Daughters of D-Day

http://www.daughtersofd-day.com/BCTimesarticle.htm

http://www.daughtersofd-day.com/NETimes.htm

Carol – The Hidden Legacy of World War II

http://www.otherwords.org/articles/world_war_iis_invisible_wounds

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/june172010/arthur-dutch-schultz-pl.php

http://www.boomercafe.com/2011/08/11/the-hidden-legacy-of-world-war-ii/

http://www.imow.org/community/stories/viewStory?storyid=2988

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times/news_columnists/daughter-deals-with-dad-s-past/article_566b0bd0-ef16-5208-9481-2f9f86c7ebf8.html

http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/veteran-s-daughter-brings-wwii-s-hidden-legacy-to-light/article_da3235b9-94e3-5574-bc2c-811b338dcf2e.html

Patrick interviewed my father in the late nineteen nineties for his book, Beyond Valor: World War II’s Ranger and Airborne Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat.

In San Francisco, Mrs. Lucille M. Schultz, a nurse at the Veterans Hospital at Fort Miley, was on night duty when the announcement was made. She wanted to stay by the radio in the hope that the 82nd Airborne would be mentioned; she suspected the division was in the assault. But she was also afraid the radio might excite her cardiac patient, a World War I veteran. He wanted to listen to the reports. "I wish I was there," he said. "You’ve had your war," said Nurse Schultz as she turned off the radio. Sitting in the darkness, weeping silently, she said the Rosary over and over for her twenty-one-year-old paratrooper son, Arthur, better know to the 505th Regiment as Dutch.

Early in February 1945, the division arrived at a scene my father described as resembling Dante’s Inferno – the Huertgen Forest, in the Ardennes along the Belgian-German border. In those dark woods which resembled dark fairy tale scenes of Hansel and Gretel, catastrophic losses had befallen the American Army in November 1944. As dad and his fellow troopers marched through the killing field, the snow was slowly melting and the “Bloody Huertgen” was giving up its dead. Body parts were sticking through the thawing snow – a head, partial torso, arm or leg was visible. Hundreds of corpses, tank hulks and all manner of war detritus had been left behind for months. The majority of dead and decomposed were attached to the 28^th Infantry Division of the Pennsylvania National Guard, a unit demolished from heavy German shelling, mines and snipers. Gerald Astor in The Bloody Forest estimated the casualty toll from Huertgen to be 24,000, in a battle considered a military failure and relatively unnoticed by the brass and press.  It wasn’t unnoticed by Dutch – he never witnessed such carnage and inhumanity. The odor from the decaying flesh was overpowering. In his ill and exhausted state, my father collapsed and lay on the side of the road. Dutch: The path that we were using had recently been cleared of mines by the engineers. However, there were still mines on the both sides of the path and so it became crucial that you didn’t stray too far from the center of the path….I became violently ill and fell to the ground. I laid there no caring whether I lived or died. A first lieutenant helped me to my feet. This unknown lieutenant dragged Dutch a mile to an aid station, saving his life, since he had double pneumonia and would have died from exposure if left in the cold woods.

Chapter Five – Lost Child

The Hidden Legacy of World War II

Chapter 5

LOST CHILD

"Over time I realized that my father was not alone in his defeat. There were many other vets like him, emotionally scarred by the “Good War”, who failed to live up to the impossible standards set for men of their era. I was lucky, in fact, to be Dad’s confidant. Most loved ones were kept in the dark. World War II vets are notoriously closemouthed, the stoic product of the Great Depression and wartime when ideals of honor, courage, patriotism, sacrifice, and self-reliance fostered impregnable reticence."  Julia Collins, My Father’s War

“Your daughter is dead”  Philadelphia policeman to Mitzi Schultz – 11:58 PM, November 22, 1973

“We’re supposed to grow old together”, I said to my sister Rosemary that rainy November eve. She didn’t answer. Lifeless in her satin lined white casket, she never again would. Disbelieving, I choked back tears, became rigid and rejoined my parents in the somber reception line. Not the type of greeting procession the two of them had expected to be in for their youngest daughter. Rather than accepting congratulations at her wedding, the two of them, physically closer to each other than they had been in a decade, greeted mourners at her viewing.

Thanksgiving night, November 22, 1973, just four days prior, had found me overstuffed and sleepy in the Philadelphia apartment I shared my husband. Earlier that day, I bade goodbye to Rosemary as she left the traditional Italian family feast at our aunt’s house. My sister’s thin arms were clamped tightly around her boyfriend’s waist. He zoomed the motor on his black and silver Yamaha cycle and quickly sped off. I had more than a momentary worry. My twenty-two year old sister’s latest choice in men was a disaster. She looked pale and tired. She worked long hours as a waitress at Khyber Pass, a trendy center city Philly club, and juggled a full load of classes at Temple University. The heavy load was wearing her down.

We are the daughters (as well as son, nieces, nephews, and other types of relations or friends) of World War II veterans who served in the European or Pacific theatres and participated in combat.

We are looking for other men and women whose fathers (or other family or friends) fought in Europe, in the Pacific campaign, or anywhere during the span of World War II. We’d like to hear their stories. 

Our goal is to listen, to tell, to share, and to try to come to know how our those stories are woven into our own and form one tapestry.      

This project, created by women who have the shared experience of being raised by a father who served in combat during World War II, is attempting to build a chronicle of stories of what we know about our fathers, of our experiences being raised by these men, and how those experiences affected and continue to affect our lives.

Although started by two women whose fathers participated in the Normandy campaign, we are interested in all daughters and sons of World War II veterans who saw combat.  The goal of this project is to collect and preserve all of the stories we can, and make it possible to learn about our fathers and ultimately ourselves through careful listening to the stories our fathers told to us, or the stories that they didn’t tell and we are just learning about now.

Please contact us, send stories, and generally begin a dialog about the fathers we love, the men they were before and became after the war, the daughters and sons they raised, and the women and men we are today.

Daughters of D-Day