Sylvan Lucier: WWII Glider Pilot

That Old Crate: Minnesota's WWII glider

2011-06-22T19:46:00.002-06:00

We visited the project (attached below) this spring and had lunch with the workers. They have done a terrific job with it. They may leave part of the frame exposed because to see the complicated frame under the "skin" is impressive. Now they need a place to display the glider.

Another great opportunity to see a CG 4A glider will occur on Sunday, July 17, at Mountain Iron Michigan, at 2:00 pm. The small community there, once a Ford Motor company production place for the WWII gliders, raised $400,000 to build a museum for the glider.
We will be attending and hope to meet the dedicated restoration workers and folks who worked on the production line in the 1940s.

I wonder if I can trace the glider Sylvan flew in Holland or the one he died in in England, to a factory in the USA. We've tried without success to locate the source of the piece of wood from my uncle's glider given to me by the family of the eyewitness to his death.

That Old Crate

WWII Glider in Minnesota

2011-01-06T19:09:00.003-06:00

Uniform Patches, Pins, Medals Worn By Glider Pilots

2010-11-21T21:39:00.004-06:00

The glider pilot wings with the G on the shield, a refinement of the power pilot wing, has become a symbol for the work being done in uncovering and preserving the history of this large, once ignored and under appreciated group of aviators. Other soldiers worn the patches, medals and other symbols shown here and in earlier posts; only a special group of aviators wore the glider wings.

A good summary of their unique missions can be found at the web sites for the Silent Wings Museum and the WWII Glider Pilot Association noted under the blog banner.

The golden eagle was worn on Sylvan's dress uniform hat. However, on the blog banner photo above you see that Sylvan wears power wings on his hat. The photo was taken soon after he graduated from Advanced Flight School. I was told it was not exactly proper for glider pilots to wear this officer insignia, since they were warrant grade officers, but no one minded if they did.
It was entirely common for glider pilots, especially the ones trained early in the war, to co-pilot C-47s and to fly small planes.

The patches worn on the airman's sleeve can be bought at any museum gift store today. The ones you see here are the real thing, once worn by a WWII member of the 316th Troop Carrier Group! Note the bars for the Air Medal and ETO ribbon. Prior posts give their full import.

Five Star Mother Flag

2010-11-21T20:56:00.002-06:00

This small flag placed in my grandmother's window makes me thing the small pin
with blue stars, previously displayed, was worn by Sylvan because there were four brothers serving. Normally, the gold star, indicating a son killed in the war, would be placed over a blue star. In this case, Sylvan's youngest brother, still in high school, joined the army, so she placed the gold star to one side.
His brothers, Bernard, Lanny, Delphis, in the service at the time of his death, send letters home which are printed in this blog. Their service records are noted.

Medals Earned by Glider Pilots, Distinguished Unit Citation

2010-11-21T20:22:00.004-06:00

The pin, a small blue rectangle, for the Distinguished Unit Citation, as it was called in World War II, is not shown in this view of my glider pilot uncle's uniform decorations. It was awarded to units of the United States Army and the allies for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy in such a way as to set the unit apart from other units.

I believe Sylvan Lucier would have two and perhaps three Distinguished Unit Citations because he saw action in three Troop Carrier Groups at the very time they earned this award; the 313 for Sicily, the 438th for Normandy, and the 316th for Holland. The pin would be about the same size as the bars shown above and somewhat unimpressive in appearance, but hugely important. The degree of heroism required is comparable to the Air Force Cross or the Navy Cross. I have read about this Citation in a number of books about the units Sylvan serve in. He was stationed in Africa with the 313th group preparing for the invasion but his squadron's gliders were taken over by the British glider pilots. Thus Sylvan's 49th squadron (313th) did not fly the Husky (Sicilian) missions but were soon stationed in Sicily to support the invasion continuing in Italy.

The tiny wings with the propeller were earned when my uncle became a power pilot early in his training. The star in a circle are shown on the left label of Sylvan's dress uniform. I'm not sure what it indicates.

The red bordered rectangle with four stars, and the smaller one with one gold star, are something I can only guess. They may have been given by the government to my grandmother who had four sons in the war. Or perhaps Sylvan wore the four star pin on his dress uniform. The four stars remind me of a keepsake I have, called "the Mother's Flag", shown in a family's front window during WWII. My Lucier family flag has four blue stars for the four sons that served at one time, with a gold star pinned off to one side. If a mother lost a son, the gold star was pinned over one blue star. In Eva Lucier's case, she pinned it to one side because her youngest son, still in High School, joined the Army as soon as his brother died.

Sylvan had glider wings of course and I have to scan them and post it later. I will also post the picture of the small (6" by 8") Five Star Mother flag, one of the most poignant items in the collection.

Medals Earned by Glider Pilots, Orange Lanyard

2010-11-21T19:58:00.004-06:00

The Orange Lanyard of the Royal Netherlands Army. This is the highest award for valor awarded by the Netherlands Government during WWII. It is the Militaire Willems Orde Degree of Knight of the Fourth Class. Due to an oversight by the Airborne and the Army Air Corps, it took 38 years and the efforts of the WWII Glider Pilot Association to correct the error. It was presented at the National Reunion in Reno, Nevada in 1982, by the Netherlands Military Attache on behalf or her Majesty, the Queen of the Netherlands.

George Theis, Treasurer of the National WWII Glider Pilot Association, recently sent me this award given by the Government of Holland, because he knows I want every fact documented about my uncle's participation in the war and what his sacrifice meant to other. The lanyard came with a card attached:

The Orange Lanyard is presented to the Glider Pilots of the IX Army Air Force Troop Carrier Command in recognition of their participation in the airborne operations and subsequent combat actions of Operation Market Garden.

Medals Earned by Glider Pilots, Air Medal

2010-11-21T19:19:00.004-06:00

I can thank our friend Chuck Foreman, Wing I Commander of the National World War II Glider Pilots Association, for gifted me with this beautiful medal that I had sought on Sylvan Lucier's behalf for quite some years! My husband and I spent time with Chuck and glider pilot Don Manke at the Pima Air Museum a year ago when he promised to obtain it for me.

I found the small gold and blue bar in my grandmother's box. It is possible the medal went missing before I received the memorabilia but I doubt that. When an awards ceremony was staged following a mission, government written orders were given with names listed. I don't know if the medal itself, or just a letter confirming the medal was handed out.

In Sylvan's case, he had died before the tiny Oak Leaf Cluster (indicating a Second Air Medal) could be given to him. Although Sylvan was stationed in Africa in 1943, preparing for an invasion of Sicily, I'm told he was not listed as a pilot or co-pilot in that mission. He would have done a lot of flying later in Sicily, was transferred to the 36th Squadron of the 316th group, and left for England in late March, 1944. So the First Air Medal could not be from the Husky (Sicilian) mission.

A document given me by 316 TCG Historian Mike Ingresano, provided proof that Sylvan was given his first Air Medal for flying a Horsa glider on D-Day in Normandy, while assigned to the 88 Squadron. I also have the document of glider pilot from the 316th group on Temporary Duty to the 88th. In a search the 88th Squadron War Diaries I found no list of glider pilots receiving an air medal. They had returned to their own group in early August, and I think air medals would have been presented by then. Once again, the frequently reassigned glider pilots are left out of reports.

In this photo I have placed the new air medal and the older bar from Sylvan's uniform on a white tea napkin embroidered by my mother in her youth. There is a tiny oak leaf cluster (which was given when the pilot earns a second air medal) on the bar as well as the ribbon now. I think there were glider pilots who earned four air medals (Normandy, Southern France, Holland and the Rhine crossing) but probably not five.

Medals Earned by Glider Pilots, ETO Ribbon

2010-11-21T18:41:00.006-06:00

When I began my research into my uncle Sylvan's time as glider pilot I had my grandmother's scrapbook of letters, photos and official papers, a few saved items like the flag from his coffin, and a small box of medals. For some reason, understanding the small pins my glider glider pilot wore was one of my first pursuits. They were a mystery to most people, even those in the research areas of aviation museums. The easy one to identify was the ETO medal with the Africa/Europe colors on the bar. But I had only the colored bar with three little stars on it. When we visited the Utah Beach museum in June 2008, on our memorial trip, my husband asked a clerk if they sold the ribbon. A very nice person made a great effort to search high and low in the storeroom. My husband spoke to her in French about Sylvan landing his Horsa in Normandy on D-Day and she was so charmed, she gave the medal to him.

When I scanned the medal I placed it on a blue silk scarf surrounded by Belgian lace. I bought the lace in 1981 in Belgian, a country liberated by the Allies. I am not sure why there were three stars on the the bar. Sylvan was in two groups (313, 316, and temporarily the 438th) as a glider pilot and was stationed in Africa, Sicily, England and flew missions in Normandy and Holland. If anyone knows what the stars mean, I would appreciate hearing from you.

WWII Glider Pilot on Hell's Highway

2010-11-10T19:06:00.012-06:00

I was recently gifted with a photo of my uncle, F/O Sylvan Lucier, found in a photo album that was donated to the Silent Wings Museum in Lubbock, Texas. It is wonderful that the album creator, a fellow glider pilot with the 316th TCG, put names on photos! It must be the last photo before my uncle died, October 13, 1944.

I am grateful to Hans den Brok, a Dutch researcher who has helped me for years, for finding this photo of my uncle. It belongs in the narrative of Sylvan's After Action Report posted earlier on this blog:
"After much confusion we finally were relieved and on Sunday, September 24, we started by motor convoy to Brussels. We ran into a German Ambush and had to wait a couple days for the road to open again. We did make it to Brussels on September 27 and flew back to home station."

With such a wonderful photograph to add to my uncle's story, I naturally was curious about where it was taken. Hans was on the trail to find the location, searching photographs of Veghel and Uden. He found a photo taken in front of that same building in Uden, in a book, Operation Market Garden, Then & Now by Karel Margry, After The Battle Publisher. The building in the far background is distinctive. It is gone today but was previously a hospital. In the same scene today there are new buildings in the background.

An earlier photo I have shows Sylvan in dress uniform, on leave in Italy, before the 316 TCG leaves Sicily for England, around March 1944. Here we see somebody very different; the glider pilot veteran of D-Day in Normandy and D-Day+1 in Holland, in the clothing of an armed combat soldier on Hell's Highway. He landed his CG-4A glider under fire; jeep, men and equipment safe, and for a few days collected para drop bundles needed by the airborne troops. Glider pilots with the United States Army were always directed to return to base quickly for another mission, but this was often not possible.With a group of 295 (I've read different numbers), all flight officers, he volunteered to fight on the front lines in order to free the paratroopers to cross the Waal River capture the Nijmegen Bridge.

(That is from the story of the Waalcrossing by the 504 Parachute Infantry Regiment [PIR], 307 Engineers.)

On 19 September at 2100, General Gavin called the 50th Wing Glider Officer, Maj. Hugh Nevins, and told him to get 295 glider pilots lined up to take the places of the 504th troopers needed for the river crossing. The GPs, bivouacked near Groesbeek, were to go into the line on the Groesbeek Heights, which was under constant attack at the time. Most of the pilots were armed with nothing heavier than .45-cal. automatics or M-1 carbines; all were volunteers. The change took place around midnight of 19 September--two GPs into each foxhole, replacing two troopers. The glider pilots would not sleep for another 36 hours.

The pilots, though they were spared a frontal attack, were under steady fire from small arms, machine guns, and hourly attacks by mortars, 88s, and the “screaming mimis” (Nebelwerfers). However, according to Maj. Nevins, “The single most devastating ordeal was lack of sleep. . . [which was] really worse than the enemy fire.” In daylight on 21 September, Maj. Nevins was checking positions overlooking Mook when he spotted eight of the formidable Tiger tanks moving in on his lines from the Reichswald. The tanks, “looking like enormous crawling prehistoric monsters, were creaking up the railroad around our right flank. If they got behind us, they would slaughter us piecemeal. Over the field phone, I alerted battalion and division command posts, asking for anti-tank support as quickly as possible. I’m sure my voice was shaking.” Within minutes, two bazooka teams appeared and began to stalk the tanks. When they had crept up within less than fifty yards of the lead tanks, they cut loose and “literally detonated the first three tanks.” The others withdrew back into the woods. When the GPs were relieved, they had suffered 12 casualties, including two killed (Dank, a, 191-93).

Sylvan with the other glider pilots had to again fight, while on "Hell's Highway" to Belgium when they attempted to return to England as ordered:

The glider pilots were put on 26 empty trucks headed for Belgium, and evacuated on 24 September. In the 101st’s sector, just south of Veghel (see “The Unknown Hero,” the convoy was ambushed by Col. Freiherr von der Heydte’s 6th Parachute Regiment. Fortunately for the glider pilots in the convoy, the GP in charge, Capt. Elgin D. Andross, Group Glider Officer of the 313th, had previously served in the infantry. At considerable risk to his own life, Andross organized his troops, who eventually fought their way out of the ambush, killing over 100 German paratroopers. Thirteen glider pilots had been casualties, and three others were captured (Devlin, 274f).

1st-Hand Accounts: D-Day in Holland: War Diary Airborne in Action Nijmegen Waal River Crossing No Time to Die Unknown Hero Return to "From the Book" Copyright © 2001-10 Charles D. Young. All rights reserved. Last modified: 23 Nov 2010

WWII Glider Pilot Reunion,Silent Wings Museum, Lubbock, Texas

2010-11-07T18:56:00.006-06:00

So much to enjoy at the Silent Wings Museum at Lubbock, Texas! It's completely renovated since the last time we visited, the year it opened. The CG-4A is compete, inside and out! Two days of visiting and I didn't have time to read all the displays. Wonderful volunteers treated everyone like royalty. There was a dedication held outside, fittingly near the bricks that memorialize the pilots Killed in Action and Killed In Line of Duty.

We spent lots of time in the hotel Hospitality Room, enjoying lunch and dinners together, gathering stories, meeting fellows we know and new ones as well, meeting the fellows from Europe who help people searching lost war information, and delighting in all the families attending with dad and grandpa. The time passed so fast, but we are happy to hear it will be in Oklahoma next year.

Reasons To Attend A WWII Reunion With Dad or Grandpa

2010-03-07T21:16:00.005-06:00

REASONS TO ATTEND A WWII REUNION WITH DAD OR GRANDPA

1. KNOWLEDGE: You will learn some important things you never knew about your parent or grandparent.

We struck up a conversation with a glider pilot and his daughter at the airport in Fayetteville in 2008. She was the last of the daughters in the family to accompany dad to his reunion. I caught up with her again a few days later and she told me she was very grateful for this time with him because there was so much she had never known about her father’s role in WWII. The outings planned for the reunions are always special, such as the World War II Museum, or being guests at an Officer’s Club for lunch. But the impromptu gatherings for breakfast, and the afternoon and evening chatter in the social center, while enjoying refreshments, is really priceless!

