How Now, Brown Cow?

The phrase, "How Now, Brown Cow" sticks in my mind from some childhood memory that I cannot place, but it popped right into my head when I opened this photo.  Although my blog generally relays my exciting adventures with Marty, today's subject matter is worth deviating from my normal course.

The picture was taken by the one and only Ernest Kirpach of Luxembourg fame.  If you have followed this blog from the start, you might remember Ernest as the delightful "tour guide" of our Echternach adventure, who greeted Marty and me at the airport, and drove us around the area in May 2010.  Ernest and I have been e-mail buddies for many years, as he took an avid interest in helping me with my research regarding Marty's uncle, Pvt. Frederick W. Goempel who went MIA on 9 Feb. 1945.  If you are interested in the details, you can take a look at my website:  http://www.searchforfrederickgoempel.com

In June, Marty and I attended another DPMO update meeting, this time armed with fresh photos including pictures that recreated the flood stage of the Sauer River, taken by Ernest this past winter.  I'm not certain if it was the new historian assigned to our case, or the "on the ground" photos that we presented at the meeting, but we were finally added to the list of field investigations by the DPMO.  I was informed in late August that a team would be on the ground on Sept.10 and 11th, responsible for an investigation.  Although I would have loved to have been part of the experience, I felt confident relying on my Luxembourg friends for updates. 

The team was eager to meet with Ernest and Mike Boehler, another Luxembourg native who has been out in the field searching for clues, for over two years.  Mike has managed to unearth several US Army military items in that area,  strongly suggesting that this area was never thoroughly searched after the war.  The blog photo features Mike at work with his metal detector, being checked out by a curious German Brown Cow.  Apparently the cow-in-the-field was a first for this American Team out searching, and all got quite a kick out of her curiosity.  

With the team marking and charting the landscape's pertinent details, Mike was able to locate the old tree that stands on the hand-drawn map from Leonard Maslanka, a survivor of the river crossing.  This man was kind enough to put pen to loose-leaf paper and sketch me an unbelievably accurate presentation of this area which included a bunker and a spot where he saw a new recruit step on a landmine. Leonard documents his own location near an old tree.  With so much "new growth" over 60 + years of time, this old tree was hidden among scrub trees, and not easily recognized.  But, quite remarkably, the tree stands pretty much in the spot drawn on the map.  This gives a reference point that narrows down the possible location of F company during this river crossing advance.

In addition to discovering "the Tree", Mike remembered that the Germans dug trenches that would connect bunkers in the event that the soldiers needed to escape "out the back door," so to say.  Mike was able to locate the trench and the team was able to sight an indentation in the ground that worked its way over to another bunker.  These trenches are 1 meter deep.  This discovery opens up the possibility that this "new recruit" could have stepped on a land mine, and thereby fell into the trench, disappearing from sight.  

I haven't received a report from the DPMO yet, but I am grateful, that after 9 years of hard work on my part, I was finally taken seriously by this organization.  Mike intends to continue searching out in the field, concentrating on the trench area between the bunker and "The Tree", in the hopes of locating items that could place Fred in this area.  This is a huge discovery, and one that extends the hope that Fred's remains just may be located in the woods that are just a few meters away from the watchful eye of  one Brown Cow.

I cannot thank Ernest and Mike enough, for their enthusiasm and their willingness to spend so many hours attempting to solve the mystery of what happened to Fred.  I am thrilled to know both of them and I look forward to the day when Marty and I can once again spend some time with them, and who knows?  Perhaps we'll even get to meet Miss Brown Cow ourselves!