A Tribute to Henri Levaufre & The 90th Division Association

Saving Pvt Sheridan

TO PatchBack in 1968, Henri Levaufre helped rescue the 90th Division Monument, according to an article by Amelia Abney, The 90th ID at Utah Beach, In Memory of ‘Patton’s Favorite’Division.

At the end of the War, soldiers from the 90th Infantry Division chipped in together to have a monument dedicated to their fallen comrades. At the time, they were stationed in Weiden, Germany, after V-E Day on May 9, 1945.
— The granite for the “stele” came from the quarries at Flossenbürg.
— The 90th Infantry Division liberated the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp on April 23, 1945.

[A "stele" is a tall, upright stone slab used in the ancient world as a monument, grave marker, or boundary sign.]

The monument reads:
To the Memory of the Heroic Dead of
the 90th Infantry Division
U.S. Army
6 June 1944 - 9 May 1945

The stele was left behind in Weiden, Germany as the troops returned home. It remained largely forgotten then somehow in the 1960s, “the stele ended up abandoned in an area behind the Normandy American Cemetery,” according to the article by Amelia Abney.

“The stele remained in the same location, essentially forgotten, until Henri Levaufre, a French 90th Division historian, received a letter in 1968 from the Executive Secretary of the 90th Infantry Division Association, Denby Steel… After a few reconnaissance trips to the Cemetery, with assistance from his children, Henri located the monument, nearly obscured behind a rise in the land and overgrown by twenty years of vegetation. He wrote to Steel, in his own words, "something like 'Mission accomplished" (Levaufre, n.d.), according to the article by Amelia Abney.

In her article, Amelia Abney notes:
In July 1945… General George S. Patton, commander of the Third Army, said of the 90th, "Sometimes I think you don't know how good you are. You are the best soldiers in the world. It was a great honor to command you."

90th Division Reunion — Little Rock, Arkansas 2002

90th Monument
90th Division Monument
Dedicated August 31, 2002 at the 84th Annual 90th Division Reunion in North Little Rock, Arkansas. This monument is a replica of the 90th Infantry Division Memorial on Utah Beach, Normandy, France.

90th Assoc
The 90th Division Assoc. website is dedicated to the Men & Women of the 90th Infantry Division Family
www.90thdivisionassoc.org
90th ReunionHenri   
(L-R) Henri Levaufre and Britt Taylor Collins The reunion featured the dedication of the Henri Levaufre Heritage Center and the 90th Div. Heritage Mural in background by artist Collins.

Henri Levaufre

 

The Henri Levaufre Heritage Education Center

Dedicated August 31st, 2002
Located at Headquarters, 90th Regional Support Command at Camp Pike in North Little Rock, Ark, the Education Center depicts and interprets ths history and heritage of the 90th Infantry Division from its activation in 1917 to the present. The center also serves as a permanent repository of documents, artifacts and photographs of the history of the Tough 'Ombres.

The center is named for Henri Levaufre, a resident of Periers, France. He was a young teenager when the Tough 'Ombres liberated his hometown as part of the Allied fight for Normandy. Fueled by an intense curiousity about the men who risked and lost their lives to free his family from the Germans, Levaufre has spent more than three decades gathering information Museumabout the 90th and getting to know the men who wore the Tough 'Ombre patch into the hedgerow country surrounding Periers.

Over half the exhibit space is devoted to the 90th Division's major campaigns in WWII after their activation at Camp Barkeley, Texas. Text, photographs and artifacts trace the division from the landing on Utah Beach through all the campaigns and battles including Hill 122, the hedgerows in Normandy, the breakout and closing of the Falaise Gap, crossing of the Moselle and Rhine Rivers, the Battle of the Bulge, and the final drive across Germany that ended in Czechoslovakia.

90th Division Heritage Mural

90th MuralArtist Britt Taylor Collins produced this mural depicting the history and heritage of the Tough 'Ombres from the 90th Division. Entitled "We Know the Price of Freedom," the mural is a visual recounting of the 90th's history from World War I to the present. The mural depicts fifteen life-sized soldiers from a doughboy to modern day reserve soldier currently serving in Afghanistan. It is located in the main lobby of the 90th Regional Support Command at Camp Pike, North Little Rock, Arkansas. Click here to visit Britt Taylor Collins' web site www.britttaylorcollins.com