Texan’s lost WWII dog tag found in an English garden

Couple returns tag of Normandy vet who died in 2002.

A pleasant

ABILENE — afternoon of tending a garden unearthed quite a surprise for an English

couple and an even big

— ger one for a family in Abilene.

Donna Stone answered the phone in her Abilene home Aug. 25. It was 10:15 a.m. here and 4:15 p.m. where the caller was, at home in the village of Sutton Veny, southwest of London. She had a heavy British accent, adding to the intrigue.

“Is this the Stone residence?” the woman asked, “I’m trying to find Elmer Stone. I found his dog tag in the garden.”

It was a World War II dog tag. Elmer Stone was an American soldier who was stationed in England and was part of the Normandy invasion. His unit landed in Normandy on June 7, 1944, the day after D-Day.

Donna Stone knew all about Elmer Stone. She is married to one of his three sons, Tom Stone. Elmer Stone died at age 82 in 2002. His daughter-inlaw was suspicious of the phone call. Was it some sort of an international scam?

“I was real skeptical,” Donna Stone said. “But I really wanted to believe her.”

She listened, but didn’t offer too much information. But by the time the call ended about 15 minutes later, she was convinced that the caller was a well-meaning British lady with a hard-to-believe story that was actually true.

Convinced that the caller was on the up-and-up, Donna Stone and her

husband, Tom, called back the following Sunday. They had a nice chat with a lovely English couple, Martin and Kate Collier, who are in their late 60s. The Colliers live in

the scenic village of Sutton Veny.

Their garden abuts a road that World War II soldiers would have marched down on their way to the D-Day invasion that helped seal the victory over Germany.

Kate Collier alluded to that bit of history in an email to the Stones after their telephone conversations. “Strange to think,” Kate

Collier wrote, “that Elmer probably traveled this road on his way to Normandy.”

Strange to think, but undoubtedly true. Elmer Stone’s dog tag was the fourth one belonging to a

United States soldier that the Colliers had dug up in their garden in the past year and a half. They diligently tried to track down the owner, or his rela- tives, for each tag.

The process took three weeks before the Colliers located the correct Stone family in the United States.

On Sept. 8, a hand-addressed envelope arrived at the Stones’ home. Inside was the dog tag, a letter, a card featuring a photo of Sutton Veny, and photos of the Collier’s home and garden.

Opening the letter with his dad’s World War II dog tag brought back a lot of memories for Tom Stone. He and his brothers, Gary of Abilene and David of Austin, had grown up knowing that their dad served in the 36th Armored Infantry Regiment during the war and that he had participated in the D-Day invasion. But, like many World War II veterans, Elmer Stone didn’t talk a lot about his experiences.

Some of them were captured by Tom and Donna Stone’s daughter, Mindy, who interviewed her grandfather for an honors world history class at Abilene High School in 1983. She wrote of how Elmer Stone received a Purple Heart for wounds sustained in a battle near Darmstadt, Germany, in 1944. He recuperated in a hospital in Paris for three months.

After his release, he returned to the Army and was scheduled to go to Japan with his unit when the war ended.