Montville Students Eulogize Killed Normandy Soldiers

history teacher Peter Porter did not want to simply tell his freshman students about the Invasion of Normandy, during World War II. He wanted to show them.

For the past two years, Porter's students have been learning about the 1944 attack and using information about the individual soldiers who died to write eulogies.

"Those soldiers had nothing to their name except a gravestone away from home, until last summer," one of Porter's former students said.

Porter, a Marine Corps. veteran, has a personal connection to the history of veterans. His father, father-in-law and grandfather were all veterans. And while history is a huge part of his professional life, U.S. history remains an important part of his personal life as well. He felt his two worlds come together while visiting the Dog Green Sector of Omaha Beach in Normandy last year.

"When I walked on to that beach, I was totally overwhelmed," Porter said.

The high school's history department has been involved with the National History Day organization for the past several years and when Porter learned of a new teacher/student institution being formed under it, he was intrigued. The institution, Normandy: Sacrifice for Freedom, Albert H. Small Student & Teacher Institution, pairs one teacher with one student and sends them on a research expedition where they attend summer conferences, hearing from historians and lecturers and reading several books. At the conclusion of the summer, the pairs are brought to the beaches of Normandy to see the grounds where the real-life soldiers fought and died.

Also included in the summer program is a requirement for participants to conduct a historical study of one soldier buried at the American Cemetery in Normandy. Porter embarked on the historical program with former student Thomas Il Grande in 2011.

Il Grande spent more than four months researching 2nd Lieutenant Gilbert Woodhull Tennent Combs Jr., a South Orange native who enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942.

"Through my research, one of the most powerful aspects of Gilbert's character can be seen in his decision to voluntarily enlist to serve in World War II. I find it imperative to stress that Gilbert came from a well to do family. His father was a banker, and he was living a comfortable life. Gilbert did not need to enlist for a source of income, and he was not drafted. Gilbert's action depicts perfectly the character of countless Americans who voluntarily sacrifice their own well-being in order to serve their country for the protection of the ones they love," Il Grande wrote on the website he created as part of his historical study in honor of Combs.

Il Grande used information from ancestry.com, library books and other research tools to learn as much as he could about Combs so that he could write a eulogy for the soldier. He learned about Combs' life from the beginning stages to the very end. According to Il Grande, Combs died in the line of fire while assisting a wounded soldier.

Read more about Combs on Il Grande's research website here.

While Il Grande graduated from the high school this year, his work lives on and will be used for the continuation of the project next year, in Porter's history classes.

"I don't know where this project's going to end. It's evolving every year," Porter said.

This past year, Porter's Gilder Lehrman Honors World History Class participated in writing their own eulogies for other soldiers. Twenty nine euologies, including Il Grande's from the previous year, have been written by the students, giving faces and stories to names that were previously only known by others for being etched on gravestones.

Karl Katterman, a student in Porter's class this past year, wrote about Private Alert Haukland, a soldier from Elizabeth who never had an obituary written about him after he was killed at 25 years old in St. Lo.

"After only one year, he left to enter the competitive job world. He found employment in the field of general woodworking. Though it may not have been the best job, he was able to make enough to get by. He was protestant and remained single, without out [sic] dependents. Overall, his life was simple and unremarkable," Katterman wrote, noting that Haukland's life completely changed when he went to war for his country.

Allison Kayne eulogized Henry A. Zachman, a soldier from Bayonne who "shows the true meaning of sacrifice and bravery."

"Henry died as a chivalrous and honorary man. He took the step onto the foreign beach and faced the obstacle of war. His bravery and the complete sacrifice he made for his family, friends, and other people he did not even know is what makes him not just another man. It makes him a soldier. It makes him one of those thousands of soldiers who risked their lives for you and I," Kayne said in her eulogy.

The students used many of the same research tools Il Grande used, with those comfortable even reaching out to the families of the deceased soldiers. All of the soldiers eulogized by the students were from New Jersey, which Porter said helps give students a perspective of how real war is and how close to home it can hit. The students are able to feel a connection to the soldier they are eulogizing through the project, he said.

Next year's class will build off of the 28 eulogies written by this year's students, Porter said, and work to create individual websites for each of the soldiers written about.