David Wetherill - Honoring Veterans Part 2 Poppy Field Found

Poppy Field Found
Dave Wetherill
Copilot, 571st

In the fall 1995 issue of our Newsletter I included an article, entitled “Poppy Field” in which I told about an American soldier discovering, in a poppy field, George Massa’s grave, how the people of Dietersheim had recovered his body and provided a proper burial, after our plane had been shot down. (Pilot, Crew 91, 571st Sqdn.) My story mentioned that I had been unable to locate Dietersheim. In that same issue of the Newsletter we included a letter from A. Verwaal, of the Netherlands, in which he described his work in researching the crash landing of one of our planes. Because Mr. Verwaal’s letter appeared in the paper, we made sure to send him a copy. Of course, then, he got to read both his letter and my story, and he got busy locating the town of Dietersheim and corresponding with me about his efforts. As a consequence, I learned that Dietersheim is a suburb of Bingen.*

One of my desires has been to visit the area of our shoot-down and capture. In March, Jean and I were able to make the trip. We arrived on German soil at Frankfurt Airport, picked up a brand new Opel, and, even though we were feeling the effects of the overnight flight, decided to head for Bingen and possibly Dietersheim.

Jean had studied German in college and has, generally, a good language aptitude and a good ear. Even though I knew all of this, I was still amazed at how well she picked up the language. (Thank goodness, because I’m almost a complete dud when it comes to communicating in a foreign tongue.) And, we soon discovered, the highway signs in Germany are very well planned and displayed. Even I had little trouble navigating. We arrived in Budesheim, another of Bingen’s suburbs, and found a place to have some lunch and sample some German food in an Italian restaurant.

After lunch, we went on to Dietersheim, where, with only a little trouble, we found the Catholic Church. We parked our car and looked around. The church doors were locked, but through a window, we spotted a man working at a desk. We attracted his attention and got him to come talk with us. Outside the church we explained, actually Jean explained, the purpose of our mission and he invited us inside. Father Eberhard Otto then excused himself and went into his office. In a moment, he returned with a file folder. As he opened the folder, I saw a letter, in English that had words in it that I had written. It turned out that he had received a letter from Leo Massa, George’s brother, in which my “Poppy field” was quoted. I opened my envelope of stuff I’d been carrying and pulled out a copy of that piece and handed it to him. He glanced at it and then back at me, with an expression of surprise. From that point on we had no trouble holding his interest in our mission.

He explained that he had no personal knowledge of George’s burial as he had come to that area after the war. He did, however, know of a place that might be what we were looking for. During Hitler’s time, he explained, no enemy could have been buried in a sanctified cemetery. That had been strictly verboten. He told us to look for a bus turn-around, out near the edge of town, where, then, we would see a cemetery. Beyond that cemetery, he told us, is a field. Maybe there.

Father Otto then took us on a tour of his church. Of particular interest to us were the beautiful stained glass windows and a hewn stone altar that dated back more than a thousand years.

We drove the short distance to the cemetery. The main gate was closed so we walked along outside of the stone wall that surrounded the place. At the rear, looking out beyond the wall, we could see a field, probably twenty or thirty acres in size. Beyond the field, we could see the Nahe River and a highway, and beyond the highway, wooded hills. We wondered if the burials had taken place out there somewhere, but jet lag was getting to us and it was late. We decided to postpone further searching.

It took us a week and a half of visiting other points of interest before we got back to our search for George Massa’s gravesite. We went directly to the cemetery and went in. A monument to military heroes and the inscriptions on the head stones told we were in a cemetery for war veterans. While we were admiring the graves, we saw a woman walking a dog. As we watched, she tethered her dog to the gatepost and entered the cemetery. She smiled and walked on past us to one of the graves. After a few moments, we greeted her and learned that she was on one of her regular visits to her husband’s grave. His head stone was inscribed, “Heinz Eckert, 1929-1996”.

To Jean, I said, “Tell her why we’re here; ask if she knows anything about the grave.” Jean, in her recently reborn German, broached the subject. Well, the lady knew something, all right. She brightened right up and began to talk, gesturing, and pointing to the field beyond the wall. “Mein mann hat es gefunden.”

“What did she say?” I wanted to know. Somehow, we had lucked out. She told us her husband had found that grave. She had met her husband after the war. He had told her about having found this grave and shown her where it was. But the grave isn’t still there, of course. No, we said, George’s body has since been moved to a National Cemetery on Long Island, near where he had lived. But, she said, there could have been other graves there, for French, Polish, and American airmen, but not any more. Not for many years. But she could tell us how to find the spot. Our elation was almost palpable. Go back through that field, along that path until you get to the dike. Then turn right and walk along the dike. Over there, near the bridge. That’s where they were buried.

Well, we thanked Frau Eckert for her help and started out. Because we could see a fence between us and our goal, we turned left to get to another path that would take us, on the other side of a new highway bridge, to where we could get to the dike. We looked back, and there was the woman, waving at us. She had taken the dog home and had returned on a bike. Apparently, she wanted to make sure we found the spot. She waved and pointed. She was indicating that we should go over, now, to our right. We walked under and past the bridge, and there she was, now having moved to where she could again follow our progress. She was nodding her head and still pointing.

We walked on and discovered what must have been the poppy field in 1944. We were walking along a low dike. Our guide was still on duty, waving us on. Soon, when we were pretty close to the ruins of a bombed out bridge, I looked back and saw that she was vigorously nodding her head and waving her fist above her head. We had come to the sacred place. She waved goodbye and got on her bike and, as we waved our thanks, she peddled away. We turned toward our find.

We saw a large field between the dike and the Nahe. There may have been graves there once. A lot can happen to a place in fifty-three years. We felt confident that we had found what we’d been looking for. We walked around saying a silent prayer. Mission accomplished!

*A few months later, I received correspondence from Marshall Shore, of our association, who is quite familiar with Dietersheim, telling me more about the place.