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Lawrence Frederick GOODMAN

Male 1920 - 1960  (40 years)


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  • Name Lawrence Frederick GOODMAN 
    Birth 12 Jun 1920  St. Louis County, Minnesota Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    MN Death Cert Checked
    Minnesota Birth Certificate 1920-29644 
    Minnesota Death Certificate 1960-MN-016752 
    Death 22 Dec 1960  St. Louis County, Minnesota Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Burial 26 Dec 1960  Lakeside Cemetery, Biwabik, St. Louis County, Minnesota Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Notes 
    • A grandson of John and Marie’s shown in the 1930 census. His father was born in England. In the listing for his father and mother and family in the 1930 census, Lawrence has “AB” after his name meaning, presumably, that he was absent from his family in Kinney Village (and was living with, or at least visiting, his grandparents).

      In the 1940 census, he was single and living at home with his mother and younger siblings. He was a laborer with a construction company.

      He died instantly from a crushed chest caused by a collapsing scaffold. He fell 59 feet. The accident occurred at Erie Mine #2 in Aurora Hoyt Lakes.

      Irene was the informant for his death certificate. Lawrence was a drill mechanic. The Goodmans lived at Box 413, Biwabik.

      Lawrence was a veteran of World War II. His gravestone notes that he was a staff sergeant in the 3508 Base Unit of the Army Air Force. He was a member of the 351st Bombardment Group.

      The following is an article by David Setnicker of Biwabik in a contribution to the hometownfocus.us website.

      For Biwabik native Lawrence “Big Sonny” Goodman, a 24-year-old top turret gunner and one of those “courageous American lads,” this September 12, 1944 mission over Berlin would be his last as the 9-man crew of their B-17, Dinah Might, were struck by shrapnel from German anti-aircraft fire after successfully dropping their payload.

      Riddled by flak and on fire, the plane was doomed but still controllable. The pilot, 2nd Lt. Lopert, and co-pilot 2nd Lt. Darwin Nichols of Pocatello, Idaho, ordered all of the crew to bail out while they struggled to keep the lumbering and burning bomber trim long enough for the crew to bail out over German territory. Six of the nine man crew dropped out the rear escape hatch; only five chutes caught air and drifted safely away from the burning B-17. One of the crew deployed his chute while still in the bomber. He jumped; the chute streamed…he plunged to his death.

      Goodman’s top turret was located just behind the cockpit. When he heard “bailout!” he couldn’t get out; he was trapped, tangled up in a web of turret straps and cords as the flaming plane pitched and yawed, losing precious altitude. It was a race against time as Dinah Might was doomed; it would explode before hitting the ground. It was sheer, confused panic as the plane continued to lose trim and maneuverability. Co-pilot Nichols wasn’t going down with the doomed bomber as he forced himself out of the his cockpit seat towards the open bomb bay. 2nd Lt. Lopert already bailed out through the cockpit escape hatch. He thought he was the last to exit the plane when he peered through the smoke enshrouded cockpit and saw Goodman tangled and struggling unsuccessfully to free himself. Precious seconds ticked away as the bomber lost altitude as 2nd Lt. Nichols cut and freed Goodman from the webbed snare. Dinah Might was fatally earthbound as the last two airmen bailed out. The plane exploded moments later.

      Freefalling from 10,000 feet must have provided but a brief silence and moment of eerie solitude for Goodman before noticing that his hair and boots were aflame as he tumbled earthbound.

      Goodman’s youngest son John, a Biwabik resident, remembered his dad telling him and his older brother Rick about this rare life and death account.

      “If he pulled the rip cord immediately he risked torching the parachute and certain death,” said John. “My dad decided to free fall and hope that the speed of fall and the thin air would extinguish the flames.”

      Seconds clicked away with no good options. Gravity was winning and unfriendly Germans would surely meet him dead or alive whether he pulled the ripcord or not. But precious seconds were just what he needed as his hair and boots, practically burned off, began to smolder. Ripp…puff…jolt…a brief sudden ascent as the chute blossomed before slowly drifting earthbound into German uncertainty.