2. HONOR Family members present at reunions will honor their parent in the most significant way for the most important event in their life, liberating European and Pacific countries.

Traditionally, the annual reunions of various branches of WWII veterans, were attended by wartime buddies traveling together, as well as vets with their wives, and widows of vets maintaining their close friendships. Over the last three years we have seen an increase in the attendance of family members at the Troop Carrier reunion and the Glider Pilot reunion. At the Glider Pilot reunion banquet last fall in New Orleans there were 14 members of one family. As more long time organization members “take their final flight” or are unable to travel, other vets with family help are joining for the first time and new friendships are possible. The Internet has made it easier.

3. PRESERVATION You will begin the process of preserving your family history by learning the value of the WWII stories and keepsakes.

At our first reunion we had breakfast with a glider pilot who had four sons who all attended that reunion. Over the years the sons had taped all their dad’s stories, and the grandchildren all knew their grandpa’s courage. It was wonderful to meet this pilot’s four sons. What a contrast to later hear another fellow say, “My children have never shown any interest in what I did in the war.” The glider pilot was not at the reunion the following year because of his death but two of his sons were there to honor him and receive an award in his memory.

It is important to make a plan about what will happen to the papers, photos, decorations, letters and maybe a journal your parent has saved. Aviation museums state historic societies and private collectors are interested if the family’s next generation cannot care for them. They are too precious to throw away!

4. FRIENDSHIP Your spouse, father or grandparent (uncle, great uncle) will meet other veterans with similar experience and maybe the new friend(s) will lighten the ache as other buddies “make the final flight.”

I was standing a long time examining the CG-4A glider at the Airborne Museum in Fayetteville, NC, during the Troop Carrier reunion in 2008. A veteran began to talk to me about the glider. He told me he had been a power pilot, usually flying the C-47. However, for the last Glider mission, crossing the Rhine into Germany, he had been ordered to fly a glider! That fact that some power pilots flew gliders completely astonished me because I had not learned this in any glider book. Sitting on a bench nearby were a couple that became interested in our conversation. Most amazing, this was another power pilot who was ordered to fly a glider in the Rhine mission! The two fellows and their wives found out they lived not far apart and made plans to get together again. I left them beaming happily.

5. AMERICAN HISTORY If you ever hated history because it was so much memorizing of gibberish, you could come to know real history; the stories of the struggles and courage of our kinfolk, who are as important to our country’s history as colonial soldiers at Valley Forge or the State Militias at Gettysburg.

After meeting the real item, a WWII veteran, check out a book from the library about their mission and then rent a video. Also a WW II Atlas is useful. Very soon you will know much more than the average American who has retained very little from his or her American History class where typically book chapters were not relevant, personal, or tangible! When you learn a little bit more about the war, you will still be light years behind the European child who learns from grandparents and teachers why they are free today, and who annually visits an American Cemetery with flowers for an adopted American grave. Then if you step into research further you will find that some of the most helpful folk on the Internet are from the European countries our fathers defended.

6. PEACE PRAYER If you have always hated wars of any kind, you can go on hating war and you will have even greater reason. These guys, after 65 years, are sometimes still living, in their dreams, the terrible situation of riding a glider, landing behind enemy lines and seeing their buddies killed. No one hates war more than a vet who was in that action!

In the fall of 2009 in New Orleans we met a fellow who attended the reunion with his daughter, whom he lives with. He was a glider infantryman, the first I have met. He landed in a glider behind enemy lines six or seven times. That means he had to survive a gut wrenching turbulent tow from the home base, the aerial flak as they entered enemy territory, and what was usually a crash landing in a field littered with other broken gliders. He still had to escape the glider, usually under fire, and probably also unload transported materials. But that was only the beginning because until the reinforcements arrived he had to fight the enemy in same way paratroopers did when they landed. I can’t imagine doing this in repeated missions! I felt so privileged to meet him.

At my first reunion I met a C-47 pilot who knew about my uncle’s death in a personal way. We invited a couple to join our table in the small restaurant in Fort Walton Beach, FL in 2008. We learned he was a pilot with the same Troop Carrier Group as my uncle. I introduced myself and he said quietly to me, “I know about your uncle.” Later I asked if he knew the pilot who towed my uncle’s glider the day of the fatal accident. He said softly, “He was my best friend. He died last year.” It was a very emotional moment for both of us.

I then realized the shock of my uncle’s death was much larger than a long term family tragedy. The accident had deeply affected those who knew the pilot, co-pilot and mechanic in their troop carrier group. The shock of that day, including details that would never be known to his family, never left the minds of some who knew him.

While my husband and I were listening to some of the gentleman’s youthful aviation stories I told his wife it must be fascinating being married to this man. She said that he never spoke about his war experiences except at the reunions.

7. UNDERSTANDING OURSELVES If you were a baby boomer, or born a bit earlier like I was, you will understand more about yourself and your important early years growing up in post war American. Understanding your parents can be critical to your development as a person.

This is where it gets personal. When I went to college it was to study psychology. I wanted to understand why my mother left me twice while I was under five years of age and again later when I was eleven years old. I understand now that her hospitalization was due to her brother’s death and to the return of his body in 1948 for burial in his hometown. A child would not be told about such events.

Growing up with five brothers and five sisters in the 1950s we had lots of war surplus material for our fantasy play, which was also fueled by our uncle who we considered a hero. A strong memory of mine is that when we asked our gentle grandfather to tell us about our uncle, grandmother would immediately see a need for his morning nap. When I started this family research it was explained to me by an older cousin that my grandfather’s grief was so severe he had to be hospitalized. And when the body was returned for burial in 1948 that trauma was repeated. Mental illness was considered shameful and the remedies in those days were severe! The suffering of those who lose loved ones must be the heaviest cost of war. Surely the countries across Europe and Asia know this better than we Americans!

From Christmas 1945 until her death in 1995, my mother continued a Christmas peace project that she had created in her brother’s memory. She clung to her "hobby" as a way to make sense out of his death. She would start each fall after the anniversary of his death (as I learned later) and work for two months mailing reminders to thousands of people to celebrate brotherhood and world peace at Christmas. After the 50th anniversary of D-Day I happened to ask her to tell me about her brother. She sent me to her closet to bring out a treasure! She had never been able to look at the scrapbook my grandmother had made of her son's, Sylvan Lucier's, pilot training, assignments and other memorabilia. My mom and I read the many pages together and that started the journey I’ve been on to reconstruct my uncle’s life.

Pima Air Museum, Spring 2009

2010-02-17T18:08:00.006-06:00

An interesting sequel to our April 2009 museum visit was watching my husband Al fly his hand launch radio controlled glider. The rain and wind that day, never friendly to glider pilots, let up just in time for Don and Chuck to watch the glider catch a thermal and fly about 500 feet over the dessert.

My husband and I were given a tour of the Pima Air and Space Museum by Chuck Foreman and Don Manke during a vacation trip to Arizona in April, 2009. Because of my husband's life long interest in aviation, and my much shorter interest in WWII gliders, we visit aviation museums whenever we can.

We attended our first WWII Glider Pilot Reunion in Dayton, Ohio, in 2008 and met the organization leader, George Theis. Last spring George kindly put us in touch with Chuck and Dan, association members who live in Phoenix. The two gentlemen took us to the Pima Museum to see the glider exhibit, the training gliders and Chuck's own plane. The small glider exhibit today has a CG-4A glider cockpit with every feature of the original, thanks to volunteers Chuck and Don.

Later we enjoyed the many stories told around the sandwich shop table. Chuck heard that I didn't have the Air Medals my uncle earned for Normandy and Holland, although I did have the documentation. He promised to send them to me and he did just that, so the glider pilot decorations will be the subject of a future log. My husband and I appreciate the friendship and help Chuck and Dan gave us at the museum an last fall at the WWII glider Pilot reunion in New Orleans.

Our first visit to the Pima Air and Space Museum was in 1997 a few years after I received the scrapbook my grandmother had made of my uncle's WWII glider pilot memorabilia. Knowing absolutely nothing about cargo gliders, my interest was captured by the wall photographs and especially the partial CG-4A displayed at the museum. Seeing the egg shell fragile cockpit of a Waco glider such as the one my uncle piloted, led me to want to know more. Flight Officer Sylvan Lucier died in a glider accident shortly after returning from the Holland mission called Market Garden. My research began because of my 1997 visit to this museum and I continue today to seek details of his life from January 1942 to October 1944. What a transformation for a quiet 25 year old accountant to become a highly experienced glider pilot and a survivor of D-Day in France and D-Day+1 in Holland!

In 1997 the Pima Air Museum had no books on gliders. I found some used books on the internet and spoke by phone to Rex Shama, author of Pulse and Repulse. Rex's book is about all the eight glider missions including his experiences in the 49th Squadron of the 313 Troop Carrier Group. He confirmed for me that Sylvan was in one of the earliest glider training programs in 1942 and in 1943 he was assigned to the 49th squadron stationed in Africa and then in Sicily. In my earlier blog there are some photographs from that period.

Rex Shama, however, could not confirm for me the family stories that Sylvan had been in D-Day or Market Garden. He did not know what assignment Sylvan was given after leaving the 49th Squadron in Sicily. I reached a dead end. It took my examination of a returned V-mail, to learn about his transfer to the 36th Squadron. My grandmother's scrapbook carried little documentation to aid my research until the occasion of his death nine months later!

To see a complete CG-4A, our trip a few years later was to the Silent Wings Museum in Terrill, Texas. There we donated a copy of Sylvan's glider pilot memorabilia and bought more books. Some years later we visited the Silent Wings Museum in its new home in Lubback, Texas. This is where the 2010 Glider Pilot Reunion will be held.

Glider & Troop Carrier Reunions & Conferences in 2010

2010-02-09T17:28:00.006-06:00

WWII Glider Symposium
Contact: Charles Day
gliderman.one@verizon.net
September 9-11, 2010
Place: Madison, Wisconsin
Marriott Madison West
1313 John Q. Hammons Dr.
Middleton, Wisc.

WWII Glider Pilot Association
Contact: George Theis
WW2GP@aol.com
(Includes Affiliates Members)
October 7-9, 2010
Place: Silent Wing Museum
Lubbach, Texas

Troop Carrier Community
(Ten or more groups together.)
Contact: Mark Durivage
mdurivage@hotmail.com
November 11-14, 2010
Place: Detroit, Michigan

2009 Glider Pilot Reunion

2010-01-06T20:21:00.004-06:00

Glider Pilot Christmas Greeting, 1942, Dalhart TX

2009-12-20T14:21:00.003-06:00

Of the many cards my uncle F/O Sylvan Lucier sent home,
this Christmas card with Glider Pilot wings is most meaningful!
My best wishes to WWII veterans gathered with families this week,
and my prayer for peace to those service persons today separated from family.
To those who have lost loved ones, light a candle and talk about the love that lives on.

Glider Cockpit Photo Shows Load Adjuster Stick below instrument panel

2009-11-13T18:08:00.005-06:00

Charles Day, author, writes me about the stick given me from my uncle's crashed glider. The arrow points to one end, the leather case of the load adjuster mounted on he stick, is behind the red knob.
The problem with comparing your stick to the museum gliders is that they all have been rebuilt and none are original wood parts.

Your stick is from a Pratt Read glider. Some of their wood components were made by Steinway. In any case, I theorize that the finish of your stick potentially was done (and maybe not standard to all production of P-R or Steinway) only on P-R gliders. That is, Ford, WACO or NW and others did not necessarily finish the stick that well.

Because the stick was bolted to a special bracket welded to the steel tubing of the nose and was loose on the other end, I still believe the function of the stick was a guide for fitting up the wood nose assembly to the steel. Being P-R made piano keys and piano hammers and the linkages to the keys, they had some men who were real craftsmen with wood, as did Steinway.

Henry Z. Steinway was an Associate member of the WWII Glider Pilot Association. He passed away in September 2008. His widow said he always enjoyed getting the newsletter telling the stories about the gliders. I am not sure what his position was, what with the Steinway brothers, uncles, etc.

Charles Day and I would appreciate learning more details of that particular piece of wood and why my uncle's glider had a unusually shaped and finished stick.

Free Verse Inspired by Glider Pilots at Reunion

2009-11-13T17:28:00.014-06:00

VETERANS

These gallant men of nearly ninety hold the memory
Of the repeated disaster we call war,
And of the brothers in arms who sleep in lands they liberated,
Like Italy, France, Belgium and Holland.

On Veterans Day in Florida,
A glider co-pilot makes a call to a special friend,
Bringing the news of another final flight, about to be taken......

In Baton Rouge, a daughter and mother share tears while reading my blog.
Her dad never spoke of the dangers he faced flying gliders,
His many brushes with death, his good friends who didn't come back,
Like my uncle, Sylvan Lucier.
.
Later we'll have books to read and write,
And for a while yet, we have these humble gallant men.

By Anne Nephew

Market Garden Glider Pilot Report

2009-09-07T22:48:00.010-06:00

MARKET GARDEN MISSION, INTERROGATION REPORT

OF F/O SYLVAN R. LUCIER

Less than a month before my uncle Sylvan Lucier’s death he was involved in a very dangerous glider mission which involved being towed across the English Channel from his 316 Troop Carrier home base of Cottesmore, England. The purpose of the airborne mission was to bring men and supplies to Holland in the arial portion of Operation Market Garden. Sylvan’s 36^th Squadron towed gliders on September 18, D-Day plus one.

Sylvan’s Glider Number in this Holland mission was 43-41701. It was kindly provided by Hans den Brok of Holland, when I was designing the glider etched on my uncle’s grave marker. (See the earliest post.) I am not sure, but Hans may have also provided my uncle’s Interrogation Report.

Unlike other glider tows and missions, the one to Holland had pilots flying without a co-pilot! This required tremendous physical effort for more than three hours to keep the glider in the proper relationship to its tow plane while dealing with turbulence from the ocean and from the C-47 prop. Landing was also far more perilous than the many training landings Sylvan had made and those were perilous enough. Previously I wrote about a landing accident Sylvan had with a CG 4-A at the advanced glider training at Dalhart, Texas, in January 1943.

Below is an exact copy made of the report Sylvan gave when he returned to England nine days later. Perhaps Sylvan making a less than perfect landing during training at Dalhart was useful in handling his damaged glider in Holland. Even better experience was his “successful” landing of a Horsa glider on D-Day in Normandy three months earlier.

