Everyone has a story to tell, but some are harder to relate than others. Some take longer to speak about, as the memories are so horrific. That was the case for Elmer Chapp, one of our parishioners. Last November he signed up for a “Heartland Honor Flight” being organized by Bill and Evonne Williams of Omaha. He qualified by being a member of the Rainbow Division in the battles in Europe to defeat the Nazis. In December he was notified that he was going to Washington DC. There were 370 veterans on the next to last flight on April 23, 2009 from Omaha, NE. In all 1,500 veterans on seven flights went from 200 communities in Nebraska.
They were flown, all expenses paid, to DC to see the World War II Memorial, erected five years ago in their honor. Many other sites were seen that day…Arlington cemetery, Washington monument, to name a few.
The guys, in there 80’s and 90’s, were up at 2 a.m., eating breakfast at 3 a.m., then boarded their flight on a private Boeing 747. They returned home around midnight, I’m sure weary, but exhilarated. Elmer’s words were, “fantastic, unbelievable, and what more could I say!” While the veterans were in Washington DC, their wives were being well taken care of back in Omaha, being informed of the locations at all times.
Elmer was a 19-year-old farm boy from southeast Nebraska when he volunteered for the army in 1944, after he graduated from high school. Shortly after his ship docked in France, he was sent to the front lines of the war. In the winter of 1944, Elmer was at the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. He spent Christmas Eve in a foxhole.
By winter’s end, he was one of five in his group of 60 who had not been killed or wounded. On April 29, 1945 his group stormed the gates of the Nazi concentration camp in Bavaria, at Dachau.
Elmer had purchased an Agfa camera in Germany and was able to capture some pictures of the devastation only war can produce. I am able to use a couple of them in the story. I think the most important one might be the Statue of Liberty. I asked him how he must have felt when he saw her and he replied, “ I kissed the ground in New York when I arrived home.”
On May 24th they were invited back to Omaha and Elmer met Kitty Williams of Council Bluffs, Iowa. She is a concentration camp survivor from Auschwitz. Their stories are precious, as the soldiers and prisoners of WWII are dwindling.
We are so proud of all our service men that have fought for our country in all the wars.
