Roger Mangan Honors Stepfather Louis Mangan’s WWII Service and Sacrifice

Announcer
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and our other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson.

These stories will touch your heart, inspire you, and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Monson.

Kim Monson
And welcome to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website, that is americasveteranstories.com. The show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France for the 72nd anniversary of the World War II D-Day landings, which liberated Europe. I’m pleased to have in studio with me Roger Mangan, who is a great sponsor of the Kim Monson show.

He is a State Farm agent, has been in business, it’ll soon be 49 years, you think? 49 and a half July 1st. 49 and a half July 1st, yes. Oh my gosh, I’ve been saying 48 years, but 49 and a half.

It’s pretty remarkable, and it’s really because you and your team strive for excellence as you are serving your clients, and what you’ve done with this career is truly amazing, Roger Mangan. Thank you very

Roger Mangan
much, Kim. You know, it’s amazing to me when I think about when clients come into the office. I had a client yesterday who’s been with me for 30 years and she had several life insurance policies and We had to check beneficiaries, we had to make sure her payments were correct and you know it took about an hour and a half. But I think the service we provide is unusual in that we really focus on somebody who needs help at the time as opposed to just writing a policy and forgetting them.

It’s really up to the insured to put some pressure on your agent because your agent has a lot of policies and if you just ignore contact with your insurance agent sometimes things slip by and really I would just admonish people to take time give a call and say hey How does my portfolio look? My home, my car, my umbrella, my life insurance? Bring me up to date, please.

Wow, that would be a great call if I got that from a client, and I would be honored to engage in that kind of

Kim Monson
conversation. Well, and if someone’s not a client of yours now, they can give you a call and make an appointment. It’s complimentary to be able to go over their insurance coverage, and you’re always helping people as new clients, yes? Yes, yes.

Roger Mangan
I had one of your clients call me. I need to get back with her, and she was very grateful that She was able to talk to me. Somehow people have the feeling they only have to talk to team members, but if you ever want to talk to me, you tell my team members. I really want to speak directly with Roger, and I was trying to help her, but she was a little over 65, so I couldn’t put her into something that really would have helped her with her business on the disability side.

So, but I’m just tickled pink when my clients call me and ask to talk to me directly. And yes, we do pick up a lot of wisdom over 49 almost 50 years, so not bragging but same time. A lot of stuff is in this head, okay? I know

Kim Monson
that there is. If people want to make that complimentary appointment, what is that best phone number? You know,

Roger Mangan
please call us at 303-795-8855, and we can help you anywhere in Colorado or Arizona,

Kim Monson
okay? Okay. So let’s get over here to our subject, and that is your stepfather. Lewis Mangan, and he served in World War II.

So tell us a little bit about Lewis.

Roger Mangan
Lewis, my stepfather, adopted me and my other two brothers when we were, I was 11. My other brother was 13. And then the younger one, Jimmy, was nine. And he married my mother two years after the divorce.

They knew each other in junior high school. Lou went his way, never got married. When he married my mother, he was 33. And it’s interesting, my biological parents were married 16 years and were divorced at age 33, I believe.

So they got married when they were 16 and 17 years old back in the day. But the marriage didn’t work out and Jean and Lou start dating. And then when they got married, the question came up, what do we do with the three boys? And my dad, Lou, said, I’d like to adopt them.

So before my name was Mangan, it was Scolio, a good Sicilian name. And my dad gave us up for adoption. And Lou was the pillar of our youth in our early teenage years. I had a rough life with my biological father.

He was just not focused on raising a family. Lou was honored to be a father. He had children with my mother after they got married, two children. But anyway, Lou was He was a mechanical engineer.

He loved us, treated us like his own children, never thought of him as a stepfather. So ultimately, five

Kim Monson
children then? Yes, five children. Okay. But before he married your mother, he fought in World War Two.

So tell us about that. Yeah,

Roger Mangan
interesting. He was a mechanical engineer. And when Pearl Harbor occurred, keep in mind he was the only boy in a family of eight. There were seven sisters.

So for him to go as the lone son of his father and mother was a tough decision, but he enlisted Yes, he enlisted when he was 24 years old. So in boot camp, he was the old man among the 18, 19 year olds, and he was in the army. foot soldier, infantry, along with ordinance and maintenance. Interestingly enough, when he left for Europe, he left on a cruise ship out of New York, headed down to South America, and then across to Africa, where the Allies invaded northern Africa, French North Africa.

