Hunting WWII Gold Star Families
by Joy Etienne, sole niece of a KIA radio operator
This is dedicated to WWII families left in the dark, abandoned in joyous victory, still wondering what happened to their loved ones; to the unsung heroic men of the 8th AA 2nd AD 445th BG 701st BS like cooks, riggers, mechanics, crew chiefs, nose artists, doctors and chaplains; and, to good French citizens who never forget American’s sons.
2/3/19 Update
We found Schum. No Nazi slit his throat.
Walter’s the son of a WWI veteran, and little brother known as “Bob” to Mrs Madeline Mae Schum Shambaugh Nagler, a big brother to high school drop-out Charles Edward, a Normandy Beaches coxswain on D Day who also followed in the family history of patriotism and religious fervor.
Yeah, we got the right S/Sgt Walter Schum.
Correct the Record
http://www.asaapicardie3945.fr/index.php/english/airmen/215-27-june-1944-b-24h-42-95280-square-dance-usaaf-445th-bomb-group-701st-bomb-group-squandron-8th-air-force-mello-oise has problems. This unsubstantiated story is about Schum, a Jewish POW mercilessly killed for his religion because of a Star of David—found, planted, imagined— rather than one of the 4 airmen on Sunon Square Dance, the correct nose name of the only B-24 lost on that mission.
This fallacy that Schum’s throat was slit started in 1944 and lives on today. He’s not Jewish. He’s Protestant.
Three months or so after the crash, it began. Ask yourself, why and who has something to gain? How could this be? A Gentile, a Protestant man mistaken for a Jew for 75 years? Is this a long ago forgotten grudge perhaps?
Madame’s Private Diary
As a third party, I have no permission to share the exact words from a French point-of-view by Madame Durfort, the proprietress of Chateau de Mello.
A trusted French friend handed me the private diary pages for a reason. From the ground, here’s the gist of events for 27 June 1944.
For safety, Madame and her family retreat to the cellars. Hearing the heavy bombers in waves and waves trepidations grow with each flak volley. Then, the distinct sound of a debilitated bomber. She fears for the liberators’ lives and her neighbors’ lives.
With a loud boom, the B-24 crashes. One supercharger lands in a tree; the debris field spreads everywhere. Madame and the Nazis must wait for the exploding ammo to stop. The sun is slipping away. From the initial boom, she can tell the fuselage is on her land, a quick, 10-minute walk from the Chateau’s front gate. She and her unwelcome Nazi castle occupants, hurry to the oily, smoking, tangled mess of metal and 4 bodies. The scene is gruesome.
In spite of that and in front of the low level interlopers and officers, Madame Durfort openly prays, crossing herself. On the spot her thoughts turn to the wives and mothers who will soon learn the terrible fate. Madame bravely prays for them, too. Her empathy is remarkable.
How galling must that have been to the Nazis!
Quickly she arranges with Father Victor Claude a special mass for the 4 airmen as soon as possible in Notre Dame de Mello church that sits directly below the occupied castle. This is the same priest who will very soon hide in his home the co-pilot and tail gunner for 9 days.
Was Father Victor Claude a Valmy resistant or just a man of the cloth who took to heart The Golden Rule? The same questions concern Dr. Pichot. Was it the physician’s oath to do no harm or his courage to resist by secretly tending to injured evaders? First the doctor arrives, then the priest. Were they in this together, in tandem? Maybe a Oise citizen will recall some detail and shed some light. This diary gift-giver never saw any friendship between the two after the war.
Later after Oise’s liberation which began on August 31 for Cramoisy, Madame Durfort erects a cross in her forest on the exact spot with the date and the 4 names — all spelled correctly. She was there. She saw it all. God bless her.
Her diary words are deeply heart-rending and truthful. I believe her completely. Like I believe the 2 evaders’ debriefings in Terrill’s book.
Today that cross is a slowly disappearing stump of cement. Like memories.
Tools for Your Toolbox
Libraries house huge databases beyond the top-of-mind brands. Explore. Two new to me, WorldCat and ReferenceUSA. WorldCat lets you browse into collections held by 72,000 libraries around the world. Imagine what you can source. I borrowed from Peoria, IL Meyer’s Directory of Genealogical Societies in the USA and Canada. ReferenceUSA provided me with a spreadsheet of 400+ genealogists. YouTubers, 2 30-minute basics: “Genealogy 101” by Ancestry and “Beginning Genealogy” by the Midwest Genealogy Center, compliments of this society’s president. Look for a nearby genealogy society or county historical one. Some have Help Desks, content rich blogs like this one, free and modest fee lectures and other resources.
