(NEXSTAR) – In August 1944, Mrs. Mildred Reed received a devastating letter. “Your husband, Colonel Ollie W. Reed, was killed July 30th, in France,” the letter read. Col. Reed had survived storming the beaches of Normandy, but tragically died a few weeks later.
Minutes later, the postman returned with what Mrs. Reed thought had been a mistake. Unfortunately, it was not. “Your son, Lieutenant Ollie W. Reed Jr., was killed on July 6th, in Italy,” read the second letter.
According to Historian Anthony Foulquier, it is not known if Col. Reed — the father — knew that his son, Lt. Reed, had died.
“She received these two telegrams the same day, reporting both the death of her son and the death of her husband,” said Foulquier. “Can you imagine that? The shock it was for Mrs. Reed when maybe 45 minutes after, the same people came back to give her the second telegram.”
Col. Reed was a veteran of World War I and his son had freshly graduated from West Point Military Academy in New York. He chose a military career to follow in his father’s footsteps.
According to Foulquier, after the end of the war, and surviving the most difficult personal loss imaginable, Mrs. Reed decided to repatriate the body of her son – not to the United States – but to the Normandy American Cemetery in France. This was so that her son could be laid to rest in the same cemetery as her husband.