Cambridge Cemetery, June, 2008. Reflecting Pool and Wall With (Missing in Action) Names.

                                      Bringing Sylvan Home

 WWII Amy Transport Ship, Lawrence Victory, Brings Home 5,374 Bodies

        My first activity after I decided to preserve the memory of my uncle, F/O Sylvan Lucier, who died without leaving a wife or children, was to order a grave monument to his memory at the Catholic cemetery in Fargo, North Dakota where he is buried beside his parents. It must have been a comfort to them throughout their long lives, to visit his grave. His grave maker had been a standard Army issue name plate in the ground and hard for me to find in the long grass.
      Not  everyone felt bringing a soldier's remains home was necessary. Ours is the only government that pays for that service. However, here are no places of lovelier design, better cared for or visited more frequently by veterans, civilians and school children than American cemeteries in Europe!
        Tom Lucier, Sylvan's youngest brother, was a soldier in Germany in 1945 and was able to visit Cambridge Cemetery (photos above). It was the opinion of  his brother that Cambridge was a beautiful place and his remains should have been left near the place where he died.
       The Cambridge plot where Sylvan was buried in October 1944, described in the letter above, can not be found today because the entire place was reorganized. In 2008, we visited the village in England where Sylvan's glider crashed, and were driven by a friend to Cambridge where we took the newer picture above. I place it for comparison with the photo in my grandmother's scrapbook.              
       The staff at the American Cemeteries abroad can help visitors locate grave sites. They helped us find the graves of men from Sylvan's 36th squadron which I photographed. The squadron loss included their group commander, their Squadron Commander, their chaplain, seven in all, in a midair collision of C-47s during an invasion practice (Operation Eagle) for Normandy. I found out later the chaplain was from the same tiny town in Western North Dakota where my aunt and uncle then lived.  Sylvan's chaplain's death, and others in that accident, occurred in early May, and surely affected his expectations for his own survival. After flying the British Horsa glider on D-Day in Normandy and a CG-4A glider on D-Day+1 in Holland, with all the fatalities that occurred, he must have felt doomed, and perhaps accepting of his fate.
         Sylvan's niece, Barbara Deibert and his cousin, Mitzy Hilber, shared their memories with me early in my research. They recalled that on his visit home in April 1943 before going to Africa, he told them he knew he would not survive.  I think he spoke to his mother this way as well because his youngest brother accompanied them to the train station and was bewildered by the grief stricken scene which was completely unlike his mother who had sent three other sons to war!                             
        Sylvan's mother saved a description of a dream he had the week before the Holland mission. According to everyone who knew them he had a very close relationship with his mother, . Her scrapbook contain the note below, dated shortly before the glider mission in Holland.

    
         For his mother, Eva Lucier, bringing Sylvan home was the only thing to do. The serious life long consequences of a second funeral, held four years after the first, for some of those profoundly affected by his death makes it  debatable. From my memory as a six year old at the time, and from my interviews with others, today I question the value of moving his remains. I must admit he does reside in a place with five or six generations of his family! And it was entirely common for families to chose to do this as the cable below notes. Our government made it easy and paid most expenses.

A  Fargo Forum newspaper article from the summer of 1948 states, 
Bodies of 31 North Dakota Servicemen, including seven from Fargo, and 121 from Minnesota,, are among 5,374 aboard the army transport, Lawrence Victory, now en route to the east coast from Europe, the army reports. Most of them were originally interred in temporary military cemeteries in France, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom." 

 World War II Troop Carrier Patch

                               Nobilis Est Ira Leonis

This is the patch worn by the 36 squadron members of the 316 Troop Carrier Group. My uncle, Sylvan Lucier was a member of the 36th SQD, from about November 1943 in Sicily till his death in the line of duty in October 1944, in England. The three young men, Sylvan, his co-pilot and the mechanic may have had this patch on their uniform sleeve while flying their glider that fateful day. 

"Invasion Stripes:  The Wartime Diary of Captain Robert Uhrig, USAAF and the

Dawn of American Military Airlift" by Brian J. Duddy.  2012.

 I have just finished reading this new book written about Sylvan's squadron, the 36th, and the proud bearers of the patch above. I have to recommend the book for providing a unique picture of the troop carrier airbase life; a view that I have not seen in any of the dozens of books I own on WWII gliders and troop carriers. The closest documents I can compare it with are the microfilmed Daily Diaries I found that were kept by a 49th Squadron officer. The book, unlike most military history, is easy to read because it is based on the personal diary of an officer in charge of the ground crew and on his letters written home to his wife. The author skillfully wove the events of various missions around the diary entries. The description of airbase concerns of the mechanics and ground crew enhances my understanding about Sylvan's experiences on the African, Sicilian, and English bases and makes the photographs Sylvan sent his mother more valuable to me.

