Perpetual care: A Belgian woman
lovingly tends the grave of a soldier from Newark Monday, April 08, 2002 BY WILLIAM GORDON
Over the changing seasons, a young
Belgian woman from the town of Ans goes often to the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery near
Liege to visit and pray at the grave of a GI of World War II she has adopted as her
"godson." She is known as a "Marraine de
Guerre" -- Godmother of War -- one of many people in the region of Liege who, since
the start of the cemetery in 1945, have adopted the graves of American servicemen in
gratitude for their sacrifice in liberating Belgium from the Nazis.
Treading across the grassy slope of
arcing rows of headstones marking the graves of 7,989 American soldiers, Régine Villers
Achten, 32, comes to a stop at Plot A, Row 18, Grave 38, the burial place of Pfc.
Frederick F. Villani of Newark. Achten said she chose the soldier as
her "godson" because his name resembled her maiden name. The inscription on Villani's stone
cross says he was serving with the 112th Infantry Regiment of the 28th
"Keystone" Division when he was killed on Nov. 8, 1944, in the Battle of the
Hurtgen Forest. He was 30 years old. Hurtgen, a dank, spooky woodland on
the Belgian-German border, was the longest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army. In it,
30,000 Americans were killed or wounded over the winter of 1944-45. The vicious, seesaw
combat was a little-known prelude to the Battle of the Bulge. "All you are expected to do is to
put fresh flowers on the grave once in a while, to come and visit your 'godson' any time
you want, and to meditate at his grave," Achten explained. On the day after the terrorist attacks
on America, Achten and her husband, Bernard, visited the grave as a way to pay tribute to
the victims of 9/11. In the beginning, the scant
information on Villani's headstone and on the ornate certificate of adoption given to her
by the cemetery was all Achten knew, or felt she needed to know. As time went by, her feelings of
attachment to the spirit of her soldier from New Jersey deepened, while her curiosity
about him grew. She said she wanted to put a face to the name of the GI she always
pictured as smiling at her. "Every year, I receive an
invitation to the Memorial Day ceremony, which I never miss," she said. "I feel
so proud of my godson -- as if he were my family -- when I go to his grave, along with the
parents and relatives of the other soldiers, to place some flowers and pray." But that was not enough for Achten.
She wanted to know more about Frederick Villani. She was curious to know whether he had
any relatives still living. "I wanted them to know that there
is someone here to take care of Frederick's grave and memory," she said. "I also
wanted them to know that I would be happy and honored to guide them here in Belgium, if
they ever wanted to come and visit Frederick." Achten has a job teaching English to
adults who need the language for professional reasons. That helped in her search on the
Internet for clues, a task that spanned months, and involved visits to numerous World War
II Web sites and hundreds of e-mails. "When I visit Fred," she
said, "most of the time I bring a bunch of flowers from the florist on the corner,
put them on his grave and talk to him either silently or loudly, it depends. I always
thank him for what he did. I tell him that we'll never forget him. I would keep him posted
on the progress I'm making in my search for his relatives." She learned from city directories in
the Newark Public Library's New Jersey Reference Room that, before the war, the Villani
family had lived on Pacific Street in the city's Ironbound section. The directory for 1935 listed
Frederick as belonging for a time to the U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps, a semi-military
organization created to put young men to work on government projects during the Great
Depression. The 1940 directory had him employed as a metalworker, and in 1943, he was
listed as being in the U.S. Army. The library also turned up the
soldier's obituary, which appeared in the Newark Evening News on April 6, 1945, six months
after he had been listed as missing in action. The obituary related that Frederick, a
graduate of East Side High School, was the son of Prisco and Josephine Villani. It said he
left three brothers and five sisters. At this point, Achten sought help from
The Star-Ledger. The paper learned that one of Frederick's sisters, Anne Villani Speziale,
recently deceased, had a son named Gregory. A blind call to an Eva Speziale in the
Ironbound revealed that she was the daughter of Gregory, who lives on East Kinney Street
in Newark. The thought of someone in a far-off
