Sgt. Leonard Werth, A Model Soldier, 89, Washington Post
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/27/AR2010022703294.html
A Local Life: Sgt. Leonard Werth, 89
Sgt. Leonard Werth: A model soldier, captured in limestone
By T. Rees Shapiro
Sunday, February 28, 2010
While stationed in Ulm, Germany, during the late 1950s, thousands of miles
from his hometown in western Kansas, then-Sgt. Leonard Werth met a stranger
who asked him a peculiar question: Do I know you? You look familiar.
The soldier replied that he had never met the man before.
What the stranger actually had seen was Sgt. Werth's silent likeness, a
nine-foot-tall statue in England designed by American sculptor Wheeler
Williams. Sgt. Werth had posed for the sculptor during the late 1940s while
posted to Governors Island, N.Y.
Sgt. Werth, 89, who later retired at the rank of sergeant major, died Jan.
29 at his home in Arlington County of complications from dementia. But the
statue, with its face carved out of English limestone, remains to this day.
Standing in the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial, about 60 miles
north of London, the statue, and three others representing each military
branch of the time, is part of the Tablets of the Missing, a 472-foot-long
limestone wall etched with the names of 5,126 American soldiers, sailors and
airmen whose remains have never been found.
From 1946 to 1950, Sgt. Werth was assigned to a military police company on
Governors Island, the headquarters of the First Army. The position included
many ceremonial duties, and the men stationed there were expected to be
ideal models of a soldier.
One day, Gens. George C. Marshall and Dwight D. Eisenhower appeared on base
and asked to see 200 men for an inspection. As the two generals strolled
down the line, they took account of the features of each man they passed.
They stopped at Sgt. Werth.
Later, Sgt. Werth was asked why he had been picked. Was it his striking
cheek bones? His sharp nose? His boxer's jaw?
"How was I selected? I don't know," he told the Pentagram, a newspaper
serving the military community, in 2002. He said that because of his duties
in New York, he had come to know Eisenhower and Marshall. All Sgt. Werth
knew for sure was to report to Williams's Manhattan studios dressed in his
sharpest fatigues.
During an 18-month period, Sgt. Werth modeled for countless hours while
Williams sculpted. Occasionally, Marshall and Eisenhower would visit to
observe the progress.
The artist was quite impressed with Sgt. Werth's professionalism and wrote a
letter to the commander of his outfit.
"I found him courteous, prompt, and willing to do much more than his share,"
Williams wrote in April 1951. "And, in short, [I] received more help in
every way from him than from the members of the other three services who
also posed in my studio."
Leonard Werth was born on July 31, 1920, in Schoenchen, Kan. He lied about
his age and joined the Army at 16 and was assigned to a horse-drawn
artillery battalion in Cheyenne, Wyo. His duties included 500-mile trail
rides over the buttes and valleys across Wyoming and Colorado.
During World War II, he served in North Africa and participated in the
invasion of Italy near Anzio. He and 100,000 allied troops landed on a
13-mile beachhead along the Italian coast while Axis forces pounded the sand
with mortars and machine gun fire.
"It was the war," he said in 2002. "You dug in. You didn't move in daytime.
You crawled at night."
He spent a few months away from the military after the war but re-enlisted
and was assigned to Governors Island. He served in a number of military
police units in Germany and Washington before retiring in 1962 at the rank
of sergeant major.
He then took a job as chief of police at the Cameron Station Military Depot,
an installation in Alexandria that once housed the Defense Logistics Agency.
He retired in 1986.
Once Williams was finished with his statue design, the figurine model based
on Sgt. Werth was sent to England to be sculpted from native limestone. The
memorial was dedicated in July 1956 and is the only American cemetery for
World War II troops in England.
Sgt. Werth's wife of 55 years, Hedy, whom he met in Germany, once visited
the statue while on vacation with family in 1995 and said she noticed the
resemblance. She said her husband did not go with her because after the war
he did not like flying.
While posing, Sgt. Werth was aware that his appearance would last forever,
but he never let the idea of being a sculptor's model go to his head. In
fact, he never cast an eye on the finished product.
"I've never seen it," he said. "Hell no."
Leonard Werth was born on July 31, 1920, in Schoenchen, Kan. He lied about
his age and joined the Army at 16 and was assigned to a horse-drawn
artillery battalion in Cheyenne, Wyo. His duties included 500-mile trail
rides over the buttes and valleys across Wyoming and Colorado.
During World War II, he served in North Africa and participated in the
invasion of Italy near Anzio. He and 100,000 allied troops landed on a
13-mile beachhead along the Italian coast while Axis forces pounded the sand
with mortars and machine gun fire.
"It was the war," he said in 2002. "You dug in. You didn't move in daytime.
You crawled at night."
He spent a few months away from the military after the war but re-enlisted
and was assigned to Governors Island. He served in a number of military
police units in Germany and Washington before retiring in 1962 at the rank
of sergeant major.
He then took a job as chief of police at the Cameron Station Military Depot,
an installation in Alexandria that once housed the Defense Logistics Agency.
He retired in 1986.
Once Williams was finished with his statue design, the figurine model based
on Sgt. Werth was sent to England to be sculpted from native limestone. The
memorial was dedicated in July 1956 and is the only American cemetery for
World War II troops in England.
Sgt. Werth's wife of 55 years, Hedy, whom he met in Germany, once visited
the statue while on vacation with family in 1995 and said she noticed the
resemblance. She said her husband did not go with her because after the war
he did not like flying.
While posing, Sgt. Werth was aware that his appearance would last forever,
but he never let the idea of being a sculptor's model go to his head. In
fact, he never cast an eye on the finished product.
"I've never seen it," he said. "Hell no."