October 19, 2018 at 4:23 p.m.
A soldier comes home to Hazelhurst
Killed in action during World War II, John B. Cummings was buried 70 years as an unknown in France
A soldier comes home to Hazelhurst
There was no precipitation but, in the hourss leading up to the 11 a.m. service, it was overcast.
Then, as a funeral detail from the 554th Engineer Battalion based in Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo., proceeded to remove from a hearse the flag-draped casket containing the remains of John B. Cummings, the sun broke through the clouds.
A tale of two uncles
Cummings' nephew, Minocqua town chairman Mark Hartzheim, has spent over a decade researching the fate of his uncle John, who was buried in an unknown status for 70 years at an American cemetery in France.
"Each of my parents had a brother who was lost in World War II," Hartzheim said. "In my mom's case, it was her only sibling."
U.S. Army private John B. Cummings was the son of Helen and Leo Cummings. He 22 years old when he was killed in action on Dec. 31, 1944, in northeastern France.
He joined the Army in May 1942 and at the time of his death was assigned to the 70th Infantry Division's 276th Regiment.
Another of Mark Hartzheim's uncles, his dad's oldest brother, Paul, also served in the war.
"He was kind of the star athlete of the family," Hartzheim said of his uncle.
Paul C. Hartzheim joined the Army in September 1940, and unlike Mark Hartzheim's uncle John, got through the war, assigned to the 88th Infantry Division's 349th Infantry Regiment.
Paul Hartzheim survived the North African Campaign, Sicily and Italy.
When the war in Europe ended in May 1945, there were many modes of transportation used to get troops home, including ocean liners and four engine bombers such as the B-17 Flying Fortress, which had its guns removed and was pressed into service as transport.
Looking forward to coming home to his wife and young son, Paul Hartzheim, along with more than 20 other GIs, boarded a B-17 in Naples, Italy, and took off on Aug. 1, 1945, the first stop on the flight home to be Casablanca, Morocco.
A few hours into the flight, the number three engine caught fire.
The pilot attempted to feather the propellor but the engine actually fell off the wing and the aircraft had to be ditched in the Tyrrhenian Sea, between the Italian coast and the island of Sardinia.
Twelve people, including Paul Hartzheim, died in the ditching of the B-17, which broke apart after it hit the water.
In 2014, Mark Hartzheim wrote an article about the incident and submitted it to the San Antonio Express News. It was published on July 25 of that year.
"Almost all of the 20 passengers (in the B-17) were from Texas, including my uncle Paul, who was based there," he said. "I submitted my article to the San Antonio paper because some of those people would probably still have family in the area. I wanted to get it in front of people down there."
After the article was published, Hartzheim said he heard from a few family members of some of the other soldiers who perished in the B-17.
As tragic as the loss of Paul Hartzheim was, especially after having survived the war only to be killed on the way home to be with his young family, Mark Hartzheim's family has always known where he was - in a B-17 bomber at the bottom of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
His uncle John, however, was a different story.
Cummings not located
According to a July 26, 2018, release from the U.S. government's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Cummings' unit, Company A of the 276th Infantry Regiment, was positioned on the French and German border reinforcing the Alsace sector in northeastern France.
At the time, U.S. troops were involved in what was known as the "Battle of the Bulge," the final German offensive of the war that had begun on Dec. 16, 1944. While the 276th was not directly involved in that battle, German troops in the unit's sector near the Rhine River crossed into France on Dec. 31 and, according to the DPAA release, as darkness fell that night, two members of Company A saw Cummings sitting in a foxhole near the river bank.
"Sometime later, U.S. troops heard German machine gun fire and maneuvered their way back to Cummings' foxhole," the release reads. "The troops were unable to find Cummings but they did find a helmet with a bullet hole. Despite extensive recovery efforts, Cummings' remains were not located."
First combat loss
Mark Hartzheim said his uncle John Cummings was the first combat loss of World War II for not only the 276th Infantry Regiment but for the entire 70th Division.
"He was killed within three days of getting to the main line of resistance," he said.
Hartzheim said the person who inspired him to begin researching his uncle John was another relative, Paul's younger brother Joseph.
In 2004, Joe was presented with Paul's medals and Hartzheim said it was seeing that happen "that lit the spark in me ... seeing him get those medals."
"Growing up, nobody ever talked about either uncle, which I think was common in those days," he said. "People had been through things like World War I and the Depression and World War II ... they didn't seem to question things as much. At least not out loud. I think they just accepted their fate and internalized things and moved on. I'm sure it troubled them for the rest of their lives, though."
So, the result, Hartzheim said, was he and his siblings knew they had uncles who were lost in the war but few details on what had happened to them.