One volunteer regularly schedules time at a branch. She put Cyndi’s List in my hands, a two-volume compilation of search websites like the old telephone directory. Amazing stuff. In it, I found “Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness” by state and specialized volunteers who look up things, not online, the hard way. Ask nicely. Kind strangers will help. Be patient. You got this.
Now pick up your tools. Time to get busy.
“Just after bombs away a direct burst of flak hit the ship between the flight deck and bomb bay, starting a fire. The command deck and the waist section became a blazing inferno within a few seconds. A solid wall of fire separated the front of the plane from the rear…..The navigator called the crew to check in. Goan has heard this call but was not able to answer back due to the failure of the intercom equipment which was blown away with the burst. The heat was so intense that it caused Goan [to] look behind him. He saw the flames reaching back and the waist gunner trying to clear the camera hatch of the chaff and heavy clothing that surrounded it. A spell of dizziness overcame Goan and he checked the oxygen system and found it nil. All this time the plane was out of control, and gradually into a flat spin. …” Here’s some of tail gunner S/Sgt John Goan’s debriefing in Terrill’s book, found in Pooler, GA. You never know what turns up.
Clean Or Doctored MACRs
My 4F uncle lived a purposeful life even if he suspected he was on borrowed time. At 33, he was the old man on Sunon Square Dance.
Be prepared for anything if you’re a close relative searching for the truth.
Seeing “broken neck” on my uncle’s MACR rocked me for 2 weeks.
We know flak took out the intercom and oxygen systems. A flood of adrenaline, thin oxygen at high altitude, a diseased, bloated heart with a sloppy, regurgitating valve or one too tight and stingy with the flow, either way the aftermath caused by his boyhood bout of rheumatic fever and altogether my uncle’s heart stopped. So a dead airman’s neck can be broken at impact, too.
Schum’s MACR is problematic because of the penciled note about Mrs Nettie Schum’s French letters. Was this a supporting lie for this Schum Jewish ruse?
Mid-to-late fall in ’44 could the Valmy leader who witnessed the Allies’ autopsies of Leahy, Schum, Reno and Strychasz concoct such a hideous story of retribution using Schum as the fall guy? Did this Frenchman, Mr Marionval, have access to official MACRs? Did he use a pencil?
Another MACR reads: “Mrs Nettie M Schum [same Altoona address] Inquiry date 12/19/44 Worker consulted Mr. Levine.” Cryptic. On purpose? True? Why?
My uncle’s MIA changed to KIA at Christmastime. Schum’s, too?
Some Conjectures
Did the previously awarded-for-bravery, 20-year-old gunner and the 24-year-old pilot have a one-time beef or a serious feud? Was it before the mission? Was it during this mission? Is the Schum Jewish ruse a manufactured distraction right down to doctored MACRs about fictitious French letters? Who survived the crash landing with Schum? Let’s see.
Was this something between the pilot and his French host families? Or, just one host family? The burned and injured pilot lived in hiding with the French until our ground troops released him during the first few days of September, 1944. The war was turning. Was this favor going to pay off in some way? Like a better life?
Something’s fishy.
This French ASAA slur against a class of people already victimized and against one brave liberator is so wrong on so many levels. How can the French participate in this when they themselves suffered the Occupation? I don’t get it.
The ASAA claim of “a war crimes trial” produces transcripts and guilty names. I’ve got my Schum proof and I’m laying it out now. Authenticate it!
People you know or knew may not be who you think they are.
Half Truths are Acts of Deceit
The thing is, only 2 sources tell me Schum is Jewish. The first was almost 3 years ago to the day when the pilot’s oldest daughter, born after her father left the service, in our first lengthy phone call surprised me with this. She told me. It sort of explained the hand-printed notation about French letters. That means her pilot father either purposely told his family a lie or he assumed his French host’s version thru post-war correspondence.
The second source is this rather stale, online English-French version by ASAA. It’s loaded with hearsay. Read it. It’s so out-of-character. This is the organization honoring my uncle in front of the Mello Statue of Heroes. They honor all KIA Allies from various countries in this particular region of France. The in-person tribute is so dignified while this is so egregious.
Words to the wise: assume nothing; question everything; verify, re-verify using multiple sources; consult with experts and behold more plot twists and turns than a best-selling mystery novel. Hang onto your hat.
