Normandy Memorial Tour
In June, 2000, we traveled to France for a ceremonial dedication of a World War II
memorial in the village of Periers. The memorial monument has statues of four American
soldiers who were killed during the Normandy invasion in 1944. The man mostly
responsible for the memorial is Henri Levaufre, a citizen of Periers. Henri was 13 years
old when his town was liberated by the US Army 90th Division in 1944, and like so many
French people, he has never forgotten the liberators. In an overwhelming example of a
lifetime of charity he has dedicated his life to the memory of 90th Division veterans,
fallen soldiers and their families. For the past 50 years, he has opened his home and his
heart to thousands of people connected to the American forces who served in Normandy.
He routinely visits the Omaha Beach cemetery with relatives of the United States soldiers
buried there. He has painstakingly searched the Normandy countryside for the exact
location a veteran was wounded, or where a relative was killed. Normandy 44 Project
In 1999 I received a phone call from Henri. He told me
that my brother Virgil, one of the thousands of men who
died in Normandy invasion, had been selected as one of
the four soldiers to be honored in the Periers memorial. I
do not remember much about our conversation that day
as I was nearly overcome with emotion, but I recall he
wanted one of the four men to be a medic. He requested I
send photos of Virgil so the sculptor could create a
realistic likeness of him.
Virgil Tangborn was a French horn player in the 90th
Division Band (Virgil is in the back row, 6th from the
left). Just before the Normandy invasion the band was
dispersed into medical units attached to the 359th Infantry
Regiment of the 90th Division. Virgil was killed while
attempting to rescue a wounded truck driver during an
artillery barrage. He was posthumously awarded the
Silver Star for gallantry and is buried in the Omaha
Beach Cemetery at Colville sur Mer. Bitter Experience
Once Virgil left the small farm in Northern Minnesota where he grew up, we do not
know much about the road he traveled to Omaha Beach. Letters he wrote to his parents
from Camp Barkley, Texas, on maneuvers in Louisiana and California, and from England
do not reveal much depth about the turmoil he must have experienced for those two
years. Most of the concerns he expressed were those of a 21-year old away from home
for the first time. When he tried out to join the division band as a French horn player he
wrote a plaintive letter explaining why he was sure he had not been selected. (His lips
were sore and chapped from the desert sun, he was exhausted and the temperature was
over 100 degrees). However, in the next letter he joyfully informed us he was a member
of the 90th Division Band!
Virgil was an avid reader before being drafted. The he books borrowed from the state
library tended toward philosophy, history and literature. In the journal he kept for 15
months before leaving home, he recorded his worries about the ordeal he knew he would
face in the oncoming war. Intermixed with these personal anguishes he sought to
formulate a philosophy of how life should be lived and to plan for his future, however
uncertain it appeared at the time.
Following is a brief photographic account of our journey in June, 2000, and of the tour
we made with 90th Division veterans and their families.
90th Division
Memorial Tour
Periers, France
June 1-8, 2000
Wendell Tangborn and Andrea Lewis
Seattle, Washington
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Two postcards of Periers, showing the layout of the town (pop. 2700) and the church. A
mass was held in the church before the Dedication Ceremony on June 4. The church stands
across from the Town Hall, where the 90th Division Memorial Monument now stands on
the lawn. The Monument will be moved to its permanent location next year (2001).
June 3, 2000 Saturday
Shortly after our arrival in Periers, we met
four high school students who had "adopted"
Virgil and put together a booklet and exhibit
about him.
Top: Three of the students (Tobias, Valentin,
and Jean-Francois) with Wendell after a
ceremony at their school.
Center (left to right): Tobias, an unknown
friend, Nicolas, and Valentin in the kitchen at
Nicolas's house.
Bottom: Wendell at the exhibit put on by the
students, which included a life-size poster of
Virgil.
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June 4, 2000 Sunday, The Dedication Ceremony for the Memorial Monument in
Periers.
The two-hour ceremony featured speakers from France, Germany and USA, including
mayors, veterans and US Army officers now serving in Europe.
Above: Wendell at the memorial statue with his hand on Virgil's shoulder. The four soldiers
are Tullio Micaloni, Andrew Speese (kneeling), Virgil Tangborn and Richard Richtman.
They are decorated with Hawaiian leis presented by Ann Speese, Andrew Speese's
daughter.
Below: The dedicatory plaque in front of the statues.
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June 4, 2000 Sunday, The Dedication Ceremony for the Memorial Monument in
Periers.
Above: Wendell receives a commemorative medal from Major General David R. Bockel
during the ceremony. The medal was awarded to relatives of fallen soldiers, veterans of the
90th Infantry Division, and relatives of civilians killed in Periers during the war.
Below: Wendell stands next to the beautiful wreath sent by Bemidji MN American Legion
Post in honor of Virgil.
Patrick Cottencin, the sculptor who made the monument's statues, worked from old photos
of the soldiers to create a likeness of each man.
