Your Forgotten Sons—a story of love and loss: An excerpt

Leave a comment
Bud Richardville married Lorraine, a woman he barely knew, right before heading off to war. But there were rumors of another woman who stole his heart.

There were quiet whispers of another woman in Sergeant Bud Richardville’s life. Someone he met while serving in the Graves Registration Sevice in Europe during World War II.

But Bud was married and Catholic.

My World War II historical fiction novel Your Forgotten Sons is set for release June 6, 2024 in honor of the 80th anniversary D-Day. While Bud’s story details the ordeals he and his men confronted as they gathered the dead, it also presents the moral delema he faced by loving two women.

Find below an excerpt of Bud’s story.

Luxembourg City

1945

Since it was midmorning, Bud opted for coffee and a croissant with a slice of white cheese and some jam. That the coffee was real was astonishing. The nutty, smoky aroma was almost overwhelming. And the pastry was warm and buttery, and Bud couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten anything so delicious. He wanted another one, so he raised an arm to attract the waiter, but stopped when he sensed someone watching him. She stood on the other side of the ornate, cast-iron railing that enclosed the patio of the café. Again, she stared at Bud with those unblinking blue eyes.

“Hello.” Bud stood and smiled, dropping his napkin on the ground. Her bright red hair was uncovered and fell in short curls around her face. Freckles spread across her nose and cheeks. “We met at Malmédy.” Immediately, Bud wanted the words back, the horror of that place still fresh in his memory.

“I do not think we actually met.” Her English was laced with a British accent.

They stared at one another for a long time, until Bud, feeling awkward, broke the silence. “Can I offer you a cup of coffee?”

“Eva! How nice to see you!” The waiter smiled at the woman.

“Bonjour, Victor!” She smiled as well, and the change in her expression was startling.

Bud pulled out a chair at the table where he’d been sitting. Eva paused, seemingly unsure.

“Yes, yes! Have some coffee, Eva. It’s been such a long time. I had no idea you were back.” The man’s brow furrowed. “I hope everything is all right.”

She took a deep breath. “At least I am home now.”

Bud watched as she turned and walked away, and his heart unexpectedly sank until she stepped into the doorway that led to the interior of the patio. Then Eva walked to the table and sat.

Bud didn’t know what to say, and several moments ticked away. Victor broke the silence when he returned with a fresh pot of coffee, a cup and saucer, and two warm croissants balanced on a tray. He placed everything on the table and gave Bud a fresh napkin. Then he turned to Eva. “You are too thin, my dear. Eat!”

She nodded, a sad expression on her face. After Victor filled her cup and topped off Bud’s, the proprietor walked away, leaving the two strangers alone.

Bud watched Eva take a bite of the croissant. Her eyes closed briefly as she chewed.

“Exactly the way I remember it.” She placed her palm on her heart, and Bud noticed she was missing several fingernails and the index finger on her right hand, a ragged pink scar marking where the finger had once been. She saw Bud staring but kept her hand in place for a moment longer, as if wanting him to look at the damage, then she reached for the coffee cup.

“So…you live here?” Bud focused on his second croissant and slathered some jam on the pastry.

“I was born here. I am a Luxembourger.”

The appellation sounded funny to Bud, but he didn’t mention it. “Are you friends with the owner?” It was all he could think of to ask.

She raised her eyebrows, which were golden-red like her hair. “Victor?”

Bud nodded toward the window where the man was polishing glasses inside the café.

“Victor and my father were best friends. I used to come here when I was a child. When the café was slow, they’d play chess.” Her English was flawless. “And they’d give me breadcrumbs so I could feed the pigeons.” She gazed into the street. “Not so many birds now. The people had to eat them. Both my parents are also gone.” She smiled, but the expression was sad, so Bud remained quiet, unusually tongue-tied.

“Were you in medicine before the war?” Bud finally asked.

Eva pierced him with those icy blue eyes that were hard to read. “No. Were you?”

Bud laughed. “No, I worked in a paper mill. Why do you ask?”

She gave the smallest of shrugs. “You were working with the bodies.”

“I’m part of a graves registration company. I’m not really sure how I ended up there. Most of the men I work with have no medical training, though Doc is a veterinarian.”

Eva nodded. Then she stared toward the sidewalk, where a young couple walked past arm-in-arm. They smiled and spoke animatedly in French. She blinked several times as if remembering something.