"We didn't know anything else about them," he said. "We heard Paul was in a plane crash. OK, but was it shot down or was it after the war? How many people were on it? I got to thinking, 'OK, someone's finally recognizing this guy for making the ultimate sacrifice with these medals and finally giving him his due. Probably long overdue but I think that's what lit the fire in me. I wanted to find out about both uncles."
Hartzheim said he wanted to honor his relatives "and respect what they did."
"I just figured if I don't do it, nobody will," he said. "Because the idea of forgetting them was ... akin to a crime, an injustice for what they did. They should not just be a name, they should not just be a thought."
When he saw his uncle Joe with his brother Paul's medals, Hartzheim said he thought to himself that shouldn't be the last step.
"I want to know more," he said. "I think my family should know more and I think anyone who wants to know more should know more. There should be some way to keep them alive."
Before Hartzheim's involvement with research, the Army purchased a cenotaph - or marker - for Paul Hartzheim to place in a cemetery in Juneau, Wis., his hometown
The marker was placed with his parents.
Paul's name is also on a tablet of the missing at the Sicily/Rome cemetery in Italy.
John Cummings' name is also included on a wall of the missing at the Epinal American Cemetery in France.
"But there was no memorial in our country, no memorial cenotaph for him," Hartzheim said.
To change that, a few years ago, he had another cenotaph placed for his uncle John Cummings in the Lakeside Garden of Sleep in Hazelhurst next to his parents, Helen and Leo Cummings.
"I was thinking then that was going to be the closest we're gonna get to having them back together," Hartzheim said.
A phone call
Over the course of the past 12 years, Mark Hartzheim immersed himself in finding out what happened to his uncle John Cummings.
He refers to it as "a minor obsession," the type of obsession others who've lost a loved one in a war can truly appreciate.
After going over years worth of documents, interviews with historians and even veterans of the 276th who were in France around the time of John's death, Hartzheim learned his uncle had been buried briefly next to the Rhine River - apparently by the German troops who shot him and took his body back across the river - in a grave that had been marked simply with "Here lies a U.S. soldier."
As it turned out, John Cummings' dog tags, or identification tags, and pretty much anything else that would have made his identification easier, were gone when his body was disinterred from that site along the Rhine.
Also gone was any hope that his parents would learn what happened to him.
Leo Cummings died in 1963 and Helen Cummings, who Hartzheim said never really gave up wanting to find out what happened to her boy, died in 1972.
In 1946, the remains of Hartzheim's uncle John were disinterred from the site along the Rhine River and buried in an American cemetery where they remained for 70 years.
Over the last few years, Hartzheim and other family members supplied the DPAA with DNA samples.
On July 23, 2018, Mark Hartzheim was taking his son to see a movie when he received a phone call from someone with the DPAA.
His uncle John, whose remains had been disinterred from the American cemetery in France and transported to a DPAA facility at Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base in 2016 for further forensic investigation, had been positively identified.
Hartzheim was unaware his uncle's remains were there.
"I started crying," he said. "I thought I'd never hear this news. It's interesting how emotional this is. He's been gone 74 years and we obviously didn't know him. We didn't meet him. I think it's possible not to become emotional but then you think of his parents getting the news, having never really gotten the full story, never knowing what became of their son. They knew he was killed but they never knew where his body was. The emotional part can really overcome you with those thoughts."
Because he started to cry in front of his son, he said he had to reassure him that "nothing catastrophic" had happened.
"He'd never seen me cry but I told him it was a good happy crying," Hartzheim said. "We got to the movie and I sat there in the dark after I just get this news, my brain was racing, looking forward to what lies ahead, getting some closure."
'Where he belongs'
Following the brief ceremony with full military honors Saturday, Staff Sgt. Todd White, an eight-year veteran of the U.S. Army and part of the funeral detail that came from Ft. Leonard Wood to render honors for Cummings, said it meant everything to him to be part of the quiet service in Hazelhurst.
"My grandfathers, my great-grandfathers, we've all been in the military and this is nothing but an honor for us," he said. "Especially myself. It's something we take pride in."
White said he and the other soldiers left Missouri last Thursday morning to get to Hazelhurst and make preparations.
This was the first military funeral for this group of soldiers, he added.
"It really is an honor," White said. "I really can't express it. We'd drive 24 hours to get to where we have to be but that's the way it is for us."
Hartzheim said his uncle John was finally "where he belongs."
"It was surreal, following the hearse here and seeing that flag-draped casket ... I can't believe this day is here," he said. "It was a long road for me but it was an even longer road for my uncle John. And a harder one."
Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].
Comments:
You must login to comment.