Conrad J Netting IV never knew his father. Whenever the subject came up, Conrad’s usual answer was that his father, a US Army Pilot, was killed in the war.
The Netting family grew and prospered over the next 50 years and in 1994 Conrad’s mother Catherine, died. It came time for her house to be sold, so the family all lent a hand sorting and clearing out her effects.
In the garage Conrad discovered his father’s Army footlocker, with his name 2nd Lieutenant Conrad Netting III stencilled across the lid. They wiped the dust off and attempted to open it. After so many years the lid wasn’t budging. It was obvious the locker hadn’t been opened since its arrival back from the war in 1945. Conrad will never know why his mother had not opened this chest. Maybe it was too painful to release the grief inside; everyone has their own way of dealing with these things.
With the aid of a crowbar the lid finally came unstuck and there inside were his personal belongings. His uniform was neatly folded, with his medals displayed. Among the clothes there were over a thousand love letters from Conrad’s mother. They seemed to have written to each other every day for the three years he was stationed in the UK with the 336th Fighter Squadron. But on top of all that lay Conrad’s Pilot Flight log in which he had recorded every flight he made. Eagerly turning to June 10th, 1944, they read the last entry.
In a different handwriting was an epitaph by his best friend and roommate describing what happened on the day of Conrad Netting III’s death. He knew precisely because he was flying alongside him as his wingman.
This is what it read: “Today was Con’s last flight. He flew an extra volunteer mission, and in his eagerness to stop an enemy truck convoy from reaching the beach head he gave his life. Con was going in on a truck, leading the rest of squadron to it. While he was firing, he got too close and when he tried to pull up, his ship hit the trees, turning it over. It was seen to crash and explode.
I lost a very good friend today, and the squadron will miss him as a valuable man, but it will be nothing as compared to the loss to Catherine and their son Con John the IV.
In those few lines, Conrad and his family discovered for the first time what had happened to his father on June 10th, 1944, over the skies of Normandy. The Allied invasion on the Normandy beaches had begun four days earlier and Conrad made his ultimate contribution to thwarting the Nazi reinforcements trying to drive those Allied forces back into the English Chanel. Those words in Con’s last flight log had opened a new chapter the family history. They were anxious to learn more but were at a loss how to begin.
As often happens, the excitement and the pain of these revelations receded into the past as daily life in San Antonio, Texas closed in again.
On another Saturday morning, eight years later in 2002, fate decided to give the story another nudge. A letter arrived at their house with a French postmark. They knew no one in that country and were intrigued as Conrad tore open the envelope. Their weekend plans evaporated when they read the opening words of the letter penned by a Mr Michel Grandin. “We think you might be the family of the man who died in our village on June 10th !944”
The next paragraph really shocked him “I saw the plane crash that day and my father, who was the local cabinet maker, built the casket for your father’s burial”
Conrad immediately called the number on the letter. He spoke to Mr Gandin who told him that the village was dedicating a permanent memorial to his father and they would like to send him pictures. Conrad suggested that he and his family would like to be there when they did so. Michel Grandin was delighted and said that they would be honoured guests in their village.
In June of that year the Nettings flew to France and travelled to the tiny hamlet of Saint-Michel-des-Andaines in Normandy.
The Netting family were truly honoured guests and after 60 years Conrad finally learned what happened to his father. After the crash, Michel told him, they couldn’t do much. He and his father had seen the plane explode in the woods, too low for a parachute. His father couldn’t leave the dead pilot unattended. Louis Grandin went to his workshop and started making a coffin. The Germans who were in complete disarray and in panicked retreat, got wind of this and came to his workshop and demanded that he stop immediately, which he did. When they had gone, he continued and by night it was finished.
Louis Grandin with the local Priest secretly made their way through the dark to the crash site and recovered the pilot’s body. They struggled with the coffin through the dead of night back to the village and managed to bury him in the local cemetery. The following morning, the makeshift grave was covered in a mound of flowers.
When the Allied forces advanced into the heart of France, the villagers exhumed Conrad’s coffin, handing the body over for burial in the nearby newly established American Servicemen’s cemetery, where it remains to this day. Sixty years passed, the villagers took it upon themselves that this man was to be suitably honoured with an official memorial ceremony to coincide with countless other memorial services across Europe.
A flag staff was erected at the entrance to the local cemetery where Conrad Netting had first been laid to rest, flying the “Stars & Stripes”. At the foot of the pole is a stone plaque which names 2nd Lt Conrad John Netting III with his date of birth and death followed with inscription “He died for Liberty”
The entire village gathered for the occasion, determined to give their American guests a heartfelt welcome. Prayers were said, speeches made and then the “Star Spangled Banner” was played on an old cassette player – everyone stood with their hands across their hearts in tribute to the Netting family.
In his speech, Michel Grandin said that at the time, the whole village had taken Conrad Netting III to their hearts because of his courageous sacrifice. Grandin asserted that Conrad Netting III was the only man from their village to die in the war.