____________________________________

AFTER ACTION REPORT. MARKET GARDEN HOLLAND Auth: CO. 316th TCG

FORM G/P 1 TROOP CARRIER MISSION Date: 28 September 1944

INTERROGATION CHECK SHEET G/PILOTS Initials: JJM

A. GENERAL INFORMATION

Name: Sylvan R. Lucier Rank F/0 ASN T-120666

Group 316 SQ. 36 Glider Serial 2 Type CG-4A

F.O. No. 4 Serial A52 LZ T Take off time 12:35 18 Sept. 44

Time over target: 15.45 Time and Date Ret. To Home Station 15.15 Sept. 27

B. ENEMY ACTION ENROUTE TO TARGET:

1. Type of attack: (Air, Naval, Flak) small arms & flak

2. Enemy A/C Sighted: Where _______None_________

3. Enemy Naval Craft Sighted: Where __None___

C. ENEMY INFORMATION:

1. A/A Activity:

a. Amount of Fire: __Weak__________Moderate_____X______Intense________

b. Accuracy:____Accurate____X_________Inaccurate__________

c. Type: Heavy _____flak__________AutomaticWeapons___

Small arms____X_____What calibre_______

Location____________________________

2. Other Weapons Used by Enemy Enroute: Type______________

Accuracy______________Intensity___________Location______________

D. DETAILS OF LANDING:

1. What approach did you take:

2. Obstacles in Field: none

3. Enemy Fire on Landing: heavy fire from machine guns and 20 mm guns

4. What kind of landing did you make: good

5. Damage to Glider: left aileron almost gone due to flak

6. Personnel Casualties: none

7. Damaage to Loads: right tire and fender shot up on jeep

8. Reactions of A/B during flight and in unloading: performed duies ok although very scared

9. Number of gliders in field with you: about 15

10. Precise location of field by coordinates: 51degrees 42’ N, 6 degrees E

11. Was “T” visible: No Give its location: __________

12. Difficulties in Evacuation: There was no organization and it was very difficult to get out for that reason.

E. SUGGESTIONS AND CRITICISM OF PERSONAL EQUIPMENT:

1. Weapons; ok

2. Other equipment: “There is need for clothing with more pockets. More rations.”

F. SUGGESTIONS REGARDING GLIDER OPERATIONS AND TRAINING:

G. DETAILS:

1. Locating Target: Never saw it

3. Lights and Signals: OK

4. Other Operational D

5. Preflight preparation and briefing: adequate

Summary: In your own words write a narrative of your part in the operations from time of take-off till time of return to your unit.

We took off from home field at 12:35 Sept. 18 – flight was normal until we reached the coast and received small arms fire – about 50 miles from the coast we ran into Flak which tore a large hole in left aileron being off course we landed about 7 miles south of LZ (landing zone). We were pinned to ground by enemy fire but managed to get our equipment out when several B-24's flew over and draw all enemy fire. We joined a large group of other glider men at a farmhouse where we organized to walk through the German lines to our proper CP (command post). We walked from 8 PM to about 7 AM having to do a lot of patrol work. I helped to collect equipment bundles for a couple of days and later had to go to the front line as a reserve force. After much confusion we were finally relieved and on Sunday, September -24 we finally started by motor convoy to Brussels. We ran into a German ambush and had to wait for a couple days for the road to open again . We did make it to Brussels on Sept. 27 and flew back to home station.

Signature of Evacuee Sylvan R. Lucier

Signature Interrogator J. Milder

Rank 1st Lt. Section S-2

_______________________________________

The mission known as Market Garden is probably more famous than D-Day in Normandy, due to the best seller book and movie, “A Bridge Too Far.” The tragedy of the great losses of British and Polish air borne troops in Eindhoven, due to the delay of reinforcements from either air or ground is well known. The airborne phase of the Market Garden Mission was called “Market”. It involved British (including Polish) and United States paratroopers and men brought in behind enemy lines by gliders. The airborne purpose was to secure a crossing on the Rhine River between Arnhem, Holland and Wesel, Germany. Nijmegen-Arnhem area was chosen and it was more than 50 miles behind the German front. In between were seven canals and rivers at which the Germans might be able to hold. The first flights were September 17, 1944. Sylvan’s solo trip was D-Day + 1. It was a success because he delivered the cargo and evacuated, with the 100 some other pilots, as glider pilots were expected to do, but after completing other tasks given to them.

Derwood Basham Photograph

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Glider Mechanic, Derwood Basham

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About a year ago I received an email from Steven Owen regarding his great uncle, glider mechanic Derwood Basham who died in the same accident that took my uncle's life October 13, 1944 in Tiffield England. No doubt the blog I created for my uncle brought us together. I have sent Steven and his mother every piece of information I have about the glider accident and sent a DVD of our interviews with the local people who remember the tragic crash. The kindness of the people of Tiffield and the museum and cemetery staff has meant a lot to Steven and his mother, as it has to me.

I am going to post, with Steven's permission, some information received about Derwood. I will continue to follow what leads I can find about the role of the glider mechanics so I can later improve the telling of Derwood's contribution to the WWII glider missions. I must assume that Derwood was in the glider that fateful day because he had constructed the new gliders that were being towed that day. They were needed after the loss of so many gliders in the Holland mission. He was probably joining the 36th Squadron to continue the maintenance of gliders.

According to Steven Owen, his grandmother, Thelma Basham Brown, was very close to her brother and never recovered from his loss. Derwood was one of ten children. He was extremely close to his mother. On his last visit home he had great distress over returning to duty. "I feel possibly he had a premonition of what was to come. I don't know for sure," wrote Steven. Derwood's mother, Ollie Crowder Basham, was devastated by his death. He was engaged to be married after his discharge from military service. "I doubt she ever recovered from the loss; As a child she gave to me before her death Derwood's coins he collected while abroad and they mean a great deal to me today," says Steven.

Derwood was born January 19, 1919, in Roanoka,Virginia. He was stationed in Tennessee. Steven has not been able to locate more information about his service. Today he is buried at Sherwood Cemetery in a family plot in Salem Va. He was first buried in England and Steven thinks the family paid to have him brought back. Today he has two surviving sisters, one in Salem and one in Baltimore MD. Steven writes, "Most of his siblings lived to be over 90 so it is a pity he died so young. He started as an apprentice to my great grandfather in his own plumbing business until he entered the military. My great grandfather I'm told as well, gave up after the death. He sold his business and a farm and was never quite himself after losing his son."

All this sounds so much like the story of my Uncle Sylvan's family life. Some day, after I have written what I know and constructed from books what I don't know, about Sylvan Lucier's nearly three years as a glider pilot, I will share the bits of his personal life story.

In The Company of Eagles, World War II Glider Pilots gather in Dayton, Ohio, October 2008, for their annual reunion.

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June Trip to Normandy and Holland

2008-12-15T22:41:00.002-06:00

NORMANDY & HOLLAND MEMORIAL TRIP, 2008
17 Days and Four Sites, June 5 – June 21

Introduction:
Our first destination was the D-Day celebration at Ste Mere Eglise, the town near the field where Sylvan Lucier landed his Horsa glider June 6, 1944. We arrived one day in advance to scout the area and plan our visits to various events. My husband emailed our five adult children the details of our four days in Normandy. The edited contents follow:

We arrived in France, on Thursday June 5th and drove to St. Lo, which, by the way, was pretty well flattened in the war because it is a key crossroads. After they were chased out of here many of the Germans escaped to the east through what is called the Falaise pocket because Montgomery wasn't able to close the trap there. The Germans had to leave just about everything behind, including tanks, artillery, vehicles, ammo, but they got out and lived to fight another day. One museum has a blurb about this that points out that after 25 German generals had to surrender at Stalingrad, Hitler looked bad to his own people, speculating that a similar total defeat at Normandy could have meant the end of Hitler's hold on power. Too bad they couldn't close the Falaise pocket.

STE MERE EGLISE ON D-DAY 2008
Friday, June 6 we went straight to Ste. Mere Eglise and spent the day there having found a parking spot right in the middle of things. We took photos and video and appreciated the glider museum there with its CG4-A, photographed the statement by the German soldier who thought John Steele was dead as he hung in his parachute harness having gotten caught on one of the points sticking up from the base of the steeple at the top of the main part of the church. John showed that playing possum can be just as important in life as showing up sometimes (you probably know the saying that 90% of success in life is due to just showing up).

We took many photographs and videotaped as we walked around the square and the encampment where French reinactors were performing drills and enjoyed showing their US military vintage clothing and machinery. It seemed strange to see hundreds of GI uniformed French together and not find even one American participant. Our veterans wear civilian clothes and blend into the crowd. If you want to meet the real participants of that fateful day, attend a WWII reunion in the US! After a wreath laying ceremony the French National Anthem was sung and looking at the faces of young and old French citizens, we knew what this June 6 celebration is all about. It was their day, not ours.

Late in the afternoon we went to Utah Beach where a ceremony was taking place. Time was too limited to enter the museum. In the gift shop Anne bought a French and English book about gliders, Les Planeurs Americains du Jour J, and an ETO medal to go with Sylvan Lucier's incomplete medal collection. The following September we would meet the French author, Philippe Esvelin, at the Glider Pilot Reunion in Dayton, Ohio.

After the ceremony we walked on that vast beach in the twilight and felt humbled to be there on the stage of such significant events 64 years ago. Anne collected a few slipper shells of which there were a vast amount, for her school children who would hear her stories about this hallowed ground.

Later in these pages are comments about food, housing and language experiences in France.

MERVEILLE BATTERY, UNVEILING OF THE C-47, “SNAFU SPECIAL”
Saturday the 7th we got going kind of late and didn't get to the ceremony at the Omaha Beach cemetery, but just after it. We spent quite a bit of time there looking up names of glider pilots who died in the invasion and then photographing their grave markers, then made our way to Merveille and to the Merveille Battery, where the ceremony was held to unveil the C-47 that flew paratroopers into Normandy.

The Merveille Battery, had been a German gun emplacement that was part of the “Atlantic Wall” that Hitler had had constructed, for the C-47 ceremony, which was very interesting especially because a C-47 in authentic colors from WWII came flying over and some parachutests jumped out in reenactor gear. They evidently had a lot of fun, and so did the crowd.

The C-47 that was to be unveiled survived the war, having been in many actions, then was bought by the Czechoslovakian air line where it carried passengers for many years, then was bought by the French air force, then sold to the Jugoslav air force where it received some damage when parked at Sarajavo during the Jugoslavian war and there it sat. It was discovered in 2007 by some folks who were looking for a C-47 and they were pleased to find out that this one was the “SNAFU SPECIAL,” with its illustrious career in the war.

In case you don't know, SNAFU is a term thought up by the typically irreverent American soldier and as I learned when I was a kid, means “Situation Normal—All Fouled Up.” When I was 12 I won a trophy at a free flight contest in Spokane flying a plane with another irreverent name—FUBAR, which I learned means “Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition.” Speaking of Spokane, I noted from one of the maps at one of the museums that the routes the C-47s flew as they approached Normandy and when they went back to England had city names from the US. For instance you would be told to follow route Chicago in and Spokane out. This was to minimize midair collisions, always a looming problem when you have lots of planes in the are in a relatively small area and less developed air traffic control than we have in the world nowadays.

After the ceremony a C-47 in WWII invasion colors and stripes flew over and after a few passes started dropping parachutists. This was very entertaining. We got photos and video, and Mom met a guy with the Glider Museum in Texas and they had a great sharing of information. (At a troop carrier reunion held in Fayetteville NC the following October we were delighted to meet a pilot of the Snafu Special. We gave him a video of the unveiling ceremony in which he was an important participant. We also met the mayor of the nearby village who attended the reunion with her young son. Al had a great time helping him fly the flight simulator set up in the hospitality room by the local air base who hosted the reunion.)

AMERICAN AND BRITISH CEMETERIES IN NORMANDY
Sunday, June 8, before we left to drove to Paris, we visited a Liberation Museum in Bayeux and the Bayeux Tapestry Museum shop. At the British Normandy Cemetery, where we found the grave of English Glider Pilot W.K. Marfleet, who died June 6th at the age of 24. Marfleet is the uncle of author Stephen Wright, author of “The Last Drop, Operation Varsity” who contacted Mom through her website. We photographed the cross with the uncle's name on it and the surroundings and the monuments and so on and she will email the photos to him. He was a British glider pilot and his nephew had evidently not been able to get over to visit his grave. There were French families at that cemetery, too, along with a large contingent of British people who came on buses and some of whom were obviously veterans of WWII. French families and school children as well as Dutch ones adopt graves of people in the Allied armies who died in the war and are buried in their country. Incidentally, we found out at the US cemetery at Omaha Beach (Colleville sur Mer) that only the US has a policy of returning the bodies of dead service people to their hometown or area if the relatives request it. Most US families have requested it. At Bayeux there were also hundreds of German graves, most of them with names unknown.

At the Colleville sur Mer (Normandy American Cemetery is its official name) cemetery the day before, near Omaha Beach, we had looked up all the names of US glider pilots who had died in Normandy on or soon after D-Day. There is a computer at the cemetery that makes this easy. You can find out where anyone who is buried in any US military cemetery anywhere in the world (and there are a lot of them) is buried. Of the 44 Glider Pilot names we had, 14 were buried in the Normandy Am. Cemetery, and Mom photographed their grave markers, crosses for all but two and Stars of David for those two. We also took photos of various other aspects of the cemetery, which is very impressively designed, kept up, and staffed. Mom will share the photos with the glider people she knows, including the Silent Wings museum in Texas.

ADVICE FOR AMERICANS MAKING A MEMORIAL TRIP TO EUROPE

1. TRAVEL BY TRAINS IN EUROPE
Monday, June 9
This is being written on the train from Roosendaal to Nijmegen (pr. nyemegen), Holland, where we will get off and then make our way somehow to Ooij (pr. “oy”), where we have a hotel from which we will tour the interesting places in the area, many of them having to do with the glider scene in WWII. Enthusiasts here have evidently located the exact landing spots of all the gliders, along with lots of other important information, and one Jan Bos, who will be showing us around, is one of the enthusiasts, having written a book about the planes that towed the gliders and brought the paratroopers.

An aside: a kid just got up and left the train wearing a T-shirt that said some brand name and the legend “Destroyed Jeans since 1986,” and under that “Revolution.” Incidentally, this train does not provide announcements in English the way the two previous ones did, but this one is headed for the Dutch provinces, where they don't suppose many English or French speakers go. The TGV had all announcements in French, Dutch, German and English, in that order, then the train from Brussels to Amsterdam had them in French, Dutch and English. By the way, the TGV doesn't seem to be going so fast until you parallel a freeway (or tollway) and realize that you are going at least twice as fast as the fastest car on that road, even when there is fairly open traffic. We have encountered an American woman on this train who is from Milwaukee and is here for some work in Nijmegen.