      We can only imagine what went through the minds of Goodman and his crewmates. Survive the jump and then be beaten to death by German locals seeking revenge for the daily Allied bombings of der Vaterland? Or be captured by the German Army or worse yet, the SS? At least for that day Lady Luck was with him as Goodman, bootless with smoldering hair, and Lt. Nichols landed near a German Luftwaffe airstrip and were captured by a young German Cadet Schmidt at 11:45 a.m. on September 12. Both Americans were sent immediately to the processing camp (DULAG) in Berlin for interrogation and assignment to one of the hundreds of Stalags (POW camps).

      As part of the Geneva Convention Rules of War (sounds like an oxymoron) POWs were only required to provide their name, rank and serial number. However, during the interrogation, Sergeant Goodman was strangely singled out from the other POWs. It was his name…GOODMAN.

      The dialogue could have sounded like this, “Goodman…Sergeant Goodman! Goodman… is that not a Jewish name? You are Jewish, correct?” Jewish POW combatants were segregated and sent to a POW labor camp with the highest fatality rate of any Stalag.

      Goodman’s persistent denial, insisting on his English ancestry, must have found a sympathetic ear amongst the SS interrogators as he was granted a conference with a representative of the IRC (International Red Cross). His tenacity bought him additional time as the IRC corroborated his English ancestry. He was then assigned, along with other POWs, to a “normal” Stalag Luft.

      Prior to July, 1944 the Stalags were under the jurisdiction of the German Luftwaffe (Air Force) where there seemed to be an unwritten “honor and comradeship amongst flyers.” However, by the time Goodman and the crew of the Dinah Might were captured in September, honor and comradeship had long since disappeared. The dreaded SS took control of the Stalags immediately after the botched assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler in July, 1944 and numerous POW escape attempts (portrayed in movies “The Great Escape” and “Stalag 17.”)

      For the most part, Germany upheld the protocol of the Geneva Convention allowing the IRC to report the status of flyers…dead or alive. Goodman’s surviving crew, with the exception of Lt. Nichols and the airman whose chute streamed, was reported as POW or KIA respectively. Parents and wives were informed of their loved one’s status.

      All camp guards now came under the direct control of the SS. Before the SS takeover prisoners got one day of rest per week. With the SS in control, prisoners only got one rest day every three to four weeks. Freedom of movement was severely restricted and POWs were searched more frequently for prohibited items. Soon after the SS took control most of the regular German army guards were removed and sent to fight on the Russian front. As the Russian army got closer to the camps, the German guards decided to force the POWs, many malnourished, like Goodman, or injured, to walk west toward American or British forces. Between January and April 1945 over 80,000 POWs were forced to march westward across Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Germany in extreme winter conditions. This series of events has been called various names by the vets who survived: "The Great March West," "The Long March," "The Long Walk," "The Long Trek," "The Black March," "The Bread March," and "Death March Across Germany.” Most survivors just called it "The March."

      John Goodman told me another rare “Daddy, what did you do in the war?” story.

      “My dad told me that The March almost finished him. He lost about 50 pounds and was just a little over 100 pounds and losing strength daily. He recounted seeing POWs stumbling, falling, unable to stand and get back in line,” said John. “Their buddies or fellow comrades were jostled at gun point by the guards… forbidden to help the helpless. Moments later… just a gun shot.”

      STAY ALIVE?? Keep Moving…Nicht helfen…Vorwaerts!

      “Wherever they billeted along the way survival meant picking the crude cell locks at night and escaping long enough to forage amongst the pigs for the meager leftovers thrown by well-fed German guards. Not too many choices if my dad wanted to live,” said John as he recollected his father’s story.

      The tide of war had turned and the remaining German Volkssturm (home guard) consisted of old men and boys 12 and older. They realized that the end of the war was near. Many felt it would be far better to surrender to the Americans than to the Russians.