Thank you one and all. To my patient Jewish sources, thank you so much.
What’s curious is the pilot was Protestant like my uncle and Schum and surely went to chapel with Captain Minga officiating on base. Of course, the pilot could be lukewarm skipping service.
Did flyboys on mission days get an early morning service? How did it work during the war?
Louise Leahy Chase drove the old, two-lane roads from Chicago to the Michigan military hospital in the fall of ’44 to ask the pilot with his wife at his bedside about her MIA brother, Bill. The trip was for nothing, Nothing was said, not a word, not a peep. Not even a Jewish mention.
Numerous Gentile Proof
Find-a-Grave photos of headstones for sister Mrs. Madeline Nagler, kid brother Charles Edward and Walter show no Star of David. Altoona has 2 Jewish cemeteries; Grandview is neither. All are buried in Grandview. For the record, Jews are not buried in Gentile cemeteries and vice versa. It’s tradition, not hatred.
To all FInd-a-Grave volunteer photographers and maintenance workers, thank you. Your work is tremendous. A special shout-out to amazing Annie. VFW and American Legion, thank you for your visits and flags. Periodically look for updates at FInd-a-Grave between blogs.
Again, we have multiple traditional family tree documents from public records, several Altoona and Blair County newspaper obituaries citing church denominations, cemetery photos and private diary commentary. That’s more than two overlapping sources supporting the Jewish fallacy. Schum is a Gentile, KIA with the 3 other airmen on 27 June 1944.
Schum’s kin: in Mifflintown, PA, Ronald C Shambaugh; possibly in Altoona, PA, Shirley Jane Dalton Schum Mateer and Charles T Schum; in Wilmington, DE, Sandra Jean Schum Aungst and Terry Aungst. Anybody know them?
Will they have the mysterious Mrs Nettie Schum letters from France?
Once more, the French ASAA propagates an awful stereotype. Jews and one Altoona Gentile, in this case, are God’s children, created in His image and likeness, according to The Good Book. I propagate that! Help me spread the word. Justice not vengeance.
The Summer of ’68
What a big Oise homecoming for the former pilot now a rural Michigan mailman with his war bride and 4 daughters living an ideal life. 24 years! Imagine that. Such excitement! Break open the best wine, cheese and song. Photos snapped. The tall mailman looks so distinguished. It’s hard to see how badly burned his face and hands were which so repulsed Louise in that 1944 hospital room. She could barely look at him. She felt shame the rest of life for not being able to look him in the eye with no eyebrows, eyelashes and no nose tip. Louise just asked about Bill, her handsome brother. Only silence. Secrets saved lives. She knew that. She was hoping for some piece of anything. The agony of MIA was driving the family nuts. Closer to her own death, she openly wondered if that was really Bill buried there. The lack of information for so long stirs snd builds other uncertainties. The Leahy family is not alone.
The summer of ’68 Uncle Walt and Aunt Agnes make their second trip to England and France for Bill. No name for base #124. No knowledge Bill volunteered for a 2nd run on D Day. A nice British guard in St Paul’s Cathedral in London learning about Bill, turned to his page of names in calligraphy. So many names. Another book in Norwich, East Anglia and one in Melbourne, Australia, too. So many names impossible to remember. The best Uncle Walt could get was taking a snapshot from the Book of Remembrance.
Probably like my uncle’s wet eyes at the time, the photo is out of focus, impossible to read. I can’t bear to throw away the useless B&W snapshot because it meant so much to Uncle Walt. That was the best he could do. That was how close he got to the truth as hard as he tried.
The deadline to declassify was coming up fast. Two paths almost cross in France that summer, yet so far apart, a recurring theme to so many other things about June 27.
One knows. One doesn’t. One happy. One wondering, empty-handed.
The mailman never reached out to the 4 families. Like fallen apples under a tree, neither did the 4 daughters. But neither did anyone, but the French. They’ve been at it for years and still are.
Cleveland’s Own
Census tells us this classic 20th Century American immigrants’ story about bombardier Lt Walter Strychasz’s family.
Born December 23, 1891/2 in Poland, Szczepan Strychasz is married to a nice Polish girl, Mary, born in 1893/1897 and they come here. This story unfolds thru public records and no photos. Different times, different census, Walter’s father goes by Stephen, Steve, Steven not the impossible to pronounce Szczepan for Americans and French.
The 1930 Census has a family name change!