2. TRAVEL BY CAR IN FRANCE
On Thursday June 5, we arrived in good order, got our car and drove to St. Lo, an interesting drive. The French autoroutes, which are toll roads, have two speed limits, depending on if it is raining or not. If it is the limit is 110 kph = about 65mph, but if not it is 130 kph, or about 77 mph. Quite a few people drive 140, or about 83, and some very few even faster than that, but only occasionally because the right lane moves at about 110, the left at 120-130, and there aren't many open spaces between cars to go faster for very long. There are lots of rest areas called “aires” with toilets and other essentials. The toilets are the “hole on the floor” type at these rest areas, but all the other toilets we have encountered have been very nice, with most of them having two buttons for flushing, one for a small flush.

3. OUR NORMANDY RESIDENCE, JUNE 5-9,
Lots is being done in France for saving energy and resources, including plenty of recycling and our first hotel, Best Hotel (actually like a US motel), on the outskirts of St. Lo, had a slot in the wall just inside the door for the plastic card room key to enable the lights in the room to work. Thus, when you leave the room and take the key, the lights and the TV go off, but not the outlets, so your batteries will continue to charge. This was helpful to us because we were charging batteries a lot, using the adapter we bought at the G2G (Gadgets to Go) store on the center mall at MSP. All our chargers take 110 to 240 volts, so the higher voltage in Europe doesn't blow them. The motel also has motion detecting lights in the halls, which go on when you walk into the hall—otherwise there is a very low level of lighting in the hall. This motel is a new one, with heated floor and an interesting shower. If you turn the right knob on only, nothing comes out, but it controls the temperature of the left knob, which otherwise is full hot. The room has two little sub-rooms, one for the toilet only (the WC), the other for the sink (lavatory) and the shower. There are no screens on the windows, but they do open. The motel provides a nice breakfast for 6.90 euros, about $11. There is a flat screen TV on the wall that always turns on to a station with what looks like soap operas on it when we return and put the card on the wall slot if the maid was the last person in the room. There are only French stations on the TV, sometimes showing American movies dubbed in French, and they have a French version of “I want to be a Millionaire,” with the same music as the American one.

4. EATING IN EUROPE
Food at restaurants here is costly, as everything is, because of the low dollar. Today at the railroad station in Brussels we went to the Mr. Quick, which names everything in English, and had a King Fish burger thing plus fries and a drink for 5.50 apiece = $8.80. Last evening we went to the only place open in the area near our hotel near Paris of the same brand as the one in St. Lo (Best Hotel), and paid about 20 \ = $32 for each entree (using the US meaning of that term, but it means appetizer or starter in the French usage—we didn't have any starters). The place was a sort of disco joint with continuous loud dancing music, lots of dancing, drinking (but no one seemed drunk), everyone friendly and the place open to 3 AM Wed. through Sun. nights.

5. GETTING ALONG WITH THE FRENCH LANGUAGE
Quite a few, mostly younger, people in France speak a bit of English, but we have only encountered a couple of French people who speak much of it, and those were a translator with a strong British accent at Ste. Mere Eglise dressed as a reenactor (a woman named Catherine), and a girl behind the desk at the American cemetery at near Omaha Beach. Most French who speak any English have an American accent rather than a British one (you can often choose what accent you want when you sign up to study English in France, and most people choose American, I've heard). You run into quite a few younger people who are behind desks or are servers at restaurants (including the Buffalo Grill near our St. Lo motel), who know a bit of English, but only a bit. When you try them out further you have to quickly go to French because they seem only to know English numbers and such words as “what would you like” and “would you like your bill” and “thank you.” As far as explaining things such as what the dishes are or how to get somewhere, they are not very often much help in English.

The fun thing about knowing a bit of French, however, is that you are immediately loved by all French people we have encountered ever. They will go the extra 5 miles for you if you ask their assistance at anything. I have been surrounded by French people helping me with a map and directions to places or one young guy who spent at least 15 minutes with me, though he was also interested in where I was from and spoke a smattering of English (but not enough to get the giving-directions job done).

The other evening we were looking for evidence of glider-remembrance monuments or plaques near Landing Zone W, where Uncle Sylvan landed his glider, and stopped at a village called Chef du Pont and went into a hotel-bar-restaurant for something to drink and to ask questions. The owner and his wife, whom he fetched from their room in the place (she spoke English quite well, but we had to use a lot of French too—he didn't speak any English, and he spent most of the evening with us), were very interested in talking with us and we found out a lot from them. They didn't know (nor did anyone else in the bar) anyone in the area named Neveu or Lucier (or Lussier), but they said there was a family down the road named Leneveu (one word), which would mean “The Nephew.”

A GLIDER PILOT STORY ABOUT NORMANDY LANDING

I have been unable to find the Interrogation Report given by my glider pilot uncle who was on temporary assignment with the 88th squadron to fly a Horsa glider on D-Day with the Elmira section of that great airbourne armada. It perhaps does not exist, and since Sylvan died four months later, he never told his story unless it was in letters to his brothers or friends. At some point I will have to reconstruct it from books I have read.

We got a story some years ago from a guy in Texas named Ike Abernathy at the Glider Museum there, about how his glider pilot buddy who was night blind (Ike took the eye tests in his place) thought on D-Day a chateau was a field and flew his glider smack into the first floor (second floor to us), right through the wall, without hurting anyone in the glider. 15 American soldiers in Rommel's headquarters, but Rommel in Germany for his anniversary or something like that, not having expected an invasion at that time. All his guard of 30 men were drunk and sprawled around the ground floor as Ike found out when he entered the place through the front door after he had landed his glider successfully between a row of Rommel's Asparagus poles, what with having great night vision himself, and helping the three guy he had in his glider roll out the artillery piece they had brought. He went upstairs and told the guys up there to take the men downstairs prisioner, which they did, and he and his buddy went up to the next floor to find Rommel's aide waiting for someone to come and get him and send him to a POW camp. Then Ike and his buddy went to tell someone is authority about the treasure trove of papers in Rommel's office, and went on for further adventures.

HOLLAND MEMORIAL VISIT: TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS DURING BUS STRIKE
Tuesday, June 10, 2008.
Monday we took a cab from the train station to the wrong hotel. I had called our hotel to ask them how to get there and was told cab and I asked what company and she said Hoffman so I asked her if she would order up a cab to take us there and she said sure, so a cab showed up in due time and we got in and he took us to a hotel with a name that begins with Ooij, but longer, but everyone calls it the Ooij. Well how could I know this and why didn't the woman at the desk tell them which hotel? There is a printed item on her desk specifying the Hoffman cab company, and no doubt they get a kickback, so what's up? Anyway he had to come back and get us and take us to the right place.

If the buses weren't on strike we would be able to go everywhere, and I mean everywhere on either bus or train, and the rest of the Dutch ride bikes. There are thousands of bikes parked across the street from the train station and lots of them parked lots of other places and lots of people riding bikes everywhere. You have to watch out if you're on foot for your own safety, for bikes are silent and fast, and there are special bike lanes on just about every busier road, so you have to keep your wits about you. Tomorrow Mom wants to rent bikes (our hotel rents them) and ride around here, which is a lovely area, with farms and dikes and cows and sheep and water, including ponds and creeks and rivers, and geese and swans and hawks. But tomorrow it will rain, they say. So far we have had nothing but sunny, just about perfect weather the whole trip, and no rain except for a few seconds while driving from Paris to Normandy.

GETTING AROUND NIJMEGEN IN A “TUXI”-A KIND OF RICKSHAW
Today we got up relatively early, had a fine breakfast here at the hotel in Ooij, and wondered how to get into town, what with the high cost of cabs and the bus drivers on strike. On a table at the entrance to the breakfast room was a card advertising a Tuxidrive.nl outfit, and we wondered what it was—the card was in Dutch and not very clear anyway. So I phoned. Of course the guy spoke good English and we arranged for him to come and get us. He goes around and picks up people who want to go places and takes them there, but he doesn't have a van, he has a little, three-wheeled rickshaw-like thing powered by a noisy little engine and a pair of handlebars for driving. It's brand new and blue and white and kind of a hoot. Open in the passenger seat, it's like the tuktuks he had seen in Thailand, or heard about. Originally they come from Italy and now are made in India, but Italy too, which is where he gets his. His business started a week ago and it going great guns already.
After we got back from out train trip today I tried to phone him from the pay phone in the train station, but it wouldn't let his number be contacted—I still don't understand why, though he had some reason I guess—so we went into the train ticket office to ask the woman there, who didn't have any customers, if she could explain it. She couldn't, but phoned him for me, and after I had ordered him up to get us and he said he'd be there in 15 minutes, she wanted to know what it was about, and we told her, and she had been to Thailand and loved the tuktuks and rode them all over Bangkok, and had seen one of his a few days ago and now knew what it was and took down his phone number so she could tell train riding arrivals and others about this alternative to the taxis, which she allowed were awfully expensive. It was lots of fun talking with her.
The guy with the Tuxi told us that NL has gone to a private medical insurance system from a single payer system run by the government.They were unhappy with that previous system and wanted more efficiency and lower costs due to competition, he said. He himself pays about 300\ a month for his family of himself, his wife and their 2.7 kids, and the government pays the premiums for poor people (of which there can't be too many in the NL, rich a country as it is—my guess). He also said that the vast number of Nederlanders are for Obama and do not like Bush and didn't from the beginning. Everyone here is intensely interested in the US elections, as usual, perhaps even more this time.

CROSSING THE BRIDGE TOO FAR
So earlier today we had bought train tickets to Oosterbeek and took the train there (actually two since we had to change trains at Arnhem) to see the Airborne Museum. It is really touching to see how much the Dutch and all Nederlanders appreciate being saved from the Nazis, whom they refer to simply as the Germans (and get along with them really well now, of course). Over 150,000 Nederlanders were killed during the occupation, and more in the war that chased the Germans out, but they don't hold anything against their savers, just the occupiers, unlike the Hungarians, who beat to death American pilots who parachuted from their stricken planes for killing some of them and destroying houses, etc., in the process of getting the Germans out. Ingrates. Meanwhile the Dutch and other Nederlanders, like the guy we met 27 years ago in the campground in Friesland, sheltered Allied soliders and aircrews at the risk of their own lives, for if the Germans caught you doing that they executed you and your whole family. Also, the Dutch rioted before the war in at least two cities against German restrictions and atrocities against the Jews, and put up a strong resistance to German treatment of Jews, including moving them to ghettos, making them wear yellow stars of David, etc., and shipping them off to evident death. The Germans came down hard on the Dutch when they put on these demonstrations, and of course eventually put them down, and a stop to them. Then the Dutch starved during the war. We met a couple on the train who were about our age and the man was not well able to walk. Mom wondered if he had suffered maldevelopment because of starvation during the war as our friend Klaus Jankovski had in eastern Germany. So we spent many hours at the museum and Mom got lots of photos of stuff connected with gliders and bought several books and a shoulder patch Uncle Sylvan would have worn. But we still haven't found an Air Medal such as he was given for his service as a flyer. In due time we will find one.

TRAINS, TRAINS EVERYWHERE
The train trip cost us 8\ apiece and it was fun to ride the trains. Trains run every half hour between these cities and most or all the cities of these countries and many between countries (a TGV from Paris Nord to Brussels every hour, for instance, all of them, evidently full, at least in second class. On one of the legs of our trip from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Nijmegen we got on the first class car of one train, the first one after the TGV. It had a #1 on it, but that meant nothing to me, since I supposed all the cars had different numbers or whatever. It was nice, but I didn't recognize that because I didn't know the difference between first and second class. I did notice that there weren't many passengers on it, but that didn't mean anything either. Then along came the conductor, a nice woman with very good English (this in in Belgium, but the train is headed for Amsterdam, though we were to get off fairly soon in the Netherlands to switch to another train to Nijmegen). When we give her our tickets she tells us that we are in the first class car but have paid for second class. We can move or pay the difference. Mom wants to move, but I don't want to move all that luggage, and anyway I like it in first class, and it only costs 7\ each, so I gave the guy she summoned a credit card and he did the charge right there. On the international trains or long distance trains they checked tickets, but they never did today. We could have gotten on and ridden for free, though of course there are conductors on them checking and punching tickets, but they don't get to everyone, especially those on for only five or 20 minutes as we were. The intercity trains are electric, quiet, fast, comfortable, convenient. But there are 14 million Nederlanders in the space of, I think, St. Louis county or so—so they can finance such a train system.
June 11, 2008, Ooij (pr. "oy"), Holland, the Netherlands. This town is 7 km = 4 miles E of Nijmegen (pr. "nye-maygen," with the g coughed instead of a hard g), and about 3 km west of the German border. In 104 AD the Roman emperor Tragan granted Nijmegen the first market rights in what is now Holland, making Noviomagus the first township on Dutch soil.

A MODERN DUTCH VILLAGE SHOWS WARTIME WOUNDS
June 11, 2008, Ooij (pr. "oy"), Holland, the Netherlands. This town where we stayed for four nights is 7 km = 4 miles E of Nijmegen (pr. "nye-maygen," with the g coughed instead of a hard g), and about 3 km west of the German border. In 104 AD the Roman emperor Tragan granted Nijmegen the first market rights in what is now Holland, making Noviomagus the first township on Dutch soil.

Wednesday, June 11
Today in Ooij we went for a walk. Early on we stopped at the Spar grocery store and found some items we were interested in getting on our return from our walk. We proceeded south on Queen Juliana Street, on which our hotel sits and on which sits the ATM where I found I could mooch off someone's open wifi (lots of protected wifis here and everywhere we've been in this country, so I'm delighted to find an open one). We turned right on Prince William street then turned left on King whatshisname street (all the streets in this town are named after NL royalty, whereas in other towns all the streets are named after composers, for example, authors, artists, etc., including no doubt heavy metal band members, well, checking this out in all Dutch cities would be a worthwhile vacation project in itself. Who wants to be the first to undertake it? First check to see if it has already been done and a book devoted to it.