It was fitting that the author, Brian Duddy would include the glider ferrying accident that took my uncle's life in his chapter on England on, page 193.  He quotes Captain Uhrig's diary:

"Unfortunately, on October 14, (sic*)there was another fatal mishap in the 316th. We were ferrying gliders from Greenham Common on Saturday and one glider ran into the tow rope of another and it spun in, killing two pilots and a mechanic. It was a double glider tow but 

only one glider crashed. The dead are F/O Krohm (sic#), F/O Lucier and Sgt Basham. They are to be buried tomorrow (Oct 17). We were told that the glider went almost straight in, mangling the bodies beyond identification. Krohm (sic#) was our new Special Service Officer. Out of the four Special Service Officers we have had in the past two years, three of them have been killed."

* According to the "Report of Aircraft Accident" my uncle died October 13. However the tow plane pilot and second glider pilot wrote their reports on October 14. 

# Killed that day were F/O Irving W. Krohn, F/O Sylvan R. Lucier, and Glider Mechanic, Derwood M. Basham. 

(View on this blog the glider accident death report and my 2008 visit to Tiffield, England and interview of eye witnesses to my uncle's death.)

  

I want to thank Nancy Ingresano, Widow of Mike Ingresano, author of the book on the 316^th Troop Carrier, Valor Without Arms, who recently sent me the exciting news about this new book.  With her permission here are excerpts from her notice:     

   “I write with very good news.  Another book has been published about the 316th war years. “Invasion Stripes” is of particular interest to the 36th Squadron, as it draws from the writings of one of its veterans, Captain Robert Uhrig.  But I do most strongly recommend this to all interested in the 316th war years.  As many of you know more than I do, an individual Squadron had a shared history which was mirrored by the other Squadrons and to a great extent by other Troop Carrier Groups.

    "Having a study of any aspect of the 316th history is good news.  I think this book is especially exciting, even in a wider historical sense, since it centers on the experience of one who was not part of the air crews.  It is only natural for many books on Troop Carrier history to give most of the coverage to air action, as that was the purpose of the unit.  But you know all aspects of ground support were vital.  So it is very good to have this part of WWII and 316th history published.  I remember the debt Michael owed, and acknowledged in his book, to the ground crews who seldom received recognition for keeping the planes flying and missions achieved.

      "The author, Brian J. Duddy who Michael and I first met a few years ago when visiting Geneseo, NY (current home of a 37th TCS’s C-47s), writes in a very readable and interesting style.  I should also say Brian very graciously acknowledged Michael and his “Valor Without Arms” book; that of course warms my heart." (Nancy Ingresano)

Synopsis of the book:

"From the snows of Alaska to VE Day in Europe, this is the biography of U.S. Army Air Forces Captain Robert Uhrig during Second World War.  Told in his own words from extensive diary entries and hundreds of letters to his wife "Toots," the story starts in the late 1930s at Patterson Field, Ohio and follows Bob through the war as an aircraft mechanic and then engineering officer for the 36th Troop Carrier Squadron of the 316th Troop Carrier Group and their Douglas C-47s.  As one of the original members of the Troop Carrier units, Bob's wartime career took him from the jump school at Ft. Benning to supplying British units in North Africa, to the Sicily and Normandy invasions, and all the other airborne operations in Europe.  “Invasion Stripes” is also a deeply personal story of devotion and love as Bob and Toots endure almost three years of wartime separation - with only their photographs and letters to sustain them across thousands of miles.  Sometimes hilarious, sometimes tragic, it is a unique and detailed first-person story of the American airlift forces of WWII.  Paperback, 248 pages.  Many black and white photos, maps and other illustrations sprinkled through the text." (Book Jacket)

  

 The book is available in two ways: 

1.  On-line from the publisher, web address  www.lulu.com ,  and type in the title “Invasion Stripes” or the author's name, Brian Duddy, or the item number “10569751” in the search box.  You can preview the book at this website, including some of the pages.  You can order through Lulu with a credit card on-line.  The price from Lulu is $27.95 plus shipping.

2.  If you would like a personalized, autographed copy on nicer photo quality paper, you can send a check or money order direct to the author, Brian Duddy.  His address is 42 Wolcott Street; LeRoy, NY 14482.  The cost is $28 per book plus $5 shipping via media mail in the US.  If you want more than one copy, or a different shipping method, please contact the author at e-mail  bduddy@frontiernet.net  and make special arrangements.  If you want a special personalized autograph, please include those details with your order.