Enjoy this gorgeous hillside when you are here.
Find it, use it as a reference when you are elsewhere, look back here.
This unique hill is an arsenal of memory, devotion, and heartache.
Making the beauty here rather surreal, certainly bittersweet.
We gather to remember them.
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| Korean War Vet - 1st Marine Provisional Brigade - The first into Korea, the battles of hilltops, three amphibious landings Randy Rabenold painted this from the back side apartment on South 2nd Street Lehighton, near Kirkendall's Store, of his interpretation, of the beauty of Union Hill - Oil on Canvas - 1957. RANDY RABENOLD TRENCH ART |
Point to:
FAR END CAP (Toward Route 209):
Marine John Penberth KIA Iwo Jima 1945
KIA Clyde Rothermel Field Artillery 1918
NW QUAD (Facing Held St & Flagpole, Top left):
Chester Koons served in both WWI & WWII
SW QUAD (Facing Held St & Flagpole, Bottom left):
Father Son - Jacob Kresge Civil War & Ralph WWI
SE QUAD (Facing Held St & Flagpole, Bottom right, toward Rt 248):
Wilbur Wentz Died of wounds in France one month before the Armistice
Dora and Adam Haydt Gold Star Parents of Walter Walter Haydt (slammed in a mountain flying the new B-24 in the fog in remote Australia, was missing for over a year, he left a daughter he never met)...
Sgt Andrea Miller, murdered, Christmas day West Germany
NE QUAD (Facing Flagpole, Top right, toward road, above Route 248):
Robert McCormick KIA Belgium
There’s a father and a son Clifford & Wilmer Mangan who both served in WWII
Russell Hahn KIA France 1918
Richard Whiteman KIA 1952 Korea
Reed Gaumer Held’s Home (an only child, his plane went missing over the Pacific, intelligence gathering 1946 never found; Held St dedicated to his memory in 1962.)
Today, I hope to share my memory of what I’ve collected from soldiers who in their youth stood ready to make sacrifices to country, among them seeing first hand, those who gave their last full measure.
And I’d like to start with my Dad.
May 1950:
Dad & Gene Holland are buying a car together, about to go on leave, from Long Beach to the Grand Canyon, and down to New Orleans, oh those dreams…By July, suddenly communists invade into the south…
A spiral of memory -
Three months of constant warfare, amphibious landing #1, no time to change clothes, keep fighting, climb another hill, fight, another landing, Dad’s dad dies at home, keep fighting, Dad’s buddy Bobby Kipp dies in a foxhole in his sleep, another hill, keep fighting Dad…
Memory logging memory upon memory.
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| Gene Holland - Camp Pendleton May 1950 |
Winter, fighting slows, Dad sent home, bereavement leave, Go see mother, go see Bobby Kipp’s mother, tell her your memory.
Tell me, my memory, how did my boy die?
My invincible Marine Corps Dad, tiny Mrs. Kipp, nearly fell through his arms, Dad swore by his memory that she felt as if she weighed 800 pounds.
On the return, the Chosin Reservoir, memory said a million Chinese, (actually 120,000), Dad’s third amphibious landing, the Frozen Chosin, death, panic everywhere, Cousin Nunny, Dad remembered, a thousand yard stare with saucers for eyes.
Where’s Gene? Where’s my buddy, what about our car?
The car Dad chipped in with Gene Holland
before the war broke,
to take leave - Camp Pendleton
Forget it. Gene’s been shot to bits, the dead stacked on Deuce+Half, legs stick off, everywhere, wait, there, look are Gene’s dead legs.
Memory, Springtime, southern California, we are washing our car, finished as a stiff, dead, cold nightmare.
Uncle Ezra shipped out just 2 weeks before his little Ezzie was born.
He trained at Slapton Sands, letters back and forth, he carried pics of Aunt Madeline holding his new little son, practice practice, load into the LST, practice practice, to France! To Utah Beach! Only 8 officers on board of the thousands, knew this was only a drill…
Cold night. April 28th. 
Among the pictures found in Ezra Kreiss's
waterlogged wallet, that of his wife
Madeline Haas Kreiss and the son
he never saw Ezra Junior.
Radio chatter, broken chains, a typographical error in transcription codes, caught the Americans and British without communications, among the errors that cost 1,000 lives…
The German s-boats fire, two LSTs go down, over 700 lost.
Gasoline, explosives, cold, fire, water, death everywhere, ships scatter for safety like birds beneath a hawk’s shadow, men and water on fire, float in frigid cold English Channel, men with their mae-west life jackets too low, raised their hips, unable to pull their faces from the water.
The burned, the drowned, the frozen dead.
But 300 more died under live fire simulation. Gunfire, shelling from British ships, Eisenhower said it had to feel real. They didn't know it was practice, they rushed the beaches at Slapton Sands, explosions everywhere, but no enemy to be found. No one told them when to stop, they run into the live British shelling. Our worst training accident ever, far more died on this night than did on Utah Beach.
To grow up without a father, forever young for us, to not know, if he died from fire, or water, or cold.
Aunt Madeline’s haunted memory saw Ezra everywhere, in crowds, they returned his waterlogged wallet, pics of her with little Ez, haunted by the memory of knowing he couldn't swim.
Melba Whitehead Smoyer (Raised just down over the hill; her brother James was KIA in France Aug 1944.)
Clarence Smoyer (Grew up on Bankway, shot bullfrogs at Heilman’s Dam.)