      On May 8, 1945, VE Day (Victory in Europe), the unconditional surrender of Germany, was celebrated joyously in the Allied countries. Germany was soundly defeated. Now it was time for all Allied soldiers and POWs like Lawrence Goodman of Biwabik to come home.
      It must have been a joyous, tearful reunion for the Goodman family in 1945 and the surviving crew members of Dinah Might. Gone was the anguish, the waiting, the uncertainty. In whatever condition, Big Sonny was back… he was home and father to a new son, Rick Goodman, born while he was a POW.

      For the family of Lt. Darwin Nichols of Pocatello, Idaho, the co-pilot of Dinah Might, the end of war proved to be bittersweet. Strangely, Lt. Nichols, unlike the rest of his crew, was never reported officially as POW. He was listed as MIA (Missing In Action). Here is where the historical paths of an honorably discharged Goodman, and MIA Lt. Darwin Nichols, would eventually merge to become part of an unforeseen WWII tribunal in 1946.

      By this time, you, the reader, may be asking yourself, “Dave, how did you get all of this war story stuff?” The answer: Where all stories start in Biwabik…at the bar! It all started a year ago at the Black Diamond.

      I ran into my high school classmate Denny Imberg and his wife, Bonnie (Goodman) Imberg, and we visited about my upcoming European trip that Fall of 2013. It was the Normandy trip that eventually became the Hometown Focus June 6 D-Day story. Bonnie mentioned that her dad Lawrence was in the Army Air Corp and was a POW. At that point it was a good story but it didn’t grab me.

      Fast forward to March, 2014, six months after my Normandy trip. It’s déjà vu at the Black Diamond with the same cast of characters. By now you should get the picture? I told Denny and Bonnie the Normandy D-Day story for HTF was a work in progress. They were mildly interested in the Normandy story when Bonnie unexpectedly said, “Dave, did you know that my father testified at a war crimes trial?”

      An unplanned gulp on my MGD! I was totally surprised by Bonnie’s casual revelation.
      Somewhat dumbfounded, I gathered myself enough to ask, “Nuremberg? He testified at Nuremberg?”

      “I think so. You should to talk to John [her younger brother] about this. He has all of this trial stuff. Some guy from Germany called John a few years ago and wanted to find out the details of these American prisioners documented by the IRC. John was the only ‘Goodman’ in Biwabik. He sent John a bunch of other stuff about the trial. That’s as much as I know. John knows the rest.”

      My mind raced ahead, already scripting the basis for a story…this story. I could hardly wait to impose myself on John and his wife LaVonne. Next day it was…Knock, knock…I was just in neighborhood, and was greeted with the usual Iron Range open invitation.

      After telling John about the Black Diamond conversation with his sister, John said, “One afternoon about seven years ago I got this strange phone call from this German guy: ‘Hello, I am looking for a Lawrence Goodman,’ speaking in a very pronounced German accent.

      “He wanted to know if I was the son of Lawrence Goodman who was a flyer in WWII. From IRC records he knew my dad was from Biwabik and I was the only Goodman in the phone book! His name is Horst Jeckel and he is a WWII researcher. Although his English was broken it was enough for us to communicate… he asked if I would like to see some war information about my dad that we never knew about. My dad had provided written testimony in a war crimes murder trial. He proceeded to tell me about this murder and my father’s connection to the murdered American officer (Lt. Nichols), the co-pilot of my dad’s bomber.”

      The German researcher asked John if he would like to see the transcript of the trial, and told him that he had copies from the war archives, including John’s father’s hand written statement.

      Questions and images cascaded through my brain as John said, “Dave, would you like to see this stuff that Horst Jeckel sent me?”

      The manila envelope John shared with me revealed everything about the murder of Lt. Nichols and the trial. I thumbed through the time worn, sepia colored copies of the 1946 type written transcripts from the U.S. Army Judge Advocate Office. The faded documents detailed everything, the circumstances leading to the murder of Nichols, the complete testimonies of the witnesses, including Lawrence Goodman’s deposition, as well as the statement of the accused SS Guard Karl Loesch. Everything was there…and I mean everything! Every word describing why and how Loesch and his fellow guard felt coerced to murder Lt. Nichols. How the tribunal “rules of war” consideration in “only following orders” lead to Loesch’s eventual 11-year prison conviction instead of death. The transcript and proceedings would have been the basis for a very lively ethics and morality discussion in law school or university philosophy class.