I’m not sure how much history we want to get into, but the Germans occupied a good part of North Africa and trying to tie up the Suez Canal to keep oil flowing or not flowing to the Allies or flowing to themselves. So he landed near Morocco, and from Northern Africa, his outfit went to Sicily, then Italy, then Corsica, then Southern France. And by the time he got to the Rhine River, which would have been two and a half years later, the war was over. When the war was over, he ended up going into Dachau and was one of the first groups to go in there and see the prisoners that had been, many of them being exterminated.

At Dachau there wasn’t much extermination compared to other camps, but I’ll tell you a side story a little later about a trip we made to recount or retrace his battle steps. When he was like 72 years old, we went, I invited him to go to Europe to revisit where he had fought. And he said, yeah, I’d love to do that because he had some good memories and bad memories. So we made that trip and What year was that you did that?

That would have been about 1989. He would have been 73, and I was in my mid-50s. And we flew into Rome. We rented a car, drove down to southern Italy.

We did not go to Sicily, of course. We didn’t go to Africa, but we got to Anzio and we got to Salerno. beachheads for the Allies invading Italy in 1942. So it was an interesting trip.

When we got to Anzio, we were looking for the beach. There was no beach. Like in America, this is a resort One of the stories he told me when he was at The Germans pinned down the Allies. The General, I can’t remember his name, they took the beachhead but they didn’t move inland.

He was waiting to make sure that he could secure the beachhead. The Germans had a chance to counterattack and they pinned him down on the beach for a long time and many thousands of Americans were lost in that battle. One of the things he told me, and this isn’t something most Americans would think about, that Americans would do, but there was a German sniper that had pinned down the troops on the shore and killed several of them right in front of my dad. and finally the sniper surrender when they brought in the tank and when the German snipers are walking towards the tank the machine gunner I’ve always been very interested in history, but it wasn’t until I went to Normandy

Kim Monson
in 2016 and started to really understand these battles. So many of the guys with the battle at Normandy, they were young guys. They had not really seen battle. As you’re talking about your stepfather, Louis Mangan.

So he’s in two and a half years. He’s in Northern Africa, and then he’s in all of these battles going through Italy. All the way up. And I got interested in doing this, I think I maybe interviewed one guy that was at INSEO.

So this is all somewhat new information for our listeners to think about those earlier battles, and what that meant two and a half years that he was out there on the battlefield. Yeah, when you think about

Roger Mangan
it, I know he told me that when you start with a platoon, in a platoon, there’s about 40 to 42 troops. he and one other guy from Africa to the border of the Swiss border just before they were going to enter into Germany and cross the Rhine. There were only he and one other guy left in that platoon. All the others had been either wounded or killed.

So he was a very, very lucky guy. And And it was a time that he jumped in a trench because a shell was coming in and some guy jumped on top of him. And for some strange reason, my dad survived. The guy on top actually died from the impact of the blast.

And normally it’s the other way around. The guy that’s closest to the ground is the one that gets the shockwaves and dies. So he was a very, very lucky man. Yeah.

Kim Monson
Was he injured? at any time during these battles? No, he had no injuries that I am aware of. Wow!

Yeah, amazing. That is really remarkable. I’m talking with Roger Mangan about his stepfather, Louis Mangan, who served in World War II, started in Northern Africa in battles for two and a half years, one can only imagine. And I did want to mention the USMC Memorial Foundation, which is located, well the memorial is located right here in Golden, Colorado.

And guys, during this, this next week, I would really recommend that you make a contribution in honor of our military, those that have given their lives, been willing to give their lives for our liberty. And of course, the story of Lewis Mangan is rather remarkable. So we will go to break. We’ll be right back.

Speaker 7
REMAX Realtor Karen Levine helps bring to life the individual stories of our servicemen and women. With her sponsorship of America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson, Karen honors the sacrifices of our military and is grateful for our freedom. As a member of the National Association of Realtors Board of Directors, Karen works to protect private property rights for all of us. Karen has a heart for our active duty military and veterans and is honored to help you buy or sell your home.

Call Karen Levine at 303-877-7516 to help you navigate buying or selling your home. That’s 303-877-7516.

Speaker 9
All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of the Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimMonson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.

Kim Monson
Welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is americasveteranstories.com. And Hooters Restaurants has been a great sponsor of both the Kim Monson Show and America’s Veteran Stories for many years.

