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Released on June 16, 2003
The first book ever about Gen.
Rose,
3rd Armored Division's legendary WWII commander.
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It can be ordered through BarnesAndNoble.com and Amazon.com, among others. Amazon appears
to have the lowest price at $19.57 plus S&H.
"Major General Maurice Rose - World War II's
Greatest Forgotten Commander"
Hardcover only: 432 pages
By Steven L. Ossad and Don R. Marsh
Published by: Taylor Trade Publishers
The Library of Congress ISBN # 0-87833-308-8
About the biography from the book cover:
"In this outstanding, first-rate biography, Ossad and
Marsh have chronicled the life of an authentic hero. Their thorough
investigation reveals, for the first time, a full account of
Rose's untimely death in 1945. Highly recommended."
- Carlo D'Este, best-selling author of Eisenhower:A
Soldier's Life and Patton: A Genius for War.
"A complete and compelling narrative that covers the
brilliant career of Major General Maurice Rose, from his roots
in Colorado, through his service on the Mexican border and during
World War I, and culminating in his leadership of one of World
War II's finest fighting outfits, the 3rd Armored Division."
- Gerald Astor, author of The Greatest War: Americans
in Combat, 1941-1945 and The Right to Fight: A History
of African Americans in the Military.
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CLICK HERE for co-author Don Marsh's
story behind the book.
CLICK HERE for Marsh's successful
search for Rose's sons.
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The Story
Behind the Biography of General Rose
By Don R. Marsh
It was early October of 1995 when I received Issue #2 of the
2nd Armored Division Association Bulletin. While briefly scanning
for names of fellow veteran friends of mine, there it was on
the top of page 6. Something immediately drew my attention to
it, with the headline, "Can you, will you help?" It
was from a letter written by a Steven L. Ossad -- a person unknown
to me. I had never read his name until then, as he was not a
member of our Association. Reading further, I learned that he
was not only a non-member, but neither was he a veteran. I assumed
it was some family member seeking information on a relative/family
member lost in battle, which is common in veterans' news periodicals.
But no, he was asking for help in finding information on the
death of Major General Maurice Rose, a non-relative. When he
incorrectly stated that Rose's death was 31 March 1945, I read
that and thought this guy really needs my help! He had the story
partially correct when he wrote that Rose was an "up from
the ranks, a non West Point, Jewish officer." So I assumed
that meant that he had done some previous homework -- little
did I know at that time that he had acquired far more data about
the Rose family history than I knew! It was Rose's military data
he was seeking. I would learn all this later.
Steve Ossad had written in his request for information, "I
would be appreciative of any help you can offer." So being
the "Good Samaritan" that I am and willing to offer
whatever support I could give, I replied by letter on October
10, 1995, (ironically October 10th is also the birthday of General
Rose's jeep driver, on that fateful night, 30 March 1945, my
friend, Glenn H. Shaunce). I mentioned that I had served under
General Rose's Headquarters Combat Command "A" of the
Second Armored Division in the Invasion of Normandy, France,
June 1944 and the Breakout at St. Lo, in Operation Cobra, July
1944.
Steve recognized my name from an article previously published
in the Army's Armor Magazine, March-April 1991,The Triumph and
Tragedy of Major General Maurice Rose, written by Ralph C. Greene,
MD. I had exchanged correspondence with Dr. Greene regarding
Rose's Combat Command "A" at the Invasion Beachhead
at Carentan, France, on 13 June 1944. Steve immediately replied
and pressed me for details based on the information published.
After a cautious slow start, he was still a stranger to me,
the flow of letters and telephone calls rapidly became a daily
occurrence and in time they soon led to our sending emails and
computerized copies of documents. We were two amateur historians
with the same goal -- willing to exchange information about the
life of Maurice Rose, both personal and military. We made visits
to each other's homes and then formed a bond of friendship by
means of an open exchange of information and our theories (at
that time, ours remained to be proven). In a literary seminal
moment, we agreed to co-author a manuscript about the untimely
death of the relatively unknown American Army General, Maurice
Rose.
Our arrangement was simple -- Steve would handle the keyboard
and enter everything into his computer. Not owning a computer
at the time, as a journalist investigator, I would assist in
the research, and include my own wartime memoirs. Soon I was
forced to give up my typewriter and buy a complete computer set-up.
This enabled me to send emails and letters to contacts in the
USA, Belgium, Holland and most importantly, made it possible
to locate and interview German veterans, including the German
Panzer men from the unit that ambushed General Rose "that
night."
