Military Research

It Started with Bob

Fifteen years ago, in the winter of 2008-2009, my younger brother announced that he had published a book of poetry that he had written. I had not realized that self-publishing was something you could do, but thought I could do some as well. The first book I published was a book of poetry that had been written by my father during his time on board a small ship in the South Pacific during WWII. He had passed away a few years earlier and I had come into possession of his collection of poems. I organized them, typed them up, and published the book of his poetry, called “My Father’s Love”, in March 2009.

A few weeks later, I was meeting for breakfast with a small group of men who got together every few weeks at a local restaurant where we shared what was going on in our lives and prayed for each other. I brought along a copy of the book that I had just published to share with them. As I was doing so, the distinct words that came to me – a message from God – were “Go see Bob.” Bob Kauffman was a retired gentleman from our church. He had not attended much for the prior few years as he was dedicated to taking care of his wife who was bedridden. She had passed away a few months earlier and I knew that was struggling with what to do next.

I also knew that he had written some monographs of his time in WWII where he had served. Knocking on his door (I had never been in his house before), I showed him the book of poetry and offered to organize and publish his monographs. He was stunned, especially since he had just a few days before received an email from a British general whom he knew who had also said that he should get his stories published.

Bob wanted to write an opening chapter of how he came to enlist in the US Army, but in the meantime, he gave me a folder with copies of all his monographs. I spent the next few months editing them, eliminating duplicate accounts, putting them in chronological order, etc. Over the summer it all came together and his book, “The Replacement” was published in September 2009. (See here).

It was an immediate success. Over the next few years until his eventual passing in 2013, he gave innumerable speeches to various civic organizations, schools, and churches, appeared on TV, and was even invited as a special guest speaker at the Gettysburg National Cemetery during their annual day of remembrance.

But perhaps the most significant speech he gave was at the Normandy Cemetery in France in 2012. Bob had memorized many of the chapters in his book and was honored to repeat it to a group at the daily flag-raising ceremony that day. (You can see it here).

 

Another Bob

During this period of his life, Bob was taking annual visits to Europe to see the places where he had served. He often took others with him. It was on one of these trips that he met a young man, Bob Konings. Bob was originally from the Netherlands but had recently moved to the small village of Grandmenil, Germany, where he had opened a bed-and-breakfast. He was enthusiastic about researching history, especially of the town of Grandmenil. As he notes on his website (https://www.battletour.be/about-bob/), he published some of his findings in early 2009. Then just a few months later, in May 2009, he met Bob Kauffman and they became close friends.

Although I have never had the opportunity to travel to Grandmenil, I also have begun working with Bob on some of his research. My specialty is using my skills at genealogy to find relatives of the various soldiers who were killed at some of the battles in that area and trying to make connections with them so that we can get a fuller picture of the men involved. If you look at one of Bob’s websites (https://www.battle-of-the-bulge.be/the-ottre-massacre-sources-and-acknowledgments/), you can see the thanks that he gives to Bob Kauffman and also his acknowledgement of me as a fellow researcher. I’m happy to be associated with all the individuals in this research and to be able to add my small contribution to it.

 

Add in Myra

One of the other researchers involved in this research is Myra Miller. Not only does she have a keen interest in WWII research, but she is fortunate to live just outside of St. Louis near the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) facility there. While NARA is headquartered in MD, the National Personnel Records Center, which houses military records (Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF)) is in their St. Louis facility. Myra and her team of researchers (officially called Footsteps Researchers (see https://www.footstepsresearchers.com/founders) spend many hours combing through the NARA records each year.

It was about this time that Myra and her four siblings began the research on a book that would honor their father and his service in WWII. They put together a large (338 page) collection of the stories that their father had told them as well as stories from another 140 WWII veterans. The book was called “Soldiers’ Stories: A Collection of WWII Memoirs” (see here). By the time it was published in late 2016, I had already worked with Bob Konings and Myra for a while and ordered a copy for myself as soon as it was available. Of course, one of the soldiers featured in it was Bob Kauffman.

This book was also an instant success and as others began sending Myra their own stories (or stories from their father or grandfather), they quickly had a collection of enough other stories for a second volume. This second volume, published in 2020 (see here) also included a story that I wrote about my father’s time in the US Navy. You can see what I wrote here.

Myra continues to do WWII research through the NARA records as well as leads small groups on battlefield tours of the European theater. I am happy to be connected to both Myra and Bob Konings in social media.

 

Add in Joey

The final member of the collaborative team is Joey van Meesen. Rather than contributing by writing, Joey uses his skills to produce documentary videos. His website is called Snafu Docs (https://www.snafu-docs.com/). As you can see on his website, he partners with Battle of the Bulge Tours (Bob Konings), with Footsteps Researchers (Myra Miller) as well as with others. Not having skills in this area, I have not worked directly with Joey as I have with Bob or Myra, but I have viewed all his videos.

 

Pulling it all together

I had already decided earlier this week to write this blog post. But then within the last 24 hours three separate items brought it to the forefront of my mind.

First, in my Youtube feed I received a reminder of a video of Joey’s that I had watched two years ago. The video was a short documentary about looking for the person who was in a picture from 1944 in a small town in Luxembourg (see here).  The people on the search team were Joey, his father, and Bob Konings. Naturally, I watched it again – and put this blog writing on the top of my list.

Then, late last night, two items showed up at the top of my Facebook feed. The first was a posting from Myra, showing the Footsteps Researchers/Snafu Docs teams at a display table at a convention in Louisville. Both Myra and Joey were in the picture.

Finally, early this morning (European time) there was a posting by Bob Konings about a recent trip he and his wife made to the small village of Wahlen, Germany looking for the graves of the civilian victims of a bombing run of a plane that crashed near where they currently live. So, in the middle of the night (my time), I not only read his post, but resolved to write this blog post TODAY! And, the focus of his post will be the subject of a subsequent post that I’ll begin writing this afternoon.

Just like when I showed my father’s book of poetry to a few friends and received the message, “Go see Bob,” I now have received the directive to write this latest post!