Sunday, July 29, 2001
A Hero’s Welcome
Belgians open arms for
WWII pilot from Abilene
By Loretta Fulton
Reporter-News Staff Writer
MARIEKERKE, BELGIUM — One look at the
smashed radio from his old P-47 Thunderbolt was all it took to
put Bill Grosvenor back in the cockpit.
Never mind that the guts of the plane had
been buried 15 feet deep in rich, black Belgian soil for 58 years.
And never mind that Grosvenor is now 81 years old, many years
removed from his days as a dashing World War II fighter pilot.
“This was on the left side of the cockpit,”
Grosvenor said with a voice of authority as he examined the mud-coated
radio.
That self-assurance carried Grosvenor through
many tough missions during the war before he had to bail out of
his damaged plane on Nov. 30, 1943. Since then the P-47 has rested
beneath the gentle farmland of northwestern Belgium, and Grosvenor
(pronounced GROVE-nor) has lived a civilian’s life in Abilene.
The warplane and its pilot were reunited
July 21, thanks to the efforts of Belgian Aviation History Association
volunteers who unearthed the plane. The excavation was part of
a two-week journey of remembrance for Grosvenor, wife Doris and
son David, who is planning a documentary about his dad’s
exploits and the Belgian Resistance that aided Allied pilots shot
down during the war.
Other highlights of the trip included a
reception befitting a war hero, reunions with people who helped
Grosvenor, and national television and newspaper coverage in Belgium.
For the unassuming Grosvenor, who prefers
a quiet game of golf to standing in the spotlight, it was almost
too much.
“If I had known this was going to happen,
I wouldn’t have done it,” he joked.
His wife has no doubt he was telling the
truth. Since their marriage in 1945, Doris Grosvenor said, her
husband has rarely spoken about his war adventures. But something
about the celebratory mood of the Belgian people made him open
up.
“He’s talked more since we’ve
been here than he’s talked in his whole life,” Doris
Grosvenor said.
Meeting the pilot
Nothing could have pleased the Belgians
more than to hear the story of 1st Lt. William D. Grosvenor in
his own words. At a dinner on the night the entourage arrived
in Belgium, host Walter Verstraeten toasted a man he has long
considered a true hero.
“I consider myself one of the happiest
people in the world tonight,” said Verstraeten, a Belgian
author and historian who chronicled Grosvenor’s crash in
a 1999 book before ever meeting Grosvenor.
Verstraeten said he couldn’t believe
his luck when contacted by David Grosvenor, of Austin, who was
inquiring about his dad’s ordeal. When Verstraeten realized
the Grosvenor family was coming to Belgium, he was beside himself
with joy.
“Here, all of sudden, I was going to
be able to get in contact with the pilot himself,” Verstraeten
said.
Verstraeten orchestrated local activities
for Grosvenor’s return, including the excavation. For the
amateur archaeologists who make up the Belgian Aviation History
Association, uncovering the P-47 Thunderbolt was a true find.
According to the diggers, the Thunderbolt was the best preserved
of any of the 30 planes they have excavated.
One reason, they theorized, was that the
pilotless plane crashed straight into the ground from 500 feet
without skidding. According to Verstraeten’s published account,
pieced together from eyewitnesses and official documents, as well
as Grosvenor’s own recollections, the crash occurred around
noon Nov. 30, 1943.
Grosvenor had just returned from an escort
mission covering a bombing raid aimed at the Solingen industrial
facilities in Germany. His Thunderbolt was part of the 61st Fighter
Squadron of the 56th Fighter Group of the U.S. 8th Air Force based
in England. According to accounts, Grosvenor’s plane developed
a vapor lock in the fuel line, forcing him to try to make it back
to his home base.
Riding his P-47 down to an altitude of 3,000
feet, Grosvenor managed to restart his engine and took a heading
for England. He eventually dropped to treetop level and suddenly
found himself flying directly over the German Deurne airfield.
