For many Families living in the Benelux, the experience of living and working in Europe opens a world of travel opportunities and history to explore. For some, the history they encounter is more personal than tourist landmarks and artworks, it’s a journey to discover their Family’s history and honor relatives who fought and sacrificed for freedom in Europe during World War II.
One couple who has taken a personal historical journey is Justin and Misty Schreppel, who have lived and worked for several years in Germany and Belgium since 1997 and are now part of the multinational military community at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium.
For Justin Schreppel the story of his great-uncle, Army Staff Sgt. Joe Schreppel, is something he first encountered as a young boy living in Kansas.
“What I remember as a kid in the 70’s, was my Family pointing to a gun cabinet that had a rifle with the name Joe inscribed on the stock and telling me he died in World War II. He was the eldest of five children and the first and only family member to die in war. It was a very sensitive topic that most of my Family avoided to discuss,” said Justin Schreppel. “Without any remains, there was never proper closure for the Family.”
A historic air mission ends in tragedy
Staff Sgt. Schreppel’s service in WW II as a tail gunner on the B-17 Flying Fortress “Jolly Roger” came to a tragic end on Aug. 17, 1943. On that day, dubbed “Black Tuesday”, 376 U.S. B-17 bombers departed from the United Kingdom to conduct a two-pronged attack on war equipment factories in Schweinfurt and Regensburg, Germany. It was a day of historic losses, resulting in 60 B-17 aircraft lost to enemy fire and nearly 650 Airmen killed, wounded or captured, according to Dr. William Pace Head, Chief Historian at the 78th Air Base Wing, Robbins Air Force Base, Georgia.
The Jolly Roger was shot down by the Germans as it flew in the skies over Belgium and crashed in a farmer’s field near the Dutch town of Woensdrecht, near the Belgian border. Of the 10 aircrew, five managed to parachute out of the aircraft as it fell from the sky. According to military records, Staff Sgt. Schreppel sustained wounds when the aircraft was attacked and although his fellow crew members assisted him to parachute from the aircraft, he was unable to control his parachute and he hit a tree while landing near Zoersel, Belgium.
According to local area historian Luc Cox, Staff Sgt. Schreppel managed to light a fire and attract the attention of two boy scouts who were staying in a nearby youth hostel. In his last moments, the Soldier managed to mumble his name and his hometown, which the boys wrote on a small scrap of paper as Joe Sharpel, Pittsburgh.
A family living nearby quickly brought a mattress by horse and carriage to provide comfort for the dying Soldier during his last moments of life. Staff Sgt. Schreppel died shortly after and his body was taken to a mortuary in the Zoersel town hall, said Cox.
A town defies danger to pay its respects
In the early morning hours of Aug. 18, 1943, one day after the crash of the Jolly Roger, residents of Zoersel laid flowers in front of the town hall, read a rosary and collected money to conduct a mass in honor of Staff Sgt. Schreppel and the other aircrew members that died. That afternoon, the Germans arrived to take Staff Sgt. Schreppel’s body.
“The sad thing is that they knew well enough in Zoersel who he was, they even gave them his name tag, but the Germans carelessly or deliberately lost that tag, so he was listed as anonymous and missing in action,” said Cox.
Five days later, the town pastor and several residents conducted a mass for Staff Sgt. Schreppel and the other crash victims. Within days, the pastor and five others involved in the mass were arrested by the Germans and sent to prison for paying tribute to ‘the enemy’. The pastor spent nearly a month in prison and others who helped organized the mass were imprisoned even longer, with the last arrested resident returning to Zoersel in December 1943.
A Belgian Family reaches out
In Zoersel, the sacrifice of Staff Sgt. Schreppel was never forgotten. One resident, Gustave Cryns, made it his life quest to find the Schreppel Family and help them find closure for their loss. Cryns learned of Staff Sgt. Schreppel’s story from his own father, who witnessed the events of Aug. 17, 1943, and initiated a decades-long search for the Schreppel Family. Cryns continued his father’s search in earnest after his father’s passing, equipped with little more than the small scrap of paper that contained a misspelled name and a misidentified hometown.
The search for the Schreppels was difficult, complicated by the misspelling of the name (Sharpel instead of Schreppel) and the assumption that the staff sergeant’s hometown was the well-known city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and not the small town of Pittsburg, Kansas.
“As Gustave’s Family searched for our Family, they would refer to their weekends as ‘Schreppeling’. It was definitely a Family effort, and all were glad when we were found,” said Justin Schreppel.
The year of first contact between the Belgians and Americans was 1999, when the Cryns Family managed to find a Joe Schreppel living in Pittsburg, Kansas. He was the nephew of Staff. Sgt. Schreppel and the uncle of Justin Schreppel. Along with a short letter a leather glove belonging to Staff Sgt. Schreppel was sent, which was viewed by the Schreppels in Kansas as a comforting gesture but one that did not help with the search for the remains of Staff Sgt. Schreppel, who is still to this day listed as missing in action.
For Justin Schreppel, this initial contact from Belgium to his Family was something unknown, as he had moved away from Kansas in the early 1990’s to serve as an Army paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division.
Building bonds with Belgium
In 1997, just a few years before the Cryns Family found the Schreppels in Kansas, another connection to Europe was just beginning as Justin and Misty Schreppel moved to Bamberg, Germany for Justin’s work as an Army combat engineer. Several years later, in 2014, they moved to Brussels, Belgium for Misty Schreppel’s job at NATO Headquarters. It was only in preparation for the move to Brussels that Justin Schreppel finally learned that his family had a personal connection and history with Belgium, and the journey into the Staff Sgt. Schreppel’s legacy began.
