MANASQUAN — Just 14 years old when his father died, 75-year-old Manasquan resident Paul Stalknecht recently had the opportunity, via the guidance of a well-preserved document, to trace the same trail his father had walked over 80 years ago during his World War II service in Europe.
Thomas A. Stalknecht’s keen note-taking led him to document his 15-month journey in Europe in 1944 and 1945, day by day, while he served as an administrative assistant with the Army’s 79th Division.
Thanks to the discovery of these notes, Paul Stalknecht and members of his family were able to literally walk in some of his father’s footsteps in France more than 80 years later, giving them a brief glimpse into the life of his late father.
Following the death of his mother several years ago, Stalknecht said, he came across a box of assorted documents and correspondence from his father during his time serving in the war. As a clerk overseeing a division with around 15,000 troops, Thomas Stalknecht had daily access to a typewriter. On a folded piece of paper in the miscellaneous box of documents, Stalknecht found a diary detailing his father’s journey in Europe during World War II, day by day, logging every city, country and place visited across his 15 months in service.
“Once I found the paper I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve got this journey right here for me.’ I’ve talked to a lot of other people my age whose fathers were in World War II. I’m in my 70s, and they have never heard of anybody who had a daily log of where their dad was during the war,” Stalknecht said.
Thomas Stalknecht was married with one child and had worked for the United States Postal Service when he joined the Army at age 32. His journey in Europe began in Normandy, France one month after the D-Day invasions. He was assigned to the Army’s 79th Division Headquarters as an administrative clerk and eventually assumed the rank of tech 4 sergeant, Stalknecht said.
His notes show that Thomas traveled from Normandy across France with the 79th from July to late February, when division headquarters was transferred to St. Truiden, Belgium for one week, and then to Bocholz, Netherlands. After one month in the Netherlands, Thomas and the 79th traveled to Germany, where they were stationed across the country from April to June. Following a one-week stint, Thomas and the 79th traveled to Franzensbad, Czechoslovakia for one month and returned to Germany on August 6, 1945. The 79th then set up headquarters in Hammelsberg, Germany and on Sept. 2, 1945, better known in the United States as V.J. Day (Victory over Japan), the world celebrated the end of the war. Thomas then sailed from Marseille, France, to Boston, and was transported to Fort Dix, where he was honorably discharged from the service and returned home on Oct. 5, 1945.
“I showed the paper to my kids and my daughter said to me, ‘Dad, we’ve got to trace your dad’s footsteps.’ It is also her grandfather that she never met… My kids really put together the whole trip and it was just super,” Stalknecht said.
This April, the Stalknecht family crew of 11 flew into Paris, France and traveled to Normandy, where a tour guide provided an analysis of the events of World War II. The clan visited notable memorials at Utah Beach and later traveled by train to Lunéville, France, where Thomas spent the most days during his 15 months in Europe in 1944 and 1945. In the village located in the northeast region of France, a memorial is dedicated to the 79th Division that liberated the German-occupied Lunéville in September of 1944. Stalknecht, wearing his father’s dog tags and a hat that featured the division’s iconic Cross of Lorraine, posed near a memorial marker, more than 80 years after his father roamed the same, small countryside town. The family also traced Thomas’ steps to Luxembourg and spent a day in the countryside before returning home to the United States.
“It gave me an attachment to my Dad that I never really knew. The fact that he did this, along with millions of other fathers, walking the paths of where he was during the war, it was emotional but it was enlightening to see what he did. Again, it was my father that I never really knew too well,” Stalknecht said.
On the trip, the Stalknechts were accompanied by a guide who gave details of the 79th’s movement and time fighting in Europe.
Following the invasion of Utah Beach, the 79th Division fought across France, with the ultimate task of fortifying Carteret, where they cut off the German Army’s advances, and occupying Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, where there was a crucial deep-water port that was captured by the Americans, Stalknecht said.
Admittedly, Stalknecht said he wasn’t a massive World War II history buff ahead of the trip. But the knowledge of the guide and the visits to memorials in France provided the Stalknecht family insight into American involvement in World War II. Stalknecht called it “a learning experience for everyone.”
“The French people are so respectful of what happened and the involvement of American forces in World War II especially when you get to the areas like Normandy. The reverence they have for maintaining the history of World War II, it’s incredible,” Stalknecht said.
The group spent two weeks on the trip that was dedicated to tracing the steps of Thomas Stalknecht. Thanks to the detailed journal he kept 80 years earlier, Thomas’s son, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were afforded the opportunity to travel to Europe and visit definitive places in his life.
Stalknecht told The Coast Star, “It was really invigorating to go there and know that when I was walking through a village, that my Dad had walked through there. My Dad got sick when I was 12 and died when I was 14, so I really never got to know my Dad, let alone talk about what happened during World War II. So retracing some of his steps after finding the document and doing some research on the 79th Division, it was really a cool journey, the fact that I was walking down the same paths in Lunéville that my Dad walked.”
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