By Carole Robinson • Senior Staff Writer
Before he passed away last year, Jim McLaughlin, a member of American Legion John E. Stephens Post 22 and a veteran of the Seventh Army, often referred to as the Forgotten Army, presented the Williamson County Archives and Museum with framed copies of two newspapers.
One, the German newspaper Pariser Zeitung, dated June 28, 1944 was printed soon after the Normandy invasion, and the other a copy of the Stars and Stripes, the daily newspaper of the Armed Forces, printed May 8, 1945 proclaiming V-Day with the headline, “It’s Over Over Here.”
The front page also includes a story about the surrender at Rheims, Germany, the “Act of Military Surrender,” the document officially recognizing the surrender of the German Army and a front-page article by Andy Rooney, “Good! When Do We Leave This Hole and Go Home?”
In a letter written just before his passing, McLaughlin explained, “I picked up [Pariser Zeitung] sometime after the Normandy invasion. The U.S. Seventh Army, to which my unit was attached, was supposed to head up the Rhone Valley after invading Southern France in Operation Dragoon. Its mission was to prevent the German Army from escaping Normandy and retreating to Germany. However, the Germans were experienced at retreating and were long gone by the time the U.S. 7th Army got underway. The 7th Army is now known as the “Forgotten Army” in history books about WWII.”
Stop by the Archives located at 611 Main St., in Franklin and check out these newspapers and the many other historical artifacts large and small housed there.
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