NETHERLANDS AMERICA
INSTITUTE LIMBURG
NAIL MEMORIAL
at KERKRADE
September 2024 was the month of monuments and combined with 80 years of liberation of Eastern South Limburg made NAIL decide to donate a permanent memorial to the municipality of Kerkrade.
On Wednesday November 27, 2024 NAIL exists 72 years, and because of this special occasion, the board of NAIL in cooperation with our loyal member Hub Schetters and the municipality of Kerkrade, had developed a memorial.
This memorial is a token of appreciation and in commemoration of 2 American heroes who sacrificed their lives for our freedom: T5. George L. Bower and PFC. Dick H. Hosler. Beyond these 2 heroes of course, there are thousands of other heroes who absolutely should not be forgotten.
The memorial was unveiled by:
You can read the story of T5. George L. Bower and PFC. Dick H. Hosler at the bottem of this special.
A FATAL MISTAKE
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TAKING THE WRONG TURN
In the late afternoon of September 20, 1944 Georg Bower of East Orwell, Ohio, and his American companion Dick Hosler of Columbia City, Indiana drive their jeep from Heerlen, now in American hands, to the Locht in Kerkrade. Both belong to the 247 Engineers Combat Battalion, an engineer combat battalion of bridges and road engineers with an infantry training. The battalion is in support of the “Old Hickory” 30th Division, building important bridges over the Maas at Maastricht (Netherlands), the Worm at Rimburg (NL) and the Ruhr at Jullich (Germany) .
Bower and Hosler's combat battalion was stationed in Maastricht on that Sept. 20, 1944. The 247 Engineers combat Battalion needed to build a “Bailey bridge” over the destroyed St. Servaas Bridge. Construction of the bridge begins on Sept. 25 1944, the day of the evacuation of Kerkrade. Bower and Hosler were ordered on the 20th of September 1944, to inspect the steel bridge over the railroad at the Locht. Driving along Heerlerbaan Bower and Hosler are at the junction with the Heerlenersteenweg. Probably not knowing where to go to and misled by the street cars tracks, they turn left at the gas station Brouwers at the Rukkerweg. Bower and Hosler drove towards the suburb Spekholzerheide, instead of driving straight ahead to the Locht.
Bower and Hosler drove past the already liberated suburb Onderspekholz toward the center of Kerkrade. They passed the street car tunnel called “De Bril” into occupied territory by the Germans. Three German men sit in a foxhole and opend fire machine guns at the point where the Koningsweg and the street car tracks meet. When the jeep comes out of the tunnel on the east side, the Germans take Bower and Hosler under fire. Dick Hosler is killed instantly and George Bower is mortally wounded.
EMERGENCY OPERATION
Bower and Hosler are transferred to the hospital in Kerkrade. George Bower is operated on immediately. Sister Epiphana nurses him.
She recalls, “I was standing in the hospital's inner yard when the two Americans were brought in by the Germans. George Bower was still alive. Doctor Kreyen started an emergency surgery but it was clear that the young soldier was dying. I watched over him in the death room all night after the operation. At 6 a.m. he briefly opened his eyes and asked who I was. He wanted to see his mother and asked for a glass of water. I went to warn Rector Hennekens and get the water but when I returned a little later he was unconscious again. Around 9 a.m. he died”.
After the death of George Bower, Sister Epiphana takes away the dog tags of both of them. She brings Bower and Hosler to a special room and decorates the remains with flowers. Two eyewitnesses testify the flowers were orange, the color of the Dutch Royal family. A photographer secretly commissioned by her, Mr. Lenssen, takes photographs in the presence of Mr. Paffen, a coroner. The intention is comforting their families later with a lasting memory that captures the care which the fallen soldiers were surrounded. Gregor Brokamp writes that he meets a few little girls who went to bring flowers to the hospital in Kerkrade to honor the two first fallen Americans.
Sister Epiphana: "Just when we had finished lying the flowers, we heard the Germans coming back because the bodies had not yet been released. We quickly removed the flowers. Mr. Paffen and Mr. Lenssen fled through the window. I never saw them again."
FINAL OFFENSIVE
After initial orders to the contrary on the German side, both bodies are allowed to remain in the hospital, at least if it will provide for a decent burial. George Bower and Dick Hosler are transferred to the funeral chapel where they are laid among 11 other deceased residents of Kerkrade. Before a dignified burial can take place, the first American shells fall and the hospital has to be evacuated. During this evacuation, Sister Epiphana ensures that the dog tags of both fallen soldiers ends up in American hands.
BURIED
The remains of George Bower and Dick Hosler, by order of the American Battle Monuments Commission Washington, were buried with honors on October 7, 1944 at the ABMC cemetery Henri-Chapelle in Belgium. During the reorganization in 1947 - 1948 of the American cemeteries in Europe, at the request of the relatives of both, final burials took place in the United States. Dick Hosler's grave is currently in Jefferson Chapel Cemetery, Colombia City, Indiana. George Bower grave is currently at the Brownville Cemetery, New Lyme, Ashtabula County, Ohio.
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