Howard Descendants – Attached are the newspaper articles about the “informal” dedication of the monument to the memory of the 90th Division liberation of the village of Pretot on July 3, 1944 and honoring my father and his observer who died July 4 just south of Pretot. Interesting that the regional paper pays so much attention to the historical details of the battle for Mont Castre and the liberation of Pretot. Basically the articles describe the dedication and those who made the creation and erection of the monument possible, including Christian Levaufre and the mayor of the township, Thierry Renaud, and my thoughtful children. Louisa, Isabel and Anson came up with the idea, Louisa contacted Christian via email regarding some modest memorial near the crash site, Christian picked up the ball and ran with it, and Lo, a granite and bronze monument in the village, flanked by the US and French flags. Regards, Cousin Ryland
The following was written by Alfred Ryland Howard’s son Ryland Howard in 2019.
This is an excerpt from my 42 page account of my trip last year. As if you had not heard enough. I certainly enjoyed enough with my time with M. V. By then the afternoon was well along, my car was low on fuel, and I was planning to drive by Blosville, a small town not far away on the main road from Carentan through Ste Mere Eglise. In reviewing my father’s service records, I had discovered where he was first interred (or last interred in Normandy). It was a US cemetery for temporary burial of the soldiers who died in Normandy. There were three of them. Two were near Ste Mere Eglise, and this one was near Blosville. In Blosville, I asked where the cemetery might have been. I was given good directions. Close to the turn outside of town, I gassed up and asked the nice young lady attendant where I would find the location of the cemetery. I was almost there – la prochaine gauche, prenez la route, et c’est tres proche a gauche (very close). I did and there was the monument, flanked by the French flag and the US flag. In the field that lay beyond the monument, 6,000 men had been buried, awaiting final disposition of their remains after the war ended. Now there was just a beautiful, large Norman field, with cows in the distance and the house and barns of a typical farmstead. There was no one there, just peace. It was so peaceful. It was so appropriate. It was sacred ground, but had returned to its bucolic origins.
Well, it was possible that he was originally buried nearer the battle site, along with all the others who died near Mont Castre, but this was the definite last resting place in France. Some time later, between 1948 and 1950, my father’s remains were repatriated, at the wishes of his mother and father, to the family plot in the venerable Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, north of Buffalo Bayou. When I would stay in Houston with my grandparents over Easter, my grandmother Howard would take me over, we would purchase an Easter Lily, and place the flowers at my father’s, grave, the resting place of their eldest son.
I received this touching email from cousin Ryland Howard some time ago. With his permission I am posting it on the family website today, Memorial Day 2018, to celebrate Uncle Ryland’s life and to honor his sacrifice.
For the younger generations who may not be familiar with the history Alfred Ryland Howard II, here is an article by his grand-niece Eugenia Kiesling: Uncle Ryland’s military service
Love to all and thanks to Ryland,
Sperry
Dear Sperry –
This means so much, not only to me, but to the children. They grew up with “Alfred” as they called him. Their way to differentiate him from me. My mother kept his memory in the forefront of my life throughout. As I have said before, I said the Lord’s Prayer, “My Father who art in heaven…” Well, he was. So I did my best to keep Ryland’s memory for his grandchildren. I never had a problem with having two fathers. It all made sense. One died for his country and the other lived serving his country. One was in heaven and one was on earth. I knew I was the child of the first and not the second, but that I was blessed to have them both. Ford treated me as his son. The children were in a way too young to really know Ford and appreciate his great sense of humor, but I have done my best to let the kids know what he meant to me and why.
These children really understand the warmth and connection among the Howards. I know it was not all warm and fuzzy, but they did a pretty good job. Each of Aunt Jean, Aunt Georgia, and Uncle Philo became special friends and soulmates to me over the years, and so for Uncle Wilmer, Aunt Mary, and Uncle Brother. I cannot think of a time where there was an awkward silence in my conversations with any of them. We just talked with mutual respect and shared feelings; communication came naturally.
The Howards were so special to my mother. She revered Nanny Mine and looked to her for counsel over the years. She respected the wisdom and skill of Dr. Howard. And she so appreciated the warmth of having this family as hers. She had grown up without a permanent home, with her father gone at age 5, living across Europe, in and out of schools and hotels, with her grandparents and aunt gone by her teens. You can imagine what this warm Southern family meant to her. When she married Ford and was going to Houston to introduce him to the Howards, she was very concerned about their reception of the person who was taking the place of their revered lost son. She called Georgia to ask how to handle it. Well, as Aunt Georgia told me, the Howard family swept Ford up. They loved him from the get go and he fell in with Philo, Wilmer, and Brother each on their own. That is just the way they were.
So, as another family half-orphan (I never thought of myself as such; just had two fathers), how could I have been better blessed.
