1975-01-26-sc-p3-mann-painting-presented

January 26, 1975 Spokane Daily Chronicle Page 3:

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Col. Robert Huddleston (left) and Mrs. J. H. Mann examine painting of Mann Memorial in Best, Holland, presented by Kees Wittebrood.

Mann Memory Alive

By BILL SALLQUIST

It’s been more than 31 years since Pfc. Joe E. Mann, a Reardan farm boy, sacrificed his life in the liberation of Holland, but the memory of his action still lingers in the minds of the Dutch people.

Evidence of that lasting recognition was seen here today in the presentation of an oil painting of the Mann Memorial in Best, Holland, to Army Reserve officials. The painting will hang in the Mann Army Reserve Center, N4415 Market.

In Spokane to deliver the painting was Kees Wittebrood, a Dutch journalist and representative of the Netherlands Association of Airborne Friends which commissioned the artwork.

In his remarks at today’s presentation ceremony, Wittebrood said that to understand why Dutchmen still revere Mann, "you have to go back to the 10th of May 1940 when our country was suddenly and wholly unexpectedly invaded by the Germans.

"In the course of a few hours, our country was deprived of its freedom,” he said. "The four years of enemy occupation which followed were years of terror.”

The Allied landing at Normandy occurred in June 1944, Wittebrood noted. “And, finally, on Sept. 17, 1944, the American 101ist Airborne Division came tumbling out of the sky in Son, near Eindhoven ..."

"One of these men was Joe Mann,” who later threw himself on a German grenade to save the lives of his comrades, he said. Mann received the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for that act.

Wittebrood said the painting presented today should "...remind you all that the American nation has had, and still has, heroes willing to offer their lives to save others. Joe Mann, a plain Reardan boy, a private soldier without rank, was one of them.”

Today’s ceremony also included presentation of the Silver Torch of Eindhoven, a symbol of liberation, to Col. Robert T. Huddleston, commander of the 385th Combat Support Hospital, Maj. Donald Fries, and the Rev. Philip Falk, Reardan.