The Eifel, Margraten, Falaen, Florennes, Aach
en and beyond, September
4-10, 2005: In the week since I’ve been in West Germany, I have gathered new threads
into the fabric of my father’s story. I knew when I planned this hopeful
itinerary that I would want to collect the last missing impressions of my
father’s life before his fateful flight in April, 1945. That included a visit
to the American War Cemetery in Margraten, Holland, and a last attempt of
three to find the elusive, now-demolished, Chateau le Beauchene. Enfolded in
those plans, was my primary agenda which was to learn the procedure to have a
bronze rosette placed next to my father’s name on the Wall of the Missing in
the American Cemetery in Margraten. I remembered noticing the rosettes on my
last trip with Hans-Guenther and feeling a twinge of envy and wonder for those
whose knowing families. There is no cachet inherent in living without answers
– the rosettes placed beside those names designate a solemn resolution of
doubt. I wanted that resolution.
It was a very different visit this time to Margraten. First, I knew to
purchase flowers in Aachen enroute to Holland. For my father’s place at the
bottom of the Wall of the Missing in the section where all the names begin
with the letter “E,” I chose two cream and peach roses with pink petal tips –
from my mother and me. For my friend’s uncle’s grave, I chose a bouquet of
unusual fragrance. I looked very purposeful with my bundles of blumen wrapped
in yellow paper – a woman on a mission.
For me, war cemeteries evoke conflicting feelings. It is impossible not to be
impressed with the sheer symmetry of the place. The geometric possibilities,
to say nothing of the advanced planning, plotting, and planting necessary to
achieve this result, are endless and astonishing. The Wall with the A-Z names
of the unfound souls is, much like the Viet Nam Wall in its cause for humility
in the shadow of these simple names and home states. Each inscription is
individual but identical. The first time, I made a rubbing on paper as I’ve
seen people do at the Viet Nam wall, and hoped to one day know what happened
to my father. This time, as I placed the two roses beneath his name, I
realized my father was no longer missing. It was there, in that orderly place
– everything in a line and suspended in black marble, that I sensed the sacred
passage of time and the accomplishment at Elsnig.
I ventured into the field of endless crosses to put the other bouquet at the
site of a friend’s uncle. I stopped at the gravesites of the others from my
father’s squadron and fighter group. Hans-Guenther kindly provided a list of
each man from the group and found our way to the crosses. I recognized some of
the names from my father’s letters. He flew and died with friends.
Amidst my conflicting feelings lay a paradox in that Margraten experience.
Though a sense of extreme order and beauty exists in the place – everything
is, by design, perfectly symmetrical – I recognized the contradiction. The
evidence found in the dirt of the humble Elsnig field belied this sense of
perfection and peace. It told, if you will, the back story to what I saw at
Margraten. Elsnig was the reality, the event, the coming apart of a life with
the concurrent ripple across time for all generations who follow. The field in
Elsnig held the evidence of a catastrophic violent event wherein everything
was destroyed beyond ordinary recognition. Everything was obliterated or
reduced to its most common denominator – pieces, rubble, and melt. It was a
shocking and horrific event, as all war deaths are, even the single sniper’s
accurate shot in the middle of the day that finds its mark.
As I stood entranced by the variations of the patterns in the planned order of
the Margraten Cemetery, flashes of Elsnig intruded. I saw it all as if I were
watching a split screen: on one side the measured order of Margraten’s endless
crosses and on the other the shattered intrusive reality of each person buried
there. Perhaps because I had just come from the other side of the screen, I
felt a twinge of anger at the injustice of it all. Why, I wondered, are we
still going to war? Haven’t we learned that this is the inevitable outcome?
Why is this still acceptable? I grieved more at that realization than any one
before it. The names of the people who are buried there and those who are not,
all became as important to me as my father’s name listed among them. As if I
heard a collective sigh, I told them they were not forgotten. The sad truth of
it is that I didn’t know (nor did my mother or my father’s parents or
siblings) that my father’s name was even ON the wall at Margraten until I met
the men of his squadron a little more than a decade ago. [My soapbox is
officially re-folded and back in the corner]
All of this happened on
September 5. On September 7, my thoughts were divided between two young men,
close to the same age and of certain kindred spirit. One was celebrating his
28th birthday and walks on the cusp of his own success as an emerging and
important artist. The other was killed in Iraq last year on this day as he
stood by his jeep with the people he held in his care and command. Both of
these brilliant and shining souls bring light and hope to our world. One just
gets to do it on this level for a while longer and the other has moved ahead
of us but is missed and loved by many people including me, who attended his
memorial service and gained a precious friend in the process. Here’s to Justin
and Tim on this auspicious day! A German beer is raised in your honor on
September 7 now and forever!