      To truly understand the essence of the trial, one must study and weigh carefully the testimony of Karl Loesch, the accused (see Figure 1). It evokes many images and questions. Questions about the other Germans involved but not arrested nor charged, as far as I know. Does “just following orders” during times of war have a special legal and war time consideration?

      With the end of WWII, Europe and Asia were dealing with utter devastation, the carnage, emptiness and the hollowness of bombed out buildings, and refugees returning to nothing. There were no hidden metaphors amidst the rubble, the Shoah and German lie of “Arbeit Macht Frei,” tens of millions dead. Images were grim, constant reminders of man’s inhumanity to man as we repeatedly saw newsreels in our local show houses and, later, in the comfort of our living rooms. It was now the time of TV when Walter Cronkhite, Eric Sevareid and others went from audio to visual. Big Sonny was now back home in Biwabik with his wife Irene and their new son, Fredrick Lawrence Goodman (Rick Goodman) born during his POW captivity. But for a grieving Emily Bryson of Pocatello, Idaho, mother of Lt. Nichols, there was no joy on VE Day. Her thoughts? Where is my son? What happened to my son Darwin? A determined Emily Bryson wanted to know more from the U.S. War Department about her son. Too many questions remain unanswered.

      Communication dated January 3, 1946, from the Army Service Forces, Office of the Quartermaster General:

      “Dear Mrs. Bryson:

      The feelings which prompted your communication are most understandable and I full realize your desire for additional details regarding your son. The following is an eyewitness account submitted to the War Department by Sergeant Lawrence F. Goodman:

      ‘Lieutenant Nichols and I were taken to the Air Base in Berlin, and from there we were on our way to Wetzlar, Germany when Lieutenant Nichols escaped. I don’t know the name of the town, it was a little water stop, surrounded by thick forests and rather hilly! He was dressed in ODs and an OD sleeveless sweater, no hat and a pair of army low cut shoes. He didn’t have any wings, no bars, no dog tags, no means of identification. He escaped through the latrine window of the train. That was about the 15th of September, 1944. This is the last that I saw of Lieutenant Darwin Nichols.’

      If you so desire, you may communicate with Sergeant Goodman in care of his wife, Mrs. Irene Goodman, whose address is Box 273, Biwabik, Minnesota.”

      On May 2, 1945 the War Department followed up with Sgt. Goodman as it sought to determine the status or find the remains of Lt. Nichols.

      In March, 1946, Heinrich Gimpel, a Gestapo guard at the Giessen prison, testified that:

      “I knew Lt. Nichols for a period of seven months while he was held in the Gestapo prison in Giessen. When he was removed from prison, he gave me a note with his name and identification numbers. I was called to identify the body at the cemetery before it was buried.” The note, signed by Lt. Darwin Nichols, asked that consideration be given for the kind treatment by the guard, Heinrich Gimpel, while he was incarcerated in the jail.
      From the time that Dinah Might was shot down near Berlin, the status of Lt. Nichols was always MIA. Why? Perhaps he didn’t have any identification as stated by Goodman’s deposition and/or he refused to tell the SS his name, rank and serial number. We’ll never know the answer to this question.

      His mother continued to wait for further communication from the War Department. All the while rumors about the murder(s) of American officers were being investigated and in the process of being confirmed. Unbeknownst to Emily Bryson, there was confirmation and evidence for a trial was being prepared.

