{"id":71058,"date":"2020-09-19T22:15:23","date_gmt":"2020-09-19T19:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/killed-in-wwii-these-nyc-brothers-were-buried-side-by-side\/"},"modified":"2020-09-19T22:15:23","modified_gmt":"2020-09-19T19:15:23","slug":"killed-in-wwii-these-nyc-brothers-were-buried-side-by-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/killed-in-wwii-these-nyc-brothers-were-buried-side-by-side\/","title":{"rendered":"#Killed in WWII, these NYC brothers were buried side by side"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Killed in WWII, these NYC brothers were buried side by side<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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If you want to watch Movies<\/a> or TV series visit the Dizi.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n Alan Cahn was a young boy living in Forest Hills, when his cousins, Ferdinand and Alfred Lebrecht, were killed in combat during World War II.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is kind of a biblical story,\u201d the 80-year-old Cahn told The Post.<\/p>\n

The brothers were German Jews who had escaped Nazi Germany and settled on the Upper West Side less than a decade before. Ferdinand (\u201dFerdi\u201d) died from a sniper\u2019s bullet while rescuing five wounded comrades. When his parents \u2014 Cahn\u2019s Uncle Willy and Aunt Emma \u2014 found out, they tried to get the younger Alfred sent home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were so devastated,\u201d recalled Cahn, a retired pharmacist who now lives outside of Chicago. They wrote to Jacob Javits, Secretary of War Henry Stimson and even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, pleading their case. Alfred was killed in action just three weeks later.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo escape from Germany and then have their only two children go back and die in Germany fighting against the Nazis \u2014 that\u2019s just a tragedy,\u201d said Cahn. When Willy and Emma were asked if they wanted their sons\u2019 bodies sent home, they said no. It would have been too painful.<\/p>\n

\"
The Lebrecht brothers were originally buried under Christian crosses at a French cemetery, but a cousin insisted the Jewish siblings each receive a Star of David.<\/span>Katherine Lin<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That\u2019s how the brothers ended up in an American World War II cemetery in France \u2014 one of 26 US military burial grounds located overseas.<\/p>\n

Now, 75 years after their deaths, the Lebrecht boys are memorialized in \u201cBrothers in Arms: Remembering Brothers Buried Side by Side in American World War II Cemeteries,\u201d<\/a> by Kevin Callahan. The book tells the stories of 72 sets of siblings who fought, died and were buried together.<\/p>\n

The variety of families is astounding: from all over the country, across all different classes and ethnicities. There are Upper East Siders, Native Americans, Latino immigrants and a pair of Japanese Americans whose parents were in internment camps while the sons fought for the US.<\/p>\n

The book includes three sets of brothers from New York City, including the Lebrechts.<\/p>\n

\"Frank
Frank Bangs (left) and his brother, Whit (right), are buried side by side at a US military cemetery in Belgium, after dying a month apart during World War II.<\/span>Brothers in Arms<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cSeventy-five years ago, these service members made the ultimate sacrifice,\u201d Callahan told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very emotional to go to these cemeteries and walk through name after name after name and then suddenly come across two names that are the same,\u201d Callahan said. \u201cThen you see they\u2019re from the same state and you realize, \u2018Oh my God \u2014 those are brothers.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

As the father of three boys, and a brother himself, he added, he began to wonder: Who were these brothers, and who were the family members they left behind?<\/p>\n

One of those grieving relatives is Catherine App<\/a>leton. She was a freshman at Barnard College when her two older brothers, Francis (Frank) and Whitney (Whit) Bangs, died in the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody came to the door and told us that Frank had died,\u201d Appleton, now 94 and widowed, told The Post. Several months later, the family got another knock informing them about Whit. \u201cIt was horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Telegram
Telegram sent to Alfred Lebrecht.<\/span>Brothers in Arms<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The brothers were very different. \u201cFrank was outgoing and very funny,\u201d said Appleton, adding that he was a bit of a tech whiz, making his own shortwave radio and teaching himself Morse code at the age of 12. Whit, two years younger, was more of an artistic soul. \u201cHe was very shy. He was musical; he played the piano and the organ.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bangs siblings led a privileged life \u2014 a Madison Avenue home, prep schools \u2014 but with a sense of duty. Their father, a prominent lawyer, had fought in World War I, and their mother was president of the American Birth Control League.<\/p>\n

\"(Left
(Left to Right) Private Timothy T. \u201cTeddy\u201d Counihan, Catherine (Teahan) Counihan, mother of the Counihan brothers, Corporal Morris J. Counihan.<\/span>Brothers in Arms<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Frank was eager to follow in his father\u2019s footsteps. When he was 17, he volunteered to serve the 703rd Tank Destroyer Battalion. He was killed Dec. 18, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge.<\/p>\n

Whit, on the other hand, was drafted after graduating from the tony St. Paul\u2019s School. He was listed as Missing in Action in January 1945, but died in a German POW camp that March \u2014 due to an ear infection.<\/p>\n

Frank and Whit are now at the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium. While Appleton, who now lives in Morristown, NJ, hasn\u2019t visited, it does give her comfort to know they are side by side.<\/p>\n

Cahn has visited his cousins\u2019 graves, at the Lorraine American Cemetery in Saint-Avol, France, multiple times.<\/p>\n

Cahn was disturbed when he went to the cemetery and saw that Ferdi and Alfred were buried under Christian crosses.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmma and Willie were not religious people at all, and they were so devastated that they didn\u2019t care [how they were buried],\u201d Cahn said of his aunt and uncle, who owned an ink-blotter factory on 23rd Street. \u201cBut I felt is was inappropriate that the boys would be buried under a cross.\u201d<\/p>\n

So about 30 years ago, Cahn wrote a letter to Washington, asking that the crosses be changed to Stars of David. It worked.<\/p>\n