As he crossed into the Klein-Brabant region
of Belgium, Grosvenor spotted a military train and decided to
spend his unused ammunition on it. But as he tried to regain altitude
after strafing the train, his plane brushed the top of a tree
and hit a telegraph pole.
With a destroyed propeller and a damaged
engine, Grosvenor managed to get the plane up to 500 feet before
it faltered. After that, much of what he did came on instinct.
“When it stalled, I just jumped out,”
he recalled.
Unexpected enthusiasm
The plane crashed in flames several hundred
yards away, where the engine, three propeller blades, all eight
machine guns, a medical kit, radio and much of the framework remained
until eight days ago.
Because of the nose-down crash, the wreckage
was concentrated in a relatively small area that researchers pinpointed
with metal detectors.
The soft, fertile soil of the Klein-Brabant
region quickly settled around the wreckage where it had remained
untouched for 58 years. The dig started at 9:15 a.m. on a typically
cold and rainy Belgian day. Within 50 minutes, workers struck
paydirt. Word quickly spread around the perimeter where dozens
of spectators and camera crewmen watched.
“They may have found the landing gear!”
a volunteer yelled.
Soon four machine guns, handfuls of unspent
.50-caliber machine gun bullets, and twisted framework were lifted
in a backhoe from the damp soil. Before the day was gone, all
eight machine guns, the engine, radio and many other smaller pieces
were dug up and transported to a fire station for cleaning before
making their way to the Belgian Aviation History Association Museum.
Watching in amazement was Bill Grosvenor.
Part of the serial number on the plane’s tail was still visible,
proving that it was his P-47. Still, it was hard to believe.
Lifting the top off a piece of hydraulic
equipment, Grosvenor sniffed the fluid sealed inside. He ran his
fingers over the plane’s radio, its copper covering shining
like new. The best find, though, was a piece of seat belt that
Grosvenor chose as his only souvenir to bring home.
“That’s the last thing I touched,”
he remembered.
Watching the plane being pulled from the
ground bit by bit was exciting, but Grosvenor said that thrill
couldn’t match the pride he got from having a large crowd
there.
“The best part is the enthusiasm the
people have for history,” he said. “I never expected
it.”
‘Welcome to our hero’
One man not surprised by the enthusiasm
was Luc Van De Velde, a 37-year-old medic for the Belgian Department
of Defense and a volunteer with the Belgian Aviation History Association.
Van De Velde’s parents were children during World War II
and they told him stories about seeing a B-17 crash.
The account sparked an interest in the young
Van De Velde for aviation and history. Now both are a hobby and
a passion. When he learned Grosvenor would be at the excavation
site, Van De Velde knew he had to be there too.
“I had hoped to meet him, but Europe
and America are far apart,” he said. “This man is a
part of history — I’m glad to meet him.”
It seemed much of Belgium was glad to meet
Grosvenor, an American pilot still revered by the Belgians for
his part in freeing their country from the grip of Adolf Hitler
and his Nazi regime.
Everywhere Grosvenor went, he was sought
out for autographs, interviews and photographs. At the dig site,
a child handed him a drawing of an airplane to autograph.
“Your plane looks in a lot better shape
than mine,” Grosvenor joked.
Also at the dig site were three representatives
of the McWhiney Foundation, a research center at McMurry University.
The foundation is serving as fiscal agent for the documentary,
which allows the film company to apply for grants. The foundation
will house some of the material being used in the documentary.
“It’ll be a nice repository of
photocopies,” said Dr. Donald Frazier, a McMurry history
professor and director of the McWhiney Foundation.
The euphoria over the excavation barely
had time to sink in before a garden party the following day to
honor Grosvenor. World War II-era U.S. Army vehicles stood guard
at the entrance to the party. Inside, a United States flag and
one from the Lone Star State served as a backdrop while Big Band
music put guests in the proper mood.
Gifts were presented and speeches given.
“Welcome to our hero,” said Verstraeten,
the chief organizer. “Make certain to give Bill the real
tribute he deserves.”
