Memorial

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Sgt Ernest F. Fichtl Jr. attended Bayside High School. He worked for American Airlines in New York.

He enlisted on 20 March 1943 in New York City in New York.

From Mrs. Cynthia Brennan, a great niece, we received the following story on 21 December 2018: "My mother, who is 84 years old now, told us this story several times growing up:

“Junior” (Ernest F. Fichtl Jr.) was Mother’s handsome older cousin, and he lived in the house next door to her house (the Stuckey home) in Flushing, NY. The neighborhood at that time had many German immigrants who spoke German with family, neighbors, and in the shops, the Fichtl family among them. (Once WWII broke out, however, the neighbors did not speak so much German in public according to my mother).

When Junior enlisted, his father Ernest joked with him and said that he thought for sure Germany will win the war. Junior smiling, replied ‘Pop, I’m going to make you eat those words when I get back.’. And then Junior was sent to fight in Europe with a tank battalion.

He was killed advancing into Germany a month before the end of the war. Mother related to us several times her memory of Aunt Emmy stumbling, crying across the yard into the house weeping that Junior had been killed. (Junior wasn’t the only one of my Mother’s cousins killed in the war.)

My mother says the death of Junior devastated the family, especially his father Ernest Sr., as you might imagine. ‘Uncle Ernie’ was a broken, tormented man from then on. He went completely blind and mother remembers the rope her father ran from the Fichtl home through the trees over to the Stuckey house so that Uncle Ernie could feel his way back and forth along the ropes between the houses before his death.

My mother always said how handsome Junior was, and I was so happy to finally see a photo of him (on your website) as I had never seen him before. Thank you for all you do to keep the memory of these men alive. "