country caring for his uncle's grave brought tears to the eyes of Gregory Speziale. "It's such a special thing to
know," he said. "It's wonderful that a complete stranger would go through the
trouble. I can remember sitting in his lap when I was only 2 years old. The family always
talked about him over the years." Through the Speziales, it was learned
that Pfc. Frederick Villani has only one surviving sibling, a sister, Carmela Villani
Catone, an 82-year-old widow living in Chatsworth, Calif. Catone has begun to exchange
letters with her brother's godparent. "I just received a very moving
letter from Régine," she said. "I think what she is doing is such a beautiful
thing. Being so far away, and the last of my family, it's wonderful to know that someone
is caring for Fred's grave." Catone said she is the only one in her
family to have visited her brother's burial place. She went in 1957, accompanied by a
cousin, and with her father's stern instructions to bring home some soil from the grave. "When my father learned Fred had
been killed, his hair turned white overnight," she said. "The soil I brought
back in an envelope with the seal of Belgium on it is buried with him. "You would never meet a nicer
fellow than my brother. He was meticulous and respectful in everything he did, a gentleman
from the word go. I still don't think of him as being dead, because I never saw him laid
out." She has the last V-Mail letter her
brother sent home on Oct. 1, 1944. She also has his wallet, still containing family
photos. Catone, who was called Millie by her
family, lived at home at the time and would read her brother's letters to their parents
and write their replies. 'I'm okay and feeling fine' In his final letter, he wrote:
"Let me assure you I'm okay and feeling fine. Listen Mill, tell Mom I write as often
as possible, and she shouldn't worry when she doesn't receive mail regularly." He asked that his father send him some
single-edge razor blades. Just 39 days after writing the letter,
Villani, a radio operator for his battalion, was laying communications wire when he was
struck in the back and killed instantly by shrapnel from a German artillery shell. The battlefield where he fell has been
referred to by one historian as the "green hell of Hurtgen," 50 square miles of
heavily fortified forest into which the U.S. Army committed eight infantry and two armored
divisions from September 1944 to February 1945. "It was the most serious fighting
in Western Europe," said retired Lt.. Col. William O. Hickok, historian of the 28th
Division. "Conditions were horrible. It was fought in rain, snow and sleet among huge
fir trees close together with drooping branches. It was a very old forest, unlike any I
have seen in Europe." Col. Anthony N. Corea, director of
operations for the American Battle Monument Commission at Arlington, Va., said people of
that region have never forgotten the sacrifice of the American soldiers. "The younger generations continue
the tradition of paying their respects," he said. "It keeps alive the memory of
what took place there." Belgians began adopting the American
war dead in 1945, when a temporary cemetery near the village of Henri-Chapelle contained
17,500 graves. Most have been repatriated. Today, there are some 1,200 godparents
on the cemetery's official registry. Régine Villers Achten says she
inherited her admiration for Americans from her parents. She said her father was 10 years old
in 1944 when Americans liberated Roclenge, a small village where his parents ran the only
café, frequented by soldiers. "He looked upon the GIs as
heroes," she said. "He was always running after them, asking for food. They
always treated him with kindness, giving him chocolate and chewing gum. "So my father grew up full of
admiration for these boys, and he gave me and my sister, Ariane, an education full of love
and respect for America and its people. Dad is always moved when he speaks about that
time." Achten said her search brought her
into contact with members of the American World War II Orphans Network. One of them, a
woman in Montana, asked Achten if she would adopt the grave of her father, who was killed
when she was 4 years old and is buried at Henri-Chapelle. "She told me she never knew her
father and may never have an opportunity to come to Belgium," Achten related.
"She was anxious to find someone to take care of her dad. Since I'm already a
godmother to Frederick, my husband proposed to adopt her dad, and so here we are, proud
godparents." As I once had a bad experience with a journalist, I never agreed to publish the story of my search, but I'd like you to help me tell those boys' relatives. Keep in touch, please, Ariane Villers-Georges (Georges is my spouse name, we say it the opposite way here, Georges-Villers). |
