Monday, November 12, 2018
By Bob Jackson
BOARDMAN
Suzanne Zadell had to learn about her father through stories her mother told of him and through letters he’d written.
Her father, Raymond Eckert, was killed during the D-Day invasion of Omaha Beach in France on June 6, 1944. A sergeant with the 82nd Airborne Medical Division, Eckert was flying a glider and was supposed to land behind enemy lines to support the troops who were landing on the beach below, but his aircraft veered off course and crashed. His back was broken upon impact, and he was later killed.
Zadell was just 6 months old at the time.
“All my information about him came from my mom,” Zadell said. “She told me all about him, and she gave me letters he’d written her from the war.”
She shared some of those stories Sunday during the 19th annual Forgotten Heroes program at Forest Lawn Cemetery on Market Street. Zadell was a featured speaker. A Boardman native, Zadell now lives in Vermilion, Ohio, with her husband, Frank.
Eckert was originally buried in a town called Blosville, France, not far from the spot where he was killed. Some 6,000 American soldiers were buried there between 1944 and 1948. In 1948, most of the soldiers’ remains were returned to the United States, including Eckert’s. He is now buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery on Market Street.
Steffon Jones, one of the program coordinators, said Forgotten Heroes was started by local Civil War re-enactment groups who wanted to honor the memories of Civil War veterans who are buried in the area.
“God blessed the program we started, and it just kept growing,” he said.
Some years ago, at the suggestion of Ron Novak, who also coordinates the program, it was expanded to include veterans of all wars. Novak is affiliated with the 11th Mississippi Company, a Confederate re-enactment group.
Jones said he and Novak were looking at the graves of veterans at Forest Lawn recently when they came upon Eckert’s and realized he was killed on D-Day. They did some research, located Zadell, and asked whether she would be willing to speak during this year’s program since it was taking place at Forest Lawn. The program is in a different area cemetery each year.
Zadell said she was so intrigued by her father’s story that she and Frank traveled to France themselves some years ago.
“I wanted to see where he’d been. I wanted to know where all these things happened to him,” she said.
She was struck by the fact that the site that once was so ravaged by war is now picturesque and beautiful. Frank said it’s remarkable that any American soldiers survived landing on the beach that day because of the decided advantage held by German soldiers, who had a clear view of the Americans from their location high atop a plateau.
“The Germans could look straight down the hill, and it is a very high, steep hill,” Frank said.
The Zadells noted that there are still bunkers in the hillside that were used by German soldiers.
“And the cemetery at Blosville is now a cow pasture,” Suzanne said.
The Zadells brought a photo album with them Sunday, displaying pictures of their trip to France. It also holds the certificate that came with the Purple Heart medal Eckert earned, and the official telegram her mother received, notifying her of Raymond’s being killed in action. The telegram was dated June 26, 1944.
Suzanne said she has the actual Purple Heart at home, as well as the flag that covered her father’s coffin when he was returned to the United States for burial in 1948.