“More coffee?” Victor stood nearby, and Bud could see a bright red stain on the man’s white apron, one that reminded Bud of blood but appeared to be strawberry jam.

“Thank you, yes?” Eva held out her cup.

“I’m so glad you’ve returned, Eva. You know, I worried.”

Eva reached out and grasped the man’s hand. “I know you  did, Victor.”

He glanced at her damaged hand and proffered a sad smile.

Eva just nodded.

Bud wanted to ask what had happened to her, where her father and mother were, and what her life was like before the war, among a hundred other questions, but just the fact that he was dining with a woman who was not his wife seemed wrong. Then he felt silly. After all, it was only a pastry and a cup of coffee. What harm was there in that? And still, he felt unsettled, guilty.

  

Your Forgotten Sons

Inspired by a true story

Anne Montgomery

Release Date: June 6, 2024

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 the Graves Registration Service 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?

Join us at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix on June 6, 2024, for the lanuch of Your Forgotten Sons. Find out more about the event here.

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Find Anne Montgomery’s novels wherever you buy books.

Goodreads

Amazon

Inspired by a true story: What’s that mean?

Leave a comment

My new historical fiction novel Your Forgotten Sons, which will be released June 6th, 2024 in honor of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, tells the story of Sergeant Bud Richardville, a man who served in the Army’s Graves Registration Services in Europe during World War II. Right on the cover you’ll see the words “Inspired by a true story.” But what does that mean?

First let’s talk about what the book isn’t. Your Forgotten Sons is not based on a true story, because by definition “the expectations are that the characters, storylines, and a majority of the scenes that you present within the script are primarily based on actual occurrences.”

But that doesn’t mean Bud’s story is made up. The phrase inspired by a true story indicates that “it’s based on a real-life event, but that a lot of the characters and scenes surrounding it are fictionalized.”

In Bud’s case, the facts of his story are true. I utilized letters he wrote to family members, oral histories, interviews, and correspondences from the military to determine who Bud was and what happened to him. Sadly, his military records were not available, because in 1973 a massive fire raged through the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, destroying approximately 17 million official military personnel files. The records for servicemen and women who had been discharged between 1912 and 1960 were wiped away, the flames consuming 80% of the Army’s archives, Bud’s among them.

I did my best to tell Sergeant Bud Richardville’s story, even though I didn’t always have the facts.

However, I was able to follow Bud’s path through Europe by utilizing the postmarks on his letters home, stamps that gave me dates and locations. Those postmarks, along with his letters, led me to believe that Bud was stationed in England just before D-Day, was part of the invasion at Normandy, was at the Battle of the Bulge, and was in Czechoslovakia when General George Patton’s Third Army liberated that country from the Nazis.

It was only when the book was going to press that I recieved a copy of Bud’s obituary which read, “He landed in France on D-Day and was with Hodge’s First Army as a member of the 606 Graves Registration Company. Action took him from France to Luxembourg, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and Germany.” So there it was. Proof that the postmarks had confirmed where and when Bud served.

When you read Your Forgotten Sons you will meet other soldiers in the GRS. They are entirely fictitious. Bud did not directly name the men he worked with, so I used my imagination. Nor is the woman Eva real. Though quiet family whispers suggested that Bud may have fallen in love with a woman while in Europe, nothing is known about her, so I created what I hope is a realistic character to serve in her stead. Note that all of Bud’s family members mentioned in the book were real people, as was Bud’s wife Lorraine, though she was shrouded in mystery even when Bud married her. While there is some historical information based on the real Lorraine, she remains an enigma.

I’ll admit that following Bud’s footprints was difficult, still I believe readers will understand my need to create scenes and dialogue that best represent the truth of Bud’s story. In the end, my hope was to remember a man who served his country well, a man who never came home, a man whose remains lie buried in the American Cemetery in Épinal, France, interred there by the soldiers who worked by his side.

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?

Join us at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix on June 6, 2024, for the lanuch of Your Forgotten Sons. Find out more about the event here.

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix to host Your Forgotten Sons launch

2 Comments

I am delighted to announce that the launch for my new historical fiction novel Your Forgotten Sons will be held June 6, 2024—The 80th anniversary of D-Day—at Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix. And I couldn’t be more thrilled because TV icon Mary Jo West will be on hand to be the MC. Please come and join us at 300 West Camelback Road at 6:30 PM. Find out more about the event here.

Can’t wait to see you!

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 the Graves Registration Service 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?