They have five locations, Loveland, Aurora, Lone Tree, Westminster, and Colorado Springs. Great specials for lunch and happy hour Monday through Friday. Be sure and check that out. In studio with me is Roger Mangan.

He is the estate farm agent, has been in business 49 and a half years, which is pretty remarkable. And Roger, we’re talking about your stepfather, Louis Mangan, who was in battles for two and a half years in World War II. Amazing.

Roger Mangan
Yeah, very lucky guy. He certainly saw a lot of his comrades lose their life. just totally lost. Let me tell you a story about something he shared, and this is a continuation of the trip that we made, he and I made back to Italy when he was 72 and I was in my mid-fifties.

We’d flown to Rome, rented a car, went down to Anzio, went to Salerno, and then after that his outfit went back up toward Rome. It was divided, some of them went to the Battle of Monte Cassino, and others went to refit and reorganize hiding behind the island of Corsica because they were going to invade southern France and I think they called that invasion Operation Ando. the purpose of which was to divide the German army. So in June of 1944, they invaded Normandy.

So to split up the German forces, about three months later, they invaded southern France. And that was the only time I saw him cry. And I said, what’s going on, Dad? Anyway, he said, on this beach, this is in southern France, southern France, and you know, you’ve heard of St.

Tropez, if you’ve ever been in France, it’s a resort, beautiful resort, wealthy resort town. And so he was on the beach in that area. and they landed and the Germans didn’t have much control of the air but there was enough where a dive bomber came in and the bomb was dropped and skidded across the sand on the beach. The sand dune at the end of the beach blew up and at that time there were American troops around and they were buried alive in the sand.

And that’s when he cried, he couldn’t. He had such terrible memories of that event. And even though that battle was not anything like Normandy. And by the way, Normandy being a very, very pivotal battle, we lost about 4500 troops in that invasion.

A lot of people think, wow, it was the biggest invasion, lots of loss of life. But I think if you read the history of World War II, the battles, there was a small amount of deaths compared to other battles that were fought. So another battle we’ve all heard about is the Battle of the Bulge. which was Germany’s last effort to crush the Allied advance in Europe.

In that battle, there were over 20,000 Americans that died compared to Normandy where there were 4,000 to 5,000 that died. So in terms of scope and the number of people involved who died, it’s amazing. And you think about World War II, we’re talking about 20, 30, 60 million people that died, depending on how you want to count people. But when you put civilians in there, and there were a lot of the first World War civilians were targets because they were part of the effort to home front effort to keep the war going.

And I know the Russians lost something like 19 million people in World War Two million. and the Japanese. Of course, we as Americans, I think our casualties or our losses were in the $500,000 range. So everybody paid their fair

Kim Monson
share, certainly, in World War II. And every one of those lives, Roger Mangan, somebody loved them. That was somebody’s husband or father or brother or son on both sides of the battle. War is a terrible thing.

Absolutely. I wanted to go back to Operation Anvil, because I focused a lot on Normandy, because that’s where I went in 2016. But there was this invasion in southern France, and I’ve had listeners that reach out and say, hey, this was an invasion in southern France, it doesn’t get much, you know, much attention and they did change the name from, it was initially, it was Operation Anvil and it was changed to Operation Dragoon and it was on the southern side of France, Normandy was on the north and the fact that your stepfather was in that battle and PTSD?

No, like most World War II vets, he never ever talked about it. It was just

Roger Mangan
something that was part of that culture at that time. He might have had it, but it was never manifested in front of us, the boys. And I think he talked to my wife more than he talked to us. When they were cooking in the kitchen, once in a while he would The Vichy government which was very pro-Nazi government set up by the Nazis.

In France, right? In southern France, yeah. In northern France, the Germans occupied, but in southern France, they created a Vichy government run by the French and under the control of the Germans. So as they were heading out of southern France up to Normandy to support the German troops, the German SS, the Wasson SS, were very hand-picked, very cruel people.

They wanted to teach a lesson to the French in terms of not organizing any resistance. So there’s a town in southern France called Oradour-sur-Glen. O-R-A-D-O-U-R. Oradour-sur-Glen.

That was a town of about 600 people and the major general named Lammerding, L-A-M-M-E-R-D-I-N-G, Lammerding. And this is a German? German, yeah, Nazi. He had 200 troops, he encircled this town of Orient-sur-Glane and lined up all the men in the town square, separated them into two or three different Barnes or houses and they machine-gunned them down.

