Gwen: This case investigates a possible connection between this medal and a top secret military mission in World War II.

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Episode 910, Story 1 Leopold Medal Gwen: This case investigates a possible connection between this medal and a top secret military mission in World War II. September, 1944.

1 Episode 910, Story 1 Leopold Medal Gwen: This case investigates a possible connection between this medal and a top secret military mission in World War II. September, For five years, Hitler s occupation of much of Europe has been enforced with military might and a ruthless propaganda campaign. But as the tide slowly turns against the Germans, accurate information on the war and the growing number of allied victories is often learned through rumor, whisper, and underground or smuggled media. But on September 23 rd, 1944 with the flick of a switch, one of the most powerful radio stations in Europe started broadcasting a message of hope deep behind enemy lines. Now, Joe Goularte, Jr. from Vacaville, California has found an item that may be connected to the wartime battle for hearts and minds. He hopes will shed light on his father s enigmatic past. Joe Goularte: After my father passed away, I found this wrapped in an old paper bag. Gwen: Hi, I m Gwen Wright. Joe: Hi Gwen, I m Joe Goularte. Come on in. Gwen: Thank you.

2 Joe: Let me get the medal. Well, this is the medal that the Belgian government gave my father in World War II. It s the Order of Leopold. This I found after he passed away. I was cleaning out the garage, and I found it wrapped up in a paper bag with some other mementos. Gwen: Oh, it s very beautiful. Joe: And this is a picture that I have of him receiving the medal. Gwen: There it is right there. Gwen: Joe was surprised to see that his father had received a medal from Belgium a country he wasn t aware his father had served or even visited. Did your father ever talk about his experiences during World War II? Joe: Dad never spoke very much about it. My mother was the one who told me that he d wake during the night yelling, Get me out of here, I can t stand the stench. Gwen: Well, that s common for people who ve experienced the traumas of war. Joe: And that s true. The only story he really related to me was about He had a company of Eastern European Jews, and they would go behind enemy lines, and bring out Germans who wanted to defect. This is Dad s company of men.

3 Gwen: Was he Jewish or Eastern European? Joe: No. Gwen: Tell me, Joe, exactly what you d like for me to try to find out? Joe: I went to the website of the Order of Leopold. And on the website, I found Eisenhower, and Patton, and heads of European states. And I wondered, what put my Pop in such lofty company. Gwen: Do you have anything else to show me? Joe: I do have his service records here. Gwen: Oh that will be very useful. It s pretty heavy. It could be silver. The crown must refer to Belgium being a monarchy. So the Order of Leopold and a Chevalier we would call a knight. And there s a number at the top, A/0/8500. The Order of Leopold is the oldest and highest order of Belgium. Established in 1832 by King Leopold with three divisions. And the Army division is distinguished by two crossed swords above the cross and below the crown. The decoration is awarded for meritorious service of immense benefit to the Belgium nation or for extreme bravery in combat.

4 Situated between France and Germany with the Netherlands to the north and Luxembourg toward the south, by 1944 Belgium had been brutally occupied by German forces for four years. Following the D-Day invasion, the tiny nation was the scene of savage combat between the Nazis and the liberating allied army during the battle of the bulge in the winter of With his story of going behind enemy lines and his traumatic memories, I wonder what combat Joe s father might have seen in Belgium? I ll send an to the Belgian Embassy asking if they have any information. And let s see what i can figure out from his service record. Born in Redwood City Tribune. So he worked for a newspaper in California. But nothing very specific. He enlisted in 41. And June 44 through October 45 he goes into combat. So the whole time that he was in Europe he was in something called the fourth MRB Company. It appears that MRBstands for Mobile Radio Broadcasting. There s not a lot of detail, but it seems the MRB.s were roaming media units producing propaganda in the field. Now this is interesting he received confidential clearance from an unknown agency at Camp Ritchie. The US Army activated Camp Ritchie in 1942 as a military intelligence training center. This must be why so much of the information was confidential.