Praise for Your Forgotten Sons

“Although a defty crafted work of original fiction, “Your Forgotten Sons” by Anne Montgomery is inspired by a true story. An original and inherently interesting read from start to finish, “Your Forgotten Sons” will prove to be an immediate and enduringly appreciated pick.”  Midwest Book Review

“This was a quick, riveting read that really challenged me to think differently about our servicemen and women, especially those who take on the jobs that don’t get heroically depicted in the media or news…I really highly recommend this book to anyone that is looking for a different take on American history. I left it with a newfound appreciation for the unsung heroes.” Bekah C NetGalley 

“This is the truth. It’s gritty and painful and bittersweet – and true.  When you think you’ve read every perspective of WWII, along comes Bud to break your heart.” Bridgett Siter Former Military Reporter

“Anne Montgomery writes a strong story and I was hooked from the first page. It had a great concept and I enjoyed that this was inspired by a true story…It was written perfectly and I was invested in the story. Anne Montgomery has a great writing style and left me wanting to read more.” –  Kathryn McLeer NetGalley 

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Noble

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Mental health and the military: Isn’t it time we did better?

4 Comments
Sixty to 70% of military personnel do not seek mental health assistance when they need it, concerned perhaps that the knowledge will destroy their careers.

In my new novel Your Forgotten Sons, a work of historical fiction which is inspired by a true story, World War II soldiers in the Graves Registration Service are relentlessly bombarded with the horrors of war, as their job entails retrieving, identifying, and burying the dead, a breeding ground for psychological damage. No doubt, many came home with deep invisible wounds that no one acknowledged as real. And that attitude about mental illness continued until recently.

Today, with the help of many well-known individuals, the stigma has lifted, especially with athletes like Simon Biles and Michael Phelps, and artists like Lady Gaga and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson having come forward with their own mental health issues.

Now mental health is an everyday conversation in America. Unless, of course, one is in the military. A scene in the 1970 movie Patton still resonates. Actor George C. Scott—who won an Academy Award for playing the title character—slaps a hospitalized soldier suffering from PTSD and calls him a “yellow-bellied coward.” Yes, the film is over 50 years old, still the continued denial that service people can struggle with mental illness remains.

During World War II, General George Patton slapped a soldier who was suffering from “battle fatigue”, which we now refer to as PTSD. The military response to mental illness today has not improved significantly.

But why? Dr. Jeffrey A Liberman in his Psychiatric Times article “Solving the Mystery of Military Mental Health: A Call to Action, said, “…the idea of psychological weakness is antithetical to military culture with its ethos of strength and invulnerability. Thus, military leaders were disinclined to recognize and accept the possibility of psychic injury.”

Liberman goes on to say that because mental health issues like PTSD, which “is commonly associated with functional impairment, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, impulsivity and violence,” have no visible signs and can’t be proven by diagnostic tests the military can easily ignore them.

The sad thing is the military establishment has put its collective mind to a problem in the past and good things happened. Note that 80% of severely wounded combatants prior to the first World War I died. Today, 80% survive. So why can’t they put that same positive effort behind helping military personal suffering from mental illness?  

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs says an average of 20 veterans die by suicide daily. In the United Service Organizations article “Military Suicide Rates Are at an All-Time High; Here’s How We’re Trying to Help” Danielle DeSimone wrote, “Suicide rates among active-duty military members are currently at an all-time high, since record-keeping began after 9/11 and have been increasing over the past five years at an alarmingly steady pace…For military families and parents, whose active duty loved one already sacrifice so much to protect our freedom, this trend is extremely troubling.”

Sadly, it’s estimated that 60 to 70% of military personnel who experience mental health issues don’t seek help, fearing their careers will be in jeopardy if their commanding officers find out.

Isn’t it time we did better?

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?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Bookstores, libraries, and other booksellers can order copies directly from the Ingram Catalog.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

Why Your Forgotten Sons is necessarily gruesome

Leave a comment
Approximately 73,000 Allied troops died during the Battle of Normandy. Did you ever wonder where all the bodies went?

There’s no way to sugarcoat it. My new historical fiction novel Your Forgotten Sons, which will be released on June 6, 2024 in honor of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, is necessarily gruesome. For those who have seen the first 24 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, or Apocalypse Now, or the more recent 1917, the violence of war is hard to ignore.