They just killed them. It was certainly a war crime. They took the women and the children and they put the women and the children in the church, closed all the doors and burned them alive. This town today is a national memorial.

If you ever go to France, you should go here. Because when you go into the town, everything has been kept as it was when that happened in 1942. So, excuse me. In 1944, probably.

1944, excuse me, yeah. So Normandy had occurred. The Germans were now divided between the Russian front, the southern front, and Normandy. Okay.

So the German SS wanted to teach anybody in the resistance a lesson and literally killed women and children, burning them alive in this church. So when you go to this town, it’s like going back in time. Nothing was changed. All the houses, all the cars from that era were there.

It’s like going into a museum and thinking how atrocious can a human being be against another. And there was one survivor, I think a young person from that church, to recount the stories, but there was no survivors except this one person.

Kim Monson
Well, and that’s amazing that there was one survivor to that. I had not heard that. Roger Mangan. And it is we look at this, I think, sometimes.

And we think of this cruelty. And how could this happen? And I think one of the ways that it can happen is if we start to look at people as members of groups instead of the beautiful individuals that they are that are created by God. Because then if you put people into groups and start to then define that group as an enemy, then I think people can do atrocious things to individuals because they look at them as a member of a group instead of the beautiful individual that they are.

Roger Mangan
Very well stated, Kim. I think I would agree with that 100%. I was looking up some numbers. Let me refresh these numbers for you so you can understand the import of this atrocity that happened in Oradour-sur-Glane.

There were 240 women and 205 children that were put in that church. So the Germans threw hand grenades into the church, they torched the church, and there were actually seven survivors. And the survivors survived because they were under a body that was on top of them. The Germans came in afterwards to make sure everybody was dead.

So it was a lesson that really backfired on them because The fact that there were survivors that could tell the story of what happened,

Kim Monson
and again, you’ve got to stand against people that are pushing tyranny. I know that even in this battle of ideas that we’re involved in today, Roger Mangan, there are those that are saying, hey, if I just keep my head down, if I don’t make any waves with whatever is happening out there, then it’s going to be OK. That’s not the case. Because those that are bullies, those that are pushing tyranny, if you don’t stand up against them, they just become emboldened.

Roger Mangan
You know it reminds you a lot of things one is a rule of law you know we have laws in this country that were formulated by our representatives in Congress and those laws were we put a lot of thought and effort in those laws going back to the Time of our independence to today in the last four years five years ten years Whatever these laws are we have to obey them in Concerned about it think it’s time for us to say hey We’ll take a look at your side of the equation, but while we’re doing that or your side of the argument While we’re doing that we need to say okay that we have a system a process to address this so let’s use that system and by the way We’re the only country on the face of the planet that has given its citizens the power to make change and Anyplace you go, you can go to China, you can go to North Korea, you can go…

I remember the first time I went to Spain as a young man. Spain was a beautiful country. Found out a lot of things about Europe. This is my first European trip in 1977 and love the people.

Everything seemed so quaint. It was like history had stopped. Some of these places haven’t changed in hundreds of years. and got back to the United States and for some reason I thought I’m so lucky to live here where opportunity and progressiveness where we are always trying to improve what we’re doing.

We have a mantra in this country that no other country really possesses on a grand scale. Every country has its little circle of very progressive, dynamic, and intellectual people who are trying to move society into the future, keep up with what’s going on. But in this country, it’s almost the opposite. It goes so fast, we wish it would slow down because it can overwhelm us.

But going back to my first trip to Europe, coming back to the United States, I was ready to kiss the ground. I didn’t quite do it, but it was, thank God I live in the United States.

Kim Monson
Well it is an amazing country and we’re going to continue the discussion about Roger Mangan’s stepfather who served two and a half years, all those battles coming up from northern Africa all the way up to the Rhine River. What an amazing story and we get to listen to this because of our sponsors.

Speaker 3
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Kim Monson
And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website, that is AmericasVeteranStories.com. And do check out the website for the Center for American Values, that is AmericanValuesCenter.org. The center is located in Pueblo, which Pueblo is known as the home of heroes because there are four Medal of Honor recipients that grew up there.

www.americanvaluecenter.org And in studio with me is Roger Mangan. We’re talking about his stepfather, Louis Mangan, who fought in World War II, two and a half years. He didn’t have any leave to come home during that two and a half years, did he?