5 It also appears that many of the soldiers at Camp Ritchie were Jewish refugees from Europe. This might connect to Joe s father s story of working with eastern European Jews. I want to learn more about these mobile radio units and exactly what was happening at Camp Ritchie. 92-year old veteran and artist Si Lewen like Joe s father, was trained at a mobile radio broadcasting unit. He invites me to his home in Gwynedd, Pennsylvania. Now I am investigating man named who was also at Camp Ritchie in the fourth MRB unit. Here s a picture of him when he is receiving a medal the Order of Leopold. Do you remember ever meeting him or knowing him? Si Lewen: Looking at the picture, no. Gwen: Have you ever seen a medal like this? Si: No. First time I ve seen this. Gwen: Born in Germany, Si explains how he left Berlin at the age of 14, in 1933, just months of Hitler coming to power. When Germany declared war on the U.S., he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was sent to Camp Ritchie. Si: Most of us were German refugees who are driven out of Germany because of our Jewish background. We knew the enemy, we had gone to school with them. We played with them and we knew how to get into their minds you know.

6 Gwen: I don t think that Goularte had ever been in Germany. He d been brought up in California, his family was Portuguese. And he had worked for a newspaper before he went there. Si: So he was a writer. His qualifications were probably for getting into MRB Company was his writing experience. Gwen: The MRB companies were propaganda teams that had been deployed into Europe shortly after D-Day. Si says his unit, the 3 rd MRB, attempted to contact enemy forces directly on the front lines. Si: C est moi. That s me in the armored car. And this is the loudspeaker and here I m holding up the microphone addressing probably you know German contingent being in this woods there. Gwen: What was it like trying to convince the Germans to surrender using this loudspeaker? Si: The last thing you wanna do is to expose yourself. But here with the loud speaker you practically saying, hey fellows here I am, here I am. Gwen: It was extremely dangerous work. Si: We, we were afraid. I would be considered a traitor to Germany and possibly could be executed on the spot as some of us were. Especially if you fell into the hands of the SS. They are waiting for you. And so then of course at this moment you have firefight. You start shooting. You become like animal. There was one situation when it was all over a buddy of mine there -- says, Lewen, you ve been

7 hit. Because I was full of blood. And they called for medics it wasn t my blood. People do not know what war is like. They have no idea. They don t know what the smell is like. Gwen: Si s memories of combat sound like the nightmares Joe said his father suffered. Do you know if the fourth MRBever fought in Belgium? Si: No. The fourth MRB had to do no fighting whatsoever. They were strictly radio people. Gwen: Si explains how the fourth MRBhad a very different role in the propaganda war. Once they landed in Europe they would put up the radio towers as we advanced closer to Germany and we had captured Radio Luxembourg which was the which was the most powerful radio in all of Europe, maybe in the world probably. We had captured it. That s what probably, most probably, I m quite sure Goularte was involved in. What exactly was Joseph Goularte s and the fourth MRB s mission at Radio Luxembourg? Military Intelligence Historian Clayton Laurie meets me at a local Washington, D.C. radio station. He explains why Radio Luxembourg was so vital to the Germans and the allies. Clayton Laurie: Radio Luxembourg was owned by the Luxembourg government. Started in 1922 or so. By the mid-1930s it s one of the more popular radio stations in Europe. It s about a 200 kilowatt radio station when most of them are about 50 at that time. So this radio station has a continental reach to get everything in central Europe and Western Europe.

8 Gwen: The Germans had seized the powerful transmitter to disseminate propaganda during their occupation of Luxembourg. But following D-Day, Radio Luxembourg was captured by the allies, and now, Joe s father s unit was in charge. Clayton: So they brought the fourth Mobile Radio Broadcast Company in to get the station back up and running. The fourth MRB is going to have radio technicians. They re going to have people who are capable of running scripts and producing actual radio programs. Gwen: Now Goularte was trained at Camp Ritchie in psychological warfare. How would that have been used here? Clay suggests Joe s father s training in psychological warfare may have helped him persuade German soldiers and civilians warning them of military defeat, but also assuring both would be treated well. Clayton: They are addressing Germans who are in the path of the allied advance. That the allied armies were not going to rape, pillage and loot. And they weren t going to destroy property unless there was resistance in German villages and towns. They re both trying to undermine German moral and also convince German soldiers at the front to actually come across the line and surrender. Gwen: But what specifically did Joseph Goularte do at Radio Luxembourg? Clayton: This came from the National Archives from the records of the headquarters for all psychological warfare efforts.

