Summer Shorts: A Mountain in Wales

A propeller from the "Lil Lass" memorializes the crash of a B-26 on Carn Llidi during World War II. Shirley Wetzel and Gwen Scoggins traveled to Wales for a memorial ceremony in 2005.

By Pat Browning

This is really Shirley Wetzel’s story. She writes:

“In late summer, 2003, while skimming through my hometown newspaper, the Comanche (Texas) Chief, I was surprised to see a name I recognized. A man in England, I read, had written in search of relatives of 2nd Lt. Hulbert H. Robertson, who served in the Army Air Corps in World War II. I knew that name well. Hulbert was my mother’s first husband, father of my half-sister Gwen. He died on June 4, 1943, when his B-26 Marauder crashed into a Welsh hillside. He was buried in the American Cemetery near Cambridge, England.

"Gwen was not quite two years old when her father died, too young to remember him. My dad raised her and loved her as his own, but from early on I knew that my big sister and I had different biological fathers. Her daddy was the smiling young soldier whose picture hung on the parlor wall of his parents’ old dog trot cabin in the country near Comanche.”

The “man in England” turned out to be Steve Jones, a firefighter and aviation history buff living in Port Talbot, Wales. He had spent 10 years researching World War II military aircraft crashes in southern Wales, and had copies of the accident report and other official documents that included details of the crash. He invited Shirley and Gwen to visit him, so on March 15, 2004 they flew from Houston to London, and Steve was there to meet them.

In an e-mail, Shirley told me of meeting people who remembered the crash:

“(The Lil Lass) was in heavy fog and never saw it coming -- we talked to a couple of people who'd been children at the time and remembered hearing the plane coming -- "my father heard it and said ‘that plane will never make it over the mountain’-- then there was a crash, and silence. All the farmers around ran up the mountain (a hill, really, 600 ft.) to see if they could help, but there was nothing they could do. They took the bodies down to St. Davids Cathedral as a sign of respect while waiting for the Americans to come for them.

"My mother, who never knew much more than that his plane crashed in Wales, has been so thrilled to get all this information. She had always worried that he'd been all alone high in the mountains, but that wasn't the case at all. We brought back a stone, some dirt and a few pieces of metal that's still on the hillside so she can put them under a marker in his family cemetery.”

Shirley wrote an excellent account of her visit, calling it “A Mountain in Wales.” I posted it on my blog (Morning’s At Noon) in April this year, and not a day goes by without someone from Europe (mostly the UK) landing on her story. A couple of days ago I had a visitor from Bratislava. Now there’s a name to conjure with.

Shirley’s story, with several photos, can be seen on my blog at
http://tinyurl.com/mneqjm.

Here are some moving excerpts from her visit to the Cambridge American Cemetery,where many American soldiers are buried, and to the British Museum.

***
… Arthur took us to the Memorial building, which is separated into a large museum room and a small devotional chapel. A glass wall overlooking the cemetery contains stained-glass replicas of the seals of all the states and U.S. territories represented in the cemetery. On the opposite wall are large maps depicting the Atlantic and Pacific theaters.

A magnificent mosaic by Francis Scott Bradford of Connecticut is the most striking part of the building. On the wall above the altar, the Archangel trumpets the arrival of the Resurrection and the Last Judgment. The mural continues across the entire ceiling, with depictions of World War II aircraft flying into the arms of angels. An inscription runs around the edges:

“In proud and grateful memory of those men of the United States Army Air Force Who from these friendly skies flew their final flight and met their God. They knew not the hour the day nor the manner of their passing. When far from home they were called to join that heroic band of airmen who had gone before. May they rest in peace.”

***
… the British Museum … our final stop. As we walked in, I noticed a carved panel on the front wall, a memorial to museum employees who “went from this museum and fought and fell in the war 1914-1918.” Ten names were listed. At the bottom, under the dates 1939-1945, four more names had been added.

In between was a stanza from a poem by Laurence Binyon, “The Fallen.” It captured perfectly the purpose of our journey:

“They shall grow not old/
As we that are left grow old/
Age shall not weary them/
Nor the years condemn/
At the going down of the sun/
And in the morning/
We will remember them”
***

Many thanks to Shirley Wetzel for sharing her stories, which remind us of the great debt we owe to those who paid for our freedoms.

Summer Shorts - Raised From The Dead

By Pat Browning

Three years ago I asked if anyone on the DorothyL mystery listserv knew whether a small book or journal in a pocket could deflect a bullet.

Shirley Wetzel of Comanche, Texas e-mailed me a true story of a World War II steel-covered New Testament that saved her uncle’s life.

Shirley wrote:
***
He had his steel covered N.T. in his shirt pocket when he was shot multiple times in France in WWII. He woke up in a room full of very quiet men, with a tag on his toe. A nurse heard him groaning and ran to get the doctor. Uncle had more than a bruise on his chest, but the bible did stop (a bullet) before it penetrated his chest.

When they opened (the book) it was to a verse about "the young man was raised from the dead.” My wild and rowdy uncle became a preacher after the war -- he took it as a Sign.
***

In a follow-up e-mail, Shirley told me the rest of her uncle’s story.

***
It is a favorite story in our family. There's a bit more to it -- right after my aunt told him goodbye, she found (the New Testament) in a store she was walking by. Something told her she needed to get it for him. It arrived in the last mail shipment he got before the ship sailed, and he kept it next to his heart until the day he was shot. He lost most of the possessions he'd carried with him, but the docs saved that for him.

There was one more thing that made him decide he should become a minister -- his unit was under fire, and one of his soldiers was wounded just a few feet from the others. They couldn't get to him because of heavy gunfire, but my uncle was close enough to talk to him. The young man began reciting the Lord's Prayer, calmly making his peace with death. That made a big impression on his buddies.

And one more part to (my uncle’s) story – his unit was on the way to the Battle of the Bulge, and stopped in a small French village. He parked his tank near a farmhouse and got out. A little girl saw the soldiers and starting screaming. He slowly walked over to try to comfort her, and he gave her that GI staple, a Hershey bar. Her mother came out and explained that some German soldiers had come a few days before and shot her father in front of her. My uncle's unit stayed there a few days and made friends with the villagers. On the morning he was preparing to leave, he heard a knock on the door of the tank. It was the little girl -- she took a barrette out of her hair -- probably the most prized possession she had left -- and gave it to him. It's one of the things he lost at the hospital, but he never forgot that little girl.
***

Shirley and I both have an interest in World War II and one thing led to another …

She sent me photos and material about her trip to Wales, where her mother's first husband, Lt. Hulbert Robertson, died in the crash of a B-26 Marauder bomber on June 4, 1943. The crew had left North Africa on the last leg of a flight that began in Cuba, and they were headed for an RAF base in England. They ran into fog and crashed on the coast of Wales. Shirley included a wonderfully detailed and poignant story she wrote about her trip and about the crew. I finally got the material sorted and organized and it is now on my blog.

And that is a story for tomorrow – Sunday – as part of this Fourth of July holiday weekend.