***Though I wanted to go to Europe to follow in the footsteps of Sergeant Bud Richardville, the pandemic made travel impossible.***

When I first accepted the responsibility for telling the story of Sergeant Bud Richardville and his work in the Graves Registration Service during World War II, I intended to follow his footsteps, beginning with the area north of London where he was stationed in a castle as the Allied forces prepared for D-Day. I wanted to walk the beaches of Normandy and the forests of the Ardennes where the Battle of the Bulge was waged. And I wanted to visit the American Cemetery in Épinal France where Bud was laid to rest following his strange death near the end of the war.

But as I was considering my plans, a worldwide disruption occurred. The Covid-19 pandemic shut everything down and all of us in, leaving travel out of the question.

I have never written a book without studying the locations involved firsthand, an effort to capture the sights and sounds and smells of a story, so my initial thought was to put off writing the book until a later date. But as the lockdown dragged on, Bud’s story lured me in, almost demanding to be told.

So…I began writing, but every time I needed what I call “color”—meaning what Bud might have seen and sensed—I had to pause, because I had no notes reminding me of the color of the landscape or the smells in the air or the feel of crossing the English Channel.

Then, after a long period of frustration, I realized that I already had memories that would work in the telling of Bud’s story, recollections of my time living in the tiny country of Luxembourg. I was attending Miami University in Oxford Ohio when, near the end of my sophomore year, I passed a table in the student center. Glossy photos of castles, and rivers, and and rolling green hillsides were displayed, advertising the school’s small branch campus in Luxembourg. I was entranced!

Luxembourg is one of the most beautiful countries in Europe, and though I originally had no factual evidence that Sergeant Bud Richardville was deployed there, I made the country the backdrop for some of the scenes in my World War II historical novel Your Forgotten Sons.

I would spend six months living and studying in that small country, where in one day you could board a train for breakfast in France, have dinner in Belgium, then late-night drinks in Germany. The more I thought about my travels from my base in Luxembourg, the more I realized that I had perhaps already overlapped Bud’s trail.

Note that Bud’s military records were destroyed along with those of 80% of Army servicemen and women who were discharged between 1912 and 1960 in a fire in St. Louis in 1973, so the only way I was able to track him was through the postmarks on the fragile letters that were saved by his family and entrusted to me. Those stamps showed that Bud was most likely in England, France, Belgium, Germany, and Czechoslovakia.

Still, it made sense that Bud might have also been in Luxembourg, since the Luxembourg American Cemetery—built by the GRS and today holding over 5,000 American war dead—is located just outside the capital city. And so, though I had no physical evidence that Bud was actually in Luxembourg, I placed him there.

Then, just as the book was going to press, Gina—Bud’s niece and the driving force behind the book—sent me an obituary about Bud that had appeared in his hometown newspaper. It read, “He landed in France on D-Day and was with Hodge’s First Army as a member of the 606th Graves Registration Company. Action took him from France to Luxembourg, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Germany.” And there it was. Proof that Bud had been in Luxembourg.

Your Forgotten Sons will be launched June 6, 2024 in honor of the 80^th anniversary of D-Day.

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Bud Richardville is inducted into the Army as the United States prepares for the invasion of Europe in 1943. A chance comment has Bud assigned to a Graves Registration Company, where his unit is tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead. Bud ships out, leaving behind his new wife, Lorraine, a mysterious woman who has stolen his heart but whose secretive nature and shadowy past leave many unanswered questions. When Bud and his men hit the beach at Normandy, they are immediately thrust into the horrors of what working in a graves unit entails. Bud is beaten down by the gruesome demands of his job and losses in his personal life, but then he meets Eva, an optimistic soul who despite the war can see a positive future. Will Eva’s love be enough to save him?