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Letter to the editor

Lost in Memory's forest

A Largo woman struggles to remember the brother who left to fight.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, Times Staff Writer
Published December 17, 2007

Kathleen Justus, 71, has gathered the documents of her brother's life. She was 6 years old when Harold Thomas left their family to fight with the Army in Europe during World War II.
	[Jim Damaske | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Photo courtesy of Kathleen Justus] Harold Thomas served in the Army during World War II. The 24-year-old gunner was in Belgium in 1944.

They saw him off to war as a family. Harold Thomas hugged them all. His teenage sister couldn't help but think: This is the last time I will ever see my brother.

He kissed his 6-year-old sister, Kathleen.

Harold always called her Jimmy. Much later, she guessed that was because he would have liked a little brother instead of the sister he got. But he clearly loved her. She was his favorite.

More than 60 years after they parted, someone would ask Kathleen what she remembered about that goodbye.

Can she still see her brother's face?

***

By late 1944, World War II seemed all but finished in Europe. The Germans were in retreat. Some talked of peace by Christmas. Harold, 24, was an Army gunner in a light tank somewhere in the dense forest of the Ardennes.

It was a quiet area. In letters home to New Jersey, Harold told his parents he could see the Germans in their lines.

No doubt, that was too close for a mother's comfort.

His mother wrote a letter filled with news from home, hoping he would get it for Christmas. His "Jimmy" was in a school play and had worn an angel costume.

"May God end this war with the new year," his mother wrote, "and bring you home safe."

The letter was postmarked Dec. 18.

***

The German front erupted in 10,000 guns on Dec. 16. Suddenly, the Belgium side of the Ardennes was alive with the enemy.

So opened the Battle of the Bulge.

On Dec. 18, as Harold's light tank company rumbled through a small crossroads town called Poteau, the Germans ambushed.

Harold's tank was one of the first hit. The turret exploded. The driver saw him lying lifeless next to the tank commander.

Later, the Army found several burned-out tanks in Poteau - but no bodies.

Miriam, his 17-year-old sister, was home alone when the telegram arrived in January 1945. Harold was missing. She called her father at work.

A year later, Harold was presumed dead. The Germans must have disposed of the body, the Army decided.

It was hard for his family to accept. One day, Miriam spotted a young man in a five-and-dime. Was it Harold? She walked around him three times before she decided it couldn't be.

In 1950, unknown to his family, the Army made one last effort to find Harold. It sent letters to the survivors of his unit asking if anyone knew his fate.

One soldier thought he had made it out of the tank alive.

Still, the Army concluded: Harold died, either in the tank or shortly after escaping it.

His parents hardly ever talked of it. Once, Miriam heard her father say that Harold's death would be vindicated if it meant the end of all war.

"But there's always going to be war," he said.

***

In time, the family realized the knock at the door would never come. Harold's parents died. "Jimmy" grew up and moved to Largo. Kathleen Justus is now 71.

In the early 1990s, she learned Harold's memory wasn't completely erased.

His name was chiseled on a memorial in a cemetery in the Ardennes - on a monument to the missing.

Kathleen visited. She took a rubbing of her brother's name. It's something tangible, something she can touch.

She sent for all of her brother's military papers. None of it jogged any hidden memory within her.

Kathleen can't recall Harold's face. He is a stranger in the yellowed photos, smiling at her through the decades, the young man who kissed her and disappeared.

But in those old Army papers, one thing was missing. Kathleen wrote letters, made calls. In 2002 the government finally sent it.

Tuesday marks the 63rd anniversary of Harold's death. In a Largo home, a small object is displayed in a frame. It's a final gift from Jimmy, the girl Harold never got to see in her angel costume.

His Purple Heart.

Have a story?

Encounters is dedicated to small but meaningful stories. Sometimes they will play out far from the tumult of the daily news; sometimes they may be part of the news. To comment or suggest an idea for a story, contact editor Mike Wilson at mike@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2924.

[Last modified December 16, 2007, 22:54:12]