Roger Mangan
Oh, no, not at all. No, no, not at all. That’s for sure. It’s interesting.

One of the things, so he started in Africa, that was involved in the invasion of Sicily, then Italy at Anzio and Salerno, and then part of his unit went up to Montecassino, and ultimately in France. And as the war ended, he was in France. He was in a small town called L’Homme Le Saunier. which is a small village near the Swiss border on the way to the Rhine and in that little town he his company, his group was stopped there for two weeks.

And usually they never stop anywhere for two weeks. So during that two week period, he got to meet some of the French citizens of that little town and became very attached to them. There were three couples, three married couples, and they were winemakers and So in my dad’s wallet he had a label of wine and on the back of that label he wrote the address of this house. And he used to show that to me from time to time.

It didn’t mean much to me at the time, but when we made our trip back to Europe together, when he was 72 years old, he had that label and he wanted to search out this town and these people. Well, we went to the town, we asked if these folks still live in the same house and of course in the United States the answer would be no, but these people 37 years later still live in the same house. So we knocked on the door, And lo and behold, the resident was a French man my age, actually, in his 50s. His name was Roger, which is Roger in French, and I’m Roger, so we chit-chatted a bit, and I explained to him as best in my French that I could.

This is my dad. He spent some time with your family and a couple other families when he was here during World War II. And he said, well, five of the six have passed away. And however, my mother still here lives in the third floor.

It was like a fourth floor of four floor apartment unit. So and she came down and they were speaking to each other as best they could. It was all French and all English. And my dad, when he walked into this first floor, said, you know, behind that door right there is a garden shaft and it’s really an air shaft.

because in Europe, when they’re building buildings like that, they have to get air flowing through. When you’re on the fourth floor, you want to have some fresh air, right? So this big air shaft, which is really a garden, he opened the door and lo and behold, he remembered there was a garden, still a garden there. And I was amazed, you know, 31 years later, he can still remember this particular floor plan and how the house was laid out.

Anyway, the survivor was Roger’s mother and she came down and I keep telling my wife and This lady you knew that in her day. She was a beauty. She had beautiful flowing hair great complexion just wonderful features and she’s so kind and she was so grateful to see my dad because One of the things that happened when he was there during those two weeks. They befriended him, they became good friends and he took out his little label bottle, his wine label and showed them the wine label and how he cherished it all these years and he kept it.

So we made that return journey. Anyway, he was standing with one of the people that had passed away on a corner and I can’t remember this fella’s name, but he said, I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. And what he couldn’t believe is all the Allied ordnance that was coming down the street, truck after truck, tank after tank, all of them going to the German border to the Rhine, which was another 40 miles up the road.

ready to invade Germany and it was like I felt so prideful that this guy was so impressed with our ability to bring all of this equipment in to free France from the German invaders and this guy was so thankful to my father and they got to be good friends And then of course they passed away and my dad was still alive, so he got to meet the survivor of this group of three families. And it was breathtaking. Actually, we had lunch with him that day on the third floor.

It was a young girl there who was learning English, and so we were able to get some good conversation going with her translating abilities. Roger

Kim Monson
Mangan, there is something remarkable about Americans and when I was in Normandy, there was a story of one of the Well, the guys that we were with, one of them, 101st Airborne, jumped in behind enemy lines. Two of them were on Higgins boats. One was a ramp operator. The other was a pilot on a Higgins boat, which first wave of Omaha Beach, which is known as Bloody Omaha.

And then one of the guys was in the Army Air Corps bombing on June 6, 1944. But one of the guys Ultimately, that we traveled with was from Holland. And there were 26 of us in the group. And we were at the fields of Lafayette.

I’ve told the story before, but I think that it’s important because it connects a dot here about Americans. And at the fields of Lafayette, they have a big paratrooper in honor of D-Day. And so, because we were with the vets, we were like we were with Elvis, because they, the people of Normandy revere these veterans. And so we’re at the At the Fields of Lafayette, there’s a big viewing stand and Ralph, the guy from Holland, comes over and he says, Kim, there is a German World War II vet that’s here.

He wants to talk to our guys. And he said, I was on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944. And when the Allies were coming onto the beach, and been a firefight all day, what’s amazing is by the end of that day, we did have a toehold in Normandy. lots of casualties lots of loss of life but he said that it was later on in the day and there was a young American GI that came up on the beach and I took out my carbine and I pointed it at him and I shot and I hit

him in the gut and he went down on his and he took his helmet off went down on his knees fell face first turned over made the sign of the cross and he died And he said that changed my life. He said up until that time, all I ever knew was Hitler, that Hitler was God. And here was this young man who was across an ocean away from the people that he loved, putting his life on the line for people that he didn’t know so that they could live freely. He said, it changed my life.