From Margraten, we made another day-trip to Belgium in search of the chateau,
the Abby and the airfield. Chateau le Beauchene was located just a few
kilometers (within walking distance according to my father’s letters) from the
village of Falaen. Falaen was the home of Louis’ Pub in which my father’s
squadron (known locally as the “wild boys”) spent endless hours and Belgian
francs. Haircuts were also available.
We arrived in Falaen and one of two
men on the street knew exactly where the chateau was located, when it existed.
He immediately led us there (a long walk by anyone’s standards so we drove)
and escorted us into the woods asking us to imagine (in French, translation
courtesy of the ever-talented & multi-lingual, Ernst) that the entry was
just beyond this half of the gate still remaining and that the chateau sat
just “here” to the left and overlooked a field that is just behind all those
60-year old trees. You get the picture. I walked down the road that was
certainly the same road my father and his squadron mates walked a million
times to come and go to Louie’s or to the Abby or just for a walk. Certainly,
their transport trucks took them to their airfield from that same road. I felt
the collision of recognition and familiarity as if my father was walking with
me. I strongly sensed his presence again at the Abby later that day. We made
our way from the chateau site deep in discussion about the validity of the
accommodating Belgian man’s information. His directions were validated by an
excellent detailed map prepared for me several years ago by one of my honorary
fathers, Jack Zaverl, for just this occasion. His diagrams and descriptions
are artful and exact.
Our next stop was the Abby de Maredret where my father attended Mass and
befriended the nuns-in-residence throughout his stay at the chateau. He wrote
often of his trips to the Abby and of buying my mother and his mother a St.
Theresa medal, the patron of flyers, identical to his own. As odd luck would
have it, we couldn’t actually enter the church, though I had visited it with
HG on a prior visit. I did manage to find a St. Theresa medal, however, which
now occupies the same chain as my tiny silver P-38.
Louie’s has been sold
to a new owner who may or may not remember the Geyser Gang of the 428th
Fighter Squadron. Though the façade of the place has changed, there is a small
garage to the right of the entrance that reads, Garage Louis, in pale blue
letters.
The surprise excursion of the day was at the suggestion of Hans-Guenther who
had a Spitfire Museum in mind. We wound our way from the Abby to Florennes
Airfield (known as, A78 in my father’s time) to see what remained of the
airfield from which my father and his squadron flew their missions. It remains
a viable air base today with F-16s constantly flying into and out of the very
active field. We managed with the help again of Ernst’s French, to get onto
the base as long as we only visited the Spitfire Museum. The surprise was
within. The display cases surrounding an actual Spitfire, contained
photographs and acknowledgement of the presence in the late 1940’s of the
474th USAAC Fighter Group. The Disney squadron insignia and the group insignia
were all there along with photos (identified in French, of course) of anyone
who had contributed to the display. I presented a photo of my father to the
museum curator and asked that it be placed in the display. They offered to
make an entire page about my father in the memory books they keep there. It
was a good day made better by unexpected gifts.
I was enchanted by a brief, but relaxing, respite in the Eifel Mountains near
Ernst and wife, Helga’s, meticulously restored (the hard way: brick by brick)
farmhouse. From there, we made the trips to Holland and Belgium and from there
that I traveled to Frankfurt, to London, and next week, home. My next trip is
the 474th Reunion in Salt Lake City the weekend after I return home. Der
Spiegel TV is coming to film the event and interview the guys who flew with my
father. They also intend to film my presentation on Friday night which will
hopefully be finished in pristine Power Point format by the time I touch down
in Phoenix. One of my Estill cousins will meet me at the reunion and I have
Team Estill hats to distribute that are sewn on the back with the inscription,
Honorary Dad. This reunion is dedicated to the families of the squadron
members. As always, when I attend these reunions, I am conscious of the
gathering of angels just at the edges of the crowd – watching us thoughtfully
and knowing all the answers to the things about which we can only wonder. This
will be the first reunion without my most honorary dad, Bill Capron. I’ll save
you a place at my table, Bill, and tell you the story myself.
I don’t know if I included this correction in the last post, but the correct
address for Hans-Guenther’s website is:
http://www.cablecutter.de/ The other
one is the site for his aircraft parts collection.