A flag unfurled

“And now comes the wash on the Siegfried Line” is hand-painted in Dutch on the large flag Mark Powers was given by a family in Holland, in gratitude for both his service during World War II and for helping them honor – through a most serendipitous encounter – the fallen son of the chairman of Dr. Pepper.

With each unfurling of a gifted flag, a WWII story, both personal and universal, lives on

Story by Seth Terrell Photos provided by Jack Powers “This story is not about me,” Jack Powers says.

He sits at his desk at the Mark Powers Company on Ala. 69 in Guntersville. Strewn across his desk are old black and white photographs.

There are photos of soldiers and of children, one which includes a grinning, 6-year-old Jack and his sisters, Patricia and Barbara. Another photo of his mother, Alice Powers. Wallet-sized pictures that Jack’s father, Mark, carried with him across the war-torn landscape of Europe 75-plus years ago. There, too, are photos of the Versteijnen-Doljé family of Heerlen, Holland, who, like Mark, found themselves unlikely players in a story that is at once personal and universal.

Holding the photographs in your hand, piecing them together, or synthesizing them as Jack’s niece, Lacy Crockett, has done in two neatly bound, hardback, coffee table books, is a journey in itself. There in the center of them all, is Jack’s father, Mark Powers, donned in his Army uniform.

Drafted at the ripe age of 33, just as World War II had begun, Mark temporarily left his work for the Dr. Pepper Co., where he’d built a close relationship with J. B. O’Hara, chairman of the board of the already famous soft drink, to join the Allied cause fighting in Europe.

“Daddy could probably have gotten out of having to serve,” Jack says, “especially at his age and with three kids at home, but he felt like he had to go.”

In the photograph, Mark is smiling, his hair-line receding. His fellow soldiers would call him, Pop, on account of his age. Present in the warm smile is maturity of a man who had already settled down to live a successful life before such dreams were interrupted by war.

Today, Mark’s son, Jack Powers, right, proudly keeps the flag he inherited. Jack, who lives at Cherokee Ridge, and his late wife, known as SuSu, have two grown daughters who live in Guntersville, Paula Allen, who works for DHR, and Jenny Powers who owns Powers Real Estate and is shown here with Jack. Photo by David Moore.

Europe was an experience unlike anything Mark could have imagined, and he wrote home to his wife and children every single day. He saw his first jet plane there, he fought bravely in combat zones where few returned home alive.

Under Gen. Patton, Mark served with the 30th Division, a duty that would take him into the unforgiving winter forests during the Battle of the Bulge. For his efforts and bravery in combat, he was awarded four bronze stars.

“He didn’t talk about his war experiences too much, though people knew him as an honorable man,” Jack says. “And he loved people.”

It would be this love for people that would, by providence, lead to a lasting connection with the Versteijnen-Doljé family, a rich friendship that would help sustain him through the long, grueling war. Having advanced so far into Europe with the 30th, Mark and his fellow soldiers first found themselves in Holland in the early fall of 1945, liberating each town as they went. One morning he and his comrades stood knocking on the door of a house in Heerlen. Before anyone came to the door, a voice from within shouted, “Are any of you men from Dallas, Texas?”

Surprised by the question, the men remained silent until Mark piped up.

“Yes. I’m from Dallas.”

Mr. Versteijnen opened the door with his wife, huge smiles painting their faces. They had a family member who had left Holland and become a priest in Dallas. Such serendipity immediately created a bond between the American and the family. During the war, they became very close with Mark visiting every chance he had. He had gone to Europe to serve his country, but there in Heerlen he found a treasure of friendship that reminded him of exactly what and who he was fighting for. Mark Powers

A people person, Mark Powers enjoyed visiting the Versteijnen-Doljé family in Holland whenever it was possible, above. At far left, Mr. and Mrs. J.B. O’Hara looked sad while visiting the family in Holland in 1947. The family made good their promise to Mark and the O’Hara’s, placing fresh flowers on the grave of their son to honor the ultimate sacrifice he made in the fight for freedom.

Mark Powers was always close to his son, Jack, right, who went into business with him bottling and distributing Dr. Pepper. Back when the “Powers that be” added the chocolate drink YooHoo to their line-up of products, they were in New York and took in a Yankee’s baseball game. The famed Yogi Berra posed for a photo with them and a bottle of YooHoo.

“We have met many American soldiers these last six months,” Mr. Versteijnen wrote to Mark’s wife, Alice, back home in Dallas. “But never have we met such a nice man. Mark seems to be our brother.”

