Artikel Wilson County News
Artikel: Wilson County News
Website: https://www.wilsoncountynews.com
Door: Nannette Kilbey-Smith
Gepubliceerd: 08 november 2022
Deze kopie van het artikel is geplaatst met toestemming van Wilson County News
WCN connects Holland and Poth in search for missing World War II soldier
It was Sept. 12, 1940, a year into World War II, when Julius “JD” Grier of Poth enlisted in the U.S. Army at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
His oath to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” would lead the Wilson County native to travel to The Netherlands, where he was among the soldiers who fought to liberate the Dutch from Nazi occupation.
JD, born in 1922, would never return to his home in Texas, nor to his wife, Juanita, or their young daughter, Judy. A member of the 407th Infantry Regiment, 102nd Infantry Division, 2nd Battalion, he gave his life to liberate the people of The Netherlands; the U.S. Army’s records indicate he went missing in action while engaging the enemy near Flossdorf, Germany. He received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.
But the sacrifice of this farm boy from South Central Texas hasn’t been forgotten.
The search begins
In September 2021, the Wilson County News received an email from The Netherlands.
“My name is Bart and I live in the Netherlands. I am doing research on fallen U.S. soldiers from the Second World War who are buried in the American cemetery in Margraten (Netherlands) or mentioned on the Walls of the Missing. One of these soldiers is Staff Sgt. Julius D. Grier of Wilson County, Texas.”
Bart van der Sterren explained he was searching for a photo of the soldier, and his online research turned up a Wilson County News article about the Palace Café in Falls City. (See “Where everybody knows everybody — Generations say goodbye to Falls City’s historic Palace Café,” Nov. 22, 2017.) In researching Sgt. Grier online, Bart found the soldier had a sister, Ruby Lee (Grier) Pawelek, who died in 2012. Could Vickie Zidek, who was running the Palace Café when it closed, be Ruby’s daughter, and therefore Sgt. Grier’s niece?
“Is it possible that you could put her in touch with me?” he wanted to know.
As the Palace Café had closed, there was no business number to call. But we did a little digging and found a contact number for Vickie, who was amazed at the reason why we’d reached out.
“But you really want to talk to my cousin, Ron,” she explained. “He’s into genealogy, and probably has the answers.”
Ron, it transpires, is the son of JD’s brother, Adam “AJ” Grier. Ron’s been researching his family tree for about 20 years.
We were able to put Ron — who owns and operates The Colour Bar Salon in Floresville — and Bart in contact with each other, hoping the missing pieces could be put together.
“It’s crazy, really,” Ron told WCN. “With this much time having gone by. You don’t think anybody’s thinking about [World War II] anymore.”
Honored and remembered
Bart explained in his emails to Ron that the people in The Netherlands to this day are grateful to the soldiers who liberated their country. The graves in the American military cemeteries are carefully tended, and the memorials cared for. Although JD’s remains haven’t, to date, been identified, he’s listed on the Walls of the Missing in The Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, where a family has “adopted” Sgt. Grier’s name on the wall, takes flowers to the cemetery to remember him, and helps care for the memorial. There are 8,301 U.S. soldiers interred there, and 1,722 names of missing Army and Air Force members engraved on the walls of the Square of Honor. All the names of the missing and all the graves have been adopted.
“Since the end of the war, the adoption program has existed …,” Bart explained. “There is even a waiting list for adopting graves and names on the marble wall.”
“In the U.S., we take freedom for granted,” Ron marveled. “But there, they still honor and remember those who sacrificed their lives for their freedom.”
Bart’s search for information about JD is part of a project, “The Faces of Margraten.”
In September 1944, U.S. soldiers crossed the border near the town of Mesch in The Netherlands; it was the first town to be liberated from Nazi occupation. But the country wasn’t fully free from Axis oppression until May 1945.
The price of freedom
“And that liberation came at a heavy price for those who fought for it,” states “The Faces of Margraten” website. “That is why we say thank you to our American liberators” who are buried in the American cemetery. “We pay tribute to them by decorating their graves and names on the Walls of the Missing with their personal photos.”