Destiny stepped in to arrange this juxtaposition, in effect
we were two complete strangers who might be rightly described
as total "opposites." He is a younger man in his mid-fifties;
today, I am 80 years old. He has not served a single day in the
military and I am a retired Technical Sergeant, veteran of World
War Two, having served 20 years of active duty, plus 10 more
years in the reserves. He has earned three degrees, including
an MBA from Harvard -- whereas I finished high school and enlisted
as a volunteer in the army. He is of the Jewish faith and I am
a secular humanist.
We live in opposite ends of the state -- he lives in San Francisco
and I reside in southern California. To date, in the nearly seven
years that have transpired, we have met but three times. Communication
was not a problem, as I became a part of his extended family
and he a part of mine. We have one great thing in common however,
a strong mutual desire to tell this story of a true military
legend we both admired, Major General Maurice Rose.
From the inception, obtaining the full story has taken years
of time to materialize due to the seemingly impossible and difficult
challenge of penetrating the layers of military bureaucracy,
solely by correspondence through "proper channels",
to secure the vital records and documents buried deep in the
army archives for more than fifty years. I knew from past personal
military experience, while serving with the IG (Inspector General),
the typed Field Reports made by teams of investigators assigned
to the case after interviewing any and all witnesses to determine
the cause of General Rose's death were recorded and had to be
still on file.
These Field Reports would not have been destroyed. A photocopy
or microfiche film had to be stored on file in the archives --
someplace. The Army repeatedly declined to help in finding the
location of the missing crucial files. Without the conclusive
proof in these two files, one domestic and the other ETO (European
Theater of Operations), we didn't have a case or an authoritative
story with credentials.
Finally, with our persistence and the assistance of two of
our most powerful California representatives, Christopher Cox
and Dianne Feinstein, we were able to pry loose the once classified
essential critical files to thoroughly review the investigation
reports. More importantly, we were able to research the affidavits
taken from on-the-scene witnesses by Army Field IG investigators.
What we learned from those two files (US & ETO) was dynamite!
This enabled us to meticulously piece together the sequences
and events that led to Rose's death on the night of 30 March
1945 at Hamborn, Germany.
From the facts in the files available to us, we were able
to make a positive confirmation whether or not it appeared to
be murder of a Prisoner of War or an "unfortunate accident
in the heat of battle." Friends fluent in German painstakingly
translated a search of the German army records (that I received
from a German veteran) of the Panzer tank unit involved in the
ambush. Not surprisingly it had a different perspective from
statements made by US witnesses. Then we began the arduous task
of assembling a multitude of documents and file copies of records
from various American and German civilian and military historian
sources, including Rose family members, of the man's 45-year
life span from his birth in Middletown, Connecticut on 26 November
1899 to his untimely death.
We described the painful Rose family details of the days following
the shooting, including his burial at the US Military Cemetery
at Margraten in The Netherlands, then the aftermath and tragic
family disintegration that followed. In the end, the manuscript
was crafted in a scholarly fashion and submitted to selected
military book publishers to no avail. Editors would read the
synopsis and write back, "although well written, the story
is about an unknown general." Unknown perhaps to the civilians
without military backgrounds, but not to the veterans who fought
in the bloody campaigns across Western Europe!
The fact that we were also two unknown authors was not mentioned
nor over-looked. As the frustration factor began to build, we
were fortunate to obtain the services of a well-known, long established
literary agency, Blanche C. Gregory Inc., to represent us. Our
agent, Merry K. Pantano, after more than two dozen rejections
by various publishers finally placed the work with Cooper Square
Press who will publish our book titled, "Major General Maurice
Rose: World War II's Greatest Forgotten Commander" in the
spring of 2003.
The subject of creating a title for our work presented another
problem. Steve first suggested using "The Extinguished Flame
of MG Maurice Rose"; whereas I thought a title with a punch
would be better and suggested using "In The Heat of Battle:
The Murder of The Commanding General." Our mentor, Martin
Blumenson sent us his suggestion, "From Rabbi's Son To a
Military Legend: Major General Maurice Rose." But, once
we sold the publishing rights to Cooper Square Press, they settled
that with their revised choice of the title. In the end, after
the book is finally available to the public, Maurice Rose will
no longer be the Forgotten Commander.
In addition to meeting and exchanging correspondence with
so many interesting people from all walks of life and from all
parts of the world while doing research for this manuscript,
I received a deep sense of gratification from two key experiences.