Stychisy appears just once, not Strychasz. Maybe someone in the Polish community can enlighten me. Is this why all those Facebook Strychasz folks claim no WWII war hero?
Walter A is born 9/20/1917 in New York. Brother Joseph/Joe/Josef Stein Strychasz arrives 5/6/1919 in Cleveland, Ohio.
At first the family is a tenant with a boarder at 3445 E 69th. Today that would be an AirBnB long-term apartment guest in order to make the rent. In 1930 the father is 38 years old and applying to be a naturalized citizen making wife Mary one, too, with 2 American-born sons. Obviously, the father feels good about his life in Cleveland with steady work. He holds his job a long time as a watchman at a local brewing company.
By 1940, Steve Stayshasz, a new spelling, possibly a new variation of the name or a careless census worker, buys the property at 7216 Ivy Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio as the family home. He’s fulfilling the American dream of homeownership. It’s a nice two-story with a pitched roof. They still have a boarder, very common at the time.
Walter’s educated at St. Stanislaus School and graduates from South High School.
Walter lands a job as a shipping clerk at the same Brewing Company as dad. The US Government considers the dad too old for the draft. Walter volunteers with the 8th.
We forget. This was the first war that used planes tactically. The 8th AA only accepted volunteers because flying, in its infancy, and air battle were so state-of-the-art, a huge experiment, a first of its kind. Flying grabbed invincible young men’s imagination on the heels of Lindbergh and Earhart. The design of the uniforms cinched the deal. American swagger was born.
Army doctor rejects who volunteered like my uncle got assigned jobs they could handle. For Bill sitting down on the job at the radio equipment desk taxed his heart less listening to the syncopated dots and dashes or watching the lights on top of bombers blink out the Morse Code message.
Walter Strychasz honed on mapped targets or other opportunities. He must have had great vision and smarts. Google B-24 Bombardier photos.
Walt’s brother, Joe heads off to war in the South Pacific. At some point, the dad dies. Mary works in a public building as a domestic cleaner. Joe returns as a war veteran, maybe a wounded warrior, an unemployed bachelor living with his mother at the Ivy address.
Mary dies 21 February 1965. Joe is 39 years old at the time of his death.
Don’t tell me this is it. Don’t tell me this is the end to a sad story about New Americans and the toll of war. Don’t! Is this a stunted, dead end family tree? Is this why in the soldier’s section of Calvary Cemetery Walter’s headstone looks orphaned? Strychasz, I love you, buddy.
Cleveland, c’mon gimme a leg up. What I wouldn’t give to see Strychasz’s face. Even his high school photo. I know exactly how the French feel. To look at the young Lieutenant’s face makes him real, not a bunch of letters in a difficult name to pronounce. Even small bits about his life reveal so much and turn him into a 3-D person. C’mon!
Did the 2nd Lt Ralph L Hall from ?246 Jennings Rd, Cleveland, know Strychasz before the war? Did they go to the same high school, a few years apart? Both officers, did they drink together? Take liberty leave in London together? Play cards?
The first number in the address is too blotchy to read from an overused typewriter ribbon or a broken key in Col. Terrill’s debriefing office. Can a local help me out?
When did Hall take over the controls? Was this planned during the mission briefing that co-pilots with 29, 30 missions get pilot experience flying? As a matter of fact, Hall was flying Sunon Square Dance and the pilot was in Hall’s seat during the first burst of flak checking the formation. Did something happen in the cockpit and Hall took control?
Hall stayed in after his August 13 release from the Forests of Freteval. So did Goan, the tail gunner. Both pilots now with long, successful Air Force careers. Hall is buried in Pensacola on a Naval base, restricted to civilians. Goan returned to his home state of Tennessee and is buried in Franklin. Anybody know their families? Please.
But wait! The Strychasz cliffhanger … who inherited the house at 7216 Ivy Avenue? Maybe it’s not over for Walter’s relatives.
Are you hooked yet?
I want Strychasz photos, Schum contacts, my B-24 crew photo and my uncle’s 35 missions. I want to know why the Sunon Square Dance crew was shipping out after 30 but the radio-gunner needed 35. I’m not asking for too much, am I?
Be an Honor Hunter
They answered the call.
Will you lend your voice to one of the voiceless thousands of The Greatest Generation?
My military go-to guy, a retired SF summed it up best. “They brought back the bodies, now you bring home their stories.”
Repeat after me: if I work at it, genealogy works.
Comments
Post a Comment