But can there be too much carnage in our artistic representations of battle? That probably depends on who you ask. I sense many young people, raised on bloodbath video games like Resident Evil, Mortal Combat, and Grand Theft Auto, might not find the graphic vestiges of war a big deal. Yet today’s average TV viewer—sheltered from the actual violent aftermath of crimes and war and natural disasters by anchors who warn them that “the following video might be disturbing” only to see anything remotely upsetting blurred out on the screen—perhaps might disagree.

The problem for me was trying to mitigate the horrors those in the Graves Registration Service experienced in World War II without discounting the morale-destroying realities of the consequences of battle. The job of the GRS was simple but ghastly: retrieve, identify, and bury the dead. Think about that for a minute.

For Sergeant Bud Richardville and his men who served in the GRS during the invasion of Normandy, the incredible brutality of the Battle of the Bulge, and beyond, their jobs were no doubt horrifying. It’s interesting, I think, that the efforts of these soldiers who labored to literally piece fallen soldiers back together to discern who they were in life and then lay them to rest in the elegant cemeteries they built, have been dismissed from history. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you even caught a glimpse of anyone in a movie caring for the dead. I’m guessing almost never, as war movies are about shooting and exploding bombs, fast-moving tanks and fighter planes, but rarely about the carnage left behind.

Not surprisingly, those who’ve served in the GRS have the highest rates of post-traumatic stress disorder in the military, psychological pressure that follows them the rest of their lives. And yet, they have rarely gotten praise for the grueling duties they performed. I read one startlingly sad description of a convoy of GRS soldiers who drove down a road in France where they encountered a unit of American soldiers. When those troops realized it was GRS men bearing the dead in their trucks, the soldiers turned their backs and looked away.

Initially, my goal in writing Your Forgotten Sons was to tell the story of Bud Richardville and his service to our country. But in the end, I wanted to shine a light on all the unsung heroes who toiled in the Graves Registration Service, who, despite the horrors of the tasks they were assigned, did their jobs with grace and honor.

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?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

Taking license with setting: France becomes Luxembourg

Leave a comment
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 80th 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?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

Finding Bud: Following a damaged trail

3 Comments

When my dear friend Gina Liparoto asked me to tell the story of her uncle “Bud” Richardville, a soldier who served in the Graves Registration Service in World War II, I didn’t realize the difficulties I would face in ferreting out who Bud was and what had happened to him.

The years leading up to Bud’s service in the U.S. Army, as well as his marrige to the enigmatic Lorraine, were pieced together in part thanks to the memories of surviving family members. Gina, who grew up hearing stories about her mother’s rakish older brother, contributed accounts of Bud’s poverty-stricken youth in Vincennes Indiana, where the Great Depression had yet to retract it’s spidery reach.

Gina also provided me with a packet of letters that Bud had written to relatives and which had been lovingly protected over the years, writings that helped me glimpse the man who never came home.

The big problem came when I tried to track Bud’s trail through the carnage of World War II. My first thought was to locate Bud’s military records, but I soon discovered that in 1973 a massive fire raged through the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, destroying approximately 17 million official military personnel files. The records for servicemen and women who had been discharged between 1912 and 1960 were wiped away, the flames consuming 80% of the Army’s archives.

My only option for discovering where Bud’s service took him was through the postmarks on his fragile letters, which listed the dates and locations from which the mail was sent. While the process was probably not exact, I was able to confidently follow Bud through his induction at Camp Warren in Wyoming, his posting outside of London as he and the other Allied troops waited for D-Day, and the horrors of the landing at Normandy. Though censors forbade the discussion of anything war-related in letters home, those postmarks indicated that Bud was most likely at the Battle of the Bulge, at multiple locations throughout France and Germany, and with General George Patton on his charge to liberate Czechoslovakia from the Nazis.

During my research, I could find almost nothing written about those who served alongside Bud in the GRS, where men were tasked with locating, identifying and burying the dead, their efforts—with the exception of the elegant cemeteries they left behind—seemingly ignored by history. Then, I discovered the eyewitness account of Lt. Col. Joseph James Shomon, who, as a captain, served two years in the GRS in the European Theater and wrote about his experiences in the book Crosses in the Wind. I will be forever grateful for Shomon’s memories which allowed me to see those in the GRS clearly. Ultimately, I took literary license with some of the situations in which I placed Bud and his men by utilizing the events Shomon shared.