CIVILIAN DEATHS, SEPT. 9, 1944
Soon we were at the Catholic Church, St. Hubert's. We went by and continued out of town into the countryside on the bike and pedestrian path, always looking out for the bikes, which came by frequently. We saw a friendly horse that came over to the fence to be petted or given an apple, and when I petted it some of its flies migrated to me. I moved away, and as we proceeded, the flies, happily for me, quit me and went back to the horse. We went on to check out a field of some kind of grain that was half ripened. We thought it was wheat and were impressed at the density of the growth and the huge heads of grains that each stem had. In due time we returned by the same route and stopped at the church to notice the pockmarks in the rectory and church from bullets and other missiles in the war, and the memorial built to remember the townspeople who died in the war, 23 of them on one day, 9 Sept 1944. As we were contemplating this we noticed a woman coming out of a house across the street with a little kid in a stroller, so we asked her if she knew what happened. She said she did, and came across the street to talk with us. We talked with her for quite a while, she apologizing for her English, which she said she had studied for five years and now is going to brush up on, but we were impressed with her English. We had to supply a few words, but not many. The people who died, she said, were all in a basement of a cafe in another part of the town when a German bomb went right into the basement and killed 20 of them instantly. Many were members of one family, the Janssens, we noted on the monument, and she pointed out that there was another family there as well as other people.

Then we got interested in her house. It has a thatched roof that looks quite new and her husband is remodeling or developing half of the house which she said used to be the part in which the cows lived, nine of them according to her grandfather who lived in the town all his life (and she was born here and is a nursery school teacher in Nijmegen).

STORIES OF A DUTCH GRANDFATHER
Her grandfather told many stories about the war , she said, including one about the very spot where we were standing. Paratroopers came by (we didn't find out whether they were American or British) and the locals, who spoke no English but knew that there were well-armed Germans lying in wait down the road on the other side of the dike, tried to tell this to the paratroopers, holding up their hands to stop them from going forward and gesturing as best they could, but the paratroopers pushed them aside and continued on and one by one they were all killed. Now all Nederlanders begin learning English at age 10 and are helped by their parents who already know it. Even the cleaning ladies in this hotel speak fluent English, including idioms—I had a great chat with them today.

The woman with the “doitself” (the Dutch term, probably misspelled) husband showed us repaired brickwork on their house required by the damage caused by shells and guns. She said when they bought the house its roof was in bad shape and the government required that they replace it with thatch, not tile, and gave them some money to help with the cost. There are laws requiring the preservation of old building now. Their house is quite beautiful indeed. She said the rafters and other large wooden members in it have bullet holes in them, and pieces torn out by shell fragments and bullets. No doubt there are many bullets still in the beams and rafters, but these members survived.

Before she came out a man on a bike rode by headed out of town, then turned around and came back and asked us in Dutch how to get to the hotel we are living in. I was amazed I could interpret what he was asking, recognizing the name of our hotel and the street it is on. He had no English, evidently. I pointed out how to get there with arm motions and he thanked me in Dutch and rode on. We didn't see him again. He is probably still lost, poor guy.

Another story she told was about her grandfather telling that they had to take care of the milk cows, which means hazing them into the barn twice a day for milking with planes roaring around and bombings and guns firing. They put milk cans over their heads when they went into the field thinking that would give them some protection, but realized later that that wasn't going to be much help, actually.

At one point all the people of the village, smaller then than it is now, but it isn't very big now, about 100 people, packed into the basement of the church. No bombs entered, so they all survived that.

After these stories we went back to the Spar store and bought some food for dinner, including some tortilla chips and some salsa. MMMM, good. Also some wine and chicken and bread and salad and so on, and we came back to our room and ate it.

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TOUR OF NIJIMEGEN, GROESBEEK AND SURROUNDING AREA AREA BY JAN BOS AND JEANE MELCHER
On Thursday we were shown around the area by museum volunteers Jan Bos, and Jeanne Melchers. We visited the National Liberation Museum 1944-1945 at Groesbeek (Nationaal Bevrijdingsmuseum 1944-1945). Jan Bos has published meticulous research on the American airbourne and distributes information almost daily to numerous people over the internet. He was one of my first contacts in my research into Sylvan Lucier's glider mission in Holland. I could not have made this trip without his help and much of my research on my uncle's role as a glider pilot came through following his leads.

Al writes: June 12. Rainy day. First rain on our trip. Jan Bos picked us up in his Peugeot. We went into Nijmegen to the traffic circle up the hill from the car bridge. He told us about the difficult resistance the Germans had put up at the Nijmegen end of the bridge, which the US and British paratroopers had taken after some days of fighting. Jeanne told us in the evening that when the paras (as they call them here) had taken the bridge and eliminated all the resistance and were relaxing in the late evening along the sidewalk on the hill at the bottom of some stairs that ascended to a big house that had been burning when they arrived, so they thought no one would be in it, the Germans who had been in the house but had survived the fire in the basement, walked down the stairs with their helmets under their arms and right past the paratroopers and under the archway under the end of the bridge and gone, greeting the paratroopers in English as they went by. They caused no notice because it was almost dark and the color of their uniforms was indistinguishable, and the curved lips of their helmets were against their bodies. She said their captain got an award for inventing this ploy and carrying it off.

PARATROOPER AND GLIDER LANDING ZONES
But with Jan we didn't stop in Nijmegen but continued south past the castle that Charlemagne had constructed around 800, and out into the countryside. Along the way past a significant forest that is a forest preserve, there was a big house in it at one point that he said had been the HQ for Gen. Gavin, though Jeanne said that Gavin never used a building in the Nijmegen area, at least during the fighting, but lived and worked in tents or portable shelters of some sort. Turning right we somehow got to the south side of the Maas-Waal Canal, which in 1944 had been crossed by a lock bridge, a bridge over some locks that are still there and in one of which was a large boat we videotaped a little later. Then we went by the “weak bridge” that was declared too weak for tanks to cross by the British engineers (sappers) (it had been damaged by a German shell). The tanks and thus the main body of military traveling north toward Nijmegen had to detour SE to cross the lockbridge.

Then we proceeded toward Grave, near which Jan thinks Sylvan must have landed partly because the distance is correct from the appointed landing zone and partly because in his after-action report Sylvan mentions B-24s drawing anti-aircraft fire that had previously been directed at the gliders and towplanes and had caused the towplanes to veer away from the appointed LZ to a different one. This latter was significant because B-24s came over only once that day and during the period of days in questions and they came right over Grave to drop supplies to the paratroopers that were landing near there. We went around this location a bit and viewed it from several angles seeing the fields where Sylvan might have landed. Then we drove toward Grave.

Approaching Grave we spent some time at the landing fields at Klein America (Little America), not far from Groesbeek. There is a triangular piece of woods near these fields that served as a locating point for Gavin, and he landed his paratroopers and gliders here in the large fields. All the gliders landed well except for one that hit the roof of a barn, said Jan. There was little resistance, and the troopers who went over to the Richtswald forest just over the border in Germany to see about the tanks and artillery that had been reported, perhaps by local farmers, to be there, found only a couple of hundred German soldiers, and dealt with them (don't know how). So the force formed up and proceeded to head for Nijmegen, securing what areas they could or needed to on the way.

Meanwhile, Sylvan and his fellow glider pilots hiked through the night to get to, probably, Groesbeek, or wherever the command post he mentioned hiking to was. Afer that Gen. Gavin made use of the 300 or more glider pilots he found to be there with no orders but to find their way back to England. He sent them to the front lines to be soldiers there, guard prisoners, and otherwise help. Then Sylvan and some of his fellow glider pilots headed out to find their way to the rear and England. He said that on this trip they were delayed on what must have been Hell's Highway by enemy action up ahead, but he got back to England on Sept 29.

THE NATIONAL LIBERATION MUSEUM AT GROESBEEK
Jan dropped us at the Groesbeek Museum called the National Liberation Museum 1944-1945. As we were getting out Jan's car in front of the front door, another car drove up driven by Jeanne. She had an American vet and his English girlfriend with her and was showing them around. There were introductions all around, and Jeanne said that she had to go somewhere, but that she would be seeing us around the museum's closing time. Jan said that she would be driving us to our hotel, but it wasn't clear at the time that she was looking forward to showing us the area from her point of view. That became evident later.

We looked at displays in the museum for about 20 minutes while Jan went to get something connected with his daughter's wedding that is coming up soon, and when he got back we went to lunch in Groesbeek, where we had sandwiches, soup, etc. He had to leave us at one PM so he could get ready for work, and he dropped us off at the museum, where we were very entertained right to closing time at five. It is a very impressive museum with three sections, color coded, dealing with first the red section devoted to the occupation before the Allies arrived, second the blue section devoted to the fight and the liberation, and finally the brown section devoted to the time after the liberation. There was a whole room devoted to the mistaken bombing of Nijmegen by the USAAF in 1942 in which a lot of the center of the city was destroyed and 750 people killed. The bomber crews thought they were bombing a German city not far away, but the weather was bad and they had drifted with the strong winds making navigation difficult over the clouds, evidently.

When we were in the center of Nijmegen with Jeanne she pointed out how the buildings on one side of the original Roman EW street in that part were very old, the ones on the other side new since the war. The huge church, St. Stephens, I think, besides having parts that dated back to the year 1000 or so, some dating to the 1500s and 1700s, the tower was recently repaired because it was hit by a bomb, and at the time there were people in it ringing the bells to warn of an air raid. No trace was found of those people.

The museum also has a kind of modernistic parachute-like addition that contains the names of all the military who died in the fighting in the area, and outside it has a British version of the Sherman tank and an anti-tank gun.

Inside there is the nose/cockpit section of a CG4-A glider. This item had been used as a cover for firewood at a nearby farm and was repaired a bit and set up in a little room devoted to the gliders. In a case there was a good-as-new Load Distributor along with its good-as-new leather case stamped with that information. We took photos and videos of this heretofore elusive item. Above the glider nose/cockpit was hung a big model of a C-47 towing a CG4-A. Nicely done models.

The museum prides itself in being not just a collection but also having a philosophy. It wants to show the sociological/political/philosophical aspects of the times. For instance, it is blunt about Dutch anti-Jewish sentiment, political differences and conflicts, etc., and has a board that poses ethical questions and asks you how you would respond to them. One example is of the owner of a factory which employees some Dutch people. If these people didn't have jobs in Holland they would be likely to be taken by the Germans into Germany to work as slaves there in the war production industry making bombs, planes, etc. So along comes the Germans demanding that the factory made some items for them. If this is done, they are also contributing to the war effort. But does that make them collaborators? Such issues causes the museum visiter to think about the complexity of occupation.

POSTSCRIPT
From Holland we took a train to Brussels where our friends and their daughters hosted us through the weekend and showed us the many sights of Bruge. On Monday we took the Eurostar train (Chunnel train) to London. The round trip ticket was cheaper than one way! It was easy to find the train to Northhamptom and from there, after a short wait, we took the bus and reached our lodging near Tiffield, England.

Some of our experiences in our five days in England, such as the stories of eyewitnesses to my uncle's death, have been posted earlier. More will follow.

The trip arrangements we had made from the states were the Best Hotel in St. Lo, Normandy; Fletcher Rest De Geldeerse Port, Ouij, NL; and the Globe Hotel near Northhampton, UK. For our last night in England our friend Ray Spencer helped us get a reasonable room in London, at the Purple Hotel, at Euston Station near the Tower of London. We used buses, cabs and the underground to get around in London. On a longer visit, we were advised we could take in many sights taking the river boat. We did visit the Cathedral of St. Paul before flying home from Heathrow airport. To visit the American Chapel which commemorates the Americans who died fighting for Britain, it is important to arrive in the morning because it is behind the high altar and services are held in late afternoon, closing access. It is a majestic church of great significance to England, that suffered great damage in the bombing of London.

In a gilded book in that chapel we saw the Honor Roll with the names of Sylvan Lucier, Irving Krohn, and Derwood Basham, the three young men who died together in the glider accident October 13, 1944. Our commemorative trip to honor my glider pilot uncle was over.

Sylvan Lucier Memorial Trip

2008-09-07T19:34:00.003-06:00

SYLVAN LUCIER MEMORIAL TRIP

Sylvan Lucier, my deceased glider pilot uncle, was the reason for this amazing journey of ours in June of 2008, to the World War II commemorative sites in France, Holland and England.

When I designed a new graveside monument in Sylvan's home town of Fargo N.D. I put an etching of a Waco glider and under it the words “Africa, Sicily, Normandy, Holland”. It did not seem proper at the time to include England with the former war zones that my uncle endured. England must have been much like home to the aviators. It was made more clear to me on my trip how like family the English can be. My future posts to this blog will describe the war zones using information from interviews and squadron histories. But Sylvan also lived a somewhat normal life for eight months in a more comfortable place, England. And when he died in the glider accident, it was in a country where his death was viewed with great dismay by local people as well as by his troop carrier group.

On our trip, 64 years after the accident, my husband and I experienced the most amazing friendship and generosity from English people familiar with my uncle's story. Sylvan must also have had warm relationships with the British people when he lived there with the 316 Troop Carrier Group. I have read that there were parties for the children, food shared on family visits, dances at the officer’s club and eventually some weddings. This is well described in the book: Friendly Invasion, Memories of Operation Bolero, The America Occupation of Britain 1942-1945, by Henry Buckton. The major source of my information about the 316th Group in England is Mike Ingrisano's book, Valor Without Arms.

Instant friendship and assistance was also the case in Holland and France as we visited the historic sites. But in England I met some people who felt great sorrow over my uncle’s glider accident 64 years ago and who today still remember Sylvan’s awful death. The English villagers who witnessed the glider crash in1944 were more involved than his family! With all the English, they were aware of the U.S. sacrifices to guard their nation, but they also had to witness three shocking deaths, not on a battlefield but in the autumn meadows where they labored.

Today there are many British citizens, children of the war years who, after receiving the testimony of their elder countrymen, build the museums, visit the graves of American war dead, write the books, answer the emails, host the visiters, and search continually for more historic details. I am in debt to a number of English citizens for their many hours put into finding the site of the glider crash, gathering the accounts of witnesses, and shepherding us about the countryside.

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A GLIDER TRAGEDY IN STORY TELLING FORM
By Anne Nephew
Editing help from my daughter, Julia and our host in Tiffield, England, Rae Spencer.

As I looked over that beautiful field of yellow flowers, not yet mowed that June day, my thoughts were that it was a very peaceful place to die, if one must die. It could not have been any different on that thirteenth day of October, 1944. The site has been unknown to all but a few.

The village in the English midlands had only about 100 inhabitants at the time. There was no destruction from bombs there. However, a strong reminder of the war was the many, many planes overhead, flying daily between air-bases. A colorful note is that during the war a circus was camped at one end of the village and elephants walked through down Hight Street every day to the village green when they drank water from the village stream.

