Beckham County, OK - Military: Letter 1 re Leroy E. Cartmill Thursday, 27 April 2006 Submitted by: bisscherouxnuth@home.nl (Joseph Bisscheroux) ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ************************************************ ----- Original Message ----- From: mail.home.nl To: phill@infowest.com Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 4:54 AM Subject: Information about Leroy E Cartmill KIA March 24 1945ll From: “Joseph Bisscheroux” bisscherouxnuth@home.nl To: “Mrs. Phyllis Hill” phill@infowest.com Subject: Information about Leroy E. Cartmill Nuth March 23 2006 Dear Mrs. Hill, Maybe you can help me. Leroy E Cartmill got killed in action March 24 1945 near Wesel Germany. At that time he was PFC member of 507 Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 17th Airborne Division. March 24 1945 was the start of “Operation Varsity”, some call it the “Rhine jump”. What do we know? Leroy jumped out of a plane March 24 and the next day he was dead. He is buried at the American Cemetery Margraten the Netherlands and I adopted his grave. Tomorrow we, me and some friends who also adopted a grave of members of 17th Airborne Division will visit Margraten, as we do every year that day, lay flowers on their grave and remember them. What is my problem and what can your solution be? I’m a catholic and believe in a life after this so as I visit a grave of a relative I have a kind of chat with the deceased. But what chat can it be with Leroy? If you find relatives or friends please give me their addresses, if they want. They can tell me about Leroy and they know that Leroy has a visitor from time to time and on occasions as Memorial Day, March 24, and November 11 for instance. I asked for the casualty report at the National Archives but this takes time. The casualty can give me information about his home address. Now I did find that his residence was Beckham on Internet and “Beckham Oklahoma” gave me your E-mail address. Long ago I adopted the grave of a member of the 507 Rgt. And because of the privacy laws I never tried to find out about him. One day as we visited his grave my wife asked me why I didn’t try to find out about him. I did find my ancestors till 1584 and he was a stranger to me. Now what happened and what gives me the reason to be so frank to ask for your help. I asked the National Archives for his Casualty report and in the casualty report I did find his birthday and his home address and also what company he had served with. The birthday gave us one day more to visit him and his home address was one start of my search. His company was the other. Knowing his company and with help of the address of the 17th Airborne Division Association I got in contact with comrades of him. Some of them I already met at Margraten. I got in contact with the comrade who was with him as they both got wounded in “the Battle of the Bulge” and the comrade who was with him as he got killed March 27 1945. The contact with his relatives and friends from his hometown happened because I was lucky to get in contact with the right people. I wrote a letter to the people who live at his home address. Response: A well-meant thank you for what you are doing but I don’t know his relatives. But I delivered the letter back at the Post office. I got a letter from a lady who worked as a volunteer at the Post office at that time and who was a classmate of him at High school. She knew his sister and so I got in contact with his sister. She delivered the letter at the post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. These Veterans contacted a local Newspaper. People who had known him contacted me. And now I know who this hero is. As the adoption committee asked for new adopters, people die, people leave the region and the adoption is forgotten. The adoption database is computerized and with help of the local Government the found out what graves have no adopters anymore and that is why I adopted two more graves of members of the 507th. Leroy’s is one of them. As we visited his grave the first time my wife said: “Welcome to the Bisscheroux family.” They gave their life for our freedom. I hope you can help me and thank you in advance. If you are interested in pictures of Memorial Day at Margraten or the visit of your Mr. President and the first lady, let me know. I will send you these by normal mail in that case you must let me know your post address or the post address of the Beckham Archives so I can send them there for your attention. Again thank in advance, Sincerely, Joseph Bisscheroux Reukenderweg 4 6361AX Nuth The Netherlands