I did not have to endure the loss of my father. He was always there; but not there. I did not dwell on it. But Mother endured it and the tragic loss to Daddy Philo and Nanny Mine must have been brutal. Timing. The last letter from Ryland to his parents, dated June 30, 1944, was cheering for everyone just learning that Uncle Philo was alive, and relatively safe in prison camp. So, almost up until Ryland’s death, they did not know that Philo was alive. He must have been MIA until then. From the date that he was shot down over Germany until then, he could have been dead. And so soon after the good news came the really bad news. No hope there. Just faith, and the comfort that a son was on the way, to be some solace in this time of sadness.
If you saw the movie saving Private Ryan, the opening scene after the Omaha Cemetery and the landing is the house on the prairie and the car driving up and the officers getting out of the car and the mother, who looked and dressed rather like our grandmother, realizing why the officers were there and collapsing on the porch. That was pretty strong you are there stuff. It was too close to home, that home on 3608 Audubon, JA44961. We can only imagine how that hit. Uncle Dwight Hunter said that people told him later that Dr Howard was in shock after that and would just look at people and say “My son is gone.” There is a description in the biography of Joe Kennedy of when he learned that his eldest son Joseph was killed in the war. The same thing happened to Mr. Kennedy. Total loss for a time. Something gone that will never come back, no matter how strong one’s faith in God. We can only imagine.
So much for my train of thought. I will stop here, and thank you for bringing so much of this family back to all of us.
Jennie (Eugenia Kiesling) wrote this on 11/22/16 in response to the to the post about Uncle Ryland. ( https://allyall.org?p=410 ) She teaches military history at the West Point:
For those who are interested (and don’t already know as many of you do), I offer some military history to put my great uncle Ryland’s death into context. In particular, I think that the report that he flew a “liaison” mission deserves some explanation for those unfamiliar with the nature of artillery “liaison” operations. This story may be distressing to those who do not know it, but getting the details about war right is important to me.
Ryland enlisted in the artillery, and artillery was the most important component of US Army Ground Forces in World War II. In that war the US Army acquired guns with remarkable range, accuracy, and rate of fire, but its greatest advantage over the Germans was the development of fire control systems for coordinating the fire of dozens of guns on a single target. The problem with which field artillery officers wrestled before the war was that there is no point in having sophisticated fire control systems and guns capable of hitting a target ten miles away unless one can see the target, observe where the shells are landing, and adjust fire accordingly. The problem of artillery observation is exacerbated by the fact that armies conceal targets worth hitting; moreover, howitzers, the guns with the longest ranges, fire at a high trajectory for the purpose of landing shells behind high ground.
During the 1930s, some visionary artillery officers acquired small aircraft and private pilots’ licenses in order to test the idea of artillery spotting from the air. As a result of their private experiments, during the war the Field Artillery Branch commissioned a military version of the Piper Cub aircraft, designed the L4 Observation Aircraft, for artillery spotting. The advantage of the L4, familiar to those of us who have skydived from the Piper Cub, is that they can fly very slowly, allowing for a good view of the ground. It was Ryland’s job to fly the plane low and slow and close to German lines so that his observer could see where our artillery shells were landing. It is a sad truth that without brave men flying unprotected aircraft, all of the destructive power of the US Field Artillery would have been impotent.
On 4 July 1944, when Ryland was preforming that crucial artillery spotting role, his plane was hit by a shell from an American 155mm howitzer. The after action review concluded that the density of US shells was so great that American pilots would be safer flying over German lines, and for the rest of the war our pilots flew their observation missions closer to their targets and further from their own guns. Like so many wartime death’s Ryland’s was a fluke in the sense that no one was aiming at him. Unlike many soldiers, he was doing a specific task he knew to be essential to our military operations. His death created a change in doctrine that probably saved other lives. But it is very sad story.
The information about Ryland comes from Edward Raines, Eyes of the Artillery: The Origins of Modern US Army Aviation in World War II, a book that wondered into my office many years ago. I asked Raines whether he knew anything more about the episode, but he did not.
Incidentally, while writing this I am snacking on a dish of yoghurt and frozen cherries, a dessert idea I owe to another uncle, Malcolm McCorquodale, which I often eat with fond thoughts.
Eugenia Hunt, sister of Alfred Ryland Howard, , wrote a poem that she said he carried into the Battle of St. Lo that took his life.
Jeana wrote this at the bottom of the poem:
This was in my brother Ryland’s pocket, when he was shot down by the Germans at the battle of St Lo. He was a liaison pilot – and aide to General John Matthew Devine. He had 12 men under him, and refused to send them up on reconnaissance without him, even though his superior advised against it. This was on July 4, 1944.