Facing the field where Sylvan Lucier, Derwood Basham and Irving Krohn died was a line of homes built during the Renaissance, including a church and a school. It was called “High Street” not because it was on a hill but because it was the main street and the only street to run through the village. A second row of houses, a tavern and a village green edged the other side of the street. At the time of the crash, many citizens were absent; mostly children and old people stayed in the village. Women in the “Land Army” worked the fields.

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On that fateful day, an elderly man whose son was in the British Air Force in Egypt was working in his backyard garden. It was nearly midday. He didn’t look up at the planes because they were so common, but he heard a terrible sound that day and he knew what it meant. He was one of the first, or perhaps the first to go to the scene. It was profoundly disturbing to this man to view the wrecked glider with its three occupants. As a father with a son also far away fighting the war, he could immediately identify with the parents of these deceased young men.

Later someone gave this elderly gentleman a lovely, graceful and intact wooden piece of the wrecked glider. It must have been some comfort to him, a talisman that reminded him of the sacrifices others had made for his country. He kept this smooth, elongated “stick” hanging on the wall over his living room fireplace to remind him and his family of that sad day. He passed on the story of the terrible glider accident to his son who returned home safe from the war. The family decided that the stick should hang in that spot for the family to remember the event of that October day. The gentleman told his son, “That stick is a piece of history. Don’t ever take it away!” And so the piece of honed wood remained above the fireplace. It was a remembrance of those three American men who could not return home to farm, to attend school, and to start a family.

Long after the gentleman's death, and a year after that of his son, two visiters from America came to visit the postcard cottage of the granddaughter of the elderly gentleman. Flowers in profusion greeted them on the pathway. She offered them some cookies picked up on her way home from work. She had returned recently from a trip to a dude ranch in Texas and was delighted to show the visiters her pictures. She loved to travel and the United States was such an interesting place to her. The Americans were charmed! One of the visitors was the niece of one of the men who died in that field.

Before long she brought out her grandfather’s glider stick from its place on the wall. She handled it like a religious object and spoke lovingly of its story. How could she follow her father and grandfather’s wishes to keep it forever since she had no children herself? It occurred to her, even before the visitors' arrival, that the stick should belong to the family of one of the glider pilots, where it would also be cherished. But first she would remove the string wrapped around one end in order to suspend it on the wall, so she could keep it to remind her of the many years she had looked at it while her grandfather and father recounted the events of that day. One of the visitors gently untied that knot made so long ago. Her guests accepted the glider stick with gratitude and a feeling of reverence, not just because of the origin of the stick, but because of the amazing love surrounding that stick for 64 years.

The stick had been between the two pilots in the front of the glider. It supported the leather case for a slide rule which was used to figure the load balance. The glider pilot, uncle to one of the visitors, had no doubt touched the stick many times in its proper place, near his thigh, just under the glider’s panel of four instruments. A glider is very lightweight and must be loaded with great care! In the crash the nose of the glider was badly damaged. The tail section was high in the hedge that bisected the field, with completely wrecked elevators. Yet this delicate stick of wood was spared!

It is not known who found the graceful glider stick and gave it to the gentleman. Its apparent frailty must have elicited sympathy and amazement. Someone knew that the older gentleman who rushed to the scene that day would cherish it.

Over the years no one in the family or the village knew the important function the stick had in the glider. A glider was mostly a steel tubing and cloth covering. However, seats, a floor, wing ribs and spar, and below the pilot's plexiglas windows, a “chin”, were made of wood. And threaded between between the pilot and co-pilot seats, were some slender sticks designed by an unknown engineer. From there came the delicate piece that survived the impact that instantly killed three young men.

In the grand design of things people have always kept souvenirs of places they have seen and people they have loved. An object kept in memory of a horrible event, such as a glider crash behind your garden, may give solace. But if it is placed over your fireplace, the center of the daily family gathering, it may be because you don’t want to forget, or have others forget, that great sacrifices were made for your safety and your freedom from tyranny.

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In the same village, on the very farm where the glider crashed, lives another gentleman today who was only a small boy during the war, living in London. He was only aged seven, but his mother would send him to the near-by subway station each evening. He went on his own carrying a suitcase and he would go down the long stairways to find a place deep underground on a platform in the station where he would join everyone from the local area as they huddled together and slept to shelter from the incessant bombing. In his suitcase was a blanket and he would open the suitcase and lie inside it wrapped in his blanket. One night he was huddled on the floor in his suitcase. A huge bomb made a direct hit and the blast was terrible! Several hundred of the people on the platform were killed but he was saved by the protection of his suitcase. The protective hand of God that saved him that night bestowed more trials, trials and traumas that a child should never have, the legacy of the horrors of that night.

The visitors had a mission that day, to find the site of the fatal crash. Someone in the village, it could have been a farmer's son returned at war’s end, would remove the hedge where the glider crashed. It turned two small fields into a larger than average field that produced crops to feed the cattle grazing beyond the gate.

The survivor of the London bombing understood the visitors’ purpose in visiting his back field. In this flower-filled field, away from road or even footpath, nothing remained from that awful event to mar the serenity. The sky gave its blessing of sun and small clouds. It could have been a garden in heaven. Or so the visitors thought.

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The autumn day of the crash, 1944, a teenage boy was working in a field near the village where he could see various other workers. At fifteen a boy could not be a child, nor could he be a man and go to war. He knew that soon the workers would all be breaking for the midday meal, cooked by grandmothers for the Land Army of women, the boys and any soldiers on leave, who were bringing in the harvest.

Airplanes fascinated this boy. He anticipated being able to help his country if needed in a few years and maybe it would be as a member of the Royal Air Force. When the flight of planes towing double gliders took his attention from his work, he had looked up and was instantly aware that something was terribly wrong with one group. One glider was directly under the other glider instead of in the V formation. The three aircrafts were much lower than usual and soon there were only two connected. The released glider did not have the altitude, the time or apparently the ability to land properly. The consequence was apparent and the boy knew exactly where he would find it.

Now, 64 years later, the man who had grown from the 15 year old who saw the gliders in trouble, was most eager to meet the American visiters. After the war was over he was able to serve his country, but not in the Royal Air Force. Later he lived elsewhere, away from the distressing accident site. But he responded to an appeal for information about the glider crash.

He wanted to describe the glider that he saw in serious trouble before it was released. He wanted to walk once more to the field he walked to years ago, a young boy who would leave his childhood there forever. He wanted to describe what the glider looked like in repose. He knew they had crashed at exactly 12:20. He knew from a watch that one of the crew was wearing which stopped at exactly that time. He could relate that the pilots were still strapped in and one body was on the ground. When asked if he wanted to describe any more details, he declined. He said it was too shocking to him then and still makes him unhappy to remember it. He said, “I do know that they all died immediately.”

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Everything he said was comforting to the visiters. Because of his experience, this gentlemen was closer to the glider pilot uncle who died than the visiters from America. It was his tragedy more than theirs! By his presence with them at the field of the crash, a connection was made beyond the present. The three young men who died there belonged to something larger than family or country. They were part of a story of a people who took thousands of America’s sons and cared for them and still have the deepest regard for them. The visiters would also feel this at the American chapel behind the high altar of St. Paul’s cathedral, at the beautiful Cambridge Cemetery commemorating thousands of Americans killed in action and in the line of duty, and at the Assault Guider Trust which educates all British citizens but particularly the schoolchildren that visit to see actual gliders displayed, and learn about the role of gliders and their pilots in the war. While a WWII memorial trip to Europe is a rare experience for Americans, it is part of the national identity of Europeans.

The two American visitors were born early in the war and both had been spared having parents in the military. For them the war had been a childhood game played with Army surplus items, following the content of comic books and Reader’s Digest stories. The woman was two years old when her uncle died, flying his glider on an ordinary freight trip from one air-base to another. He was one of twenty glider pilots, with co-pilots seated on their right, perhaps a mechanic aboard each glider, bringing new gliders to their base to replace those lost in Holland a few weeks earlier. After surviving numerous missions behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Africa, Sicily, Normandy and Holland, these three men ironically lost their lives in a routine transfer trip. By tragically crashing in an idyllic English field, they left behind sad memories for the people they helped, a single delicate souvenir, and witnesses who have told their stories.

The deaths of the three young men brought the war home to those English people and their sacrifice has not been forgotten:

F/O Sylvan R. Lucier, F/O Irving W. Krohn, Mechanic Derwood M. Basham.

Few descendants of glider pilots who were lost in the war will ever know exactly where their family member died, but this field in the English countryside will remain a hidden shrine to all those men who loved to fly and gave their lives to free Europe. We can be certain it will always be remembered and deeply respected.

Confirmation of Glider Pilot Death

2008-06-01T14:44:00.005-06:00

Three Brothers Write After Sylvan's Death

2008-06-01T14:20:00.007-06:00

November 9, 1944 Darling Mother, To nite my heart is crying, and my eyes are red with tears. To nite I got your letter-”May his soul, and all the souls faithfully departed through the mercy of God, Rest in Peace”__ Mom, it is hard to believe, but now we are fighting to try and preserve, what took us so long to build up. I have seen and been with them, when they were called upon! Have helped them, cared for them on the field of battle, now it is so much more real ___ Mother, this Sunday, I am going to have a mass said for my brother, and my Communion will be offered up for the repose of his soul. I feel to nite, as if Sylvan were here, looking over my shoulder, trying to tell me some thing.__ Maybe you know it already, but I have been on the rotation list for several weeks, and now I'll be home. My time in the company and also my evacuation put me on top so I will be home. Sylvan wrote me a nice long letter dated October 10. He told me about his last experience, so I wrote him right back. But he will never get it! (This would have been his role in the Liberation of Holland, September 18.) Mother and Dad, I know that God had a place for your son. He was always faithful, and never doubtful! He loved his religion, and in a way, he offered his life for it. I have seen Catholic men dying in the field, with a priest over them, and they all “went”, with a prayer on their lips, the same as my brother went.__ My prayers will be offered up for you and Dad, to ask God to shower His blessings down upon all of you. Yes, I'm crying, because I am so helpless. But Mom dear, I'll be O.K. I am going home soon, and I know I'll be able to help your broken heart. Your loving Son, Dolly (Delphis)

Delphis Wayne Lucier
Staff Sargeant, served in the Southwest Pacific for three years. He was in Guadalcanal & Bougainville with the 164 North Dakota Infantry, Hq. Co. He received the Combat Infantryman Badge for Combat duty as a radioman on Bougainville and with intelligence on Guadalcanal. He also received the Presidential Unit Citation, Good Conduct, American Defense, and Asiatic-Pacific Ribbons.

Wednesday Nov. 1st
Dear Mom & Dad; I had just came into camp from the Bivouac Area when I called Mary and she told me about Sylvan. It is the hardest thing to believe or should I say to realize that I have ever heard. To think that Sylvan is gone and that we will never see or hear him again. Our thoughts and sympathies are with you and we hope and pray that God will give you the strength to bear our loss. Please write us the details as soon as you hear. We are all well here – I have one more week in the field. I have to go back out again to nite and this news is pretty hard to take back with me. We are enclosing an offering for a Mass for Sylvan. I will close for now as there is not much more I can say. So Long for now Bernard, Mary & Bunny
1st Lt. Bernard Frances Lucier, Medical Corp-USA, Abilene Texas.

Dearest Mom and Dad The news came as such a shock to me so I know how you and Dad must grieve the loss of such a good Son. We can be thankful that we know he was right with his God and his soul is in heaven. I do hope that God will give to you help to bear up under this terrible strain and remember he died for God and Country and all the things that go to make up our way of living. If I were only home to be with you and help. I can't say more as words are meaningless. Please Mom, carry on in your wonderful way and I know everything will work out. Take care of Dad All my love to the greatest Mother and Father as man ever had. Lan (Lawrence) Lucier
Lawrence Joseph Lucier,
1st Sqt. Medical Corp in the Pacific, New Guinea, Australia, Leyte, Tokyo.

Thomas Edward Lucier
Pvt. 1st Class, 3rd Infantry division in Germany, 1944 – 1946. He was a journalist for Frontline- the 3rd Division Newspaper. The younger brother, born in 1926, Tom was in High School when Sylvan died in 1944. He enlisted before turning 18. Tom lives with wife Anne in Norristown, Pennsylvania.

The Telegram From Washington

2008-06-01T13:25:00.010-06:00

Flight Officer, Sylvan Lucier was in the middle of a large family. He enlisted in January 1942. Three brothers were already in the service. Eva and Del had a lot to worry about during the war years. The mail delivery must have been an important part of each day. One piece of mail that was dreaded was the telegram. And one day it came.

Eva Lucier, my grandmother, kept the numerous cards her son Sylvan sent her, as well as information about his pilot and glider training in the states. Among her most cherished letters were those from her sons in the service, sent when their brother in arms, Sylvan, died. The letters sent from "Dolly", Bernard, and "Lanny" are respectfully transcribed here in my hope that they will lend understanding to my generation who grew up with the residual effects of war, benefited by the sacrifices of our elders.

Fatal Glider Accident, Tiffield England

2008-05-17T14:50:00.000-06:00

SYLVAN R. LUCIER, KILLED IN LINE OF DUTY
ONE OF 351 GLIDER PILOTS WHO DID NOT RETURN HOME FROM THE WAR

According to information in a Glider Pilot Roll of Honor contained in the web site www.pointvista.com, there were as many as 6,000 American Combat Glider Pilots. Of these, 211 died in combat, approximately 636 were wounded, and another 140 died in the line of duty, usually in glider training accidents. The combined casualty rate came to 16.4 % of the total number of pilots. Examining just those killed or injured in combat, it amounts to about 20%. This was considered very high by any standard.

AN EARLY TRAINING ACCIDENT
The accident that took Sylvan's life was not his first. The development of war time glider usage went on for some time in the U.S. and the number of stateside accidents as young men learned the techniques is not often chronicled. Overseas time between missions was also spent sharpening a pilot's skills. Landing one's load of men or equipment in whatever terrain required, under fire, in daylight or darkness, took a lot of practice. Charles L. Day writes the book about the manufacturer 's role in the development of the CG-4A glider: Silent Ones, WWII Invasion Glider Test and Experiment. It is published by the author.

