A Trip to Remember
BUTLER TWP — Chookie Bennetti will turn 87 on Thursday. But this Memorial Day, he's already received his birthday present courtesy of strangers and friends.
Earlier this month, 74 years after his brother's combat death, Bennetti visited the French cemetery where William Bennetti was laid to rest.
It is a trip the retired ironworker and former Butler business owner never expected to make, but a chance encounter with a veteran led to his May 1 journey to France along with his wife, Shari; niece. Lucille Seavelli of Erie; and family friend, Arda McAndrew.
Bennetti was 13 years old when his brother William, 19, a member of the 141st Infantry Regiment, died on Dec. 11, 1944, during fighting in what was called the Colmar Pocket, a section of central France where the German Nineteenth Army attacked the U.S. Army Sixth Group.
Bennetti said, “My parents were Louie and Lucy Bennetti, Italian immigrants. My father was a coal miner.
“I had three brothers who enlisted, Frank, William and Robert who enlisted at 16, and a sister Virginia,” he said.
Bennetti said William, a private first class with the 141st Infantry, had been wounded in an August 1944 attack on a German truck convoy.
He said, “He was in the hospital for four months and when he got out he turned 19.
“He returned to his unit and they were trapped on what was designated Hill 393 in the Colmar Pocket surrounded by Germans,” said Bennetti.
“They decided to advance off the hill. On Dec. 11, 1944, shortly after 1 p.m. he and two other men were hit by mortar barrage,” his brother said.
“He was listed as missing in action at first, but his remains were found later,” he said.
His family back in Butler received the news that so many families during that time dreaded.
“I was there. I remember that man walked up with a telegram. I remember him coming up and my mom started to cry because she knew what it meant,” Bennetti said.
Bennetti said his other two brothers returned home safely.
He knew his brother was buried in a cemetery in France, but that was all he knew until a chance encounter set Chookie Bennetti on the course leading to him standing at his brother's grave earlier this month.
Dave Jackson, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, was jogging past Bennetti's house on Whitestown Road in September 2015, when Bennetti asked him in for a glass of wine.
“The only reason he stopped me is that I jog with an American flag,” said Jackson.
When he heard about William Bennetti's combat death, Jackson said, “I researched it and came back to tell Chookie about it.”Jackson said, “I contacted the Texas Military History Museum in Austin.” Jackson learned of William Bennetti's final action.Jackson said, “I was flabbergasted that he'd never been to the grave. That broke me up.”Jackson said, “I got this idea. 'Let's send Chookie to France.' I made it a mission, and strangers made it a mission, too.”Jackson said, starting last fall, he began to tell Bennetti's story to passengers he was ferrying in his job as an Uber driver and to anyone who would lend a sympathetic ear.Jackson said, “Legion Post 117 donated money. A stranger offered to pay for Chookie's plane ticket.” Money came in from friends and customers' tips, Jackson said.Bennetti said, “If it wasn't for David Jackson, we wouldn't have been there.”Money wasn't all that Bennetti received.Jackson said, “My friend Libby Castle is a graphic artist in Texas. She made the picture of Hill 393 for Chookie.”By spring, there was enough money to pay for Benetti's plane ticket to Paris.Traveling with him was his wife, Shari; his niece, Lucille, who had made the trip to her uncle's grave alone in 2014; and their friend, Arda McAndrew. Jackson, who got the whole campaign started, gave them a ride to the Pittsburgh airport.After arriving in Paris, Shari Bennetti said the group took a 3-hour train trip to the Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial.The cemetery, 49.5 acres granted as a permanent burial ground by the French government, contains the graves of 5,255 American soldiers set in two fan-shaped plots separated by a mall lined with sycamore trees.Because of Savelli's earlier trip, the Americans were able to find William Bennetti's white cross, with his serial number inscribed on its back, without trouble.Chookie Bennetti said, “There were a lot of tears at the graveside. The graveside was so beautiful. It looked like it had been manicured with a pair of scissors.”
That was the work of French citizens who took it upon themselves to adopt a certain number of graves and keep them immaculate, Shari Bennetti said.Virginie Begnoit, a cemetery custodian, said Shari Bennett, “brought sand from Normandy and she took us to the grave and explained to us about putting the sand in the carved letters so they would show up better in pictures.”McAndrew said, contrary to the French stereotype of aloof disdain, “Everyone was so nice to us.”That included cemetery volunteer Ann Casales.Shari Bennetti said, “Ann took us all around. We went to the Moselle River and she put blankets down and we had a picnic — pizza and quiche we had bought.”Savelli said the Moselle River was the scene of a German ambush of American soldiers crossing the river during the war.Shari Bennetti said of Casales, “She was just so unbelievable.”For Lucille Savelli, the trips to Epinal were like a return to her childhood.“I had grown up hearing the stories of my uncle. I lived with my grandparents for nine years,” said Savelli.“On one vacation, they asked me to go (to the cemetery) and I did.“When I was there in 2014, Andy Anderson was in charge of the cemetery and helped me find the actual grave site,” she said.Of her uncle's reunion with his fallen brother, Savelli said, “He was waiting a very long time. It just melted me.”Chookie said he learned two French citizens — Stefan Pioupiou and Veronique Kern — have taken it upon themselves to tend to William Bennetti's and another soldier's grave.Shari Bennetti said, “They had adopted the grave in 2015. Their grandfathers had helped the Americans in the war.”Chookie Bennetti said, “It was something we should have done sooner. It's a great day to celebrate the occasion.”
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