Fallen WWII soldier bonds Dutch vet, Waterloo family
Patrick Van Es maintains Dutch grave of Vernon Francis Klein of Waterloo, killed in 1944
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WATERLOO — Vernon Francis Klein’s family has never forgotten the Waterloo soldier’s sacrifice during World War II.
Neither have the people of the Netherlands he and his comrades fought to liberate — including a Dutch army veteran now keeping up his grave there.
Klein was a 24-year-old newlywed when he was killed in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest Nov. 9, 1944. He was laid to rest at the Netherlands American Cemetery near Margraten.
Dutch army veteran Patrick Van Es, who served in the mid-1990s as part of a United Nations peacekeeping operation during the brutal Bosnian civil war, has taken up the task of maintaining Klein’s grave.
“As a veteran myself, caring for his grave and learning about his life has deep personal meaning to me, “ Van Es wrote. “Every time I stand there, I am reminded that men like Pfc. Klein crossed an ocean, fought in a foreign land, and never returned home so that others could live in freedom. That shared bond between soldiers goes beyond nationality or time.”
Van Es recently reached out to Waterloo’s Grout Museum District and its Sullivan Brothers Museum, where I work, in hopes of learning more about Klein and contacting family members.
We discovered Klein had a number of surviving nieces and nephews, including Sue Dehl of Waterloo. She and her husband Dwight and other relatives visited Vernon Klein’s grave about nine years ago.
Van Es is the latest of a succession of Dutch citizens who, over the generations, have taken up the task of maintaining Klein’s final resting place and the graves of some 8,000 American service personnel laid to rest at Margraten.
“They’re great! Omigosh, what a kindness!” Sue Dehl said. “They make sure the grave’s taken care of. It’s just an amazing thing. They couldn’t say enough nice stuff about the Americans, and that’s really cool. It’s nice to hear that.
“I’m proud, for one thing. I can’t imagine, going into battle, how scary it was for those guys,” Sue Dehl said. “And some of them only had a little bit of training. I’m proud they went through that. It was unfortunate they had to be sacrificed to win, but they wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“They were wonderful,” Sue said of the Dutch citizens at the cemetery. “They were so nice and so helpful. It was interesting and very welcoming. Everyone in town took multiple graves (to maintain) because they were so grateful.”
“They’re beautiful. They pull the weeds and anything. They keep that immaculate.” Dwight said."
Sue Dehl was born several years after her uncle’s death but her mother, one of Vern’s sisters, told stories about him.
“Mom said he was really kind and had a lot of friends. Pretty outgoing,” Sue said. “And I know that he loved his siblings because he’d write them constantly and they’d write him back during the war.” According to his obituary, he was one of six children.
He initially served in California. assigned to coast artillery duty in September 1942, nine months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when there was still fear of a Japanese attack on the U.S. Pacific coast. He married in California in late 1943. In June 1944, after the D-Day invasion, he was transferred to the infantry and sent to Europe in September 1944.
Vern was a member of the 110th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army’s 28th Infantry Division. The regiment was heavily engaged in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest along the Belgian-German border, which lasted from September to December 1944 and was a prelude to the Battle of the Bulge.
According to historical accounts, Klein and his comrades in the 110th were assigned on Nov. 2 to clear a wooded area near the Kall River of enemy resistance, capture the town of Simonskall and maintain supply routes for an eventual attack on the city of Schmidt.
They encountered stiff fortified resistance in rough terrain and bad weather prevented air support until Nov. 5. Klein was reported killed four days later. The fighting had been so horrific and bloody that a German doctor and the Americans negotiated a five-day truce so medics could tend to the thousands of wounded of both sides.
Some 33,000 to 55,000 Americans were killed or wounded in the entire three-month battle. The Germans lost 28,000 but largely held their positions, setting the stage for their Dec. 16, 1944 offensive that became known as Battle of the Bulge.
“I’m amazed at how much strength that probably took; to leave his wife, to go over there,” Sue Dehl said. “He’d been in the service a little bit. He knew what he was going into, and still went. He did his job.” Klein’s widow remarried after the war and passed away in 2002.
As far as the Dutch people taking care of American graves, “that also makes me proud,” Dehl said. And I hope it does everyone who has somebody in that position.”
Van Es maintains the grave of Vernon Klein and another British soldier who died during the war. After his discharge from the military, he worked in a prison 12 years. Like many present-day American veterans, he bears internal scars from his service, having been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2004.
Also like many U.S. veterans, he maintains close ties with soldiers he served with. In fact, many of them will be on hand in May when he and his fiancee Bianca Wieman are wed. “That’s a special feeling, a special friendship,” he said.
Maintaining Vern Klein’s grave is cathartic for Van Es.
“For me it’s a special thing. It goes on my heart,” he said via a Zoom interview from Europe. He wants to find more information about Klein from museums and historic sites. His grandfather served in the Dutch navy during World War II and the war’s history is a special topic for him.
“I’m very thankful for what they did,” he said. “I saw a lot in war, but nothing to compare with these guys.
“For me, as a veteran, this is an honorable and grateful task,” Van Es said. “These men are not just names on stones — they are heroes. They deserve to be remembered, and their stories deserve to live on.”
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed here. A sampling of their columns can be found in the roundup linked here. Clink on these links to check them out, subscribe for free - and, if you believe in the value of quality journalism, support this column and/or any of theirs with a paid subscription. Thank you.