When Justin Schreppel told his relatives in Kansas about his planned move to Belgium, his brother suggested that he visit Gustave Cryns and the town of Zoersel. This was the spark that finally brought the Belgian and American Families together.
“We visited the Henri-Chapelle American cemetery on the anniversary of the crash and met with Gustave and his Family there. While this was great for our closure, it was also Gustave’s first chance to provide closure to his dad’s effort to find the Family of the fallen American Soldier,” said Justin Schreppel. “Our stories were now coming together on what was the 71st anniversary of my great-uncle’s death on Aug. 17, 1943.”
In September 2014, Justin and Misty Schreppel went to visit the Cryns Family near Antwerp, the town of Zoersel and the aircraft crash site across the border in the Netherlands. During this visit the Schreppels learned about Staff Sgt. Schreppel’s last moments and the valiant efforts of the people of Zoersel to honor him after his death. It was the first of several visits that would build further bonds between the Belgian and American Families.
In addition to seeing the sites connected to Aug. 17, 1943, another highlight of the Schreppel’s visit to Zoersel was meeting with other local area residents like historian Luc Cox and World War II survivor Jeanne De Feyter, who witnessed some of the tragic events that fateful day. It was her father who took a mattress by horse and carriage to comfort the dying Staff Sergeant and who transported his body to the mortuary in the city hall.
“The meeting with Jeanne completed the story of our Family history for all involved, including the community of Zoersel,” said Justin Schreppel. “She had never been back to her childhood home for many years, and we walked along the road where my great-uncle was given his last rights, died, and was taken into town.”
The opportunity to meet with De Feyter at her childhood home was a milestone moment for Justin Schreppel that finally brought the story of his great-uncle to life and made it feel more real. Through a translator she told what she remembered of that day in 1943.
“She told us this is where she lived and where the mattress from her bed was taken out by her father,” said Justin Schreppel. “In English she told us ‘I want to thank Sergeant Schreppel’.”
The Belgian-American connections grow
Word of Justin and Misty Schreppel’s historical journey in Belgium made its way back to Kansas and in 2016 a cousin of Justin Schreppel made the trip to Zoersel with several Family members, including two young boys who happened to find World War II shrapnel at the B-17 crash site. Since their first visit in 2014, Justin and Misty Schreppel have returned to Zoersel several times over the years, including a visit for the funeral of De Feyter who passed away in 2015.
Another vital connection between the Belgian and American Families of Zoersel is local area historian Luc Cox, who is a member of several local historical societies near Antwerp and specializes in researching World War II airplane crashes. Together with Cryns, who found the Schreppel Family in Kansas, they worked to research the events of the Jolly Roger crash to honor the memory of the crew members killed on Aug. 17, 1943. For Cox, the passion for World War II history goes beyond the Jolly Roger and Zoersel to include the entire Antwerp region.
“In this area alone about 350 airplanes crashed during the war (from all nations). My goal is to be able to pinpoint which plane came down and where,” said Cox. “There are not many men who went Missing in Action in the region. Joe Schreppel’s case is a particular one as the people of Zoersel knew his name, but he was buried by the Germans as ‘unknown’.”
Cox estimates he has helped around 10 American Families discover the stories and history behind Family members who were killed or survived aircraft crashes near Antwerp, including two other Families in addition to the Schreppels who are connected to the crash of the Jolly Roger.
For Cox, a child of the 1970’s and the Cold War, the detective work to find, document and share the memories of World War II is a passion that began with the stories of his grandparents, who often expressed gratitude for the Allies that liberated Belgium.
“My grandparents always talked with great admiration for the Allied Soldiers who came to liberate our country,” said Cox. “It was the bombers and airplanes flying over Belgium going to and from Germany that fought the war. Hearing and seeing the planes come over first at night and later during the daytime gave people hope. The Allies were not giving up!”
Completing the circle, seeking closure
Justin Schreppel is thankful that his Family has been able to learn the story of his great-uncle’s service and sacrifice during World War II. The knowledge of what happened on Aug. 17, 1943, and the bold efforts of the people of Zoersel to honor Staff Sgt. Schreppel have helped heal his Family’s pain of him being missing in action and has given hope to the Schreppels that perhaps one day his remains will eventually be found.
Because other members of the Jolly Roger aircrew were identified and buried in the Ardennes American Cemetery, the Schreppels believe the remains of Staff Sgt. Schreppel are amongst the graves of the 5,162 Americans buried there. The Schreppels have collected DNA samples from Staff Sgt. Schreppel’s sister and other Family members with the hope that it can one day be used to identify their fallen Soldier and bring final closure after more than 80 years of him being listed as missing in action.
Additionally, Justin Schreppel worked with his relatives back in Kansas to obtain a grave marker from the Veterans Administration, which was placed in Oswego, Kansas and helped his Family honor Staff Sgt. Schreppel’s service and sacrifice.
For Justin Schreppel, the next step in his historical journey is to work with other Family members to create a historical display that pays tribute to Staff Sgt. Schreppel and the Jolly Roger B-17 crash for a new history museum in his hometown of Oswego, Kansas.
“In the end, confirming his identity will always be the final achievement that would give his sister Barbara Schreppel some closure,” said Justin Schreppel. “For others in the Family like myself, we still have more years to keep searching for him.”
This story was written by Richard Komurek and first appeared on DVIDS.
