Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
MYSTERY: A Netherlands man makes an exhaustive search to return a mess kit to its owner's children.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BELOIT, Wis. - Netherlands native Maarten Lichtezeld was tinkering with a metal detector in a Belgian forest when he came across a mysterious mess kit.
It eventually would bring the 35-year-old to southern Wisconsin.
On Feb. 27, Lichtezeld, from Arcen, Holland, discovered buried and banged-up knapsack buckles and a tin food container used by American soldiers during the war.
Etched into the surface was the name Ray Lang and the digits 7981.
"I couldn't believe he scratched his name in it," Lichtezeld told the Beloit Daily News by phone.
Lichtezeld was immediately curious, and he began a four-month-long pursuit of Ray Lang.
He started at the United States National Archives Access to Archival Databases (AAD), but there were thousands of Ray Langs on record.
Lichtezeld was able to narrow the search with the four digits of the serial number and found a Ray R. Lang, identified by the number 16047981. He was born in 1920 and enlisted in the Army in Milwaukee in 1942 while living in Winnebago County, Ill.
Lichtezeld spent hours on the Internet and making phone calls.
"I must have called a hundred people in America," he said. "Everybody said, 'Try this number.' All of a sudden I got to a Ray Lang in Beloit."
He got him by first calling Beloit City Hall and Pam Lathrop, assistant to City Manager Larry Arft. She directed him to the Beloit Historical Society who referred him to the Rock County Veterans Service Office.
A woman there searched the archives and came up with the discharge papers that matched the serial number Lichtezeld was seeking.
Ray Lang, born in 1920, had most recently lived on a Beloit farm.
When he called a Lang residence in Beloit, he spoke to Robert R. Lang, Ray R. Lang's son. Ray Lang died in 1978.
"When he called, I thought somebody was pulling my leg," Lang told the newspaper.
Lang doesn't remember much about his father's service. He knows he served in the United States Army Air Corps but said his father didn't talk often about that part of his life.
But Ray Lang did leave behind boxes -- with pictures, journals and letters -- that the children hadn't gone through yet.
After the war, Lang bought the farm land in Beloit, where he and his wife, Betty, had three children -- Carol, Robert and Ron. Lang lived in Beloit until his death and now Robert and Carol maintain the farm.
But no one knows how the pieces of the mess kit ended up in Belgium.
As far as his son knows and government records suggest, Lang was only in China and the Far East. But Robert Lang said he now has extra reason to sift through his father's belongings.
Lichtezeld will travel to Beloit on Sept. 30 to deliver the items
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/d...7.htm?source=rss&channel=duluthsuperior_local
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BELOIT, Wis. - Netherlands native Maarten Lichtezeld was tinkering with a metal detector in a Belgian forest when he came across a mysterious mess kit.
It eventually would bring the 35-year-old to southern Wisconsin.
On Feb. 27, Lichtezeld, from Arcen, Holland, discovered buried and banged-up knapsack buckles and a tin food container used by American soldiers during the war.
Etched into the surface was the name Ray Lang and the digits 7981.
"I couldn't believe he scratched his name in it," Lichtezeld told the Beloit Daily News by phone.
Lichtezeld was immediately curious, and he began a four-month-long pursuit of Ray Lang.
He started at the United States National Archives Access to Archival Databases (AAD), but there were thousands of Ray Langs on record.
Lichtezeld was able to narrow the search with the four digits of the serial number and found a Ray R. Lang, identified by the number 16047981. He was born in 1920 and enlisted in the Army in Milwaukee in 1942 while living in Winnebago County, Ill.
Lichtezeld spent hours on the Internet and making phone calls.
"I must have called a hundred people in America," he said. "Everybody said, 'Try this number.' All of a sudden I got to a Ray Lang in Beloit."
He got him by first calling Beloit City Hall and Pam Lathrop, assistant to City Manager Larry Arft. She directed him to the Beloit Historical Society who referred him to the Rock County Veterans Service Office.
A woman there searched the archives and came up with the discharge papers that matched the serial number Lichtezeld was seeking.
Ray Lang, born in 1920, had most recently lived on a Beloit farm.
When he called a Lang residence in Beloit, he spoke to Robert R. Lang, Ray R. Lang's son. Ray Lang died in 1978.
"When he called, I thought somebody was pulling my leg," Lang told the newspaper.
Lang doesn't remember much about his father's service. He knows he served in the United States Army Air Corps but said his father didn't talk often about that part of his life.
But Ray Lang did leave behind boxes -- with pictures, journals and letters -- that the children hadn't gone through yet.
After the war, Lang bought the farm land in Beloit, where he and his wife, Betty, had three children -- Carol, Robert and Ron. Lang lived in Beloit until his death and now Robert and Carol maintain the farm.
But no one knows how the pieces of the mess kit ended up in Belgium.
As far as his son knows and government records suggest, Lang was only in China and the Far East. But Robert Lang said he now has extra reason to sift through his father's belongings.
Lichtezeld will travel to Beloit on Sept. 30 to deliver the items
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/d...7.htm?source=rss&channel=duluthsuperior_local
What are the chances.