He said, I deserted. I ultimately was captured, was sent to Siberia, sent out on missions that I should not have survived. But here I am all these years later wanting to let you know that that one action by that GI changed my life. So when you’re talking about your stepfather and him standing there with this man on the street in France with all of these ordinance going through, all of these men that are moving forward to go to the boundary there, the border between Switzerland and Germany, all of these men

from the cities, towns, the villages, the farms, of America, they put their lives on the line. It’s a remarkable thing to think about, I think, Roger Mangan.

Roger Mangan
Yeah. Yeah, it sure is. I mean, you frame it so well. You know, when we left this small little town in France, we were heading toward the Swiss border, the German Swiss border.

And my dad was involved in the liberation of Dachau. So when we got to the border, I said to my dad, do you want to go to Dachau? He said, no, thank you. 31 years later, he still remembered the smell.

The bodies piled up like cordwood on the railroad cars. I’m sorry, I get very emotional about this. And so we headed toward Heidelberg and ended up Then going to Normandy. from there, so we had, we covered a lot of ground and he, he was never involved in Normandy but he wanted to see it.

Was he involved in Battle of the Bulge at all?

Kim Monson
No, no. Okay. Yeah. He was down, still then probably to the south.

Roger Mangan
Yeah, they, they crossed the Rhine, eventually crossed the Rhine and got into Dachau and it was, you know, there’s a side story, this is not involving my dad, but there’s a very famous He was a major at the time. He actually was a war hero. He was an attorney here in Denver who passed away probably 10 years ago, but he was very, he was part of the Thunderbird group out of Oklahoma and Colorado, the National Guard. And he, He got a lot of battlefield commissions.

He started as a lieutenant captain, the major, and he was involved in a lot of battles. And usually, you know, you get some R&R. He had been involved in I don’t know how many battles, got very little R&R. So he was in Dachau.

And when they went into there’s a There’s a gate between the town and the concentration camp in Steele. Rods and steel fences. It says on top in German, to work is to live. Okay.

So when you’re a prisoner, you go in there, you get assigned different jobs and so forth, but you don’t know you’re, you’re in a concentration camp where you may, your life may end. But in that concentration camp, Dachau, back in the time we were there, it was very Not me and my dad, a different trip. I don’t want to confuse you, but we didn’t go to Dachau. But this guy I’m talking about, this major, he was involved in the liberation of Dachau.

When he got through the gate, there were a bunch of German SS that lined up against the wall, put their hands up, and he, this guy, went around the corner, and then he heard gunfire. And his outfit, actually, He was He was, when he went around the corner, and again, this is not my dad’s story, but please listen to it because it’s very telling. He went around the corner, heard the gunfire, ran back, and that event had occurred. And in the meantime, through another gate at Dachau came a general who had the press corps with him and was looking for some kind of notoriety.

General came up to this major and said, hey, what’s going on here? And he says, I’m here to relieve you of your command, Major. And the major says, sorry, I have orders to secure this camp, and I cannot relinquish my orders to you. And the American general said, you better do it, or you’re going to get court-martialed.

And I wish I could remember his name, because he’s a hero in my mind. He took out his 45 he says you see this. I don’t want to use it on you, but I have orders and I am not going to relinquish this camp to you. So he says, well, you’re going to get court-martialed.

The guy got court-martialed. And as the story goes, and this is he lived in Denver until he died 10 or so years ago. Anyway, he got a court-martial and in the court-martial tribunal there was a general sitting there listening to the story and this general happened to be Patton and Patton said to this major, you were involved with me in Africa and Sicily and you did a great job for me and I really appreciate everything you did.

Case dismissed. And that’s a real story and I don’t know if you know about the school, what’s the Catholic school? Regis? Yeah, Regis University up on Federal and 57th.

They had a program Every year, it was American war stories. And you could actually attend that as a student. And if you were a vet, you could go in there and sit and listen to it, the stories that were told. And all the wars that were from Korea, Vietnam, to any First World War guys 10 years ago still alive were telling their stories.