Clarence Smoyer was the tip of the Spear, Bronze Star with Valor, Hero of the Battle of Cologne, Hero of Paderborn, a tank gunner Ace. 
Miriam Haas Parker, Claire Parish, Sis Mildred Haas
Garvin, and Melba Whitehead Smoyer in their tough
and carefree days. Melba would lose a brother James
in France, August 1944. The Haas sister's lost their
brother-in-law Ezra Kreiss April 1944.
Smoyer never bragged about his daring, but what always came up one way or another were the deaths of so many friends like Paul Fairclothe and how the innocent Katherina Esser was killed.
It was important to some of Smoyer’s crew to look into the burning German tanks to see what they’d done to their hated enemy. But not Smoyer. He never could do that.
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| Clarence Smoyer as Freshman. "Hon" was his family nickname. His service buddies preferred "Schmick." |
At the Battle of Cologne, the famous Bates film, captured it all. The invention of the VCR brought Smoyer’s famous battle back into his life, into his own living room, on his own TV screen. How many Veterans ever got that sort of memory?
50 years later, you see the shots coming at you all over again…kill or be killed Clarence…kill or be killed! All over again.
…the half dead are still leaping out of the flames, all over again!
Oh memory, be gentle,
Caught between the two dueling tanks, the young, full of promise, a college student hoping to teach, Katherina Esser driving in a car…tracer shots are bouncing everywhere, between the two tanks, caught in the gunfire, Katherina is hit.
American medics attend to her, but there is nothing they can do, lying on the cold street of Cologne, they cover her with a wool coat, and leave her to die.
Smoyer remembered seeing her face as they had to drive on by.
Oh the memory of death, on such a beautiful face, he was caught on film, by a CBS crew, telling her, “Katherina, I will never forget you.”
Twice he visited her grave near where she was shot, he ever sent flowers to her there,
Ever after, of his guilt and of his memory.
Smoyer spoke of her every single day.
And of his final days, in his final hours, he spoke of Katherina, he had to work so hard, to put her memory aside for his own peaceful death.
Micahel Wargo came home and lived 8 years in sullen memory with survivor’s guilt of the buddies he left in Afghanistan. The 10-foot silhouette of him along the bypass is a silent, black reminder of how his memory took his life. 
Afghanistan - Lehighton's Mike Wargo
far right.
Larry Ahner of Long Run. Two Persian Gulf tours. Motor route specialist who through a twist of fate was put in charge of the captured Saddam Hussein.
For 364 days, supervised his meals, in charge of his daily schedule, in charge of the custody of him, ensuring he was groomed and taken care of, scheduled his defense lawyer meetings, kept him within a prison built within the Butcher of Baghdad’s own palace.
But today, get Larry into congested traffic here at home, and the memory of his constant vigilance from the deadly Route Irish, infamous for all the killings from IAD’s comes straight into his living nightmare.
Memories Made. Memories Kept.
This is Memorial Day! This Memory Day!
Rah Rah to us who never saw our enemy leap out of fire, cut in two, taking a burning last gasp of life…
Ray rah to us who never saw our buddy’s frozen legs sticking off a truck, or had to tell a mother how her son died…
Rah rah to us who never had to kill or be killed…
Rah Rah to us who did not have war take our fathers away before we ever met them.
To us who can drive fearlessly through traffic without panic…to us who know nothing of living with survivor’s guilt…
Yet we stand here, free with fresh dew at our feet.
Those below, in the dirt, died with memory, of what it gives, memory of what war took from them,
Of those who, we hope, died only with sweet memory of home,
Of their son they never held
Of their mothers, of knowing a mother is never supposed to bury their children,
Dottie Kipp
Minnie Kreiss,
Sarah Wargo,
Dora Haydt, her son Ray said the waiting to finally hear word, “wore the life out of his mother.”
Ethel Held looked out her kitchen window three times a day, to see the grave that did not contain her missing son,
Mary Ellen Penberth died 18 months after they re-interred her son here,
Enjoy this gorgeous hillside when you are here.
Find it, use it as a reference when you are elsewhere, look back here.
This unique hill is an arsenal of memory, devotion, and heartache.
Making the beauty here rather surreal, certainly bittersweet.
We gather to remember them.
Memory…please:
May you only,
May you ever and simply be,
Clear,
Gentle,
and
Kind.
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| Buried far west end cap Union Hill - KIA Iwo Jima. Morning Call 29 March 1945. |
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| "From our gun Command Post - Mt Hongchon 28 May 1951" - The Hills of Korea Dad would say, "nothing but hills, nothing but one fight on one hill, after another." From the "Trench Art of Randy Rabenold." |
It holds its place, it holds memory of love, of devotion as well as heartache.
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| Marvin & Ethel's only child, his body never recovered, this marker rests just behind their Union Hill home on Held St, named in Reed's honor in 1962. |
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| Above: Dad's friend Steven Fortson (l) and Charles Zaccone (r) and in sketch with BAR. Center above - Unknown. |
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| The cut off of the Michael Wargo Memorial - with his parents Sarah & Michael Wargo - Gives a visual of the whole of those absent - Of what memory gives us. |
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| Bobby Kipp - One of 6 'Bulldogs' who went to war from west end Lehighton - Summer of 1948: Kipp, Don Blauch, Dick Carrigan, Nuny Rabenold, Bill Kuhla, and Randy Rabenold. See "The Bulldogs Who Went to War." |
