Lt. Donald K. Johnson was one of thousands who served during the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944. Unlike many others, he lived to talk about his war experiences in northern France.
Johnson was a civil engineer in the Naval Construction Battalion. After serving five months in northern France, the Seabee finally headed home. Like most military personnel back then, talking about their war experiences wasn’t a priority or desire. The few stories he did shared with his family were met by his wife’s reproachful looks, especially when the topic was Gilbert.
During his time in France, Johnson befriended a seven-year-old orphan named Gilbert. Over the months, he took the boy under his wing, and regularly brought him through the chow line in the officers’ mess. Later, as Johnson was leaving Normandy, he brazenly tried taking the boy with him on the ship, with plans to adopt him as his own child. Gilbert desperately wanted to go with his fatherlike friend to live in America. However, local authorities got wind of his plan and kept Gilbert in country. Soon after, Gilbert was placed in an orphanage. The two never saw each other again, despite Johnson’s promise to return for Gilbert.
Years later
Over the years, Johnson’s daughter Diane Covington-Carter had an ongoing love for everything French, especially the language. She was always intrigued with her father’s stories of France, the few he shared. She studied French nonstop, vowing to someday soon visit the country and fulfill that lifelong dream. Then, life got in the way with marriage, children, and work, and the goal of visiting France became distant. Even still, she continued studying French.
Just before her father passed, he shared one of his last thoughts with his daughter, “I wonder what ever happened to him [Gilbert]?”
A few years later, she found herself visiting Normandy, retracing her father’s footsteps. In 1994, Covington-Carter was invited to the 50th anniversary of D-Day where she accepted a medal in her father’s honor.
In preparation for her and her daughter Heather’s three-week visit throughout France, Covington-Carter wrote the name, phone number and fax for every hotel they would be staying. (Remember: this was 1994!) Her sister Sharon was back home, checking on the house and collecting the mail.
During her visit to Normandy, she learned a lot more about the largest land and sea invasion in the history of the world. It made her proud to think her dad was part of that effort. While there, she tried reaching out to Gilbert by placing an ad in the local newspaper.
The brief missive read: “The daughter of Lt. Donald K. Johnson looks for Gilbert DesClos, Du Clos; not sure of the spelling of the last name. During the war, this Naval officer took Gilbert under his wing, and now Johnson’s daughter would like to find him.” She added her mailing address in California.
On the day the ad published, Gilbert, who had remained in Normandy, received numerous phone calls from friends and relatives alerting him of the ad. When he read the words himself, he wept like he was seven years old again.
As this piece of the 50-year puzzle came together in the village of Caen, Normandy, Covington-Carter and Heather were enjoying their tour throughout France. On the last day of their visit, Covington-Carter received a fax from her sister back in California. The information on the fax was Gilbert’s letter to her, inviting her to come visit him and his family in Normandy.
Hardly believing what she was reading, Covington-Carter read the fax several times while crying non-stop. She finally noticed the date at the top of the fax: July 20, 1994, which would have been her father’s 80th birthday.
When she made the call to Gilbert, the real crying commenced.
Instead of concluding their fabulous trip through France, they headed back to Normandy, and an unforgettable and tearful first-ever meeting with Gilbert and his family. What her father began in 1944, Covington-Carter completed in 1994 — a promise fulfilled, 50 years later.
Fate played a huge role in how this tale unfolded, but there is much more to it. Covington-Carter wrote “Finding Gilbert: A Promise Fulfilled” to tell the whole story, and it is certainly worth reading.
Check out Covington-Carter’s website, and get the first three chapters of “Finding Gilbert: A Promise Fulfilled” for free.