World War II, certainly. But it ends up where you can go to this class, get credit, and these young people up in front of the class in this big lecture room with seats going up higher and back. You had all the vets in back and you had all the students in front. What an amazing, amazing program that was.

I don’t know if it’s still going on, but if it is, it’s certainly worth attending. And did this gentleman tell his story? Yes, he told

Kim Monson
his story. Wow. Oh, gosh. Amazing story.

Absolutely fascinating. And we have one more segment with Roger Mangan regarding his stepfather, Louis Mangan, and his fighting in World War II. We will be right back.

Speaker 1
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Kim Monson
Welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure and check out our website. That is americasveteranstories.com. I’m talking with Roger Mangan, state farm insurance agent, has been in business taking care of his family and his clients and giving back to the community for 49 and a half years.

And that phone number if people want a complimentary appointment with Roger or a member of his team is 303-795-8855. Roger, we’re talking about your stepfather, Louis Mangan. And he was in those battles in Northern Africa, went up through Italy, the invasion of Southern France, the liberation of Dachau. And ordinary Americans can do extraordinary things.

And he sounds like an extraordinary man to me. You got up to Normandy. You’re just about done with your trip. How long were you gone?

We were gone

Roger Mangan
about three weeks, yeah, a three-week trip. You know, it’s interesting when you think about going as a soldier versus going as a tourist. It’s like, was I really here? Was this a place that I fought battles and everything looked so peaceful and so quaint?

But at the tail end of our trip, yes, we did go up to Normandy. He wanted to see it because he was involved in the war but never got close to Normandy. So we took a train from Paris to the Norman coast. Transcribe in US English also there and they were so different.

The American cemeteries had white crosses, a very brilliant sun hit them and it just lit up the crosses. The German cemeteries were all carved in granite and they were very very depressing to be honest with you and so we visited all the sites around Normandy and one of the things that happened that at night we went to a hotel and walking through the lobby of the hotel probably around seven o’clock at night we overheard some people at a bar and it happened to be the 50th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy so a lot of people showed up and we were not not Someone from the Netherlands, a German, and also an Englishman. And the Englishman was a great storyteller and he was telling the story about where they invaded on the Norman beaches.

They certainly met a lot of resistance, but not as much as the Americans did. Juno Beach

Kim Monson
and Omaha Beach. And it was 45 years, I just did the math.

Roger Mangan
Thank you, thank you very much. I need that help. Anyway, the man from Holland or the Netherlands, he was a collector and he had a cigarette pack and in World War II the cigarette packs were very thin or three cigarettes in a pack, opened them up, passed it around. Everybody took a puff, including me, and I’m not a smoker, so we We commemorated the event.

The Englishman told some pretty ugly stories about his captain and his sergeant getting gunned down by a German half-track that came down the hedgerows. And the hedgerows in Normandy are like 8 to 10 feet high where dirt is pushed aside and it actually surrounds the field and the French farmers would till that land but the hedgerows were covered with trees and everything else. It was very difficult to fight a battle so this half-track came over these hedgerows and saw this English column coming down between the hedgerows and open fire and he told a story of his sergeant that he loved and his captain were killed in that incident. So it was really interesting hearing firsthand some of the battles that were where we were face to face with the enemy and not just something out of a history book.

Kim Monson
It really is amazing to bring this history alive. That’s why we do the show. And what’s your final thought? We’ve got a minute left, Roger Mangan, regarding this great story about your stepfather, Lewis Mangan.

Roger Mangan
Well, Lewis Mangan changed my life for sure. He was a rock solid never talked about the war as most veterans never did. It was nothing to brag about or to tell stories about because it was so tragic. But because of him, I became who I am today.

He was the bedrock of my life from age 11 through age 17 when I went away to college. But just that short period of six years, seven years, he made a big difference in my life, gave us stability, gave us love. And he gave us a lot of pride. We knew that he was such a fundamental part of a lot of people’s

Kim Monson
lives. And again, this is the story of Lewis Mangan and Roger. I really appreciate you sharing his story. I’m going to think about this really for a long time, about this young 24 year old.

He was the old guy at that particular point in time. So again, Roger Mangan, thank you so much for all that you do, for your support of our shows. We really definitely do appreciate it. And as we listen to these stories, you can find them at americasveteranstories.com, we realize that indeed, we do stand on the shoulders of giants.

So my friends, God bless you, and God bless America.

Announcer
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Monson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.

Speaker 2
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ Management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.