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Lost and found: World War II memory
I love these storiesWhen 79-year-old Hank Arend, a decorated veteran, tossed aside his heavy mess kit during one of the deadliest battles in World War II, he thought little of it. But 60 years later, as Arendâs grandson surfed a computer Web site, he stumbled across a posting by a collector with a photograph of the modest aluminum pot. Arend contacted the Belgian collector, who agreed to send the pot - replete with Arendâs name and serial number, 36738409, scratched into the bottom. Somewhat unexpectedly, the potâs arrival last week in the mail has unleashed a host of memories for the Novato resident. "I thought, âJust get rid of it. Itâs too much to haul around,â" Arend said. "The fighting was so intense that we very rarely got a warm meal, so what was the use of that mess kit? We ate rations instead." Arend is one of seven people in the F Company 291st, 75th Infantry, who survived the Battle of the Bulge from 1944 through 1945 in the Ardennes Forest on the border between Germany and Belgium. Posted on the front line, Arend, then 18, had little time to stop and eat and, hence, little need for a cooking pot. "You are laying on the ground as much as you are standing up, so you donât want to be dragging all this stuff behind you," he continued. "Every movement we made, we would lose most of the men." The mess kit consists of an oval-shaped aluminum pot with a lid that is roughly 7 inches tall and 8 inches long. On the bottom, Arendâs name and serial number are distinct. "I recognize my own writing. I had scratched it in," Arend said. The potâs odyssey came to an end in December, when Jesse Babbitz, 33, of Los Altos, said he was looking for his grandfatherâs e-mail address on a computer and discovered Arendâs mess kit instead. "It accentuates how powerful the Internet has become for connecting people through space and time throughout the world," Babbitz said. "The fact that this mess kit that he left 60 years ago could be identified is awe-inspiring." Arend contacted Pierre Godeau, the collector who lives in Belgium. Godeau said he got the mess kit from a collector but that he then lost the collectorâs information, Arend said. But Godeau agreed to send the package to Arend as a Christmas present. "I told him I threw it away 60 years ago. Now what would I want with it now?" Arend joked. The mess kit discovery has allowed Arend and his grandson an opportunity to connect, Babbitz said. "I think it has opened up a chance for him to reflect on his life," Babbitz said. "It has allowed me to connect with him and his past - it has prompted more dialogue about his past and my past." Posted by: tipper 2004-01-27 |
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