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Above: After the Dedication Ceremony, the people of Periers served lunch to the hundreds
of visitors who came for the celebration. Henri Levaufre, shown above with his wife,
Janete, is the driving force behind the Normandy-44 Association and the 90th Division
Memorial Monument. He was 13 years old when Allied forces landed in Normandy. He has
devoted much of his life to contacting US veterans and their families, piecing together
official history and soldiers' personal memories, expressing appreciation to the 90th
Division, and making sure people "never forget."
Below: The evening of June 5. A buffet dinner was held by the US visitors to thank their
host families in Periers. Andrea and Wendell sat with Bernard Scarpa (right), a member of
the Normandy-44 Association, the group formed in 1998 to raise funds to build the
monument.
90th Division Monument
Utah Beach
On June 6, our bus tour visited
several WWII sites, including La
Cambe (the German cemetery), Point
du Hoc, Ste.-Mere-Eglise, and
Arromanches. These photos were
taken at Omaha Beach and the US
cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer.
Above: Andrea with Mildred and
Rich Elwell of Medina, OH. Rich is a
highly-decorated 90th Division
veteran who was also awarded
France's Croix de Guerre.
Left: Walking on Omaha Beach.
Below: Henri Levaufre with Wendell
at Virgil's cross in the US cemetery.
The 90th Division "T-O" symbol
(bottom left) originally stood for
Texas and Oklahoma and now stands
for Tough 'Ombres.
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In Periers we stayed at a bed-andbreakfast called La Rochelle and
were joined there by Wendell's son
Andy and his family.
Above: Breakfast on the sun porch
with Andy, his wife Sara, and their
daughter Duan-Duan.
The 300-year-old main house of La
Rochelle, from the front at sunset
(left) and from the back (below), a
beautiful setting with kitchen garden
and green pastures for their
Holsteins.
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The 90th Division
Memorial Tour took
us to many other sites
in Northern France
and in Paris,
including Versailles,
the Bayeux Tapestry,
the Louvre, and
Fountainbleau.
Upper left: Mont St.
Michel, an island
abbey built in the
14th-15th centuries
on the peak of a
pyramid-shaped rock.
The island stands in a
bay with one of the
biggest tides in the
world.
Left: Near the Eiffel
Tower on our first
day in Paris.
Final Thoughts - Memorial Dedication
On June 4, 2000, a memorial was dedicated in Periers, France to honor the United States
90th Infantry Division. The statues in the memorial featured four soldiers, including my
brother, Virgil, who died after the invasion of France. About the time that Virgil was killed
in Normandy on June 14, 1944, another tragedy was unfolding 900 miles to the east. The
Nazis had occupied Hungary on March 19 and began forcing all the Jewish people in
Hungary into ghettos. In May they began transporting them in boxcars to the Auschwitz
concentration camp in Poland. One of these trains arrived at Auschwitz on July 1 (the day
we received word of Virgil’s death). Most of the Hungarian Jews sent to Auschwitz were
gassed soon after they arrived. Only a few survived. One was Marika Frank; she arrived on
July 1 with her extended family but of all of them only Marika and her cousin, Vera,
survived.
It is somehow reassuring to think that, miraculously, Marika made it through the Holocaust
horror because of Virgil and the other gallant men we honored at the memorial dedication in
Normandy. I realize the connection between them is tenuous – but it is still there. Marika
made her way to the United States and eventually to Seattle. She married, raised a family
and now is a highly-respected artist who lives on Mercer Island. Her paintings have
appeared in art shows and galleries in Seattle and other cities for several decades.
Forty years later, in 1984, a young man appeared at her door announcing that he was 27
years old and did yard work, and was there any he could do for her? He was my oldest son,
John, who seven years earlier had dropped out of college (where he was a promising cellist),
alienated himself from his family and friends, and was unable to hold a job for more than a
few weeks. After being homeless for a while, binge-drinking, attempting suicide, having
several hospitalizations and brushes with the law, he was finally diagnosed as suffering
from paranoid schizophrenia. He is now on a medication that alleviates some of the
symptoms of this illness and is doing relatively well. He is still doing yard work for Marika.
I was privileged to finally meet her and her family in 1992.
Marika stood by John steadfastly for these past sixteen years and undoubtedly is one of his
best friends. I am convinced that he has so far made it through this terrible illness because of
Marika, her husband, Sydney Abrams, and a few others who have helped him.
These selfless acts of bravery and kindness renew our faith in humanity. The men we
honored in Periers, Andrew Speese, Tullio Micaloni, Richard Richtman and Virgil
Tangborn, died so that others, like Marika, would live. Marika in turn opened her heart and
home to an unknown person who was in obvious pain and distress. And Henri Levaufre of
the 90th Division Association brought us all closer together, and for this we are profoundly
grateful.
Wendell Tangborn
Seattle, WA
206 262 9697