Grandson of area WWII casualty produces show on war

Pocahontas resident Marjorie Swan was only 21 years old when her first husband, Denver Loberg of Sedgewickville, died in World War II, leaving her a widow with two children.

Sixty years later, one of her grandsons, David Druckenmiller, is remembering men like his grandfather with a documentary he co-produced and co-directed that will air at 7 p.m. Wednesday on PBS.

"D-Day: Down to Earth, Return to the 507th" tells the story of the men of the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment from their battles in the war to their reunion in Normandy 60 years later.

"It's fantastic," said Swan of the documentary, which she saw an early version of. "Of course, I'm prejudiced, I know."

The 507th landed in Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and went on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge later that year.

In 2002, about 53 veterans of the regiment reunited in Normandy for the dedication of a memorial to their regiment.

Druckenmiller, a video producer at the Georgia Institute of Technology at the time, made the trip in July 2002 at the request of an acquaintance, whose father-in-law was a member of the regiment.

While he was there, Druckenmiller was recording images and doing interviews in order to put together a memento for the regiment veterans.

Upon returning to Atlanta, Druckenmiller teamed with Phil Walker from Jump/Cut Productions to work on the project.

As they worked, both men realized that the story of the 507th was bigger than a memento, so they approached PBS about airing it as a one-hour television documentary.

About a year ago, PBS agreed to air the documentary if it were made longer and included more interviews with veterans. Druckenmiller and Walker have been working on it ever since.

Although the documentary does not include his grandfather, Druckenmiller said that researching the war and talking to so many veterans has given him a much greater understanding of his grandparents.

"It's been great to be able to talk with my grandmother about it," Druckenmiller said. "I feel like I've gotten to know her generation."

Although he grew up near Atlanta, Druckenmiller visited his grandmother on occasion and remembers stopping to visit his grandfather's family, the Lobergs, on the drive to see his grandmother in Missouri.

"As a kid growing up I was sort of aware of who he was," Druckenmiller said of his grandfather. "His mom would tell us stories, but I was so young at the time it didn't really register with me."

Accidental death

The death of Denver Loberg was an accident. He had enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in January 1944 and was sent to England to serve as a gunner-assistant radio operator.

On his first mission on Christmas Eve 1944, the B-24 Liberator Loberg was traveling on began to have mechanical problems as it left England for Germany. Loberg was in the bomb bay putting pins back into the bombs when the decision was made to loose the bombs because the plane was dropping rapidly.

The pilot opened the bay without knowing Loberg was there, and he fell into the English Channel.

Druckenmiller said that like most 35-year-olds, he did not really think about why his grandparents' generation should be appreciated for the sacrifices they made during the war.

It was not just those serving overseas who sacrificed during the war. Swan remembers being able to purchase only three pairs of shoes for a year for each child, tearing up sheets to make bandages and having sugar and canned goods rationed.

"It was definitely a different time," Swan said.

Two years after the death of her first husband, she married Norman Swan, who also served in the military during the war. He served 40 months in the military as a plane mechanic.

The couple moved to Pocahontas in 1946 and had three children.

Swan said she did not dwell too much on the war and the tragedy it caused her family.

"There's that old saying, 'anything that happens to you in this life, if you can live through it, you come through stronger,'" she said. "I think there's some truth to that."

kalfisi@semissourian.com

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