      Finally, on July 25, 1946, Mrs. Emily Bryson received the dreaded, yet confirming news from the War Department:

      “I sympathize with you in your just desire for further information, and am very sorry that no further messages from overseas have been received. A message submitted by our overseas authorities shows that a trial is being prepared regarding certain evidence indicating that a person believed to be Darwin R. Nichols may have been shot near Giessen, Germany on or about March 27, 1945. [Author’s note: The SS prison at Giessen was liberated by American troops on March 28, 1945.]

      “Your [Mrs. Nichol’s] comments relative to the absence of a mailing address for Lt. Nichols after he was captured by the Germans have been noted with full appreciation. The records disclose that no official message was submitted by the German Government through the International Red Cross that he was a prisioner of war of that Government and available evidence indicates that he was never assigned to a particular prison camp but escaped while en-route to Wetzlar, Germany and was never seen again. His whereabouts* and activities from the time of his escape until date of his possibly having been shot in Giessen are not known.”

      [*Author’s note: Evidence after trial indicated that for seven months the Gestapo guard Heinrich Gimpel was allowed to take Nichols outside the prison as part of some sort of work detail, thus, providing credibility for Nichol’s statement about Gimpel’s kindness, an unwritten bond of humanity in a world torn by war.]

      The end of WWII did not bring a quick closure to what really happened to Emily Nichols-Bryon’s son, Darwin. Please read her original correspondence to our War Department (see Figure 2). To me the tone and emotion of her letters show her perseverance, frustration with her government in pursuit of desired answers, language wrapped in an almost stoic pioneer hardness from a bygone era. Do her letters evoke universal but wordless feelings for all mothers, fathers, wives and husbands who have lost loved ones?

      Closure on all fronts. Time to move on. Big Sonny and Irene, two of the Greatest Generation, added to their family with the births of Bonnie and John. The family would settle into a productive post-war life as he worked for Boeing in Wichita, Kansas and Spokane, WA. Sonny quickly found employment as a drill mechanic working at Erie Mining. Irene, the daughter of Reverence Cartwright, a pillar of the religious community in Biwabik, was the dutiful wife and homemaker for the three children.

      I remember this era, the post war times of innocence, the 50s and early 60s. It was the era of “Leave It To Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” where TV episodes always ended with some kind of morality message, hugs and a consoling smile.

      But on December 22, 1960, there were no smiles…only tears and gasps of disbelief as the news rippled through the basketball crowd and student body at Biwabik High School. Big Sonny was killed in an industrial accident at Erie. I can still recollect the hush and the muted whispers of this tragedy to this day. The emotion was compounded as my dad John Setnicker returned from his afternoon shift visibly shaken by the tragedy. He was the pit foreman and first upon this tragic scene. I remember it…all of it…like it was yesterday. And now, looking back 54 years, writing this WWII story of Big Sonny, it seems it wasn’t supposed to end this way…not after everything he went through.

      November 11, 2014 is Veteran’s Day. This true story wove the memories of youth revisited, of men, women and their families going to war, daily angst about Western Union telegrams, the question of whose side is God on, terror, death, sorrow, joy, happiness and hope…there are just not enough words for this period of history. The resolute silence of each returning vet became a personal repository of the indescribable.

      We honor their service; their silence.

      “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

      Author’s note: I want to thank the Goodman family for allowing me to tell Lawrence’s compelling WWII story.
    Person ID I238  Don Carlson's Tree
    Last Modified 16 Feb 2016 

    Father Frederick Charles GOODMAN,   b. 15 Aug 1889, St. Austell, Cornwall, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 28 Dec 1933, Biwabik, St. Louis County, Minnesota Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 44 years) 
    Mother Jennie Mathilda ORFALD,   b. 3 Sep 1899, Minnesota Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 8 Nov 1984, Aurora, St. Louis County, Minnesota Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 85 years) 
    Marriage 9 Dec 1916  St. Louis County, Minnesota Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F3040  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Irene Kate CARTWRIGHT,   b. 5 Jun 1922, Cass County, Minnesota Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 9 Jan 2021, Biwabik, St. Louis County, Minnesota Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 98 years) 
    Marriage 21 Sep 1942  St. Louis County, Minnesota Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F308  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 5 May 2015