Though Your Forgotten Sons tells the story of Bud Richardville, it is my hope that readers will remember all those who toiled in the GRS, soldiers who worked tirelessly to gave the fallen the respect and honor they deserved as they were gently laid to rest.

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?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Anne Montgomery’s novels can be found wherever books are sold.

Goodreads

Amazon

Allotment Annies: Polygamist wives of war

Leave a comment
Was Bud Richardville’s wife an Allotment Annie? It’s quite possible that she was.

During World War II, American servicemen were confronted by many dangers on foreign soil, but they were also at the mercy of some homegrown risks: women who spent their time enticing men to marry them. These women seduced young servicemen—many of whom were naïve and away from home for the first time—into whirlwind marriages, just as they were about to ship out.

It would be discovered later that some of these women, who would be dubbed Allotment Annies, were married to multiple servicemen at the same time. Elvira Taylor is one of the few women to be prosecuted for what was essentially polygamy, after she was found to be married to six sailors at the same time. Taylor might have gotten away with her crime had two of those men not reportedly met in an Australian pub. There they did what men in love do. They took out photos of their wives, and were shocked to discover that they were married to the same woman.

But why would women marry multiple men during a war? The answer is simple: money! Wives of servicemen were issued a weekly allotment of $20, which doesn’t sound like much today, but back in 1945 was equivalent to almost $340. Multiply that by four and Elvira was pulling in $1360 a month. When you consider that the median income in the U.S. at that time was just $1,400 annually, you can see why women were tempted to game the system. On top of the weekly stipend, wives were entitled to a one-time death benefit of $10,000, which works out to about $170,000 today.

I’m now patting myself on the back for doing a little math—not my best subject—but the numbers are important in regard to Allotment Annies, women I will now defend, if only a little. High-paying job opportunities were practically nonexistent for women at that time. Though they toiled in factories and in other sectors for the war effort, I’m sure many realized that when the boys came home, their time in the workforce would end. They’d had a taste of earning and managing their own money, and no doubt many chaffed at going back to being dependent on men for an income.

We will never know just how many women married servicemen for the paychecks and death benefits, but the issue was well-known to the military which produced videos warning men about the practice. Even Hollywood got into the act with the 1945 film noir release of Allotment Wives, a story about an Army investigator who tries to stop a woman from preying on unsuspecting soldiers.

I mention Allotment Annies because over the course of my research for my World War II historical novel Your Forgotten Sons, I became convinced that I’d found one. The book, inspired by a true story, traces the path of Sergeant Bud Richardville who was inducted into the Army in 1943 as the United States prepared for the invasion of Europe. He met a woman named Lorraine—at least that’s what she told him—and they were quickly married before he deployed.

The marriage would cause Bud great pain and confusion, and it wouldn’t be until years later, long after both Bud and Lorraine were dead, that questions about the union were broached. Had Bud married an Allotment Annie? And why is it that records indicated there was never a marriage, even though Lorraine received and cashed his allotment checks? Bud writes about his “wife” constantly in his letters. Clearly he believed he was married to Lorraine, but so apparently were two other men. Whether these marriages overlapped is unclear, but in those days divorce was practically unheard of, so multiple marriages would certainly have been looked upon with suspicion.

One wonders about the mindset of the women who duped unsuspecting servicemen into marriage as they headed off to war. Were they desperate, greedy, or just cruel? It’s unlikely we will ever know.

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?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Find Anne Montgomery’s novels wherever you buy books.

Goodreads

Amazon

Writing historical fiction can be tricky

6 Comments
I almost got tripped up a few times, when writing about World War II Jeeps.

My new book, Your Forgotten Sons, is a work of historical fiction, a story inspired by Sergeant Joseph “Bud” Richardville who worked in the Graves Registration Service in Europe during World War II.

As many authors know, writing about the past can be tricky. One reason is we tend to look at history through our own modern-day lens. For example, when I was writing about Bud, I often had him riding in a Jeep. Today, Jeeps are ubiquitous on civilian roadways, but the origins of the vehicle are steeped in war.

Scripps Howard WWII reporter Ernie Pyle once said of the Jeep, “It did everything. It went everywhere. Was as faithful as a dog, as strong as a mule, and as agile as a goat. It constantly carried twice what it was designed for and still kept going.”

No doubt current Jeep owners prize the vehicle for many of the same attributes. The problem comes when one sees a Jeep and misses the evolution that led to today’s version. When I first wrote Your Forgotten Sons, I had Bud starting a Jeep with keys and adjusting the rearview mirror. Oops! Jeeps back then started with a pushbutton and the vehicles had no review mirrors.

