D-Day 2024: Pinellas teacher, student honor fallen soldier

NORMANDY - On this 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, FOX 13 salutes the Tampa Bay soldiers who played a role in turning the tide in World War II. Among the 9,387 American soldiers buried at the Normandy American Cemetery in France is a 19-year-old soldier from St. Petersburg, Private Leo Chalcraft.

Buried in plot G, row 15 and grave 37, Chalcraft was laid to rest 4,000 miles away from home. And he was all but forgotten until Deborah Pettingill and Konner Ross gave him the honor he deserved.

"He was a wonderful example of that regular soldier who was just there doing their duty and what they need to for their country," said Pettingill, a former history teacher at Largo High School who now works for International Academic Competitions.

Just a few months past his 18th birthday, Leo, with his wry smile, was drafted two months before D-Day -- the day the U.S. joined the fight against Hitler's hardened forces who had overtaken and occupied France.

Chalcraft and close to 2000 other U.S. soldiers were on a Belgian ship a few months later, the S.S. Leopoldville heading to Normandy to fight in the Battle of the Bulge, when a German U-boat torpedoed their ship just five miles off of this coast where the dead are now memorialized.

The youngest of three boys from St. Petersburg, Chalcraft's family couldn't afford to bury him in the states, so his sacrifice ended here in Normandy. He never had a eulogy. He never even had a visitor until Pettingill and one of her students more than 70 years later, in 2016.

READ: D-Day 2024: Bay Area veterans travel to Normandy for 80th anniversary

"It's still emotional for me," said Pettingill.

She and Ross, one of her students at the time, felt that Chalcraft would be the perfect subject of a National History Day contest honoring D-Day soldiers and they won. They and several dozen other teacher-student combinations from across the country won a trip to France in 2016 to finally give this silent hero what he deserved.

But survivor accounts of the sinking opened a dark door into his past, as they learned most of the soldiers survived the torpedo blast but weren't trained to use life jackets or lifeboats. So Chalcraft and many of the others died unnecessarily.

"That made it so much harder when we were researching this," Pettingill told FOX 13's Mark Wilson.

Military records show 763 American soldiers lost their lives on the Leopoldville sinking in 1944. About 300 were killed in the blast while all the others drowned and 493 bodies were never recovered.

"There were so many things that went wrong with this incident. Therefore almost 800 men died that shouldn't have if those things hadn't gone wrong," she said.

READ: D-Day 2024: 80th anniversary is personal for FOX 13's Mark Wilson

Documents that Pettingill and Ross found in their research from the National Archives labeled "Secret" indicate survivors of the attack were told to keep quiet about their accounts. And the military kept those accounts classified for decades for fear of hurting morale, leaving many of those like Chalcraft not only fallen, but forgotten.

So when it came time for them to craft and read their own eulogy at Chalcraft's grave, it was a tribute decades overdue, full of deserving words for a young man whose service and memory are silent no more.

Both of them now only hope future generations will continue to read about D-Day and its impact on our world. Most historians agree that there hasn't been a more significant day for our military, our nation and Europe.

READ: D-Day 2024: 100-year-old Bradenton Veteran reflects on 80th anniversary

"It's part of what made us who we are today and if we're going to understand what our country is and want to preserve it, then we have to understand the history of it," said Pettingill.

As for Ross, she says it was also an emotional and unforgettable experience.

"This showed me what it is to truly remember. It's taught me how to feel pain, how to love people, and how to live to keep someone else's memory alive," she said.

Ross moved out west after high school and college, and now works for a museum furthering her passion for history and education.

Leo Chalcraft was also not the only Tampa Bay area soldier who died on the S.S. Leopoldville. Private Dewey Henderson from Tampa was also on board. His remains were never recovered and are now memorialized at the "tablets of the missing" at the Normandy American Cemetery in France.

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If you'd like to read more about Pettingill and Ross' memorial, click here. To read the text of Pettingill and Ross' full eulogy, click here.

To read more about the sinking of the S.S. Leopoldville, click here.

For more about D-Day, click here.

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