When Hank Boerner paid a dollar for an old, used book he found in 1990 while on vacation at a Vermont resort, he didn’t pay any attention to the penciled inscription on the inside of the front cover.

It wasn’t until last year that Boerner, while looking over books in his Mineola, N.Y., home, took the time to read the poem written “In loving memory of Technical Sergeant Calvin Brecheisen, who was killed in the service of his country on April 28, 1944.”

The poem was written by Mrs. Gilbert H. (Helen) Lawrenz, formerly Helen Virginia Brecheisen, the soldier’s sister. At the bottom of the inscription it is signed “Mr. and Mrs. H.N. Brecheisen and family” and also by Mona Brecheisen, Calvin’s wife. There also is a notation that the inscription was written in 1945 in Wellsville.

“My land. It’s a smaller world than we think,” Sharon Warren, of Olathe, said when she was told about the book and the poem her late mother wrote in it more than 50 years ago.

The poem is resurrecting memories of a Lawrence-area soldier who died during a once-secret World War II training failure.

Seeking answers

Boerner, a New York business consultant and author, said he purchased “Foundation Stones of Success” because it was a motivational book used in high schools in the early part of the 20th century. The poem also intrigued him.

“I thought the inscription was worth exploring,” he said.

Norma Jardon, Baldwin, has kept a notebook of newspaper clippings, letters and photos about her cousin Calvin Brecheisen, who was killed April 28, 1944, while serving in World War II. Recently a man in New York discovered a penciled inscription on the inside of a used book he had with a poem that Brecheisen's sister wrote in his honor.

Boerner recently sent an e-mail to the Journal-World after conducting an Internet search on Calvin Brecheisen’s name. He found a newspaper story published in 2004 about preparations for the Douglas County Veterans Memorial. At that time, memorial supporters were seeking more information about Brecheisen and other area veterans.

Erv Hodges, one of the people who was involved in getting the information, said he later was contacted by a relative of Brecheisen who supplied some information. That information, along with those of other veterans, can be accessed at a kiosk at the Lawrence Visitors Center, 402 N. Second St., which also is home to the memorial.

Many of the relatives who knew Calvin Brecheisen are now dead, according to Sharon Warren and Norma Jardon, of rural Baldwin, who was his cousin. Brecheisen’s wife remarried and it is not known whether she is alive or where she is.

“I was so young I just don’t remember him,” said Jardon, who was 11 when Brecheisen was killed. “I just remember him coming to see my grandmother in his uniform before he went to England.”

Warren was born only a few months before Brecheisen was killed. Brecheisen and Warren’s mother were among 10 children born to Herbert and Anna Brecheisen of Wellsville. Only one of the children, a sister – Warren’s aunt Madine Zaccagnini – is still alive. She lives in Raymore, Mo.

Ken Small, of ENGLAND, visits with Helen Lawrenz, sister of Calvin Brecheisen, who was killed during secret D-Day training in 1944. While practicing along the coast of England for the Normandy invasion, U.S. Army and Naval forces were attacked by German torpedo boats, and more than 700 soldiers and nearly 200 sailors were killed. Small forced the U.S. military to reveal the World War II deaths, which had been kept secret, and wrote a book about the incident called The

Poem, book a mystery

Neither Warren nor Jardon knew anything about the book and poem found by Boerner. They weren’t aware that Helen Lawrenz, who died in February, wrote poems.

“It wasn’t something she sat down and shared with anybody, so this is a surprise to me,” Warren said.

Jardon has books and newspaper articles about how her cousin, who was with the 3206th Quartermaster Service Company, died while taking part in the secret D-Day training exercise called Operation Tiger.

While practicing along the coast of England at Slapton Sands for the Normandy invasion, U.S. Army and Naval forces were attacked by German torpedo boats. Three large landing craft were sunk, killing more than 700 soldiers and nearly 200 sailors.

Brecheisen’s body was among those recovered and sent back home to his family. He was buried in the Wellsville Cemetery.

Family members of those who were killed at Slapton Sands were not told specifically what happened to their loved ones.

It wasn’t until the 1970s and 1980s that an Englishman named Ken Small spurred an effort to uncover what happened at Slapton Sands and finally got the Pentagon to reveal what had been a long-kept secret. Small also wrote a book called “The Forgotten Dead.”

In 1988, Small visited Kansas and met Helen Lawrenz. At one time she also visited Slapton Sands and saw the memorial there.

“When all this came up about Operation Tiger, she had a tremendous interest in that,” Warren said. “I think she and Uncle Calvin were close.”

When informed about what happened to Brecheisen, Boerner was even more intrigued.

The poem is on the first page inside the book cover and is loose from the binder. He said he would be willing to carefully wrap and package the page and send it to a relative if someone wanted it. The page is in good shape and looks like the poem was just written, he said.

“I get choked up when I think about this,” he said. “The way that a simple dollar book linked up so many people.”

No one knows how the book with her mother’s poem ended up in Vermont, Warren said. But it doesn’t matter.

“I think it’s really a neat thing,” she said.