A Story Right "Outta" Hollywood
(Stolen Valor)

I’ve heard some rumblings that Sainte-Mère-Église is thinking about honoring another soldier.  So I looked into it and the name that keeps popping up is Henry O. Langrehr.  In early 2006 I ran into Henry O. Langrehr myself. 

I reached out to Langrehr and left a message at the end of 2005.  I finally spoke with him January 24, 2006.  I asked him some very basic questions about what had happened to him after the jump.  Some of his responses were a little odd but nothing wild.  Then about 6 minutes in he started talking about things that had no basis in reality. 

I hardly gave him a second thought until the end of November 2019.  That was a name I haven’t thought about in years.  Langrehr was in the same company as my uncle Quent who was killed on D-Day, Company B 307^th Airborne Engineer Battalion (Combat) (Co B 307th Abn Engr Bn (C)) and it explains why I go after Stolen Valor.   

Langrehr said that he wasn’t captured until the end of June 1944.  I then said that can’t be right as all of the records said that he was captured on June 6, 1944.  I then told him that a few men who were with him when they were captured remember that he was with them too.  Boom, the line went dead.

A Stolen Valor in my uncle’s company makes my skin crawl.  I have spoken with over 20 men from Co B over the years and to have a liar in their midst is horrifying.  That Langrehr is allowed to lie like this on the Army’s website in 2014 and in the Chicago Tribune this year is frightening. 

Langrehr in his own words online said that he was the one who landed in Sainte-Mère-Église and fell into a greenhouse.  Nothing is further from the truth as he landed miles west of Sainte-Mère-Église just north of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte (page 4). 

Here is a breakdown of Langrehr interwoven truth and lies.

Henry O. Langrehr 37670377

Possible Fake (563) 242-****           

I called him out on January 24, 2006.  He lied saying he wasn’t captured (page 4) until June 30, 1944 as he was captured June 6, 1944 (pages 5, 6 & 7). 

From the different articles listed below here are the parts that are true;

Spanhoe Airfield was where the 307^th left from on June 5, 1944

Jumped into Normandy

Engineer as they are Demolition Specialists

Bridge was the Objective

POW

The rest is fiction to a large degree.  You can read and hear the lies below. 

Des Moines Article June 2014

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2014/06/01/d-day-veteran-harrowing-survival-tale/9832369

Langrehr didn’t know Steele (the soldier from the Movie The Longest Day caught on the church tower) that day. 

Not 505, in the 307^th Abn Engr Bn for 6 weeks (pages 1 & 2).

Not in Sainte-Mère-Église

Nobody was wounded in his plane before the jump

No Planes went down around his plane

No, 12 did not die in his plane, 5 did and there were 16 in his plane, not 18 (page 3).

No bridges were blown up on June 6, 1944 by the 82^nd.

He didn’t volunteer, he was drafted

Langrehr along with three other Co B planes dropped them outside of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte about 5 miles west of the bridge (page 4).  He was captured June 6 (page 5, 6 & 7) along with most of the men from his stick.

From the writer of the article;

“Then one evening in early March, as the prisoners were marched back to camp, he and a friend impulsively slipped off. As they were running, a German policeman spotted them and chased them into a barn. Langrehr ducked behind the door and picked up a two-by-four. The policeman stormed in and shot Langrehr’s friend in the forehead. The friend, Jim McMillan, died”.

He was wrong there too.  Langrehr mixed up Edward McMillan and Edward Beckwith along with Robert Hause.  Beckwith was killed in a mine accident on October 26 1944 and Hause was shot in his Barracks October 27, 1944 as a POW.

Clinton Herald June 5, 2019

https://www.clintonherald.com/news/d-day-remembered-clinton-man-parachuted-behind-enemy-lines-during/article_80cc65c4-87e8-11e9-8d30-63550bef0ec0.html

He was ready to make his 67th parachute jump.  The average for an 82^nd is between 10-15 jumps counting combat jumps. 

He wasn’t the first one to Jump.  Just look at the manifest for the jump (page 3).  Langrehr was in the back of the plane.  The men from his stick who did jump first eventually got back to US lines.

Langrehr was never in Co F 505^th or even the 505 but was in Co B of the 307^th Abn Engr Bn (C).

Langrehr didn’t join on his birthday when he turned 18 in November 1942.  He was drafted and came into active service May 10, 1943.

Quad Times 2007 November 2, 2007

https://qctimes.com/news/local/clinton-man-to-receive-france-s-highest-honor/article_132d35ef-3ac3-5465-bdcd-5f67f1265f59.html

He owned his own contracting business in Clinton for 44 years and raised a family. He still works, which he says is a blessing but yet in the Chicago Tribune one he says he was in the Army for 34 years.  Was he a reservist then?

Chicago Tribune May 31, 2019

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-flashback-d-day-henry-langrehr-normandy-wwii-20190529-story.html

Says he was in the Army for 34 years.

Army August 11, 2014

https://www.army.mil/article/131561/decorated_world_war_ii_veteran_visits_joint_munitions_command

The Army didn’t catch on either it seems. 

Lies In His Own Words

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JraAGPDCrq8

In his own words he said he fell through a greenhouse in Sainte-Mère-Église which is not true.

TV6 June 5, 2019

https://www.kwqc.com/content/news/City-of-Davenport-honors-WWII-paratrooper-from-Clinton-in-remembrance-of-D-Day-anniversary-510895051.html

People will look at this and say, so what he lied, he jumped into Normandy that’s what counts.  It makes a huge difference when someone steps onto a national stage and lies for years about their time in combat.  Why people like Langrehr have to lie we don’t know.  To be honest we don’t care why they lie, the point is they dishonor the 99.9% men who don’t lie about their time in combat.    

Langrehr took all of his narrative it seems from the 1962 The Longest Day Movie & the movie Private Ryan.  A long line of liars have done that as well, Murphy, Russell & Blanchard just to name a few.

The bottom line is why not honor the soldiers who don’t lie on a national stage?  The publications who published Langrehr’s lies took him at face value.  It calls into to question a newspapers integrity when they publish an article associated with Stolen Valor.

The article written by Charlene Bielema Herald Editor for the Clinton Herald really disturbed me.  No fact checking was done, none.  This writer just took his word.  That is not journalism.  What really bothers me is when someone like Langrehr appropriates other men’s lives. 

Langrehr claims to have volunteered and joined the Army the day he turned 18 and became part of the 505^th Prcht Inf Regt.  A complete lie, start to finish as he was drafted and inducted into the Army May 10, 1943.  It wasn’t enough for this “man” to have been in the 307^th Abn Engr Bn part of the 82^nd Abn Div and jumped into Normandy. 

Langrehr had to try and insert himself into the 505^th and claim to have been friends with John Steele.  Langrehr as mentioned had only been overseas 6 weeks before the jump into Normandy.  Steele was a veteran from the start in 1942 with the 505^th.

My uncle who was in Co B of the 307^th Abn Engr and was killed on June 6, 1944. He was buried in an isolated grave with another soldier Donn Cummings and was reburied July 1, 1944.  Uncle Quent did leave High School after his junior year and joined the Army July 1, 1941 his 18^th birthday.  What’s even more twisted is that Langrehr got married on what would have been my uncle’s 22^nd birthday a year to the day when Quent was buried in Normandy. 

This is what’s wrong with out country as a whole.  We honor fakes and liars in all walks of life.  On the plus side 50 years from now people will not be honoring fakes for WWII as the documentation will outlive the lies and liars like Murphy and Langrehr.  People are tired of the fakes and liars.

Brian N. Siddall
November 25, 2019