dudes2112
Hero Member
This is a story about a lady I work with as it appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal, the local newspaper:
It is a simple metal GI dog tag but it is so much more than that.
It is a family relic now -- a piece of history and a World War II mystery as well.
It once belonged to Staff Sgt. William Shimek of Carmichaels, Pa., a 22-year-old soldier who enlisted in the Army in April 1941, and was killed in action in France on July 5, 1944, during the battle for St. Lo.
It is now in an envelope in Cuyahoga Falls at the home of Alberta Balsinger, Shimek's 57-year-old niece.
But the story of how it got there, she said, is nothing short of a miracle.
It was on Sunday, Dec. 12, 2004, that Martin Jervis, a groundsman for a holiday village in Cornwall, England, was walking on the beach near St. Michael's Mount, a medieval castle and church, in Cornwall, England, with a metal detector.
And according to an e-mail from his wife, Sharon Jervis, the detector alerted her husband to the metal object beneath a few inches of sand.
``We were very excited about the find and not knowing a lot about dog tags, I decided to do some research on the Internet,'' she said.
She discovered it was a World War II Army dog tag from the 29th Infantry Division.
Shimek -- one of four brothers to go to war, but the only one killed in action -- was with the 29th Infantry Division, stationed in the Devon-Cornwall peninsula before the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion of Normandy.
Two of that division's regiments landed in Normandy on D-Day. Shimek's stormed ashore the following day.
Contacting his family
So, using the Internet, Mrs. Jervis found Michael Shimek, a nephew of William Shimek, in Carmichaels, Pa., who contacted Mrs. Balsinger, an Infocision employee, who makes scrapbooks and has an ongoing family heritage scrapbook of her own family.
She then wrote to the Jervis family to tell them who William Shimek was.
``I was very overcome with emotion when I received this information,'' Mrs. Jervis said.
William Shimek was Alberta Balsinger's uncle -- the brother of her late father. The dog tag arrived in Carmichaels on Jan. 11, 2005, which Mrs. Balsinger said would have been William Shimek's 83rd birthday.
And his dog tag arrived in Cuyahoga Falls in February.
Renee Hylton, chief of historical services for the National Guard Bureau, Departments of the Army and the Air Force, an organization that oversees and funds the National Guard in the states and territories of the United States, said Shimek was a member of the historic 175th Infantry, a Maryland National Guard unit, a regiment that goes back to the Revolutionary War.
Records of the 29th Infantry Division, she said, show that Shimek was killed ``in the hedgerows aroundSt. Lo, the main U.S. objective after the breakout from the Normandy beachhead.''
This was very hard fighting, she said, ``with thousands of U.S. casualties. The city of St. Lo was almost totally destroyed.''
Mrs. Balsinger said she plans to make a shadow box to display the dog tag of the uncle who died before she was born.
Along with the tag, she said, will be his picture and a picture of the Bronze Star he was awarded.
Unsolved mystery
The mystery of how the dog tag got to the beach in England, though, is one she said will never be solved.
When his body was returned to Pennsyvlania for burial, his remains did not include a dog tag, she said.
Soldiers generally wore two dog tags; she said the Army must have kept one.
So how did Staff Sgt. Shimek's tag find its way under two inches of sand on the beach in Cornwall?
Did it fall off during training on the beach in England before the Normandy Invasion?
Did it come off while he was swimming at Cornwall?
Or could it have come off during the D-Day landing and drifted back to the beach?
``We will never know,'' Mrs. Balsinger said.
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It is a simple metal GI dog tag but it is so much more than that.
It is a family relic now -- a piece of history and a World War II mystery as well.
It once belonged to Staff Sgt. William Shimek of Carmichaels, Pa., a 22-year-old soldier who enlisted in the Army in April 1941, and was killed in action in France on July 5, 1944, during the battle for St. Lo.
It is now in an envelope in Cuyahoga Falls at the home of Alberta Balsinger, Shimek's 57-year-old niece.
But the story of how it got there, she said, is nothing short of a miracle.
It was on Sunday, Dec. 12, 2004, that Martin Jervis, a groundsman for a holiday village in Cornwall, England, was walking on the beach near St. Michael's Mount, a medieval castle and church, in Cornwall, England, with a metal detector.
And according to an e-mail from his wife, Sharon Jervis, the detector alerted her husband to the metal object beneath a few inches of sand.
``We were very excited about the find and not knowing a lot about dog tags, I decided to do some research on the Internet,'' she said.
She discovered it was a World War II Army dog tag from the 29th Infantry Division.
Shimek -- one of four brothers to go to war, but the only one killed in action -- was with the 29th Infantry Division, stationed in the Devon-Cornwall peninsula before the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion of Normandy.
Two of that division's regiments landed in Normandy on D-Day. Shimek's stormed ashore the following day.
Contacting his family
So, using the Internet, Mrs. Jervis found Michael Shimek, a nephew of William Shimek, in Carmichaels, Pa., who contacted Mrs. Balsinger, an Infocision employee, who makes scrapbooks and has an ongoing family heritage scrapbook of her own family.
She then wrote to the Jervis family to tell them who William Shimek was.
``I was very overcome with emotion when I received this information,'' Mrs. Jervis said.
William Shimek was Alberta Balsinger's uncle -- the brother of her late father. The dog tag arrived in Carmichaels on Jan. 11, 2005, which Mrs. Balsinger said would have been William Shimek's 83rd birthday.
And his dog tag arrived in Cuyahoga Falls in February.
Renee Hylton, chief of historical services for the National Guard Bureau, Departments of the Army and the Air Force, an organization that oversees and funds the National Guard in the states and territories of the United States, said Shimek was a member of the historic 175th Infantry, a Maryland National Guard unit, a regiment that goes back to the Revolutionary War.
Records of the 29th Infantry Division, she said, show that Shimek was killed ``in the hedgerows aroundSt. Lo, the main U.S. objective after the breakout from the Normandy beachhead.''
This was very hard fighting, she said, ``with thousands of U.S. casualties. The city of St. Lo was almost totally destroyed.''
Mrs. Balsinger said she plans to make a shadow box to display the dog tag of the uncle who died before she was born.
Along with the tag, she said, will be his picture and a picture of the Bronze Star he was awarded.
Unsolved mystery
The mystery of how the dog tag got to the beach in England, though, is one she said will never be solved.
When his body was returned to Pennsyvlania for burial, his remains did not include a dog tag, she said.
Soldiers generally wore two dog tags; she said the Army must have kept one.
So how did Staff Sgt. Shimek's tag find its way under two inches of sand on the beach in Cornwall?
Did it fall off during training on the beach in England before the Normandy Invasion?
Did it come off while he was swimming at Cornwall?
Or could it have come off during the D-Day landing and drifted back to the beach?
``We will never know,'' Mrs. Balsinger said.
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