American Overseas Memorial Day Association - Belgium - STAFF SERGEANT GERALD E SORENSEN

STAFF SERGEANT GERALD E. SORENSEN
339th Bomber Squadron, 96th Heavy Bomber Group

Staff Sergeant Gerald (Jerry) Sorensen was born on 31 October 1919 in Blackfoot, Idaho, the son of Luella and Ephraim Sorensen. He grew up in Pocatello, Idaho, and he lived on Route #1 with his parents and three sisters. On 13 May 1942, Jerry married his sweetheart Nora Lee, and five days later, he entered the service in the American Army Air Force.

On 1 May 1944, Sgt. Sorensen was serving as the ball turret gunner on a B-17G Flying Fortress when it took off at 15.00 on a mission to bomb railway yards at Metz. It was Sorensen’s 2nd mission. Before reaching the target area, one of the plane’s engines failed but the pilot was ordered to press on with the mission. Anti-aircraft fire took out a second engine over the target area, but it successfully bombed its target anyway “with good result.” However, B-17’s were not designed to fly on two engines, and as the plane made its way back toward England, it slowly lost altitude. The pilot ordered all unnecessary items thrown overboard in the hope that they could lighten the plane sufficiently to make it to the Channel. But this was not enough to keep the plane in the air, and the pilot gave the order to bail out over Belgium. Sorensen acted as the jumpmaster for the enlisted men. The plane crashed near Silly, and all ten crewmembers survived the bailout. Sorensen landed near Gibecq, suffering a twisted ankle. Sorensen’s air war was finished, but his underground war was just beginning.

Madame Anne Brusselmans, a section chief in the “Comet Line,” found Sorensen. She brought him to the home of the Van Delft family in Saint Marcoult, where he stayed for a week. She then took him to the to the home of Mlle. Odette Gryspeier. Mlle. Gryspeier sheltered Sorensen in several different homes for the rest of the month. On 2 June, she brought him to the home of Arthur Abeels on av. de la Constitution, 19 in Ganshoren.

Arthur Abeels was the President of the local veterans association in Ganshoren. His son Roger was twenty years old, and was a member of the Secret Army, one of the Belgian Resistance groups. Roger had joined the Secret Army in 1941. His dream was to become a pilot and go to London to fly with the RAF, as other Belgians had done. He learned to speak English well. Although he was never able to go to London, becoming an aviator remained his dream.

Another downed American aviator, Bernard L. (Mac) McManaman, had arrived in the Abeels home the day before Jerry arrived. It wasn’t long before Roger, Jerry, and Mac became very good friends. Arthur considered Jerry and Mac as sons, and their daughter Jenny considered them as brothers, despite their teasing her. Jenny Abeels says that the time Jerry and Mac stayed in her home “were the happiest two months of my life.” Sorensen even picked up some French, and his thick Idaho accent charmed the Abeels family. Jerry and Mac were members of the Abeels family, and Roger’s best friends.

As Jerry and Mac learned more about Roger’s activities in the Secret Army, they decided to take up arms along side their friend. They took an oath, and formally joined Zone 1, Sector D of the Secret Army. In early August, the Secret Army sent Jerry, Mac, and Roger to Saint Marcourt, where they stayed with the Van Delft family, the same family that had first sheltered Jerry in May. They spent the month of August collecting intelligence, sabotaging German operations, and recovering arms and supplies that were parachuted to the Resistance. Jerry and Mac’s military training strengthened their Resistance unit’s effectiveness against the Nazis.

On Sunday 3 September 1944, the Nazi’s were in full retreat across Belgium. The Secret Army was ordered to attack the German armies and hinder their retreat. Jerry, Mac, and Roger were assigned to a Secret Army unit under the command of Capitan Brent. The eight people in this unit were traveling by bicycle. They were sent to the village of Marcq-Les-Enghien, where they were to harass any Germans who would be retreating along the main road leading from Ath. They approached the village on a small road that made a T intersection with the main road from Ath. Just before this intersection, either Jerry’s or Roger’s bicycle broke down. (It is not clear who was riding the bike with the problem.) Jerry and Roger stopped to fix the bike while Mac and the other five went ahead to take up their planned positions and wait for the Nazis. Because of what happened next, this in effect placed Jerry and Roger in a rear guard position for the rest of their Secret Army unit.

As Jerry and Roger were working on the bike, a slow moving German vehicle with an officer in the back seat passed by on the main road. Houses obstructed Jerry and Roger’s views of any other traffic on that road. Jerry and Roger opened fire on the German vehicle without realizing that this was the lead vehicle of a column of an SS company. The Nazis gave chase, and Jerry and Roger took up a defensive position in a rabbit hutch. Armed only with their submachine guns, they fought fiercely as a force of three hundred Nazis attacked them. The Nazis threw a grenade into their position. The shrapnel struck Jerry in the head and neck, and Roger in the back. The two friends Jerry and Roger died side-by-side, killed by the same grenade, and for the same cause. Their last stand against the Nazis enabled their badly outnumbered comrades to escape harm.

The time of Jerry and Roger’s death was 13.30 on that Sunday. A couple of hours later, the British army traveled up the same road, and the Secret Army brought the bodies of Jerry and Roger to the hospital in Enghien. On Tuesday 5 September, the Red Cross informed Arthur Abeels about the tragedy. On Thursday 7 September, Arthur Abeels recovered Roger and Jerry’s bodies from the hospital and brought them to Ganshoren. On 10 September 1944, the remains of Jerry and Roger were buried with honors in the community of Ganshoren’s cemetery. Mac, Gryspeier, and other members of the Secret Army were in attendance.

After the war, the US Army wanted to move Jerry’s remains to one of the new American military cemeteries. However, Jerry’s wife and family asked that his body remain undisturbed in the Ganshoren cemetery. As his father wrote to the War Department in June of 1946, “We feel that he is beside his friend and near the people who gave him a home when he was alone in a foreign land.” After some lengthy paperwork, the family’s request to leave Jerry’s remains undisturbed was granted in January of 1949.

After the war, Nora Sorensen and the Abeels family became friends. As early as November of 1945, the Abeels family encouraged Nora to visit them in Belgium. Arthur Abeels wrote to her, “You can’t understand, dear Nora, how much we love you. You are the dear wife of our beloved Jerry. We have love [sic.] him the first day he came at home. We have never met a better boy than him. When he called us Pa and Ma, we were so happy. Roger and Jerry were like brothers together. It is for that reason that they stayed together, and they died together.”

In January of 1947, Nora Sorensen came to Belgium and stayed with the Abeels family for three months. She visited her husband’s grave often to grieve. In her honor, the community of Ganshoren held a commemoration service for Sergeant Sorensen on Saturday 8 February, and the community of Marcq-les-Enghien did the same on 27 April. Sorensen was posthumously decorated with five Belgian military honors, and a street was named after him in Ganshoren. Nora Sorensen and Jenny Abeels remained friends for life and visited with each other when they could.

As for Mac, he and Jenny stayed in touch after the war and he visited her in Belgium. When the Korean War broke out, Mac rejoined the Air Force. He served in Korea as the tail gunner of a B-26C Invader bomber. While on a night intruder mission, his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed. He is listed as missing in action and presumed dead. The planed crashed on 2 September 1951, almost exactly seven years after the date that his friends Jerry and Roger were killed.

2nd Lt. George Smith, the copilot of Sorensen’s B-17, said the following about Sorensen:
“Sorensen died because he firmly believed in what we were fighting for. He would rather fight with the Belgians than to return home in safety. Only those who knew him can understand this.”