1/4 American veteran Frank Fabianski (101) back on the battlefield after 79 years
The 101-year-old veteran Frank Fabianski fought in the liberation of North Brabant, experienced horrific things, but never spoke about them at home in Chicago after the war. He remained silent about his experiences for almost eighty years. Until this week, because he is now making a final tour with his daughter and son-in-law along the places where he once fought for our liberation. “It was a long time ago, but the memories are still there.”
With his advanced age, the American is one of the last living veterans who fought for the liberation of our province. “I’m not a hero. Together with the others, I just did what had to be done.”
“You were just ‘one of the boys doing his job.’
There is not much choice for Fabianski at the start of the Second World War. All his friends sign up for the army to fight. In Europe or Asia. Against the ‘Krauts or the Japs’. While they have often never been further from home than the immediate Chicago area. Frank also goes out into the world with the army.
After the landing in Normandy, his 104th infantry division – better known in West Brabant as The Timberwolves – is deployed for Operation Pheasant. The aim is to expel the German occupier from the Antwerp and North Brabant regions.
It takes Fabianski to Wuustwezel, Wernhout, Achtmaal and Zundert. “We encountered a lot of resistance from the Germans there and I lost a lot of comrades there. That kept me busy after the war. All those fallen friends in my unit that I had to leave behind. I was lucky. But life goes on. and you can’t change that. You were just one of the boys doing his job.“
As a ‘signal specialist’, Frank was responsible for keeping the army leadership informed about the progress of his unit The Timberwolves via coded messages.
According to his daughter Paulette, her father’s experiences were hardly discussed at home in America. “Support for war trauma did not yet exist. But the weeks-long return journey to America on a ship with fellow sufferers certainly helped him.” After returning to America, Frank Fabianski goes to work in a food distribution center in Chicago and leaves the war behind him.
“I’m really surprised how many museums there are still here that pay attention to what we did here at the time.”
Yet an advertisement in the local newspaper recently caught his attention: an invitation to The Timberwolves to join a group of fanatics who are currently reenacting the liberation of Antwerp and North Brabant in military uniform. To make Fabianski’s arrival possible after 79 years, a… collection via the internet started.
The veteran arrived in Brussels on Thursday. “Fantastic! I now see palaces and history of this area, which I did not notice in 1944.” Because Fabianski was sent from one source of fire to another against the Germans. “I’m really surprised at how many museums there are still here that pay attention to what we did here at the time. Only now have I had the time to really take it in.”
After a reception at the American embassy in Brussels and the city hall of Antwerp, he was given a tour on Saturday of a real bivouac of 300 re-enactment players in Nieuwmoer. The veteran was then received at the Military Historical Museum in Achtmaal. Many of his brothers in arms have visited there before and even left personal belongings to acknowledge their presence.
“I worry about my grandchildren because of all the wars in the world today.”
Later this week, Frank Fabianski will be present at various commemorations of the deployment of The Timberwolves Division in Nieuwmoer, Kalmthout, Zundert, Sprundel, Oudenbosch and Etten-Leur. On October 30, he concludes his visit among his fallen comrades at the American war cemetery in Margraten.
Frank Fabianski now has 38 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. “I worry about them because of all the wars in the world today. I think about them a lot and hope they don’t have to go through what we had to go through.”
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