A symbol of freedom
Bernadette Boeykens, an assistant mayor
in the city of Bornem, where the reception was held, explained
why the Belgians still revere the Allied forces that helped save
her homeland. Her father was a soldier in World War II, and she
had heard about it all her life. Now she had the opportunity to
thank an American who did his part to help preserve liberty.
“For the people of our community you
are not only a hero, but a symbol of freedom,” Boeykens said.
Watching with intense blue eyes, still clear
and sharp, was 90-year-old Vic Vermeire, the man who lent the
first assistance to Grosvenor when he touched down on a remote
farm. Vermeire watched from his garden in amazement as the American
fighter pilot parachuted out of his plunging P-47.
Vermeire didn’t give his own safety
a second thought as he quickly hid Grosvenor in a hayloft before
setting out to find a neighbor who was involved in the Belgian
Resistance and was better able to help.
The Flemish-speaking Vermeire didn’t
understand much of what was said at the reception, but he recalled
clearly the day he met 1st Lt. William D. Grosvenor. Through his
son, Robert, Vermeire said the first thing he did was offer Grosvenor
some food as the frightened pilot came toward his house shortly
after noon.
“But he wasn’t hungry,” Vermeire
said.
To this day, Vermeire is proud of his actions,
his son said. The elderly man once was a member of the Belgian
Army before the Nazis overran the country. He still reveres the
Americans and British who came to his country’s aid. What
he did to help Grosvenor was only fitting, he said.
“I just did my duty to help the people
who came here to help us,” Vermeire said through an interpreter.
Honoring ordinary citizens
That same sentiment can still be felt in
the musty quarters of the National Museum of the Resistance. Tucked
away on a side street in bustling Brussels, the museum is a shrine
to the ordinary men, women and children who risked their lives
to fight Hitler’s Nazis.
Volunteers in the Resistance, or the “quiet
army” as it was known, created fake identification papers
for downed Allied pilots, gave them civilian clothes and transported
them from one safe house to another to avoid arrest.
Grosvenor spent seven months in the hands
of the Resistance before he was arrested and imprisoned, only
to escape from a train carrying him to a concentration camp
The founder of the museum, Jean Brack, still
goes to his museum daily. Brack joined the Resistance at age 17,
became a leader at age 20 and lived in a tent in the Belgian woods
for four years during the war. His heart is too securely planted
in those days to move on.
“It’s in my blood,” he said.
A limp caused by grenade shrapnel still
imbedded in his leg doesn’t keep Brack from climbing three
flights of stairs to show visitors the museum’s priceless
relics.
Mannequins dressed in period clothing are
so lifelike they give visitors a jolt. Glass cases house pistols,
copies of underground newsletters, carrier pigeon boxes and falsified
documents, all weapons of the Resistance.
Urns containing remains of concentration
camp victims serve as reminders of why common folk were so willing
to risk their lives to fight Nazi Germany. Cardboard file boxes
hold records of the men aided by the Resistance. Men such as Grosvenor
and Lt. James R. Akins of Haskell, whose widow, Mary, now lives
in California, are documented there.
‘I could fly it’
Grosvenor’s file lists his name, home
address and other pertinent information beside a small photo of
a handsome, dashing fighter pilot.
Another piece of paper contains a copy of
a note Grosvenor wrote to the Resistance volunteers after he was
safely out of the war: “My many thanks to the good people
of Belgium. I will always remember the many courtesies shown me
and the aid given me. May we meet again in more favorable conditions.
Always, Bill.”
Those favorable conditions came together
58 years after Grosvenor’s plane crashed in Belgium. To people
such as Grosvenor, historian Verstraeten and Resistance fighter
Brack, those years have done nothing to dim the memories.
On a cold, rainy Saturday, a twinkle came
to Grosvenor’s eye as he watched his prized P-47 Thunderbolt
rise from its Belgian grave. With a little elbow grease and imagination,
Grosvenor said, he had no doubt he could once again be flying
at treetop level, strafing enemy trains.
“If they could put it back together
again,’’ he said, “I could fly it.”
Contact staff writer Loretta Fulton at
676-6778 or fultonl@abinews.com
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©2001, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps.
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