Many of the men of my father’s generation were not wont to tell the stories they’d lived as soldiers during World War II. My father was one of them.
Every now and then some thing or event would trigger his memory to recall some snippet of a story that was a stand-alone recollection, lacking both beginning or end.
We learned from my father that he was shot—this for the third time—and he climbed into a trench to take cover. Water had accumulated into shallow pools that froze his legs on that early Holland January day. In a Paris hospital, where he’d be a resident for six months, a surgeon visited him bedside to discuss the amputation of a foot. My father wanted no part of this plan and told the doctor that this was unacceptable.
“Yes,” said the doctor, “but I’m the doctor and I know what’s best.”
“You might be the doctor,” my father said, “but you’re a second lieutenant and I outrank you. Find another treatment. And that’s an order.”
Captain Liska got to keep his foot, which grew numb in cold weather as he aged. That was enough for Dad to justify his spending winter months in Florida or Arizona, finally settling in Palm Desert when his first, and only, granddaughter was born in nearby Los Angeles.
He loved to tell a brief story about the coldest place he had ever been was Yuma, Arizona. There were no details, beyond learning that he and his best friend from Officers Candidate School, Ed Letnovitch, had been sent there for advanced training in desert warfare.
Dad’s next stop was Colorado Springs, where he and Ed were put in charge of developing an Army training camp. After the war, the camp was designated to become the Air Force Academy. His story included the fact that he and Ed were bivouacked in a luxury suite at the Broadmoor Hotel, a vacation destination whose rooms today approach a four-figure daily charge.
My mother had graduated Denver University and as a present, her boss at the insurance company where she had worked throughout her junior and senior years, bought her a round-trip airplane ticket (plus one for her best friend, Ruth) and a three-day stay at the Broadmoor. Neither of them had ever been on an airplane which, in this case, was a jaunt that probably lasted fewer than twenty minutes.
And neither of them had ever stayed at a “luxury resort.”
The manager of the hotel was a friend of my mother’s boss, and he was given strict orders to find escorts for the two girls. They were to be, first and foremost, gentlemen. Dad and Ed were the gentlemen the hotel’s manager chose to show the young women a good time. Which, apparently, they did. Their three days were enough to warrant several months of letter-writing between the two couples. They became engaged, with weddings to follow their overseas assignments in North Africa, for which they had trained in the Arizona desert.
The Army being the Army, Dad and Ed were sent to London to participate in the planning for the D-Day incursion. Dad used to say that the desert training must have been in anticipation of a beach landing. “There was lots of sand in both places,” he’d joke.
He loved his story about meeting his future wife. It was one he told frequently, always with a big smile on his face, frequently with a detail or two changed.
He smiled remembering his time living in Montmartre, Paris, telling us about living above a saloon whose owners had vacated their apartment to aid in the American war effort. He regaled us with his story about having been assigned a driver and the sidecar he rode in next to his driver’s motorcycle. He dreaded left turns as the sidecar would lose touch with the pavement.
There were few things my father dreaded or feared. Topping the list were motorcycles, followed by guns, fireworks, heights, roller coasters and Ferris wheels, the latter of which he recalled going on with his first date with my mother. My own dreads I learned from him, and we’d stand next to each other at KiDDieLand and watch Mom and my sister ride the roller coaster and soar into the sky on the Ferris wheel. No thanks.
Dad never told me how he got his assignment for the June 6 incursion onto the Normandy shore. But he and Ed were both given charge of Higgins boats, landing crafts that would spill its soldiers onto Omaha Beach. They took on fire as the soldiers tried to get to the sand. There were few points of safety and most of the men died in the lapping shoreline waves of the English Channel.
Ed made it to shore, his head rolling past my father’s feet.
That’s the most Dad would say about losing his best friend, who seemed like part of our family. When I visited Omaha Beach a few years ago, I stood on the sand and looked inland and back to the sea to imagine that day.
I couldn’t.
Photo montage by Courtney A. Liska
Pommes Château
Chateau potatoes are potatoes with the shape of a barrel or an olive, I choose the finger potatoes, so I don’t need to shape them. This dish is a perfect accompaniment to roast meats.
8 – 12 Fingerling peeled potatoes or small potatoes
Salt
Whole 10-12 black peppercorns
One bay leave
One sprig of thyme
Two garlic cloves (crushed – don’t need to peel them)
Water
Make sure all of the potatoes are the same size so that they will cook evenly.
Put the potatoes, salt, whole black peppers, bay leave, thyme, and garlic in a pan and cover them with cold water until the potatoes are just submerged. Then turn on the heat and bring the water to a boil. After five minutes, turn down the heat and boil the potatoes for 20-30 minutes or until you stick a fork in a potato and it goes in easily, the potatoes are done.
Remove the pan from the stove and pour off the hot water.
Put the potatoes in a skillet, warm them for few minutes, drizzle the butter mixture over them.
Sprinkle with the parsley, capers, salt, and pepper and serve immediately.