Bob and Cleo Liebl

It is with great sorrow to announce the passing of Bob Liebl earlier this month.  Bob and his wife Cleo were delightful personalities, even fixtures, at the HMGS conventions.  He had a great wit, like "Saving Ryan's Privates", they marvelous scenario builders, and carried a box of fresh baked cookies.  They were official chroniclers of HMGS events.

A paragraph is too small a description of a life.  And while they were always noticeable with matching Hawaiian shirts, I only had sporadic contact with them over the last decade.  Bob always had a story to tell.  And I will relate one he told me on our penultimate get together.

It involved two family members of his. I will refer to them as "the Uncle", and "the Nephew."  It is the mid 1930's.  And the depression was still going on.  But the word was out, at least in the German speaking community, that things were turning around in Germany.  So the Uncle, who was naturalized citizen, and the Nephew, a natural born citizen, went to Germany looking for work.  

They were still there when WWII broke out and both were drafted.  The Uncle had a college degree and spoke perfect English, was assigned to German Army Intelligence.  The Nephew had skills with animals, and was assigned to a divisional veterinary company.  As a side note, the German army ran on horses and mules.  8,000 per infantry division.   

Spoiler alert here.  They both survived the war.  So no drama is intended there.

One of the key events by the Uncle involved the British mini-sub attack on the Battleship Tirpitz.  They snuck into the anchorage, planted bombs on the hull, and then were captured.  The Tripitz was not noticeably harmed in the attack.   

The Gestapo was unable to get the UK sailors to talk.  And then the Uncle was sent in to interrogate them.  He took the tactic of throwing a party for them, with lots of booze and imported Swedish hookers.  He then just worked the room with pleasant conversation, and gaining everything relevant about the attack. 

And got one of the lower grade Iron Crosses for the effort.

The Nephew spent 3 years on the Russian front.  And as part of the retreat into Poland in late 1944.  He swam a river, only to be caught up in an artillery barrage.  He woke up some time later, in some hospital in Germany proper.  His uncle was given leave to visit him in the hospital.  He borrowed a car, see Iron Cross above, loaded the Nephew into it, and proceeded west.  They were stopped a couple of times by German authorities, but then again, an officer wearing an Iron Cross.  Eventually they were stopped by an American patrol, and taken prisoner.  They spent some time in POW camps before being released.  

The Nephew returned to Germany after the war and served as an air traffic controller during the Berlin air lift.  Somewhere around this time there was a massive burial of old military equipment that he was witnessed to.  Later, he worked for the Smithsonian, and recovered that same equipment. 

There was more to this story, and I may update it as memory clears.

Official obituary is here...

We are all diminished by their passing.