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The ABMC is now using Wikipedia for their source
instead of documentation from the U.S. Army.
Over the summer
of 2015 on FB one day I say a post from Marty
Morgan June 20, 2015. I sent a request June 24,
2015 via the US Mail. I asked for two pieces of
information from the ABMC and that was this; At the
Brittany American Cemetery there is a display about
Captain Loyal Bogart. Requesting the person or
persons who wrote this article shown below and who
approved this display.
 
For over a month I
received no response then received a response via
mail. I sent an email toward the July 18, 2015 to
Nosal the FOIA Public Liaison Office and he
responded with this email on July 18, 2015;
#1
Nosal You filed your recent FOIA request with us, unfortunately, we are not
required to file a response to an imperfect request.
While it is true that you have never been charged a
fee, the FOIA guidelines state that you need to
express a willingness to cover those costs.
The display was
approved by a previous superintendent who is no
longer at the cemetery. Due to the Privacy Act, I
cannot give you the name of the superintendent
responsible for the display, only his position - he
was the previous Superintendent of Brittany American
Cemetery
(Jeffrey Aarnio from 2001 to 2014).
#2 Nosal In
regard to the narrative, I agree that the history as
it appears is overstated. In fact, the current
Superintendent removed the temporary displays last
month for a variety of reasons. If that is what
prompted your FOIA Request, why didn't you simply
ask?
3# Nosal
Here is the basic facts as I know it - Capt. Bogart
parachuted into Normandy and unfortunately, broke
his legs during the landing. He suffered other
injuries as well. Instead of being evacuated, he
demanded to stay with his unit. He assisted in a CP
by manning radios. During a mortar bombardment, he
was once again injured.
After being
captured he was tortured and probably was executed
by the enemy. His body was unceremoniously tossed
aside. There is also the possibility that he died
in the CP from his wounds following the mortar
bombardment. Unfortunately, we may never know for
sure because there are conflicting accounts.
Here is what I
believe to be overstated from the temporary display
- that he was forced to dig his own grave. Given
the condition of his injuries and wounds, there no
way he could have done that.
4# Nosal
Having said all of this, the temporary display,
although partially inaccurate, in no way detracts
from Capt. Bogart's service
BNS
Response - The most basic question is what is the
name of the Superintendent who authorized this
display and who wrote it? You have spent all of this
time trying to deflect the names of those two
people. Or is it the Superintendent wrote it
himself?
There is
no privacy involved in this case. That is like
saying I need a list of all US Presidents and
someone from the Government says no that can be
given out because of Privacy Issues. This person
was in the Public Eye as a Superintendent and has no
expectation of privacy. Yet you refuse to list his
name or the name of the person who wrote the
narrative. Please show the statute that shields the
name of an AMBC resent or past employee.
You
state that we will never know for sure what happened
to Captain Bogart. That is rich to say the least.
The information is in something called an IDPF. You
should look it up. He was taken along with a
Captain from the 507th Prcht Inf Surgeon
and then executed and left in some bushes on the
side of the road.
I sent a request
to the ABMC for the following;
It showed a
display at the Brittany American Cemetery and a
picture of Captain Bogart from Co B of the 501st
Prcht Inf. Captain Bogart was executed on June 12,
1944 along with Captain Sophian the Senior Surgeon
from the Hq Co 3rd Bn, 507th
Prcht Inf.
The Display had
numerous errors which I noticed right away. I
contacted the ABMC (American Battle Monuments
Commission) and filed a FOIA (Freedom of Information
Act) request.
Then I
got almost all of what I requested to begin with.
I only received the Superintends names from the
actual Former Superintendent via email, not from
Nosal. I only got it because of the Fee Waver.
If you don’t fill a “perfect” request he thinks he
doesn’t have to respond. You have to wonder
how he got this job. The better questions is
how did the Higher ups at the ABMC and their
counterpart are CMH get these jobs? Patronage.
All I requested
was the names of two people. This took almost 2
months and dozens of emails to receive this simple
request.
Obviously the ABMC
didn’t want this information to be known. When it
did finally arrive in August of 2015 it showed the
extent of the errors as it pertained to Captain
Bogart. The ABMC is now using Wikipedia for their
source instead of documentation from the US Army.
Where does Nosal
get this from? If the ABMC had just looked at the
IDPF for Captain Bogart it would show he wasn’t
killed on June 11, 1944 by mortar fire.
Please read the information that Nosal sent after
the FOIA request. A majority of the Wikipedia
information is wrong and Gary Fox book has many many
errors in there as well. Instead of using solid
documentation the ABMC did a half ass job once
again.
Brian Siddall
December 4, 2015
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