Bart, 56, lives in a small village, Schinveld, in the south of Holland, about 18 miles from the cemetery in Margraten. A married father of two grown children, he read in a local newspaper in 2007 that it was again possible to adopt graves of the soldiers in Margraten.
“Since I used to visit the cemetery with my parents when I was a little boy, I decided to apply to adopt a grave,” he shared.
That was the grave of U.S. PFC Hans Bergmayr, whose family were among the first immigrants to settle in Wisconsin. Hans died in The Netherlands in February 1945, Bart said.
In 2008, Bart adopted the name of a missing soldier, Tech. Sgt. Cliffe H. Wolfe from Michigan, who went missing in Germany in November 1944.
“Many adopters try to contact the family of ‘their’ soldier and inform them that these brave soldiers are not forgotten for what they did for us more than 76 years ago,” Bart explained.
Because he feels it’s important that as many photos as possible of the soldiers are found, he’s helping the “Faces of Margraten” foundation find their photos. He estimates he’s found about 15 so far.
Once he finds a photo, Bart sends it to the Foundation for Adoption of Graves-U.S. Cemetery Margraten. Each soldier has his own page on the “Fields of Honor” database on the website. He’s currently searching for 1,000 more photos.
“When I have found and gotten contact with a family of a soldier, I am proud to tell them that their father, uncle, great uncle, nephew, is remembered and not forgotten in the cemetery in Margraten,” he said.
Bart has offered to introduce Ron and his family to the family who has adopted JD and honors his memory and sacrifice.
Ron has given a DNA sample to the U.S. military, which continues its efforts to identify and repatriate the remains of service members missing in action or otherwise unidentified. If JD’s remains are located and identified, he’ll be buried in Poth, near his parents, Alexander D. and Gertrude (Kolodziej) Grier, and his brother, AJ, Ron said.
And, although JD never returned from the war, his family hasn’t forgotten him. Ron’s parents named one of their children JD. And Ron’s brother, Randy, named one of his sons JD, also.
“It’s our way of honoring Uncle JD.”
Remember the Alamo
Ron Grier, in his research, has found not only information about his uncle, World War II Staff Sgt. Julius “JD” Grier, but about his great-great-grandfather.
“He fought and died at the Alamo,” Ron shared.
Now a member of the Alamo Defenders Descendants Association, Ron plans to apply for membership to the Sons of the Republic of Texas.
Help honor the fallen
“The Faces of Margraten” project is trying to find a photo for every U.S. soldier with a grave or listed on the Walls of the Missing in The Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, The Netherlands.
So far, about 8,000 photos of the fallen have been located. But there are about 1,900 faces still to be found. Every two years, around May 4-5, the graves and remembrance walls are decorated with photos of the soldiers; this is when The Netherlands commemorates its war dead and celebrates the liberation of the country in 1945.
The “Fields of Honor” database — a project of the Dutch nonprofit Fields of Honor Foundation — includes information about each U.S. soldier buried or memorialized in Margraten, as well as those in other American cemeteries in The Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Luxembourg. Information for about 34,000 American soldiers can be found; there’s even a section, “Isolated Graves,” for U.S. World War II soldiers who were buried in local cemeteries in the countries the database covers.
“We honor their service and sacrifice by continuing to tell their life stories and preserve them for future generations,” says the foundation on its website, fieldsofhonordatabase.com.
More information, and photos, are needed.
To submit information or photos:
- Visit www.degezichtenvanmargraten.nl/index.php/en-us/
- Mail photos to Fields of Honor Foundation, Coehoomsingel 26-17, 9711 BS Groningen, The Netherlands. Clearly state if the photo is an original; if so, it will be scanned and returned.
- Email info@degezichtenvanmargraten.nl.
Indicate, in each case, if the photo is yours, or if you have permission to share it with the project.
Ron Grier encourages others to help find the missing photos.
“We didn’t know the dots would ever be connected,” he said of Bart’s search for JD’s photo. “Now, we know of the family who adopted his name and are caring for his memorial.
“Don’t give up,” Ron encouraged.
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