Franklin County MIA soldier included in commemorative book

A Franklin County native, who died on Oct. 4, 1944, during a World War II battle in the Netherlands and whose remains were never located, has been included in a memorial book commemorating the lives of the military men and women who were killed in action there.

Pvt. Howard Thomas Bonds, from the Hamburg community near Roxie, was 27 year old when he died as part of the U.S. Army’s 17th Tank Battalion, Seventh Armored Division, A Company, and his remains were officially listed by the military as “non-recoverable.”

As a missing-in-action solider, Bonds was memorialized on the Walls of the Missing — along with 1,722 other U.S. soldiers — at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in the small Dutch town of Margraten near Maastricht.

In 2014, volunteers with the Fields of Honor Foundation initiated “The Faces of Margraten” project where the graves and Walls of the Missing are decorated with the soldiers’ personal photos. Volunteers in both Europe and the U.S. collected more than 8,500 images.

The foundation’s online memorial pages contain the images of close to 38,000 U.S. soldiers who have either been buried or memorialized at American war cemeteries in Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

In 2020, to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi Germany, volunteers published a first-edition book entitled, “The Faces of Margraten: They Will Remain Forever Young.”

The book was part of an equally exhaustive effort to collect photographs as well as stories of the fallen soldiers as a means of creating a lasting printed document honoring those men and women who died in an effort to keep their memories alive for future generations.

“This commemorative book stands as a testament to their service and sacrifice and is not meant to be tucked away on a shelf,” Jori Videc, Sebastiaan Vonk and Arie-Jan van Hees – the authors of the book – said of the publication.

“Rather, we believe, it is deserving of a prominent place on anyone’s coffee table, in a classroom, in the library or in a veterans’ post as a daily reminder of those to whom we owe so much.”

The Dutch edition of the book quickly sold out twice and now, three years after the text was first published, an American version has been printed with one of the first copies presented to Aleisha Woodward, who serves as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in the Netherlands.

“We wanted to bring the stories of service, sacrifice and remembrance home to America,” Videc, Vonk and van Hees noted.

The authors added more than 50 stories to the American edition and even more faces to the book’s 10,000-name honor roll.

The Fields of Honor Foundation, which is a European nonprofit organization that can be found at www.fieldsofhonorfoundation.com, noted Bonds was born locally in 1917 to Thomas K. Bonds and Iva E. (Aldridge) Bonds and had three brothers — John V., Robert F. and Roy D.

He was married to Mildred E. (Lyon) Bonds.

Bonds, a Purple Heart recipient, was a light machine gunner who died in an area between Kijkuit, Castle Hattert and Overloon in the Netherlands.

He had enlisted in military service at Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg on March 3, 1942.

Bonds is one of 30 Franklin Countians who died during World War II service.

The people of the Netherlands have never forgotten the service and sacrifice of U.S. soldiers.

Since 1945, locals there have adopted the graves in bringing flowers on a regular basis.

The program is maintained by the Stichting Adoptie Graven Amerikaanse Begraafplaats Margraten (translated as Foundation Adoption Graves American Cemetery Margraten).

“The Faces of Margraten: They Will Remain Forever Young” is available through its publisher, Amsterdam University Press, or every other regular book outlet in the U.S., including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.