M4A1 Sherman DD, Lowered Screen RESICAST 35

Mark DeBacker Autore
Building for my family. Grandfather Harold Rueter was a WWII prison guard at Camp Perry Ohio. He made canvas awnings prior to the war and spoke fluent German. He ran a shop at the prison camp where POWs could work for extra benefits. They sewed odd, large, heavy canvas items. On June 7, 1944 the POWs were shown a movie of the items that they had made in use. They were the canvas screens of DD Shermans which had landed in Normandy the previous day. Most of the POWs were happy about this as it meant that the war would be over in coming months and they would be reunited with their families. I later learned that after the war, the large family chicken coop received a "roof" of the surplus canvas. Wish that I had known this when I visited in the early 1960s!