9 This is a staff roster for Radio Luxembourg in the winter of Goularte is right here. He s commander of the fourth Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company. It appears he s the person who is actually doing the day to day work that keeps the station operational. Gwen: So there s some truth to the story Joe heard about his father leading Germans to defect except that, instead of engaging them on the battlefield, Goularte used the power of the airwaves to reach across enemy lines. But I m still not exactly clear about why the Belgian government singled him out for this high honor. I ve received an from Joris Totte, a diplomat at the Belgian embassy. He s made inquiries at a government archive in Belgium. So Joris, here is the medal, the Order of Leopold. Joris: The Order of Leopold indeed. Knight grade. Gwen: Joris explains that Belgium awards multiple levels of the order of Leopold, the highest is the Grand Cordon Eisenhower received, followed by Patton s Grand Officer, down to Joseph Goularte s Chevalier, or knight grade. Joris: For a foreign soldier to get one of these medals he has to perform an extraordinary service to the country. Gwen: Do you have anything that mentions his name? Joris: Yes we do. We took a look at the medal and it has a reference number on it. Well we did some digging in the records and they came up with what we call a

10 Royal Decree. And you ll see here it has the same number on it 8,500. And this document states Joseph Goularte is to be ordered this medal. Gwen: and Joris has a second document. This has been written by Jan Von Overloop. And you see it has the same reference number on the top. And Jan van Overloop was one of the Belgians that was posted at Radio Luxembourg. What Joris reads to me next explains why Joe s father had been honored by a foreign government. Your father was one of a small group who helped develop modern media-based intelligence during World War II. I tell Joe about the special soldiers chosen to train at Camp Ritchie and the groundbreaking missions the mobile radio broadcasting units had in World War II. Joe: Well, I ll be darned. I had no idea that we were doing it during the Second World War. Gwen: And I explain to Joe that his family story had some historical truth to the MRB units had broadcast behind enemy lines, attempting to persuade German soldiers to surrender. That s where the story you heard began.

11 And I d finally gotten an answer to exactly why Joe s father had been honored after the war s end. Written in French, the commendation from the Belgian government declares Radio Luxembourg had another vital function broadcasting to civilians that occupied Belgium and prisoners of war trapped in deep inside Germany, letting them know that liberation was coming soon. Joris: This reached out to Belgians in prison and Belgians who were deported who were still suffering from the war effort. Gwen: Joseph Goularte s fourth MRB company let listeners know the long nightmare of nazi rule was coming to an end. Joris: And it was designed to give them hope, comfort and information about the progress of the war. And that s a very important effort. And that s why our Ministry and the King decided this is an exceptional service to our countrymen. Joe: So, he brought some joy into some people s lives. Gwen: Absolutely, people who must have been in despair. And this is a copy of the royal decree that specifically mentions your father, in awarding a Chevalier of the Order of Leopold. Joe: The family s going to be astounded and happy to see this. It fills in a lot of holes in our father s life. So, it s great to have. Thank you guys very much. Gwen: The success of radio broadcasting as a psychological operations tactic influenced modern warfare. A 21 st century version of radio psy-ops is the U.S. Air Force s, commando solo, an airborne broadcast station that is able to send

12 am/fm radio messages, and TV images over any frequency. The aircraft has been used in combat zones and in peacetime efforts such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

A Veterans Oral History Heritage Education Commission Moorhead, MN

A Veterans Oral History Heritage Education Commission www.heritageed.com Moorhead, MN Orville Perhus Narrator Polly Wendelbo Interviewer January 2007 I d like to ask you your name and where you grew up?