French Gratitude to the Allies - Hard to Track

Laval story on the monument to the MZ 684 crew. John
Tepper Marlin points to his uncle's name, F/O W.J. van
Stockum, Cpl. Pamela Turney to her great-uncle's name,
Sgt. Fred Beales.

Richard Rubin has a fine article on how the French remember, with gratitude, the U.S. entry into World War I.

He says that when the French speak about "The War" they are talking about World War I.

I think that depends on the region of France and which war had the most impact in that region.

When we were in Normandy and Mayenne in June, as the 70th anniversary of D-Day was being remembered, "The War" was World War II.

And the French there were just as grateful for the support of the Allies in World War II as they were for their support in World War I.

Just as it is hard sometimes for someone writing thank-you notes to keep track of which guest gave which gift, it is hard sometimes for the French to keep the Allies straight.

The story in the Laval, Mayenne, France newspaper about the unveiling of monument to the crews of two planes that were shot down in the week after D-Day thanks the "britannique et canadien", "British and Canadian" airmen. In fact it was more complex than that.

The Halifax MZ-684 was piloted by a Dutchman (Flying Officer W. J. van Stockum, via the R.C.A.F.) resident in the United States and awaiting U.S. citizenship. The other plane, the Halifax MZ-352, was piloted by an Australian (Flying Officer Thomas Henderson, flying for the Australian Air Force).

August 24, 2014 - Postscript

A friend writes to me saying that The New York Times story and my tributes to the sacrifices of the Allies is lovely and sentimental but how about what is going on today? Back in the days of the Black and Tans, there were people charging The Times of London with "Afghanistanism" -writing strong editorials about atrocities in Afghanistan while overlooking the atrocities in Ireland.

My answer is that it is precisely when we have crisis points in the world that we need to look back and see how we got through the crises of the past. I am aware that Forbes is tracking every omission or error in reporting on the Middle East by the The New York Times. The finances of the newspaper business have changed, and we may not be able to rely as much on only one or two sources for our information.

I am not ready to trade in The New York Times for Forbes, but maybe one result of the democratization of news gathering, news dissemination and opinion-writing is that bloggers have to think about their changing role:

• Should bloggers only tackle topic areas where they feel less comfortable?
• Or should they make an effort to go into topic areas where they feel less sure of themselves, but where their thinking and opinions are needed?

VETS 6 | Monuments to 14 Downed Airmen

L to R: John Ellyatt, John Tepper Marlin and Cpl. Pamela Turney,
pointing  to the crew members to whom they are related.

A fine new monument was unveiled on the 70th Anniversary of the downing of the MZ 684 Halifax bomber, at Entrammes, near Laval, Mayenne, France.

Three of the seven crew members were represented by their families at the unveiling: John Ellyatt's son John Ellyatt, Willem van Stockum's nephew John Tepper Marlin and Fred Beales's great-niece Cpl. Pamela Turney.

In 2011, four of the seven crew members were represented by family at the Vaufleury Cemetery. The additional family member was Robin  Sumner (nephew of Gilbert Daniel).

The seven crew members listed on the monument are:
Flying Officer Willem Jacob Van Stockum, Pilot (hero of Time Bomber–see below)
Flying Officer John Ellyatt, Flight Engineer
Flying Officer Gilbert Daniel, Navigator
Flying Officer Robert Keith Marshall, Bomb Aimer
Sergeant Alfred Charles Perkins, Wireless Operator AG
Pilot Officer Fred Beales RCAF, Upper Gunner
Sergeant Albert Mason, Rear Gunner

Top photo shows two of the relatives of the crew of the MZ 684, JT Marlin (your
blogger), nephew of Willem van Stockum, and Pamela Turney, great-niece of Fred
Beales. The newly unveiled monument to the 70-year-old crash is in Entrammes.

Two monuments were unveiled on June 10 in memory of the two planes downed that early morning on a mission in the Laval area.

One was at a pear farm in Entrammes, Mayenne. It was dedicated to the MZ 684 Halifax bomber and its crew. The pilot was Willem J. van Stockum, my uncle.

The other was at Saint-Berthevin, dedicated to the MZ 532 Halifax bomber and its crew.

Comment

Uncle Willem was the person who brought my parents together. He roomed with my father at Trinity College, Dublin in 1929-32. When my father discovered that Willem had a sister, he set about wooing her.

They were married in 1932, had their first child in 1934 (my sister Olga will be 80 this year), and ten years after they were married they got me (#5 out of 6 children).