One from the human-interest standpoint was finding and uniting
General Rose's two sons (half-brothers) from the general's two
marriages. These two men, now 76 and 61 years of age, had never
met nor spoken to each other in their lifetimes until our research
connected them and made it possible.
The other experience has been the pleasure of watching my
young friend, partner and co-author, Steven L. Ossad, launch
his professional career as a military historian and successful
author with this biography of Major General Maurice Rose, knowing
this will undoubtedly serve as the linchpin of his future in
writing military history.
Along the way through this long journey of life, now in my
twilight years, I give thanks that I made a great friend and
close confidant for life, Steven L. Ossad -- without whom, this
story could not have been possibly told.
Bershert -- to borrow a Jewish expression that means,
"It was meant to be."
[END]
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LOST AND FOUND
The Search for the Two Sons of Gen. Rose
by Don R. Marsh
"Show me a hero, and I will write you a tragedy,"
said F. Scott Fitzgerald
Perhaps he wasn't a hero in the true sense of the word, but
to the men who fought under his command, he was an American military
legend. Major General Maurice Rose was the Commanding General
of the US Third Armored Division during World War Two and spearheaded
some of the most strategic battles in the campaign to defeat
Nazi Germany. He was killed in action while leading his men in
the last days of the fighting in the war.
It was while I was researching his military record to write the
General's biography in a joint project with my literary partner
and co-author, Steven L. Ossad, that I discovered the General
had a son, who was only four years old when his father died in
1945.
In 1996, fifty-one years after the death of General Rose, I began
to search for the son, named Maurice Roderick Rose. As a member
of the Third Armored Division Association from time to time,
I would submit brief short stories in the Association's quarterly
Newsletter about my wartime experiences and memories. One story
in particular, "The Man from Colorado," featured my
memory of General Rose at Carentan, France, one of the D-Day
objectives. It caught the eye of former Major Haynes Dugan, who
served in General Rose's Headquarters and later became the Division
Association Historian. He informed me that the General's son
was in law enforcement in San Antonio, Texas.
I then contacted my law enforcement sources and obtained his
phone number at his office and his title -- Chief of Police of
San Antonio Airport. I made the call and quickly identified myself
as having served with his father during the war. That failed
to impress him and he answered, "So what do you want with
me?" I explained the biography project and that I was seeking
as much information as possible to establish the family history,
after learning his widowed mother was still alive in San Antonio.
In the course of conversation, he bluntly asked the surprise
question, "Have you found my brother Mike?" I had to
admit that I was not aware that he had a brother. It was then
that I learned that his father had been married twice and that
Mike was his son from the first marriage. Asking him for details,
the best he could recall from information given to him by his
mother, Virginia, was that his father had married a young woman
from the Salt Lake City area with the odd first name of Venus.
Her family name had been either Hanson or Larson. I had nothing
else to go on and thus began my long search to find his missing
half-brother, not knowing if his half-brother was still alive.
I assumed that if Venus Hanson/Larson was from Salt Lake City
that chances are she was a Mormon and that the odds being in
my favor, I could quickly check the Mormon Library, which has
the finest genealogy records in the world. But it was one disappointment
after another. I spent hours at the Mormon Branch Library (open
to the public) in Orange, California, checking indexes and ordering
numerous microfiche reels of tape from Salt Lake City Main Library.
I was seeking records of her residing in Utah during the period
of 1920 to 1930 and giving birth to a son. She, Venus Hanson
or Larson, could not be found in their records. But I was not
discouraged nor ready to give up as young Maurice (known as Reece)
said his brother Mike did exist and I intended to find him.
Months went by and it soon led to years, but I couldn't turn
it loose without finding Mike Rose for his brother Reece. Unless
you have a brother, you wouldn't understand that it is a "brother
thing." I also leaned on my partner Steve and my family
members with computers to lend a hand at the task. All were willing,
and despite their jobs and family obligations, they searched
the Internet for clues. It became a team effort.
It was Steve Ossad who, on April 20, 2001, turned up the first
critical hint; he located a Venice Hanson in Utah. Apparently,
Venice had become Venus in the "Texas-speak" translation
and had thrown us off the trail. Now we got into the search full
bore. I then went to the National Archives in Laguna Niguel,
California, and dug through the microfiche US National Census
for 1920 (January) and there was Venice residing with her parents
and two brothers at 1365 Emerson Avenue, Salt Lake City. This
was the match we had been looking for. Next my daughter Donna
found Venice Hanson listed in Ancestry.com under her mother Maud's
maiden family name, Payne (Utah Pioneers) and that gave us burial
dates and locations that led to finding Venice's burial date
in 1962 in Salt Lake City in the family plot. Here the trail
went cold. But not for long, when the value of our computers
came into play for research.
