• The helmet of an American soldier, found in Alsace, will soon be returned to the family of the soldier, who died in 1945 during the Second World War.

  • This beautiful story was made possible by the Memorial Museum of the Combats and the Liberation in Northern Alsace (2MCLADN), located in Walbourg (Bas-Rhin).

    In particular thanks to its president, Cédric Lemaître.

The package is on the way.

Within the next few days, an American family in Weaverville, North Carolina will receive a helmet.

Not just any, that of their grandfather, the American soldier Ellis Pope, who died in action in 1945 during the Second World War.

This beautiful story was made possible by the Memorial Museum of the Combats and the Liberation in Northern Alsace (2MCLADN), located in Walbourg (Bas-Rhin). In particular thanks to its president, Cédric Lemaître. “We offered this helmet to an acquaintance in the 1990s. It was lying around in a barn of a farmer in Lichtenberg (Bas-Rhin),” recalls the enthusiast. “I was given it eight months ago and one sleepless night I cleaned it up. With surprise under the thick dust.

“There was a letter and four numbers inside, P 8765, which corresponded to the end of a number. Precisely the

"

laundry number", this number which was used above all when they left their equipment in the laundry ", continues the 34-year-old collector, who then undertook a whole investigation in order to find the owner of the famous object, precisely a sub-helmet. made of composite material.

How did he do it? "While looking in the

roasters

, these registers written after the war which retrace the course of the regiments during this one", answers again Cédric Lemaître, finally reassembled, with some volunteers of his association 2MCLADN, to Ellis Pope. Or a member of the 232nd Regiment of the 42nd American Infantry Division. “We have been able to establish that he had lost his helmet not far from Lichtenberg around March 15-16, 1945, days when things had heated up in the area, before dying on the other side of the current border. To Ludwigswinkel, Germany, March 19, 1945. He was 32 years old. "

More than seventy-five years later, this quest for the past could have ended there.

But the president and founder of the museum, used to recovering objects in “twenty-five years of research” wanted to go further.

And therefore return the helmet to the family of the GI who fell far from home.

Thanks to Facebook, one of his descendants, his great-grandson Alex Pope-Roberson has been found.

Then the contacts were fruitful.

“I made sure they were really interested in it because some families don't care.

There, it caused a small earthquake at home and we talked a lot.

They even came to meditate at his grave, in the cemetery of Saint-Avold [Moselle], two years ago.

The next time, they will perhaps pass by Walbourg, and its Memorial Museum of the fights and the liberation in Northern Alsace.

Society

Alsace: An escape game on "Despite-us" struggles to pass in a region still traumatized by the Hitler Reich

Society

Gironde: At 84, Jean-Paul Lescorce has cleared, alone, 26 bunkers from the Second World War for more than twenty years

  • Strasbourg

  • History

  • Society

  • Second World War