Latest / Illinois Valley - Shaw Local / Ottawa man recreates his father’s World War II photo on a rooftop in Furth, Germany

Transcript

Ottawa man recreates his father’s World War II photo on a rooftop in Furth, Germany · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

• 0:05
  Ottawa man recreates his father's World War Two photo on a rooftop
• 0:08
  in Firth, Germany. Written by Matthias Warner This article is
• 0:14
  being read by an automated voice brought to you by Everlet. It’s
• 0:19
  photo 81 years in the making.
• 0:22
  Gary Schuett, an Ottawa resident, paid homage to his father this summer
• 0:26
  with a pilgrimage to the same location he was at during World
• 0:29
  War II in Germany.
• 0:31
  As Allied forces suffocated the Nazis in 1945, Francis Schuett made his
• 0:36
  way through western Europe to Furth, Germany with the 343rd Ordnance, and
• 0:41
  atop the site seen in this photograph.
• 0:44
  Aware of the picture and looking ahead to an upcoming vacation in
• 0:48
  nearby Nuremberg, Gary wanted to make his way back to that same
• 0:52
  spot, eight decades later.
• 0:54
  My son kind of got me started on this when he found
• 0:57
  out we were going to Nuremberg, he brought it up to me
• 1:00
  that my dad had been right near there, Gary said. Then my
• 1:04
  daughter helped me by mentioning to me about her father-in-law’s cousin, and
• 1:07
  everything fell together with making this happen.
• 1:10
  The process of fulfilling that wish took months of research and coordination
• 1:15
  with his family to ensure that the location was a match and
• 1:18
  the photo was feasible. Gary said it helped that a lot of
• 1:22
  the same buildings seen in the picture were still there, including three
• 1:26
  that date back to before 1920.
• 1:29
  I did a little research and it was close to where we
• 1:32
  were going on our trip to Europe, and I thought Well heck,
• 1:35
  we’re going to be right next door, Gary said.
• 1:38
  He said that after confirming that the spot was identical, the research
• 1:42
  he and his family did led to the fact that the army
• 1:45
  barracks his dad’s regiment had overtaken was seized by the U.S. Army
• 1:49
  in 1945, and used as a U.S. Barracks until 1995, when it
• 1:54
  was given back to the German government and later sold and turned
• 1:57
  into an apartment complex.
• 1:59
  After reaching out to several different departments in the Furth government, a
• 2:04
  relative of Gary’s daughter, Elissa, who lived in Nuremberg, reached out to
• 2:08
  some people in the area who may have been able to help.
• 2:11
  Ultimately, Elissa’s father-in-law was able to make contact with local tenants of
• 2:16
  the building and a local historian, who while Gary was in Europe
• 2:19
  were able to put him in touch with the owner of the
• 2:21
  penthouse and ensure that this summer, another Schuett donned the top of
• 2:26
  the building.
• 2:27
  The photo culminated an expedition that had an impact on the Schuett
• 2:31
  family as a whole.
• 2:33
  We had to plan for it for so long, you know. It
• 2:36
  took four months and all these people to put this together, Gary
• 2:39
  said. Even with the computers helping, it still took time but it
• 2:43
  led to this opportunity to be in the same place my dad
• 2:46
  was 81 years ago.
• 2:49
  The research process did more than lead the family to the photograph
• 2:52
  recreation, it led to the uncovering of notes of Francis’s experience during
• 2:57
  World War II. After being drafted in 1942, he left the U.S.
• 3:01
  For England in November 1943 and landed on Utah Beach in Normandy
• 3:06
  on July 5, 1944.
• 3:09
  I’ve always been pretty interested in what my grandpa did in World
• 3:11
  War II, Court said. We had gotten some of the stories out
• 3:15
  of him about that and this picture was just one of them
• 3:18
  that we could do something with, and being able to put some
• 3:22
  of the timeline of his experience with additional parts and pieces through
• 3:26
  this was really neat.
• 3:28
  Gary had some of his own military history to tell, as well.
• 3:31
  In his military experience during the early 70s, Gary ended up serving
• 3:35
  in the same country as his father, along the French border of
• 3:38
  Germany as a military policeman.
• 3:41
  When I knew my dad was going to that area I told
• 3:44
  him, like Hey, you should go see where that’s at when you’re
• 3:47
  there, not thinking that getting up on the roof or anything like
• 3:51
  that would be possible, Court said. But he was excited to be
• 3:55
  able to do it and get to see all of that stuff.