WWII veteran's medals, including Purple Heart, returned to his Ohio family with answers

A chance encounter by a caring Dutch filmmaker has helped return the service medals and personal effects of a fallen World War II hero to his Meigs County family, bringing some closure to a decades-old mystery.

George Gillilan, 70, was named after his uncle, who died in combat during WWII defending Leipzig, Germany, weeks before the city's liberation, and the war's official end on Sept. 2, 1945.

"When I came along, they wanted to honor him and gave me the name," said Gillilan, who lives near extended family in Pomeroy in Meigs County, a short distance from the crossroads community of Chester, where his uncle grew up and whose Depression-era Summerfield's Restaurant still operates.

All he — or anyone else, for that matter — knew about his uncle was that he had died in Europe during the war's end, eight years before his nephew was born.

"I knew of him, but I really didn't know him," Gillilan said. "All I was ever told is that he got killed. You always kind of want to know more."

For 77 years, his uncle remained buried in a military cemetery in a Dutch town half the size of Grandview Heights.

But a few months ago, almost 6,500 miles away, filmmaker Jeroen van den Kroonenberg was looking at the medals of his late grandfather and pondering why so many service medals and documents had ended up for sale online.

Among the many he saw was the original brown paper packaging for Gillilan's effects, including the Purple Heart. It was still marked with his home address in Chester, Ohio.

"Every time I see something of personal value online, I question: "How would I like it if my grandfather's business was online'" he explains in the film. "Sold to an unknown. Gone forever from the family."

He purchased the set for a reported $600, "but with only one goal — make sure it goes back to where it belongs."

van den Kroonenberg did some quick searching and learned that Gillilan had been buried near his home, along with some 8,200 others in the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten.

That connection sparked his all-out quest to reach the family.

Pfc. George M. Gillilan was in the U.S. Army's 273rd Infantry Regiment, 69th Infantry Division, and riding atop a tank, part of a battalion dodging crossfire when a sniper's round struck his head. He and nine others died that spring day, April 18, 1945.

van den Kroonenberg sent messages seeking relatives to Meigs County websites and a Facebook page explaining what he had found after seeing that Pomeroy and Chester had a banner bearing the hero's image, used in celebrations.

But Gillilan, the nephew, was suspicious of a stranger from so far away.

"The guy tried to connect with me, and I thought it was some kind of a scam. I just don't trust that stuff," he said.

His daughter, Lee Gillilan, 48, slowly warmed to the idea.

"I thought I'd test the waters," she said. "He (van den Kroonenberg) told me to keep it a secret. 'We'd like to bring it to you for Veterans Day.' I kept waiting for him to ask for money."

The more they spoke, however, the stronger her sense of trust and family welled.

"I really felt like this guy was sincere," she recalled. She even offered to pay him something for his efforts.

"He said, 'Absolutely not. This is about the family and getting them back to you.'"

So on Nov. 11, she, along with dozens of relatives and friends, gathered with van den Kroonenberg and his film crew inside the Chester fire station to document the reunion and to honor George.

The film was released Dec. 25, a Christmas present for the family.

Watch: Gillilan documentaryGeorge M. Gillilan family is reunited with war medals and Purple Heart 77 years later

The 15-minute film includes poignant accounts from George's younger brothers, John Gillilan, 93, who is known as Roy, and Joe Gillilan, 89, neither available for phone interviews due to hearing loss.

In the documentary, Roy recalled being a teenager and hearing their mother's phone call saying simply that "George got killed. That's the way she put it. George got killed."

"I didn't know what to do then. It hurt everybody," he said.

It's unclear if the package of documents and medals ever made it back to Gillilan's widow, who remarried shortly after George's death. And if so, when and how they ended up for sale was a mystery.

Lee Gillilan said the film about her great-uncle moved her and others in ways she hadn't expected.

"I've never seen my dad cry but once," she said of George Gillilan, the nephew. "But he did twice in that video."

Medals exist for a reason, preservationists say.

The medals "become the last tangible thing that you'll ever receive of your son," said Zachariah Fike, founder of Vermont-based Purple Hearts Reunited, which helps return lost, stolen and misplaced military medals. "It brings a piece of them back to the family."

For Lee Gillilan, trusting the Dutch filmmakers whom she calls "beautiful souls" was a gift that may last for generations.

"I just felt like I wanted to hug them," she said. "I didn't want to let them go. They were just so sweet."

And she speaks regularly with the family who had adopted and maintains her great-uncle's grave in Margraten.

"Today's generation needs to know that these people died for their freedom."

dnarciso@dispatch.com

@DeanNarciso

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Purple Heart, other medals returned to WWII veteran's family in Ohio