There things stand. The grass and a few flowers at the foot of the flagpole are kept in trim, the Stars & Stripes flown most days. Inevitably, the characters in this small story, after 80 years, are passing away. How long this local monument will remain a part of the village’s life is hard to tell.
This is just one of thousands of stories of historical and personal links between Europe and America. Stories of pain and loss, sacrifices made and friendships forged in a colossal, shared endeavour to defeat an evil blight unleashed on civilisation.
Sadly, those links are being savagely broken by an unfathomable and vindictive President who views people like Conrad as “losers” for getting killed. He considers folks across Europe, who fought alongside the Americans as “free loaders”, who should be punished with trade tariffs because they are “ripping off America”.
A shared belief in the defeat of evil and the establishment of a common cause for freedom that has endured for decades has been reduced in a few months to a transactional shake down.
In these changing times, there are people willing to go along with this new enterprise of turning our backs on the institutions like the imperfect UN, ECHR, of Foreign Aid organisations, NGOs like The Red Cross, Medicines sans Frontiers, Save the Children branding them as corrupt enemies of freedom.
How long that flag will flutter in the village of Saint-Michel-des-Andaines depends on whether the inhabitants will remember their own history or the new narrative being concocted by a regime that increasingly aligns itself with the tendencies that Conrad Netting died in the struggle to defeat.
In the same way they say that all politics is local, all History is personal.
When NASA lit up the five massive Merlin Engines of the 300 foot high Saturn V Rocket, the most powerful machine ever built, they burned through 20 tons of fuel in just 120 seconds producing 7.5 million lbs of thrust as it lifted the Apollo missions on the start of their journey to the Moon. Although it looks like the Saturn V is pushing against the immovable Earth, it was also actually nudging our planet by about 1cm over 1000 years from its orbit. There were 13 Saturn V launches from Pad 39 at Cape Canaveral sending the Apollo missions to the Moon and Skylab into orbit – so a millennium hence, Earth will be 13 centimetres away from where it should be.
Nelson enlisted in the British Navy as a 14-year-old deck hand. As he was being rowed down river to Portsmouth Naval base, he had sight of the first war ship he’d ever seen. It was HMS Victory, moored up and moth balled. Little did he suspect that within just over a decade, it would be under his command.
spread over 4 decks, Nelson unleashed a broadside canon attack with one and a quarter tons of lead balls, which travelling at 70mph, smashed through the 4 inch thick wooden walls of the French ships; releasing a thousand shards of deadly splintered wood into the heart of the enemy crew. After the captain, the ships’ surgeon was the most important person on these vessels.
Nelson was given a state funeral and celebrated with the largest monument in British History at London’s Trafalgar Square. Not only did he thwart Napoleon’s Naval ambitions, he also set Britain on a century and a half of Naval supremacy – enabling the unstoppable expansion of the British Empire.
as a Christian civilising force and regarded Slavery as an economic necessity ; Cotton and Sugar being an integral part of the Empire’s wealth, relying on Slavery for the production of these commodities. The Abolitionists, in his view, posed a threat to the stability of the Empire that he would die to defend – which he eventually did.
students – white or of colour, see when they pass under his statue at Oxford. There have been unsuccessful sporadic protests demanding his removal. In an ideal world Rhode’s statue would barely elicit a glance, but it symbolises the continued and ignored inequalities people of colour suffer at Oxford.
Statues, on both sides. Much like Nelson, Lincoln was honoured with the largest memorial in the Country. Every southern town square was adorned with statues of Robert E Lee or Stonewall Jackson.
Forty years later, these largely forgotten edifices became significant in the time of “Black Lives Matter” Yet again White supremacists would hold rallies beneath them that were met by Civil Rights and black groups protesting the killing of black men by Police forces across America. At one rally a woman was killed and others injured after a supremacist drove through the opposing crowd. President Trump refused to condemn the murder remarking that “There was bad on both sides”
with the Jews that they bring so much scorn upon themselves”. Sharing the view that there was a “Jewish Problem” in Europe.. One Labour MP referred to her as the “Honourable Member for Berlin”. By 1945 her parliamentary career was over.
request a page to be either deleted or memorialised; where people can continue to visit and leave memories and comments about the person no longer with us. A kind of digital condolence book. Undoubtedly accompanied by tasteful graphics.
world, 540 luxury rooms and 6 stories high. Palm Beach Resort was born and soon expanded into a town and then a city.
admission to the United States. The Government refused, and the ship had to return to Europe, where more than half its passengers eventually fell victim to the Holocaust.
misfits who managed to co-exist on this narrow strip of land – which only three generations before was crocodile infested Mangrove swamps – had simply vanished. Many Snowbirds died, others were pushed out by landlords and developers, who were waking up and smelling the coffee; and the aroma was good and was going to make them a lot of money.
matteringsofmind 