Ed Mauser returns to Normandy

Tomorrow, Ed Mauser returns to Normandy.

The old Omaha watch repairman is turning back time as he retraces his World War II journey across Europe.

The last time Mauser arrived in the province, he floated under a parachute during the predawn hours of D-Day and the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France. This time, he's getting to France via ferry.

Mauser was a member of the 101st Airborne Division's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He was a rifleman in the 2nd Platoon of E Company — the unit chronicled in the Stephen Ambrose book and HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers.''

“They say the foxholes are still there in Bastogne,'' Mauser said of the Belgian town before leaving Omaha. “If it's true, I'm going into that hole — if it's dry — and have my picture taken in there.''

Mauser, 92, is believed to be the oldest surviving veteran of a company of 101st Airborne paratroopers who participated in some of the war's most critical battles, from D-Day to V-E Day.

During the next two weeks, Mauser will travel from Easy Company's training base in England on a tour of combat sites in Normandy, Holland and Belgium.

He will visit Dachau, the hub of a satellite concentration camp that Easy Company soldiers liberated. And he will savor the view and wine at Adolf Hitler's Eagle's Nest retreat, just as Easy Company troops did after occupying the Bavarian outpost in 1945.

Mauser had less time to prepare for this trip than he did for D-Day. The World-Herald had told Mauser's Band of Brothers story over the Fourth of July weekend. The story came to the attention of the Stephen Ambrose Historical Tours in New Orleans, founded by the late University of New Orleans history professor.

By August, at no charge to him, Mauser was added to a group of travelers paying $6,200 each to walk the hedgerows, roam the woods and cross the rivers in the path of Easy Company soldiers.

Mauser is eager to again see the places where he fought and bivouacked.

He wonders if he'll recognize the French farmhouse where he helped rout hiding German soldiers. Or the river site in Holland where he rescued British troops. Or the German-occupied Dutch town that he and three others slipped into during a midnight patrol. Or the slope of the hillside at the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. Or the countryside where he was wounded when a German mortar shell exploded through the roof of the barn where he was resting.

And he plans to pay tribute to buddies killed in combat. Among them are 1st Lt. Thomas Meehan and Staff Sgt. William Dukeman.

Meehan, the 21-year-old company commander, was killed when German anti-aircraft fire hit his C-47 jump plane during the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944. Mauser will visit Meehan's crash site.

Dukeman, one of Mauser's close friends, was killed in a battle with German SS troops on a dike in Holland. He is buried in a cemetery there.

“I'd like to give them a little prayer,'' Mauser said.

Easy Company's first victory on invasion night came at Brécourt Manor, the site of a German artillery battery that threatened the invasion forces at Utah Beach. Mauser wasn't with the soldiers who took out the big gun but was fighting elsewhere.

“I landed about three miles from the beach in no man's land,'' he said. “We didn't see any Germans, but they were shooting mortar shells at us from about 200 yards away. I said we were going the wrong way, ‘Let's go the other way.' The three of us weren't ready to fight Germans yet, but we did a lot of damage when we were there.''

Many German troops surrendered quickly in Normandy, “once you got them cornered,'' Mauser said. “They didn't want to die, just like we didn't.''

The tour is a belated hurrah for Mauser. He never talked about his role in one of the Army's elite outfits.

When historian Ambrose's “Band of Brothers'' was made into a hit HBO miniseries in 2001, Mauser was caring for his ailing wife, Irene, who died last year. He didn't attend Easy Company conferences and tours.

One day, Mauser called son-in-law Mike Fowler of Bellevue and asked how to view a DVD. Mauser had the “Band of Brothers'' box set.

Fowler, a retired Air Force officer, inserted a random disc and the two sat back to watch. Mauser started a running commentary.

“That church wasn't on that side of the road,'' he said about a combat scene.

Fowler asked Mauser what he was talking about.

“It was on the other side. It was over there,'' Mauser replied.

Fowler asked Mauser how he knew that fact.

“This is my unit,'' Mauser said. “I know all these guys.''

That was the family's first knowledge that Mauser had been part of the best-known company in the Army during WWII.

Mauser's daughter, Laurie Fowler, said her father rarely talked about his war service until the last year or so. “He's very humble about it, but he's tickled by the attention,'' she said.

Mauser is accompanied on the trip by Brian Kruse of Omaha, who notified the tour company that a forgotten Easy Company veteran was living in Nebraska. Kruse made a similar trip to Normandy last spring with his father, Larry Kruse of Glenwood, Iowa.

The Fowlers and Kruse expect Mauser to receive rock star attention during the trip. He is wearing one of his son-in-law's old summer-weight flight jackets — newly adorned with paratrooper wings, a 101st Airborne patch and embroidered “Easy Company'' — from England to Germany and home again.

But Mauser is a reluctant celebrity.

“It's unbelievable,'' he said, “what's happened in my old age.''

Contact the writer:

444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com

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