When Uncle Willem died in 1944, a light went out in the lives of my parents. It was unspeakably tragic for them and for my Granny who lived with us.

"Time Bomber", by Robert
Wack, centered on the life
of W. J. van Stockum.

When we came to visit the graves in 1954, the 13 RAF-administered British and Commonwealth graves had tombstones. My uncle's grave just had a simple wooden cross. I remember my mother burst into tears because she couldn't understand why her brother was singled out for not having a tombstone. It turns out it was because Willem was still a Dutch citizen (he was seconded from the Royal Canadian Air Force but he had been working in the United States on what is now called a "green card" and had applied for American citizenship). The Dutch Government had asked my mother what she wanted to have on the tombstone and she said: "Greater love hath no man..." The tombstone arrived in due course, but my mother never came back to see it. My brother Randal and I have been back several times. The Dutch tombstone is very impressive, but it does not have on it the epitaph that my mother requested.

On the other hand, my uncle is the only one so far of the 14 members of the crew to have a book written about him - Time Bomber, written by a U.S. Army Major and pediatrician, Dr. Robert Wack. I recommend the book for three groups of people: (1) those interested in the European theater of World War II, (2) those interested in the scientists who have examined time travel, and (3) those who are interested in the motivation and challenges of a soldier's and airman's life.  The story is based mainly on factual material about my uncle and the life he led until it was ended. The additional elements that have been added to the story, what we could call the sci-fi meta-story, make several important points that are hard to discuss any other way.

WILLEM VAN STOCKUM | Visit #3 to My Uncle Willem's Gravesite

My uncle Willem van Stockum and 13 other crew members on two Halifax bombers are buried in the Vaufleury Cemetery in Laval. This is my third visit to Laval to visit and honor the grave site:

1. December 1954. On my first visit in 1954, I was one of eight members of our family to visit my uncle's grave; his plane came down in Entrammes, on the east side of Laval. We found that the 13 other grave sites had tombstone markers from the RAF and my uncle's did not. The explanation given to my parents was that Willem was a Dutch citizen. My parents followed up to have a tombstone made for Willem by the Dutch Government, which is what happened. (The RCAF and Australian Air Force did the tombstones for Beales and Henderson apparently without any need to follow up.)

Detail of monument to the crew of the plane that crashed at
the pear farm in Entrammes. Pilot Willem van Stockum is in
 the front row, middle, in the only photo we have of him with
crew. It does not seem to correspond to all the members of the
crew actually on the MZ 684 when it crashed in 1944.

2. May 2011. On the second visit in 2011, on V-E Day (May 8), a dozen representatives of five fallen airmen were there to pay their respects, through the good sleuthing of Jean-Louis Cholet of Souvenir Francais of the Mayenne, Jean-Luc Peslier of the AMAA and RCAF Cpl Pamela Turney (great-niece of Sgt. Fred Beales). Four of the airmen represented were from the Entrammes plane, and one large family came to pay their respects to Eddy Wicks from the St. Berthevin plane - his daughter Beryl Wicks and her husband Mike Hayes and their children and grandchildren.

3. June 2014. This year, on the 70th anniversary of the downing of the two planes four days after D-Day - on their fifth mission in the space of ten days - 20 people from the families of six airmen attended, representing six of the airmen, three from the Entrammes plane my uncle was piloting, and three from the St. Berthevin plane.

Detail of monument (stele) to the crew that crashed in a field
 in St. Berthevin, NW of Laval, from the monument. The
pilot, Australian Pilot-Officer Tom Henderson, is mid-group.

Two new airmen were represented in 2014 - (1) the Australian pilot Tom Henderson by his son Rex Henderson and Rex's wife Deb, and (2) Leslie Brotherton by his younger brother Cyril and by his children Carol and Brian Thornley and their grandchildren Richard, Nick and Steve, and Leslie's  great-grandchildren, the two children of Steve and Rachel - Jonah and Isabella.

This year, two well-designed monuments were installed and unveiled at the two crash sites. The families and local children and officials left flowers in front of the graves at the Vaufleury Cemetery and also at the monuments at the crash sites.

All of the families of the airmen are grateful to the French people in Laval for showing this respect to the airmen on the 70th anniversary of the two crashes. We are especially grateful to Jean-Louis Cholet of the organization Souvenir France (France Remembers) and Jean-Luc Peslier, President of AMAA (Amicale Mayenne de l'Armee de l'Air). Three other hosts from the AMAA were Michael Guegan, who told me he has a daughter in San Francisco; Michael Fontaine; and Georges Mezieres.