Thanks go to Uncle Ryland’s son cousin Ryland Howard for the newspaper article and the touching note below.
It is a memorial monument to the 90th Division and the two men who went down with their Piper L-4 liaison plane on July 4, 1944. It is in the village of Pretot, less than a mile from where Ryland’s plane went down. Pretot was liberated the day before by the 90th, in the jump off to the battle for Hill 122, which lasted another 10 days of struggle and the 90th alone suffered 5,000+ casualties.
The monument idea was started by one Louisa Howard contacting my French friend Christian about a small stone memorial somewhere. He took off with it, made a deal with the mayor and there it is. This is what Christian does. His father did this most of his life, as an avocation. I call his father Henri the French father of the 90th Division men in WWII.
The monument is across from another monument, to the 82nd Airborne and one of their men, Lt. Williams. Ironically, I took a photo of Lt. Williams’ stone when I was there in 2019. On the day that Williams died, age 21, the message came through that evening that his wife had given birth to twins. He never knew. The twins were Green Berets in Vietnam and a grandson is a Marine fighter pilot.
Tugs at your heartstrings.
Informal dedication is this June; formal, with family is next May. The kids and the township paid for it. I knew nothing about it until we the whole family were gathered for Louisa’s virtual graduation ceremony at the ranch three weeks ago.
So, you see, another chapter.
And I knew exactly where it was going to be when they told me about it. I had been there on a warm afternoon in June, 2019.
The above attached by Sperry Hunt
Below is a photo of the same Piper L4-B model flown by Uncle Ryland.