In February 2008, while working at Maxwell Air Base Research Center, my husband found an index of glider accidents and putting in my uncle's name, found that a training accident was recorded in January, 1943, at the Army Air Force's Glider School at Dalhart, Texas. The pilots involved were, Sylvan R. Lucier and co-pilot, Ben Grobman. They were in the 880th Glider Training Squadron at Dalhart, Texas and were also together in the 49th Squadron in Africa. (Pictures of Sylvan, Ben and other glider pilot friends in the 880th were posted earlier on this site. )

Synopsis of the January 7, 1943, accident:
Glider: CG-4A
A.F. No: 42-61849
Pilot Charged: Sylvan R. Lucier, 338th BH & AB Squadron, of the 880

On January 7, Sylvan Lucier, at that time a Staff Sargent, was on a night time glider training mission with his friend and co-pilot Ben Grobman. He undershot the lighted landing area and made an unsuccessful landing. . The “Report of Aircraft Accident” says Lucier had eight hours experience flying this model and that within the last three months he had put in nearly 32 hours flying including almost eight hours in the dark of night. The landing gear broke on landing, causing damage to other parts of the aircraft; the left skid, the nose section, the jury strut and the left wing. The statement of responsibility says: The pilot stated that he undershot the lighted landing area and landed in a soft spot on the field causing left landing gear to give way. The aircraft accident officer finds that the accident was due to 100% pilot error by undershooting the designated landing area and making an unsuccessful landing.

KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY, WHILE FLYING DOUBLE TOW
In February, 2006, while searching the internet, I found an aviation archeology site in the United Kingdom. The staff gave me the names of individuals in Arizona who had reports of American glider/airplane crashes. For a small fee I was quickly sent the “Report of Aircraft Accident” for my uncle's glider accident which cost his life and that of his co-pilot, Iving Krohn, and a mechanic, Durwood Basham. Since then the details of that report have filled my mind and fueled my research.

Tiffield , a village of about 100 in 1944, is about 65 miles by road from Greenham Common Air Base from where the 20 gliders were being towed by 10 aircraft that day of October 13, 1944. The 316 Troop Carrier Group, to which Sylvan belonged, was based at Cottesmore, Rutland which is about 50 miles further North East from the crash scene. Greenham, Tiffield and Cottesmore are almost on a straight line with each other.

Sylvan R. Lucier, was flying double tow from Greenham Common to Cottesmore. His glider hit a field one half mile from Tiffield, Northants. All three occupants were killed in the CG-4A glider crash.

Burl B. Miner, a 2nd Lieutenant, was the pilot of the glider on the long tow. He too had a co-pilot and glider mechanic on board. His statement is as follows:
We were flying double tow at an altitude of approximately 1600. Flight Officer Lucier, S.R. was pilot of the Glider on the short rope and I was piloting the glider on the long rope. At approximately 1200 hours 3 minutes south of North Hampton we came very close together. The glider on the short rope started down rather suddenly, and in going down, his right elevator struck our left wing. The glider stayed on tow for approximately 30 seconds directly beneath us then he cut, and Lt. Ernst, (2nd Lt. William S. Ernst, Michigan) started looking for him. The tug ship made an immediate turn to the left, circled the area, and no one saw the glider, except Lt. Ernst who said he thought he saw it cracked up on the ground.

Edward S. Ash, 1st Lt. was the pilot of the Tow Plane. His statement regarding he accident:

The tow ship was at 1600 feet with the base of broken clouds at approximately 2500. The visibility wa four to six miles and there was moderate turbulence. The tow ship airspeed was 115 MPH as the pilot had just noticed the speed as he felt the plane lurch forward. The pilot immediately had the crew chief look out the dome to see how many gliders were on the tow. He reported that there was but one left so the pilot made a 360 degree turn so as to locate and report on the other glider. Although the tow ship made two 360 degree turns, with one glider in tow, the personnel could not locate other glider so the pilot proceeded home base after marking the approximate spot that the glider cut loose. The pilot of the tow ship figured at the time that the personnel of the remaining glider would know where the other glider landed. After landing the pilot reported the loss of the glider to Squadron Operations and Squadron Engineering. The time the glider was lost was 1200 hours.

Sylvan Lucier and his Co-pilot, Irving W. Krohn, were both experienced pilots. The report showed that Lucier had nearly 225 hours flying this type of glider (CG-4A, Hadrian) and Irving Krohn had 230. Sylvan had flown 13 ½ hours in that model in the last 90 days. That would have included flying without a co-pilot across the channel on September 18, to land under gun fire in Holland.

The mission that day was ferrying gliders from Greenham Common where they were assembled to Cottesmore where the Group had need of them, (Station 486 to 489) since losing so many in Holland. The accident and its cause is described in the report:
Crashed into field at a steep angle, evidentially out of control. After impact the glider went over on its back and the fuselage twisted so that the tail assembly was right side up. The glider struck slightly right wing low.
The glider piloted by F/O Lucier was on short rope, left side of a double tow and struck the wing of the other glider and tore about two square feet from the center of the right elevator. The glider cut loose from the tow craft.

All the above information is repeated in the description filed by the investigating board of Capt. Richard W. Etter, Major William E. Childers, and Major Bertie W. David. The only new information was that there was only one eye witness, a civilian, who stated that the glider fell to the ground at a steep angle out of control.
Responsibility for the accident and recommendations for action to prevent repetition were made:
The party or parties responsible for making up the long tow rope were grossly negligent as the long rope was found to be 44 feet short of the required length thus causing the gliders to overlap in flight. Both glider pilots used poor judgement when they failed to cut loose and land after realizing how dangerously close they were flying. Crew of crashed glider neglected to take parachutes that were available in tug aircraft thus nullifying any opportunity they may have had to bail out.
It is the belief of the investigating board that, if the causes listed in the above paragraph were corrected accidents of this nature would be eliminated.
Recommendations:
1. Glider pilots have been instructed to wear parachutes at all times except when carrying Airborne troops.
2. A thorough inspection is now being made of tow ropes to insure they are the specified length.

To Fly On Eagle's Wings

2007-12-26T01:10:00.001-06:00

Sylvan Ralph Lucier, to whom this blog is dedicated, was in the first or second class of pilots to earn the wings of a glider pilot in August of 1942. The first class was not large, and the program was just being developed. His wings have the G (for glider, but some will say for guts) attached instead of part of the mold.

As a man of 26 years, with a college business degree when he joined , Sylvan probably felt fortunate to be able join the Army Air Force where he could become an aviator. He had a fascination for airplanes and seems to have enjoyed soaring as much as the enthusiasts today.

Although he later flew much less graceful gliders in missions (the CG 4A & the British Horsa) I know his early training was something he enjoyed sharing with his folks at home. For a few months, he was "on eagles wings"all over the south west. A time line of his training, following the pictures, shows the many locations where he flew.

Schweizer Tow Line

2007-12-26T00:55:00.000-06:00

Ready for take-off.
The instructor attaches the tow line to release clip. Parachute on the tow rope is to slow its descent after it is dropped and to keep the wire tight on take-off. Note landing gear details; the single brake-equipped wheel and the rubber tube sections that act as shock absorber on the nose block. The projection on the ship's nose is the pitot tube for airspeed indicator.

Schweizer Glider On A Winch

2007-12-26T00:24:00.001-06:00

Here are some pictures you might find interesting. This picture shows a plane being taken off by use of a motor driven wench. We did not use this method as it is faster to use power planes to tow the gliders off the ground.
Glider Pilot in Training, Sylvan R. Lucier, wrote this note on these five pictures sent to parent from Twenty-nine Palms Air Academy, Summer, 1942. He was one of the first to earn glider wings!

Triple Tow of Schweizer Gliders

2007-12-26T00:03:00.001-06:00

Three Schweizers being towed off by a Vultee 0-49. In this type launching, odd cable lengths are used, making collisions impossible. Shortest length is 400 fee. Center glider gets the longest line. Using gliders as air barges, the 295 hp. “tug” is capable of transporting over three times its self-contained capacity at about 70 per cent of its normal speed. Experts say post-war freight will be carried thus.

Sylvan Lucier writes on picture of glider triple tow:
This is the method we used except that we towed only 2 gliders instead of three at one time. They take us up to about 3,000 feet and then we release and can stay up from 15 minutes to 3 or 4 hours dependin on the air conditions. It is possible to soar around the mountains all day if the wind is just right. Of course, our training consists mostly of tow work and making landings on a certain spot.

(Inserted with arrow to glider on far left.)
Put a lot of time in this particular glider.

2007-12-25T23:57:00.003-06:00

Learning the controls.
Twenty-nine Palms School has acquired the services of some of the nation's leading glider experts in instructing the first few groups of Army glider cadets. Most of the initial group of power plane pilots, were selected to act as instructors in the most widespread glider-pilot instruction plan ever projected. Enlistment and selection for glider pilot training has already begun.

Twenty-nine Palms Air Academy, August 1942

2007-12-25T21:38:00.000-06:00

Glider Pilot Song

2007-12-25T19:05:00.001-06:00

Glider Pilot Career Timeline

2007-12-25T17:45:00.001-06:00

TIMELINE OF DOCUMENTS, LETTERS & PHOTOS
FOR SYLVAN R. LUCIER, GLIDER PILOT
Serial No. 17062570

SYLVAN'S EARLY YEARS (Military papers information, family photos)
1916-1936

1916 Born October 29 in Fargo, N.D.
1922-1930 St. Mary's Grade School
1930-1934 Central High School, Fargo
1934-35 North Dakota State College
1935-36 Dakota Business College, Graduate; Employed as Accountant at Business Machines Midnite Express, Inc.; Basic ROTC 1 year, Aviation Cadet, 6 months

POWER PILOT & GLIDER PILOT TRAINING (based on certificates, cards & photos sent to his parents)
1942

January 20 Enlisted, Minneapolis MN, age 25
January 20 Higley Field, Arizona-Card
CAA Ground School, 72 hours, no flying
April 25 Oxnard, California-letter about wings.
Primary Training at Oxnard, CA, 60 hours
May 21 Santa Ana, California-Card
May 25 Oxnard, California (60 hours Primary Training
May 25 Gardner Field, California (8 hours in Basic Training)-Card
Basic Training, Gardner Field, CA, 8 hours
May 27 Mira Loma Flight Academy, completed Primary Flight Training
June 21 Santa Ana, California
June 23 Minter Field, Bakersfield, California-Card
June 25 Barkley Field, California-Card
June 27 Clovis, New Mexico-Card
August 15 Appointed Staff Sergeant Pilot (Glider) Air Corp
August 16 Twenty-nine Palms Air Academy: Diploma Given
October 22 Dalhart, Texas-Card
October 22 Albuquerque, New Mexico

1943

January 10 Honorable Discharge from Army to become Flight Officer
January 11 Dalhart, Texas, Diploma, Glider Pilot, US Army Air Forces
January 21 Bowman Field, Louisville, Kentucky
March 7 Maxton, North Carolina. Mass card.
March 15 Lawrenburg-Maxton Field, N.C. Letter

AFRICA ASSIGNMENT (Photographs, 3 letters home, Italian Lire)
1943 (con't)

April 21 Change of Address notice to the 49th Squadron, 313 Tro0p Carrier Group
May 21 North Africa Letter 49th Squadron, 313 TCG.
May Casablanca, Morocco
May Axuica, Morocco
July Kaiyouan,
December 7 Sicily. Date written on Italian Lire

1944

January 26 Sicily "In the event..." Letter, 6 pages.
February 20 Sicily-Card

GLIDER MISSIONS: NORMANDY, HOLLAND
1944 (con't)

June 6 Operation Overlord, Normandy (Orders for Temp duty-Ingresano)
88th Squadron, 438 TCG. His Horsa Glider landed near St. Mere Englese.
September 10 Letter home about his dream.
September 18, Operation Market Garden, Holland (Interrogation Report-Ingresano)
36th Squadron, 316 TCG. His CG 4A glider landed OK. Return: Sept. 27.

KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY
1944 (con't)

October 13 Killed in Line of Duty, flying double tow. Place: Tiffield, England.

1946

January 29, Notification of Remains in Cambridge Cemetery, Plot 0, row 10, grave 3

1948

August 5 Transport Lawrence Victory brought body home with 31 North Dakotians.
Burial at Holy Cross Cemetery, Fargo.

1951

Roll of Honor in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, (28,000 American dead.) Memorial Book Sent to family.

2006

Monument installed at grave site with etching of Sylvan's glider & wings. Commemorative blog started to honor Sylvan & the Troop Carrier part in W.W.II

