Following Sergeant Roy H. Petteway’s death in the home of a Luxembourgish family, they contacted his relatives in the US, but the letters have since gone missing.
“A few weeks ago, a man named Bruce Fletcher contacted me,” said Erny Kohn from the Battle of the Ardennes study circle (Ceba). “He is looking for a Luxembourgish family in whose home a US soldier once died.” Kohn arranged to meet the American in a café near the capital.
The unfortunate soldier, Sergeant Roy H. Petteway, was wounded by a sniper on 13 September 1944 and taken to the home of a Luxembourgish family. There, despite the family’s attempts to save him, he succumbed to his injuries on their sofa.
Bruce Fletcher (left) is investigating the fate of his uncle-in-law Roy H. Petteway and met with Erny Kohn from CEBA for this purpose © Photo credit: Marc Wilwert
After the war, the Luxembourgish family managed to track down the relatives of the deceased soldier in Florida. A correspondence spanning many years ensued, and around 1950 a relative visited Luxembourg, taking the personal belongings of the deceased back with him. However, contact since lapsed for decades, and correspondence from the Luxembourgish family has been lost – and with it, their name.
Bruce Fletcher would like to change that and rekindle the link.
Searching for clues in Western Europe
Fletcher first become aware of Petteway’s fate 15 years ago, as he recounted during the meeting in the café. “My wife’s uncle, so the story went in her family, had died on D-Day. 15 years ago, we all travelled together to Normandy to visit the American cemetery.” There, however, the family learnt that Petteway was not buried in Normandy, but at the Henri-Chapelle military cemetery in Belgium, and that he had not died during the landing on 6 June, but on 13 September.
Over the weekend, Fletcher distributed dozens of these leaflets in the area where Roy H. Petteway is believed to have died © Photo credit: Marc Wilwert
“A year later, we found out that he had died in Luxembourg,” Fletcher continued, “and visited his grave at Henri-Chapelle”. After that, professional and personal commitments took precedence. “When I retired two years ago, I remembered the story that had been on my mind. I wanted to come back and find out what else we could learn about my wife’s uncle and the Luxembourgish family he met after being wounded.”
Deep engagement with Luxembourg during the war
Just how warm the contact between the Petteway family and the now-unknown Luxembourgish family must have been can be gleaned from a few details of their correspondence that are still known. “As well as the letters, the Luxembourgish family even sent Christmas stockings, which are still used every Christmas,” Fletcher said.
“The more I delved into the story, the more it became not just a family history for me, but took on relevance right up to the present day.” Fletcher draws parallels between Russia’s current illegal occupation of Ukraine and attempted Russification, and the equally illegal forced annexation of Luxembourg by Nazi Germany at the time, including the attempt to eliminate everything Luxembourgish.
In his research, Fletcher has not only examined Petteway’s fate in detail, but also the broader historical context © Photo credit: Marc Wilwert
‘We will leave no stone unturned’
The approximate area of operations can be gathered from a so-called after-action report from the unit in which Sergeant Petteway served. This was Troop E of the 85th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, a reconnaissance unit of the 5th Armoured Division. According to the report, between 11 and 19 September 1944, it was responsible for securing Luxembourg City to the south and east.
Leaning over a map of the region, Fletcher and Kohn are, more than 80 years later, marking out the area where Troop E presumably had the fatal encounter with the enemy on 13 September 1944. This is because the photographic and textual material available to them so far does not allow for a clear delineation, and some of the documents they have requested have not yet been provided.
Based on the available information, the two men have narrowed down the likely location of the fatal shot that killed Petteway to the Junglinster–Grevenmacher–Echternach triangle.
In this large area, Fletcher is distributing leaflets translated with Kohn’s help. The pair say they are determined to “leave no stone unturned” in their efforts to re-establish contact, even after decades, with the Luxembourgish family who once took the US soldier and his relatives under their wing.
Bruce Fletcher would be grateful for any information regarding the location of Sergeant Roy H. Petteway’s death, which can be sent to the email address fletch1400@yahoo.com.
(This article was published by the Luxemburger Wort. Machine translated, with editing and adaptation by Alex Stevensson.)