Daughter Donna, searching the Yahoo site, turned up a hit on
a Maurice Rose, Major, USMC, who had written a paper while attending
the Marine Corps University at Quantico, Virginia in 1956-57.
Backtracking to the old newspaper published obituary for the
death of grandfather Rabbi Samuel Rose in the Denver News
in 1945, it listed a grandson, "Maurice, serving with the
Marines." Now began another segment of the growing mystery
-- suddenly we have three men all with the name of Maurice --
a father and his two sons, all with the same first name! This
Maurice-the-Marine had to be the missing brother, a.k.a. Mike.
So we knew Mike-the-Marine was alive in 1955, but where was he
now? My son Gary, a former newspaper reporter, suggested contacting
the Salt Lake City leading newspaper to check the obituary desk
and ask for the file on the burial of Venice Rose in 1962. Gary
made the call and learned that Venice Rose had been buried in
Salt Lake City in the family plot; however, she had died in Spokane,
Washington, on 7 March 1962. Gary then suggested that I phone
the Spokane News and ask the obituary desk to obtain a
copy of the obit for Venice Rose. The information in the obit
stated that a son, a Major in the Marines, survived Mrs. Venice
Rose. So where was he now? We felt we were getting closer, but
we had a 38-year gap to close.
Late one night, Donna was surfing the Internet in the military.com
site and found a great hit. It read: "Colonel Maurice Rose,
MOS 9906 [meaning unassigned colonel], Retired, USMC, 1974"
BINGO! Next to bridge the gap of 1974, to the present.
Through a friend in Washington, DC, Ed Miller, an Army retired
Lt. Colonel, I learned that if I wrote a letter to the US Marine
Corps Headquarters at Quantico, Virginia, and addressed it to
Col. Rose, they would forward the letter, if he was still alive,
to his last known home of record at the time of retirement. The
letter written and mailed, I sat back and waited for the reply,
which was not forthcoming. After nearly a month had passed, my
letter sent to the Marine Corps and addressed to Col. Rose was
returned and stamped "Undeliverable -- addressee unknown,"
which meant he had moved. But it gave his old address. An invaluable
clue!
The next day I drove down to the old address, listed on the returned
envelope, in the small village of Fallbrook, CA; it was located
right outside the back gate of Camp Pendleton. My first stop
was next door to his former home; there I met a very helpful
couple, Mr. & Mrs. Robert Reed, who had known Col. "Mike"
and his wife, Pat. They informed me that Mike had sold the place
a few years back and moved to the nearby city of Vista. But he
now had an unlisted phone number.
I tried my sources to find the unlisted number to no avail. I
then decided to contact Phyllis Reed one more time and try to
obtain Mike's phone number. It paid off -- on Sunday, December
9th, my phone rang and when I answered, the voice on the other
end said, "This is Mike Rose, I understand that you have
been looking for me. What for?" Those words were similar
to those used by his brother Reece when I called him in 1996!
I quickly explained my mission, in keeping with my promise, trying
to locate him for his half-brother Reece, in Texas, who had been
searching for him his entire adult life. I asked Mike's permission
to phone Reece and give him his phone number and he said, "Sure,
go ahead." I made the call as soon as we hung up. When I
told Reece that I had finally found his brother Mike, all he
could say was, "The hell you did! My friends in the DEA
and FBI couldn't find him! Man, you are some detective!"
He then became choked with emotion. He thanked me profusely and
asked if I thought it was all right to call Mike right then.
I said, "Reece, it's time -- make the call." He did
so immediately.
The two men -- Mike, now 76 and the other, Reece, soon to be
61 -- are planning on a California "family reunion"
in the spring of 2002, though each of them is very aware that
it will be the first meeting of the two sons of General
Maurice Rose. Considering my involvement in the "discovery,"
I hope to be invited.
In the interim, they are exchanging phone calls, photos and e-mails
to get better acquainted. Now that they have found each other,
they have many lost years to make up for. So the long lost brother
has finally been found -- fate meant it to be.
[END]
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Copyright Notice
regarding both of the above articles by Don R. Marsh on this
page: Copyright © 2001-2003 by Don
R. Marsh. All rights reserved. Publication or reproduction, in
part or whole, is prohibited without written permission from
the author, Don R. Marsh. All rights remain the sole property
of The Don R. Marsh Family Trust.
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