2007-05-24T09:40:00.003-06:00

2007-05-24T09:36:00.001-06:00

2007-05-24T09:31:00.001-06:00

2007-05-24T09:25:00.001-06:00

2007-05-24T09:17:00.001-06:00

2007-05-24T09:15:00.001-06:00

Acknowledgements

2007-04-13T15:39:00.000-06:00

Acknowledgements
From time to time it may be necessary to interrupt the chronological sequence of this memorial blog. In my first post a few months ago I explained that I lack a great deal of information about my uncle's activities as a WW2 glider pilot and I wish to hear from anyone who can help me. I know there are many untapped sources of information but after ten years of WW2 glider research and trying to get to know the person my uncle was, I need to begin to organize and publish what I do have about his contribution to aviation history. The aviation museums and glider history books gave me a broad view of glider contribution to the war effort. Every new museum and every new book has converted me. This Medieval mystery reader has become a part time WW2 history detective. A specialist in elementary education, I'm still a total novice at military history. So as I build my uncle's story I must mention the places I have visited and the books I continue to pour over for details.
Scrapbooking 60 Years Ago
My grandmother's scrapbook is my main source of inspiration. It has very little memorabilia about the European war, but lots about his pilot/glider training in 1942. And it contains every greeting card sent her by Sylvan and every sympathy letter and card she received after his death. Sylvan didn't return from the war like his four brothers did, but if he had, I feel he would have been like them, and not spoken much about his work in the war. And nobody would have asked because they wanted to forget the war. The Luciers (Sylvan had four brothers and four sisters) always had a jolly time when they got together. All it required was a deck of cards and a bottle of wine. As it turned out, my mother, close in age to Sylvan, couldn't forget the war and we children (there are eleven of us) spent a lot of time during the Korean War and "the cold war" on our knees praying for peace! And every Christmas we had a special celebration of peace in Sylvan's memory. My mother put many of hours of work each year into her memorial to her brother.
Verifying Family Stories
My objective was to find documentation of what my uncle, Sylvan R. Lucier, did in Europe and Africa. We all knew he died in a glider accident on October 13, 1944 after returning to England from Holland. Everyone says he trained glider pilots. Some told me he participated in D Day in Normandy. Little was known about his activities before his death and his letters are gone except for the few kept by his mother. I know from another letter that Sylvan wrote a letter to his brother, Delphis (Dolly), who had been evacuated from the Pacific. It was dated October 10, 1944, just before his death. In it he told about about his experience in Holland, but that letter is probably gone. By 1997 when I began this research I was fortunate he had one older brother I could interview (and later, a younger brother) and also I taped an interview of his best friend, Bill Buck, from high school & college. The personal picture they gave me of my uncle greatly increased my interest in researching my uncle's aviation career.
Old And New Tools Made It Happen
Using the internet I sent messages to every website I found dealing with the topic of WW2 gliders. But I needed more "tags" just to locate where Sylvan served. The most valuable clues were addresses on a few letters. One poignant V-mail had been forwarded to various TC Groups before it finally returned to my mother, following Sylvan's death. Clarissa Lucier Hilber, died in 1995 but she is assisting my research even now. Now I know three squadrons Sylvan served in during the 18 months he was overseas.
The Big Break Came
Rex Shama, a glider pilot with the 49th Squadron, 313 Troop Carrier Group, wrote a book, Pulse and Repulse, which I read after visiting the Silent Wings Museum in 1997. Mr. Shama could not find my uncle's name on the list of 49th Sq. pilots in Normandy or Holland. I was at a standstill for some years. Then the tiny V-mail returned to my mother revealed a blackened out September 1944 address as the 36th Squadron of the 313 TCG. A correspondent from the Netherlands, Hans den Brok, referred me to the book, Valor Without Arms, A History of the 316 Troop Carrier Group, 1942-1945, by Mike Ingrisano. We quickly ordered the book, as well as his delightful book, And Nothing is Said, Wartime Letters August 5, 1943-April 21, 1945. Because of Mike I have Sylvan's after action "Interrogation Report" from the Holland mission to share later on this blog.
One Source Leads To Another
In Mike's book I found a document of Orders for Temporary Duty, (Appendix VI) assigning pilots of the 316 who could fly the huge British Horsa gliders, to 53 Troop Carrier Wing. Here are the names of F/O Sylvan R. Lucier and also F/O Irving W. Krohn . They would both fly in Normandy, perhaps in the same glider (I need to find out) and later they would co-pilot a glider (during a double tow) hauling freight from one air base to another in England. They died together (and also the mechanic Derwood M. Basham) as their glider would collide with the other. I have searched the internet without success for descendents of Mr. Krohn and Mr. Basham. I was able to obtain the recently declassified aviation accident report and will share it on this blog.
Work To Be Done
Sylvan's temporary duty at Greenham Commons with the 88 Squadron of the 438 TC Group (the address on the returned V-mail) would put him in the D-Day glider mission code-named Elmira. I am still deciphering the description of the Normandy Invasion from Glidermen of Neptune-American D Day Glider Attack by Charles Masters. It will be hard to give a digest form of what Sylvan Lucier's experience was likely to have been that day.

3 Glider Tow of Schweizers

2007-04-01T22:09:00.000-06:00

"This is the method we used except that we towed only 2 gliders instead of three at one time. They take us up to about 3,000 ft. and then we release and can stay up from 15 minutes to 3 or 4 hours depending on the air conditions. ;It is possible to soar around the mountains all day if the wind is just right. Of course, our training consisted mostly of tow work and making landings on a certain spot." The pilot wrote that he "Put a lot of time in this particular glider"-the one on the far left. Sylvan R. Lucier, Twenty-nine Palms School
Picture Caption: Three Schweizers being towed by a Vultee 0-49. In this type launching, odd cable lengths are used, making collisions impossible. Shortest length is 400 feet. Center glider gets the longest line. Using gliders as air barges, the 295 hp."tug" is capable of transporting over three times its self-contained capacity at about 70 per cent of its normal speed. Experts say post-war freight will be carried thus.

Lapel Pins of Pilot

2007-03-20T22:30:00.000-06:00

I have worked to identify the small pins in this photo. The small wings I know. The four stars surrounded by a red edge remind me of the "Four Star Mother" flag. I think I can now identify the two ribbon bars at the top as part of larger medals. On the left is the bar with the colors for the Europe Africa Middle East Campaign medal. I think the three stars are for three missions his 313 TC Group participated in. On the right is the blue and gold bar to accompany the Air Medal for Sylvan's role in D Day in Normandy. Mike Ingresano, historian for the 316 Troop Carrier Group, indexed in his book the Orders that awarded Sylvan Lucier, among others, the Oak Leaf Cluster for his participation in Market Garden (Holland) which meant he had already received the Air Medal for Normandy. (Sylvan was not given the Oak Leaf Cluster because he died in a glider accident a few weeks after returning from Holland. I don't know if it was sent to his parents.)
When I visited the Strategic Air Museum near Omaha NE on April 9, 2007, I saw a case of W.W. II Aviation Medals. In it were medals Sylvan Lucier must have earned but only the bars (top of photo) remain. The beautiful medals are missing from the box I received with my grandmother's scrapbook about Sylvan. Now I will try work to find replacements.
I would appreciate hearing from anyone who can correct or elaborate on the medals.

Letter of New Pilot to Mother

2007-03-20T22:25:00.000-06:00

C.A. ACZD
Oxnard CAl
April 25, 1942
Dearest Mother,
After a man has soloed for the first time in the U.S. Army Air Corps, he is allowed to wear a little wing in his flight cap. Now that I have soloed, I can wear the wing and I am sending you its mate. It is the tradition here to send the little wing to the girl friend but I much rather send mine to my best friend my mother.
All my love,
Sylvan

Mira Loma Flight Academy

2007-03-20T22:19:00.000-06:00

This is to certify that S.R.Lucier
has this date completed the prescribed course of primary flight training at this school,
May 7, 1942 Oxnard California

PT-17 Stearman Basic Trainer

2007-03-20T22:17:00.000-06:00

This is the plane that we have at this school and so far it is the only kind I have flown.
April 25, 1942

BT-12 Basic Trainer, Fleetwings

2007-03-20T22:10:00.001-06:00

Sylvan Lucier in Glider Training

2007-03-10T16:06:00.000-06:00

WHY FLY A GLIDER?
All glider pilots were volunteers. Why would someone choose to become a glider pilot? Sylvan was a very quiet person and family tell me that when he left home to join Army pilot training at age 26, it was as if he was not gone. This was in contrast to when his older brother, Lanny, left. Sylvan enlisted January 1942. He was the fourth son to enlist.
FIVE BROTHERS WOULD SERVE
Tom Lucier, the fifth and youngest son of Eva and Delphis Lucier, tells me was in high school when the US entered the war. He would join upon finishing school and serve as a journalist in Bavaria Germany, writing for "The Frontline", the newspaper of the Third Infantry Division. Some stories he wrote, based on interviews of soldiers, were picked up and printed in "Stars and Stripes." My research request to the Stars and Stripes museum did not produce anything, but I haven't given up. Sylvan's brother, Lanny Lucier (Lawrence) really got me hooked on learning more about my mother's brothers. I visited him in 1997 and tape recorded hours of his stories. Unfortunately I never knew Bernard Lucier or Dolly (Dephis) Lucier. Their names are all engraved in the new World War II Memorial, thanks to Lanny and his wife Dorothy. The four brothers returned to tell their story to their children, my cousins. Sylvan did not return and since he died single and without children, I am a surrogate offspring for him I suppose, appointed by my mother.

Lucier Trained in Dalhart Texas

2007-02-14T22:42:00.000-06:00

POWER FLIGHT TRAINING PROCEEDED GLIDER TRAINING
Sylvan Lucier was in the first or second group of glider pilots to be trained in the US Army Air Force early in 1942. Much would change for those trained later. He first attended primary flight training and it was after earning his wings for power flight that he enrolled in glider flying school. Clearly, aviation was his love even before Pearl Harbor. Fargo North Dakota had its share of stunt pilot shows. A family story is that there was a scrapbook kept about early aviation accidents. Was it Sylvan's, or did his father begin the collection after Sylvan's death? Was it prophetic or an obsession? The scrapbook did not survive the dismantling of the family home. Certainly Sylvan, considered an "old man" for enlisting at age 26, knew the hazards ahead of him.

Ed Landell, Sylvan Lucier, Ben Grobman, Keaton McCarty

2007-02-14T22:40:00.000-06:00

A PILOT'S FRIENDS
The photograph shows friends of Sylvan:
"Just some of the boys."
Ed (Edward E.) Landell, Sylvan Lucier (in background), Ben Grobman, and Keaton McCarty.

Sylvan Lucier and Tony Colaccino

2007-02-14T22:37:00.000-06:00

AN ITALIAN IN ITALY
"This is Tony with me. He is in my tent over here by the way."
Sylvan and Tony (Anthony) Colaccino. The picture was taken in Dalhart, Texas, but sent from Africa where they were tent mates. Early in my research, in 1997, I spoke with the widow of Tony Colaccino. Unfortunately I was about a year too late. She described a fellow who enjoyed the same things Sylvan enjoyed, like dancing, but he did not write letters as Sylvan did, preferring to use the phone. Tony enjoyed speaking Italian and dining with the Italians and was reprimanded more than once for "socializing with the enemy".
I would greatly appreciate learning anything I can about the pilots who worked in Africa with my uncle. Please contact me if you have information or are descendents: eanephew AT aol DOT com

Sylvan Lucier in Advanced Glider Training

2007-02-14T22:35:00.000-06:00

This is Sylvan Lucier in Advanced Glider Training in Dalhart, Texas.
It is possible the other pictures also were taken in Texas. However, they could also have come from Laurenburg/Maxton Airbase in North Carolina. All five pilot friends joined the 49th Squadron of the 313 TCG and went by ship to Africa. Later they all flew CG 4A gliders into Holland. However, four were still with the 49th, but Sylvan was then in the 36th SQ of the 316 TGC. All four must have returned safely home as I have not found their names on a Role of Honor.

Glider Pilot Lucier, early 1942

2007-02-14T22:31:00.000-06:00

FROM POWER TO SILENT WINGS
Was it his intention to be a power pilot? That is likely. However, a letter to his mother a year later in Africa said that he had chronic high blood pressure and although he did not wear glasses in the military, he expected he would again wear them in civilian life. Recently, the youngest brother in the family, Tom Lucier, told me that Sylvan put a few planes down a bit roughly. If that was so, he was quick to begin sailplane training with civilian soaring trainers.
I will soon be posting places and dates where Sylvan trained and the pictures of planes and gliders he trained with.
Sylvan did not train with the combat gliders flown in Europe until later, perhaps at Laurenburg/Maxton Air Base. I am not certain, but based on when he went to Africa, (April 1943) he might have flown as co-pilot in Africa on supply missions. Others with the history of the 49th Squadron of the 313 Troop Carrier Group might be able to help me with that.

Monument Design/Brief History

2007-02-05T23:26:00.000-06:00

The monument for the grave site of Sylvan R. Lucier and his parents, Eva and Delphis Lucier,was installed in Holy Cross Cemetery, Fargo, North Dakota in June 2006. The design was chosen by Sylvan's niece, Anne Hilber Nephew, with the blessing of Tom Lucier, the remaining sibling of Sylvan, and another niece, Virginia (Barbara) Deibert, who lovingly cares for the grave sites.
The front of the monument has a rosary on the top left. According to Sylvan's brother, Lannie, Eva Lucier gave each of her sons a black rosary when they left for the army. On the top right side is a red flag with five stars which was displayed in the Lucier's front window. Sylvan was the fourth son in his family to enlist (he would not have been drafted), which explains the four blue stars. If a soldier died a gold star was fixed over the blue star. In Sylvan's case the gold star was pinned to one side because after his death the fifth son graduated from high school and enlisted.
On the back of the monument is etched the WACO CG 4A glider ( tail number 43-41701) that he flew in the Market Garden mission to liberate Holland. The Waco Air Museum sent me photographs to guide our art work.
The places Sylvan served are printed across the base. In February 1943 Sylvan left Laurinberg/Maxton Air Base where he was with the 374 Troup Carrier Group to join the 313 TCG, 49th Squadron to served in Africa and Sicily.
In April, 1944, he was assigned to the 316 TCG, 36th SQ for invasion preparations in England. As a glider pilot trainer he also flew the British Horsa glider and thus was given a temporary assignment in th 438 TCG, 88th SQ to bring men and equipment into Normandy on June 6. His drop zone was the Ste Mere-Eglise area.
On September 18, Sylvan flew a CG 4A glider, without a co-pilot, that landed near Groesbeek, Holland. Less than a month later he and two others died in an accident flying double tow near Tiffield, Northamptonshire, England.
More details, documents and photographs will be posted in the future, as well as details of his year training in the US.
Anne Hilber Nephew
eanephew@aol.com

Burial Site in Fargo, North Dakota

2007-02-05T22:56:00.000-06:00

2007-01-20T23:33:00.000-06:00

Statement of Purpose:
I would like to correspond with anyone (including familly or descendents) who know Flight Officer Sylvan R. Lucier, T-120666, Army Air Corp. I will soon be posting a detailed time line of Sylvan's training as a glider pilot and the locations his mail came from in Europe as well as details of his death in the line of duty in England. As I develop each stage of his career, I will have pictures and documents as well. I will be especially interested in corresponding with decendents of the pilots in photographs and mentioned on official reports I will post here. Your information would greatly enrich this commemorative blog.
I have many family stories that need verification. One is that Sylvan flew a demonstration glider over New York or Washington DC to encourage congress to manufacture gliders for the war. Another is that Sylvan's co-pilot was killed in a mission when they were shot down. Also, I am most ignorant of what Sylvan was doing in Africa and Sicily when he was with the 49th Squadron. Hopefully, as I organize and publish the information I have, more will appear.
I also hope my work on this blog will encourage my generation, ( Born nine months after Pearl Harbor I am the earliest of the Baby Boomers) to learn whatever they can about the conditions during and following the war that affected our upbringing. As a niece of a deceased glider pilot, growing up in a non military family, I have had to learned everything from books I purchased in recent years about the glider missions. The taped interviews of Sylvan's friends and family, the glider museum visits and the correspondence with troop carrier historians has awakened in me a passion for the past and the challenges of preserving a fully human perspective of history. Today with the internet, the resources are closer than our doorstep.
In 1995, on the 50th anniversity of the end of World War II in Europe, in reply to my inquiry about my uncle's death, my mother passed on the scrapbook made by her mother. My own mother had never before allowed herself to peruse this collection of memoriabilia. The pain was still too much for her 50 years later! As I began my research I began to know the person my uncle was before he joined the service. He died single but with many, many cousins, nieces and nephews and now hundreds of their descendents. Perhaps he can have a kind of life beyond his 28 years, if I can restore some of the past with the help of others.
Anne Hilber Nephew

Welcome!

2007-01-15T15:47:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the "Sylvan Ralph Lucier: WWII Glider Pilot" website and blog. This page is designed to be a central archive for research and information on Sylvan Lucier. More to follow!