Mark and the Versteijnens shared meals and laughs together, they told stories and mourned the loss of friends. One such friend was J.B. O’Hara’s son, Bob, a pilot who’d been killed.

Upon the news of Bob’s death, the Versteijnen-Doljé family wrote to J.B., Mark’s former mentor and employer, offering heartfelt condolences. As a gesture of thankfulness toward Mark and the Allied liberators, the family offered to decorate Bob’s grave, which rested in a nearby cemetery in Margraten, Holland, 10 miles away.

“Our dear friend Mark asked us to visit Bob’s grave,” they wrote, “I promise you, we shall visit his grave and bring flowers as a note of cheerfulness for what he did for us. I shall take a picture of his grave that I will send to you as well.”

When the war ended, Mark returned home to his family and began a new life, picking right back up where he’d left the old one, with Dr. Pepper. Through his prior connections with J.B. O’Hara, Mark founded the Mark Powers Company in Birmingham, a company that innovated and greatly contributed to the world of soft drink distribution. Jack eventually bought the company and with his wife SuSu, moved it to Guntersville.

There were war stories Mark would remember, and many he would seldom speak of. But before he left European soil, the Versteijnen family gave him a unique token of esteem that seemed to trump them all: A captured German flag with all the swastikas removed, outlined in crayon and hand painted by Mr. Versteijnen and other Dutch nationals.

The flag, stripped of all its German markings, would become known as the Siegfried Line flag.

The story of the Siegfried Line seems to have curious origins. It was first a reference to the 390-mile line of fortifications, bunkers and tank traps stretching from the Netherlands to Switzerland. It was supposed to be a well-manned line of defense by which the German Army would protect their western boundary at all costs.

A song sprung up about the mythical

line of defense that talked about “hanging the washing along the Siegfried Line.” British soldiers adopted the song to boost morale and mock the Germans, suggesting that – once the Allies liberated the western front – the famed line of defense would be no more venerated than a clothes line for hanging the wash.

The song rose in popularity for the first years of the war, known and played in households all over Europe:

We’re gonna hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line, Have you any dirty washing, Mother-dear?

We’re gonna hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line, Cause the washing day is here.

Whether the weather may be wet or fine,

We’ll just rub along without a care.

We’re gonna hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line –

If the Siegfried Line’s still there!

When Allied forces liberated Heerlen in September 1945, they were greeted by the former Nazi flag now turned a welcome banner. A 14-foot wide flag, painted with the image of clothes hanging on a clothesline. Mark was soon given the flag.

“And now comes the wash on the Siegfried Line,” are the words written in Dutch.

“We had the finest moment in our lives,” Mr. Versteijnen wrote in a letter to his friends in America, “when we saw our liberators coming to hang their wash on the Siegfried Line.”

Mark returned from the war and settled in Birmingham to run his business,

Mark Powers with a post-war 1945 smile.

but he kept the flag and passed it on to his children after his death in 1969. With almost no signs of wear or tear 77 years later, the hand-painted job still perfectly displays its vibrant and subversive message.

As Jack and his daughter, Jenny, unfurl the flag in a warehouses at Mark Powers Co., Jack stands back admiring and remembering.

“I’m kind of a World War II buff,” Jack says. “I thought this needed to go somewhere important.”

Jack, his sister Patricia and friend of the family, Martha, brought the flag to the Birmingham Antiques Roadshow where a World War II historian and appraiser noticed the unique nature of the redesigned flag, suggesting it was a true presentation piece. So, Jack sent the flag to the World War II museum in New Orleans, but it was eventually returned because the museum could not quite figure out what to do with such a large flag, though they certainly recognized its remarkable shape and the fascinating story behind it.

Today, the flag remains the largest among several threads of memory woven into the family tapestry. It is at once a reminder of all that was at stake in the Second World War, the lives lost, the prices paid. Often called the Greatest Generation, veterans of the war who came home with their lives brought recollections both thrilling and sorrowful.

The Siegfried Line Flag remains a symbol of liberation and goodwill.

“I give this flag to my friend Mark Powers,” Mr. Versteijnen wrote, “as a souvenir that he can show his American friends of the trust and faith we had in the American Army in spite of the German domination of our people. The arrival of the Americans was like a dream come true.”

Somewhere beneath the universal story of independence and victory, remains a story of a friendship, one that transcended boundaries of language and nationality, one that stood the test of war.

While the quiet meals over supper tables somewhere in Heerlen, Holland, won’t make it to history books, the Powers family remains inspired and transformed by the generosity and brotherhood Mark found so far from home. And with each reminiscence and unfurling of the Siegfried Line flag, the story lives on.

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