Warren Bartlett honored his four buddies from the 10th Mountain Division in 1997, creating something that lives and grows to this very day.
He planted four crosses, waist-high, into his property in Lancaster and wrote their names on them. The names of the men who fought with him against the Nazis, skiing down rugged terrain, climbing rocks and fighting in temperatures 20 below zero.
That was supposed to be it, the extent of Bartlett’s vision. Four buddies. Four crosses. Four names.
But word of the tribute spread, highlighting this novel way of showing appreciation in a simple-yet-powerful manner. There was a veteran up north somewhere who had created this homemade hallowed ground. People began to see this as a worthy tribute.
Fast forward, and the site, which has since been moved to Landaff, features 116 crosses, 116 names. Bartlett’s son, Brewster Bartlett of Loudon, has taken over what his father began. Yet respect for his father didn’t peak right away.
Only after Brewster had read some of his father’s personal letters documenting his World War II experiences did he gain the proper context and impact of what Warren had seen and felt. And that was a gradual process, years in the making.
“They were an eye-opener for me,” said Brewster, a semi-retired school teacher at Pinkerton Academy. “I had no idea what they went through. He told me about it maybe a few times, but it has no effect until you start reading them.”
The site moved three years ago, to a friend’s property in Landaff, after the sale of the old home and its 128 acres. But no matter where it is, people know about it, and they want to be part of it.
“More and more are added every year,” Brewster said. “Names of veterans or names of veterans who died during the war. We hear from relatives, ‘Oh, can I put a cross there for my dad?’ We hear that a lot.”
Brewster contacted us this summer. He wanted us to know about his father, what he had endured while fighting in Italy in 1944, the bonds that were created with death just a mortar-strike away, the memorial Warren had set up and the number of crosses that is forever growing.
Veterans Day, on Monday, was instituted because of men like these, these daredevils from the 10th Mountain Division. Warren, born in Berlin before settling in Lancaster, saw an opportunity to fight for his country while doing something he was really good at.
“He wanted to join because there was skiing involved and he loved skiing,” Brewster said. “He figured if he had to join the Army, he could go skiing, and that would be great.”
So he trained, for a highly specialized type of fighting. The kind that means taking and returning fire while fighting the Japanese off the coast of Alaska when it was 20-below, and the kind that means fighting the Germans while skiing down the rugged Italian Alps.
Warren came home, started a family and worked for the registry of deeds. But it was only years later that Brewster got a full taste of what his father had done.
Two years before he died, in 2010 at the age of 90, Warren – buried in a family plot in Lancaster – gave the letters he had saved for seven decades to Brewster. Just like that. This created a perfect storm that some can relate to, featuring the father who for years preferred not to talk about his war experience, while his children weren’t all that curious to begin with.
“He gave me the letters when I was teaching and I had no time to read them,” Brewster said. “I just threw them in a drawer.”
Then he retired a few years ago and yanked off the rubber bands binding the letters, about 150 of them. He read them. All of them, and the impact of what he learned led him to preserve them in plastic sleeves, with the intention of digitizing them for easier access.
One letter, to his parents in Berlin, explained his near-death experience in April, 1945. A sniper had already killed several men, creating a terrifying monster who hid in the shadows and who could kill you in a flash, his handy-work confirmed each time the word “medic!” cut through the air.
“Getting a man of ours every little while,” Warren wrote to his parents, “but no one could see him.”
He continued: “About 10 minutes out the sniper let go a shot just missing by an inch or less. I drop to the ground as though I was shot. The squad about 15 yards or so behind asked if I was ok. I shook my head.”
Brewster has already posted dozens of photos depicting his father through the war years.
With these letters, the internet and a newfound curiosity and pride, Brewster sped through this history like his dad swooshing down the Alps. He learned that men of the 10th fought on snowshoes and skis. They hiked and climbed rocks. They fought and they died, and that included those four buddies who fueled this entire story.
“I started reading (the letters) and it was like, ‘Oh my God,’ ” Brewster said. “None of the guys in the 10th would say a word unless it was between themselves. They never say a word, even to their wives.”
Warren’s letters had a chilling effect, laying out the law before he had even gotten home.
“It is easy to write about it,” a letter said, “than have you keep asking what happened. “So on, etc. So don’t plan on a story of talks when I get home.”
Brewster read about hush-hush stuff, like the time 39 Americans were killed by friendly fire in Alaska, and he read about the brothers he’d lost, namely the four who christened this shrine.
Orval McDaniel was Warren’s best friend, and as Brewster told me, “The loss of his best friend greatly affected him the most.”
Brewster said McDaniel was from Utah, a Mormon. Of course Warren’s letters talked about the time his best friend died.
“One of these three boys, one hand his finger was taken off,” the letter read. “The other hit in the leg. The other would never go home again. Sure it was only my best pal. At the time they told me he was just out and I guessed he’d be okay.”
McDaniel died on April 16, 1945. Totally exhausted, Warren put a blanket over his friend, then, in seconds, heard someone holler, “Okay, let’s move out.” No time to mourn or remember. Germany wouldn’t surrender for another month.
“Now comes the time you just get madder and madder and you go on,” Warren wrote. “Now you have no fear of anything. Just go fighting mad saying nothing to anyone.”
A ceremony at the Bartlett landmark, with lunch and music and mingling, has been held each July since 1997, with Brewster and his siblings taking over about 15 years ago, when their dad had some heart trouble.
Now, with their enhanced appreciation of what their father experienced during the war, Brewster leads an annual clean-up procedure. They’ll dab on some touch-up paint here, darken the black lettering there.
They handle the logistics, securing the music and the food, making sure families who attend this pilgrimage are comfortable.
Next one, July 18, 2020.
The son and his siblings love their roles as caretakers and hosts. They know the backstories. They felt the bonds and the pain and the blood in those letters.
Years ago, when Brewster was old enough, Warren explained the meaning behind his son’s middle name.
Brewster McDaniel Bartlett.
“I always thought, ‘How did I get a middle name like that.’ said Brewster, scoffing.
Then he got serious.
“Means a lot more now than it did before.”