Walter A. Knapp

“I was so touched to learn that our own band will be paying in tribute to our honored dead at the Normandy American Cemetery. I would be so very grateful if a few of them could visit the grave of my father, SSgt. Walter A. Knapp, who was killed at Sainteny near Saint-Lô.

My father was an elegant, boyish, playful, serious patriot with a great devotion to God, country and family. He was a very gifted writer and artist, and I treasure his writings and works. How could we strive for any less? We picked up his sword and shield and make our feeble attempts to walk in his footsteps. We Marines love a parade and when the Pride of Niner Nation Marching Band plays in Normandy, I will be so very proud of them and hope that my father knows my heart is marching every step in step with them. We salute you daddy, and I miss you still!”

– Mary Jean Houlahan ’74

Walter A. Knapp, remembered by his daughter, Mary Jean Houlahan

Killed in battle, Walter Knapp was respected by his men and inspired a legacy of military service in his family.

Staff Sgt. Walter A. Knapp said goodbye to his wife on Friday, Jan. 29, 1944; his leave, granted him to attend the birth of his first and only child, was up, and his unit was preparing to leave for England. I was born the following Monday, and he was killed in action having never seen me. My mother sent a picture soon after my birth, but the first lock of my hair she sent was returned in the envelope with the inscription “deceased.”

My dad was a career soldier from Seymour, Connecticut, who met my mother while serving at Fort Adams, in Newport, Rhode Island. I often went to the ocean as a child and a teenager, certain that he had amnesia from the war and would come back someday looking for me. Actually, I ended up looking for and finding him on my honeymoon in Europe.

About 10 years ago, I found his unit on the internet and have attended several reunions. I was desperate to find someone, anyone, who knew him, and I found one member of his company, the famous WWII and career photographer Tony Vaccaro. He looked at his picture as if he were looking through thunder and said, “That’s Walter Knapp. He was in the foxhole next to mine, but after the middle of July I didn’t see him anymore.”

Vaccaro described him a soldier who was respected by his men, who was sharp in his uniform and who took care of his troops. That is all I ever needed to hear. At 34, he was considered old to fight, but he trained and protected his teenage troops and taught them how to fire a rifle with broomsticks when rifles were in short supply. He died with them on the field, killed by a Panzer (tank) 83 MM round. Kids with broomsticks, bravery and bald-faced courage won that war and continue to do so today.

A few years ago, I took my mother to a reunion in Washington, D.C., where she met Vaccaro and my father’s buddies and heard for herself the stories that went on long into the night. I treasure the picture I have of her sitting in a wheelchair alone in front of the reflecting pool of the WWII Memorial. She pointed to the 4,048 gold stars on the wall which rose above it and asked, “Which one is his?” I said, “The one right in the middle. It’s the biggest.”

I was commissioned in the U.S. Marine Corps following my graduation from Emmanuel College in Boston in 1965 and served as a company executive officer and the manager of the Office of the Undersecretary of the Navy. I met Tom, my husband of almost 50 years, while attending Administrative School at Parris Island. Tom, who died last year, was a graduate of The Citadel, and we flew on an Air Force hop to Spain and France for our wedding trip. He planned to find my father with me as the most beautiful wedding gift ever given.

We had two little boys by the time he came back from Vietnam, and we settled for several years in Charlotte near a school called UNC Charlotte, 5,000 strong and the home of Cedric “Cornbread” Maxwell.

At that time, women had to resign their military commissions if they had children. I loved science and service and enrolled in the College of Nursing on the G.I. Bill. I loved UNC Charlotte and my program there. I am in my 44th year of active full-time nursing practice, most recently as an oncology navigator and transition care coach for patients with heart failure. UNC Charlotte taught me the science of nursing; the Marine Corps taught me how to get it done.

My oldest son, a graduate of West Point, wears my father’s tattoo on his chest, a point not lost on me when he went to Iraq. Patrick, who was my pediatrics class example of toddler behaviors, is a Citadel grad and Marine FA-18 Hornet Top Gun Instructor. He looks and acts just like my dad. Sharon, our true 49er, was born in Charlotte and was commissioned as a Marine officer at her graduation from Notre Dame. She is currently finishing her doctoral dissertation in psychology at Boston College so she can treat troops with PTSD.