaries, located Corporal Bangs’ niece, Barbie Freed, who lives in Lexington, Illinois. (There are too many Lexingtons in this story.) Barbie provided information about Gene and Adeleen and sent a selection of photos from family albums.

Eugene was born in 1918, grew up in Dows, Iowa, earned a degree in engineering, and was working for the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad when he was inducted into the Army in April 1942. He was assigned to an Army unit in Lexington, Kentucky, housed at the Phoenix Hotel, a Lexington landmark that is now gone.

 While in Lexington he met Adeleen Gilbert, a local girl who worked at the University of Kentucky. They were married in Lexington on December 19, 1942. He must have shipped out in the next few weeks, because the scrapbook contains postmarks from Texas dated January 1943. Adeleen stayed in Lexington and continued working at the university while Gene served his country. I don’t know much about Gene’s service, except that he served in engineering units. In one photo he’s wearing a Staff Sergeant’s stripes, and at the end of the war he was in France.

After the war he went back to work for the railroad as a bridge inspector, and he and Adeleen lived in Skokie, Illinois. They did not have children. One of the photos Barbie sent me shows them on a cruise ship in 1960, and in another photo Adeleen is standing in front of a group of totem poles in Vancouver, British Columbia. Gene died in 1968, and Adeleen passed away in 1980.

During WWII, letters and postcards were the primary link between men in the service and their wives back home. There was, of course, no email or Facebook, and even a phone call was rare. I find it touching to think of Adeleen sitting home in Kentucky, carefully cutting out every postmark from Gene’s postcards and putting them in a scrapbook. I also marvel at these wartime marriages. Gene and Adeleen only knew each other a few months before they married, and less than a month later he was off to war and didn't return for nearly three years.

We’re rapidly losing “Greatest Generation” people like Gene and Adeleen Bangs. I’m glad we still have postcards and photos to tell their stories.

Adaleen (top left) and Gene (top right) in undated family photos; on a cruise in 1960, and Adaleen in British Columbia..

Bible Belonging to Downed WWII Pilot Returned to His Family After 71 Years

I recently had the rewarding experience of tracking down the nephew of an American aviator who was killed in WWII and returning a New Testament that was presented to the pilot by his church in 1942.

The Terryville (Connecticut) Congregational Church presented the pocket-size New Testament (see photos below) to Lt. Earle Gilbert Metcalf in June 1942. Lt. Metcalf flew B-24 Liberator bombers in the 703rd Squadron, 445th Bomb Group, 8th Army Air Corps. He and his crew went missing and were presumed dead when their bomber, “Billy Babe #427523,” disappeared over the North Sea on Feb. 2, 1944.

The bodies of Lt. Metcalf and his crew were never recovered. He is honored with monuments in the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial in England, and the Hillside Cemetery in Terryville.

Marker in memory of Lt. Metcalf in Terryville, CT.

In April of this year, I noticed the Bible while looking at World War II items on eBay. While I generally focus on postcards, this item piqued my interest. I bought the Bible and, with a little internet research, located Lt. Metcalf’s nephew and namesake, Earle Robert (Rob) Metcalf of Waunakee, Wisconsin, and gave him the Bible.

No one knows for sure where the Bible has been for the past 70 years. Rob Metcalf says it might have been inadvertently left in the family home in Connecticut when Lt. Metcalf’s parents moved out or, more likely, Lt. Metcalf passed it along to a comrade whose family eventually disposed of it.

Rob Metcalf has done a great deal of research on his uncle. Lt. Metcalf’s unit was commanded by the actor Jimmy Stewart, who served in the Army Air Corps during the war. Lt. Metcalf and his crew flew a bomber named “Nine Yanks and a Jerk” from the United States to Britain via South America and Africa. Rob Metcalf’s research indicates Stewart sometimes flew that aircraft. Read more about Jimmy Stewart's service here http://www.historynet.com/mr-stewart-goes-to-war.htm.

The story of the 703rd Squadron is told in the book, “A Reason to Live,” by John Harold Robinson (1921-2011), who was a Staff Sergeant in the unit. Robinson shared a hut with Earl Doggett, who was a member of Lt. Metcalf’s crew. One of Doggett's relatives has a blog that includes photos of Lt. Metcalf and his crew. http://www.charliedoggett.net/joomla/index.php/family-history/family-history-intro/earl-doggett-war-hero/47-earle-s-flight-crew-by-lena-degregory


These pocket New Testaments were common during WWII. They included a message from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some had a metal cover and were called "Heart Shield Bibles."

A very similar case of a WWII Bible being returned to the family occurred in England a few months ago. Read about it here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/11457056/Pocket-Bible-lost-during-World-War-Two-lands-home-after-70-years.html

The person who sold me the Bible said he got it from a veteran in Maine who collected WWII Bibles. He had several other, similar Bibles for sale, but so far I've been unable to find any family members of the men whose names appear in them. But maybe if I keep searching . . .

Honoring PFC Andrew James Scalf, KIA Germany February 27, 1945

Today, a woman in Tennessee honors the father she never met. He died serving our country on this date 70 years ago, during World War II.

The man is PFC Andrew James Scalf, who was killed in action in Germany on February 27, 1945. His daughter is Brenda Burchfield. I don’t really “know” Brenda, we are Facebook friends through mutual acquaintances, but I know she treasures and honors his memory.  

Our country can never repay the debt we owe to men like her father. PFC Scalf is interred at the Netherlands American Cemetery at Margraten, Netherlands. A marker also honors his memory at the Liberty Freewill Baptist Church Cemetery in Chuckey, Tennessee.

http://findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=56303537

Honoring First Lieutenant L. D. Suggs Jr. -- KIA in Battle of the Bulge

Seventy years ago today, January 13, 1945, First Lieutenant L.D. Suggs Jr.

Lt. L.D. Suggs Jr.

was killed in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge while leading a platoon of infantry troops. Lieutenant Suggs was actually a Military Police officer, not Infantry, but like many other officers was pressed into service to beat back the German attack.

I came to know about Lt. Suggs and meet his son in a roundabout way. During World War II my late mother, Annie Lee Richardson Schlatter, was just out of high school and worked at Camp Van Dorn, a training base near her hometown of Centreville, Mississippi. After she passed away in 2007, I found her Camp Van Dorn ID card among her keepsakes. It was signed by Lt. Suggs, who was the camp Provost Marshall.

I was curious to know more about him, and through a Google search learned that he died in the war. I also learned he had a son, L.D. Suggs III, tracked him down and sent him a copy of the card. We met and played golf two years ago while my wife and I were snowbirds in South Carolina, and have become e-mail buddies. I have paid my respects at Lt. Suggs’ grave in Loris, SC.

We can never repay families like the Suggs, who sacrificed so much in defense of our freedom.