After 2 close calls in France, Utahn returns to accolades

METZERVISSE, France — Retired Salt Lake physician Joseph Stobbe never expected to come back to this village where twice he nearly died.

Sixty years ago this month, a bullet almost ended his life when, as a platoon sergeant in Gen. George Patton's 3rd Army, he entered the village to drive out occupying Nazi forces.

Then, three years ago, while on a vacation to retrace his path during the war, Stobbe was gravely injured again as he entered Metzervisse.

Now, on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of their village, the people of Metzervisse thronged Joseph Stobbe in the little square where they conferred upon him a bit of immortality he never could have anticipated.

"No, it's just an interesting happening," Stobbe says. "These people are just as friendly as though I'd won the war for them. Of course, obviously, I didn't."

The recognition for Stobbe capped an ambitious commemoration of the liberation of the Moselle region of France; a commemoration produced by an improbable sequence of events that brought together, as friends, a World War II U.S. Army veteran from Utah and an energetic, patriotic police chief in the northeast of France.

For Stobbe, the story began in June 1944 when he landed on Utah Beach in Normandy with the U.S. Army's 90th Infantry Division. He was wounded twice in combat in Normandy but continued fighting with his unit for another 300 miles in the Allies' eastward advance across France.

As his platoon approached Metzervisse, it encountered machine gun and bazooka fire from the windows of a house. In the assault to drive the Nazi snipers from the building, a bullet tore through Stobbe's left elbow.

An ambulance took him to nearby Luxembourg for surgery. The wounded soldier was transferred to hospitals in France and England before being returned to the States.

In 1945, he married his fiance and entered medical school at the University of Utah. Stobbe subsequently delivered thousands of Utah babies as a Salt Lake obstetrician.

The story line resumes in September 2001. Stobbe had returned to France for a vacation, driving from Normandy to Metzervisse in a rental car, taking pictures of his battle sites along the way.

At the entrance to Metzervisse, he decided to take a picture of the sign bearing the name of the village.

"I was busy thinking of that and was not paying attention to the road, and wham, this car hit us on the side and totaled the car and broke my leg," Stobbe remembered.