Margraten Memorial Day 2008

Today my daughter and I visited the grave of PFC Henry L. Hooper. Memorial Day 2008 and it was a sight to see with over 8300 graves and the flags waving in the wind. A few Ministers and Generals were flown in on a helo, bands playing music, and a very nice ceremony.

We put flowers on the grave, watched the uniformed (Army and Airforce) military guards while taking pictures. It was very humbling to see the older generation of Dutch fighters that participated in WWII walking around in their medals.

Searching for PFC Henry L. Hooper

I have often visited the American Memorial Cemetery Margraten. I can not even begin to describe to you the feeling you get when you approach such a field of crosses, more than 8000 of them... I have adopted a grave and have some background information posted here on PFC Henry L. Hooper but would like to make a call for help.

Full details on his story as far as I have them can be found on the PFC Henry L. Hooper page.

Do you know anything about this person, his history, his family or just want to leave some information, please submit a comment here.

More data found on PFC Henry L. Hooper

A family friend back in the United States has been digging in the archives she can access (thanks a bunch Imogene!) and has come up with some new information on PFC Henry L. Hooper:

• Service Number - 39206277
• Awards:
• Bronze star
• Purple Heart
• European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
• World War II Victory Medal
• World War II Service Lapel Button

I will continue to dig, trying to find out more about his time between enlistment and up to his passing. If you have any information, please leave a comment.

Visit to PFC Henry L. Hooper with my daughter

I visited Margraten on the 3rd of July with my daughter to place some flowers and pass on a bit of the story to her. Was a nice thing to start sharing with her, I hope to do this often in the future together.

The first picture is of us laying the flowers that my daughter picked herself on PFC Henry L. Hoopers grave. The second is of us selecting a single flower to be placed on a Medal of Honor winner who lays a few rows away (I always do this when I visit). The final picture shows us talking a bit about what happened to PFC Henry L. Hooper. Even though I know she will not understand most of it I feel one can begin small with these stories.

New information regarding PFC Henry L. Hooper

After my trip back thru the states I contacted a family friend who is very into genealogy and very good at it. She did some digging on the first night she got the basic information listed on this site (see PFC Henry L. Hooper). She called me back and stated that she already found where he was born, where he enlisted and could most likely dig up his actual enlistment records if they had not been destroyed in some fire back in Atlanta!

Today I received a letter from my contact containing two pages showing PFC Henry L. Hooper's World War II Army Enlistment Record! I have added this data to the above link. Maybe this will lead to where he died and how.

More as it is uncovered.

PS. This is not an April Fools Day joke either... ;-)

Visit to Margraten

A few weekends ago I dropped into Margraten to visit PFC H.L. Hooper. It was a few days after the heavy snowfall here in the Netherlands that left us with a 10cm thick pack of snow. I cannot tell you how in awe I was to walk into the cemetery area with more than 8000 crosses in the quite empty snow covered field. It was so still, as it only can be after snow as fallen... I was alone, no one else in the entire cemetery.

More on PFC Henry L. Hooper

My sister did some digging the the state of Washington archives online and came up with some of the following.

A listing on the Washington State Roll of Honor site.

The problem is that with out a birthdate it is pretty hard to get any closer than the 300 names that come up in a white pages search for Washington... pretty frustrating.

A site like Family Search would be a great help if we had a birthday. Maybe someone will see this out there and come forward with some info. Just post something to the guest log to contact me or send an email to info at this domain.

PFC Henry L. Hooper

I have adopted a grave from the American Military Cemetery in Margraten...

I have created a page on this site dedicated to this person in the hopes of finding out more about him, his family and what happened to him.

I will be chronicling the events as I attempt to find out more about this man.