Public Relations - In The News

Once a Hero, Always a Hero
By Arline A. Fleming
Journal Staff Writer

SOUTH KINGSTOWN Given that he was a schools superintendent, a University of Rhode Island professor, a town councilman, a clambake master, and a subject of a recent World War II documentary, it’s no surprise that Walter “Chris” Heisler, of Matunuck, has amassed enough newspaper clippings to fill the one-room Michigan schoolhouse where he taught as a young man.

He’s 90, and still more clippings bearing his name can be added to his collection, most recently from a French paper documenting his return to a small Normandy village that turned out to honor him last month.

Rhode Islanders who visit Negreville will discover something of home. A plaque atop a memorial in the town square bears Heisler’s name.

“Isn’t this something,” said his wife, Gloria, holding the French newspaper that documented their recent visit with two pages of photos and stories.

The Heislers have visited Normandy each year since 1999 — sometimes with other vets — because it was here that paratrooper Heisler jumped behind enemy lines on June 5, 1944, the night before D-Day, when efforts would begin to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi control.

Heisler, a lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division, was among the first to jump from the C-47, and he didn’t find out until years later that the plane was hit by enemy fire soon after he parachuted. The plane was too low for the last four paratroopers’ chutes to deploy; the people of Negreville buried the men wrapped in their chutes.

On June 8, Heisler was captured by the Germans. He was a prisoner of war until February 1945.

When a monument was built in memory of the four paratroopers buried in Negreville, Heisler was invited to the dedication.

There have been other dedications since, but during this most recent trip, the town square in Negreville — about a two-hour ride northwest of Paris — was dedicated in Heisler’s name, with local officials and residents gathered in celebration.

Heisler still bears a look of astonishment at this honor.

“In almost every town, there is a monument to honor Americans,” he noted. “Everywhere I went, I had to make a speech.

“Every moment that I wasn’t asleep, I was involved in something.”

AN ORGANIZER involved in the various dedication ceremonies is an American, Vivian Roger, now living in France, who originally contacted the University of Rhode Island regarding its former professor’s most recent honor. She noted in an e-mail:

“Chris has been so faithful coming back every year, the people know him, he has such a sense of obligation to the fallen soldiers …

“This memorial is at the site where Chris’ C-47 crashed … ,” she wrote, going on to describe the ceremony that included 200 schoolchildren, flag bearers of the French Veterans Association, regional and local officials, “and lots of people …

“We presented Chris with the certificate, he unveiled the plaque, he adored the children…. then we all crossed the street to the town community center. We had champagne and brioche … It was a grand occasion.”

Heisler said he made short speeches in several locations during the most recent trip, including one at the guardhouse of the Grey Castle, where he was held prisoner and interrogated by the Germans, and where a plaque with his name has also been placed. According to Roger, Heisler said he wanted to find the house, so she and her French husband went on a search to determine its location.

Despite the fanfare, and that after all this time Americans are still honored, by old and young, for the part they played in the French liberation, Heisler is firm in stating: “War is hell. War is not glamorous.”

And he isn’t the one who should be the focus of accolades and honors, he said; rather, homage should be paid to “all those boys under the white crosses.”

THESE DAYS, Heisler patrols his Matunuck gardens, poking at plants with his cane, walking among the neat rows despite a steady rain falling on his grateful dahlias, his bountiful lettuce, his ripe raspberries.

“I had it all nice and clean before I left. I haven’t caught up yet,” he said with a grimace. While many interests occupy his time — his family, politics, history, veteran friends — Heisler is intensely loyal to his gardens, which overlook Segar Cove.

“This is what keeps me alive,” he said of the sturdy plants, though he admits they take a great deal of his energy. He stashes chairs throughout the rows so he can stop weeding and take a rest — and sometimes he even stretches right out on the grass and takes a nap.

Arthritis makes it hard to walk. And his heart and lungs aren’t what they were when he was a young paratrooper.

After his capture, Heisler was sent to a POW camp in Poland. After that, came a march in freezing temperatures to another camp nearly 400 miles away.

After his liberation, Heisler returned home to Michigan, where he was known as Walter by his mother and as Chris by his friends — from his middle name of Christof. He earned more degrees, moved on to teaching, and helped the small community where he grew up raise money enough to build a gym.

One of his most prized possessions, a framed document lauding those efforts, sits in the family kitchen bringing back memories of Michigan, where he eventually became a superintendent. He was also a school superintendent in Connecticut and Westerly, and in 1962 became a faculty member at the University of Rhode Island’s education department.

THESE ARE well-documented moments in Heisler’s life, but perhaps the most public moment comes by way of an award-winning documentary. Heisler and six other Rhode Islanders were the subject of last year’s D-Day + 62 Years: Rhode Island Veterans Return to Normandy, produced by Tim Gray, formerly of South Kingstown. The film recently won two Boston/New England Emmy Awards, for documentary writing and for photography.

The movie, available at schools and libraries throughout Rhode Island, tells the veterans’ individual stories. The Heislers, who helped organize a version with French subtitles, brought along numerous.

Gray accompanied Heisler and the other Rhode Islanders to Normandy last year.

“It’s incredible to watch, all these years after, the reaction of the French people,” Gray says — “the older generation and the younger generation.

“But Chris says he is just a representative of the guys who didn’t make it out.”

LAST MONTH, Heisler wore his Army uniform to the French ceremonies. He recalls one in particular with dozens of school children surrounding him with affection, and with flowers.

“I’m almost too old to have enjoyed it all, but the thing I cherish the most is that they have the kids involved,” he said. “The depth of the feeling, that impresses me.

“The French people couldn’t believe the American boys came to rescue them,” Heisler said, proud still of that fact, and happy that he is able to help others remember. He and Gloria have typed out his wartime recollections, and these memories have been collated, and in some cases donated to public libraries.

“It was [as a result of] my participation during the celebration of D-Day in 1999 with the Normandy French,” Heisler wrote in his 175-page In My Own Words, “that I realized how important it was to put in print the kinds of personal and group experiences that preceded the victory that saved the world from the tyranny of a Nazi dictator.”

He has given out the book to more people than he can remember. Now, in France, there are DVDs documenting more memories for the future, and in the French language.

Said Walter “Chris” Heisler of Matunuck, whose name is now found on two French buildings: “It’s great to be a survivor.”

“It’s incredible to watch, all these years after,

the reaction of the French people... But Chris says he is just a representative of the guys

who didn’t make it out.”

Tim Gray
producer of D-Day+62 Years: Rhode Island Veterans Return to Normandy
“The French people couldn’t believe the American boys came to rescue them.”

Chris Heisler
WWII veteran
afleming@projo.com