Berks native who died liberating the Netherlands to be honored at ceremony

Derricks Deeds is a man who likes facts.

The retired Marine colonel and devout family historian is a stickler for them. He seeks them out. He collects and records them.

“Everything has got to be factual,” said the 64-year-old who lives in Sharpsburg, Ga. “Hearsay and opinions, I’m not interested in them.”

That’s what led him about two decades ago to reach out to officials in the Netherlands. He was in search of the truth about one of his ancestors: Army PFC Leonard J. Hoffman.

He had heard stories about Hoffman, about how he had died after being shot in the heart while storming the beaches on D-Day. But those stories weren’t fact.

It turns out, he found through his research, that Hoffman, his great uncle and a Berks County native, had been killed in action on Sept. 12, 1944, while aiding in the liberation of the Netherlands.

Deeds has remained in contact with the Dutch officials, a relationship that has led to his invitation to take part in a special ceremony on Sept. 12 to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the start of the liberation. The ceremony will be held near Mesch, broadcast live on national television across the Netherlands and be attended by the country’s king and queen.

Deeds, who will attend the ceremony with his son Warren Deeds, have been given the opportunity to make a speech as part of the ceremony. He said he hopes to be able to use it to highlight the long, strong connections between the Netherlands and the Pennsylvania Dutch community his family hails from.

“I want to be able to communicate about Pennsylvania and its connection to immigrants, many who came to the U.S. through Rotterdam,” he said, saying family names in that part of the world mirror many of those in Berks. “We wouldn’t be Pennsylvania, we wouldn’t be the country we are without that.”

Those immigrants include Deed’s ancestors, like Hoffman. Hoffman was the youngest of 10 siblings who grew up in Reading and Bern Township — Deed’s grandmother, Mary E. Hoffman, was the second oldest sibling and worked in local textile mills.

Leonard Hoffman served in the 117th Regiment of the 30th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army National Guard — nicknamed the “Old Hickory Division.” Deeds said he was a combat replacement troop, being called to action after the regiment took heavy losses in a previous battle.

During the fight to free the Netherlands, Hoffman was killed after being struck by a fragmented grenade. The spot of his death, which sits in Belgium near its border with the Netherlands, is marked with a plaque, Deeds said.

Hoffman was buried in an American cemetery in the Netherlands.

Deeds said he thinks it’s important to remember men like his great uncle, to honor what they did and the sacrifices they made, as a way to ensure violent history like World War II doesn’t repeat. He said the U.S. must stay vigilant and prepared, always ready to defend itself.

“You need to be so good, so threatening, that your true victory is never having to go to war,” he said. “People who don’t have that experience, who don’t have that knowledge of what happened and what it was like, need to be taught so we don’t have to do it again.”

Source: Berkshire mont