I also had Bud and his fellow soldiers eating K-rations, but I would learn that he and his peers actually consumed C-rations. What’s the difference? K-rations were heavy, having been designed for static warfare, like the trench battles of World War I. But World War II was a different type of war, with fast-moving trucks and tanks and parachute troops who needed lighter combat rations, because soldiers were constantly on the move.

When I first envisioned Bud, I saw him in a green T-shirt, the iconic color of the Army. Today, Army personnel wear undershirts defined as Tan 499 which has a slight green tint to it, a shade referred to as “coyote”. But in Bud’s time, the plain, white cotton T-shirt was what all male service members sported.

When writing about the World War II era, I had to pay close attention to the facts. Luckily, the time is well documented with videos, and photographs, and eye-witness accounts. But consider writing about periods that go way back in history. My novel Wolf Catcher takes place in both modern times and the 11th century in what would become Arizona. I once wrote a scene where Native people used honey to sweeten their food, which could never have happened, because it was not until the early 1600s that European settlers first brought honey bees to the Americas.

It’s clear, then, that when authors choose to write stories based on history, they need to be meticulous in their research.

I’m working on it.

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, Loryane, 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?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Find Anne Montgomery’s novels wherever you buy books.

Goodreads

Amazon

Who was Bud Richardville?

Leave a comment
In 1943, Sergeant Bud Richardville left a new wife and headed off to World War II to serve in the Graves Registration Service. But he never came back and questions about his death lingered for 75 years.

Joseph “Bud” Richardville was not very different from the millions of other young men who served in the U.S. military in World War II. He came from rural Indiana, where his family lived in poverty, a hangover from the Great Depression. He knew little about the world outside of Vincennes, but as the inevitability of the coming conflict became clear, Bud moved to Michigan to work in the paper mills, an industry that was essential to the war effort and which kept him stateside until he was drafted in 1943.

When Bud boarded the train for Camp Warren, Wyoming that summer, he was 29 and found himself riding with other soon-to-be soldiers who were mostly kids, many still in their teens, some excited to be away from home for the first time, others quiet, perhaps fearing what was to come.

Once at bootcamp, Bud was assigned to the Graves Registration Service. Family stories indicate that when Bud was young he’d periodically been called upon to help remove the corpses of those who’d fallen from the trains that trundled through his neighborhood, travelers who’d jumped aboard, hoping for a free ride, but who’d slipped and fallen to their deaths. Perhaps he’d mentioned this fact during his induction at Camp Warren and that familiarity with the dead colored the decision to place him in a GRS. Bud would serve in the 606 Graves Registration Company where he and his brethren were tasked with locating, identifying, and burying the dead.

Sgt. Bud Richardville died just after the German’s surrendered in 1945. He lies in the American Cemetery in Épinal, France.

Think about that for a moment, and consider that the gathering of war dead is an undertaking that seems to have been erased from history. Consider all of those war movies where soldiers are mowed down on the beaches of Normandy or are mortally wounded on foreign battlefields, young men, some blown to pieces. But once their deaths are confirmed, the camera moves forward, ignoring the carnage.

It was left to those in the Graves Registration Service to gather up the horrific aftermath of battle in the hope of making some order out of all that death. They did their utmost to retrieve and identify the fallen and design and build the cemeteries that would hold their remains. Today, about 130,000 American war dead are said to be buried on foreign soil, men and women who were laid to rest with the reverence they deserved, because of the dedication of those in the GRS.

The efforts of Bud and his men additionally served another vital purpose: morale. As wave after wave of soldiers hit those Normandy beaches, the dead had to be collected quickly, so as not to traumatize the incoming troops. It is not hyperbole to say that the job of those in the GRS is perhaps one of the most difficult and least appreciated in the history of military service. And it is easy to understand the torment many of these soldiers, including Bud, faced for the rest of their lives.

It is ironic, perhaps, that Bud’s final resting place would be in the American Cemetery in Épinal, France, where he was buried by his brothers who also served in the GRS.

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?

Release Date: June 6, 2024

NextChapter Publishing

Pre-Order your copy today

Amazon

Apple Books

Barnes & Nobel

Google Books

Kobo

Review a copy early by going to NetGalley. Sign in here.

Find Anne Montgomery’s novels wherever you buy books.

Goodreads

Amazon