You're not correct about the area around Wapakoneta being handed out to German or any other veterans after the Revolution. For many decades that area was the property of the Shawnee nation, which had split during the War of 1812. The Wapakoneta area was given in gratitude to the faction that supported the Americans. In 1830 the government got Duquochet, the French interpreter for the Shawnee, drunk and got the Indians to put their "X" on a document relinquishing their lands. Then most of Auglaize County was sold, sight unseen, to Germans and Swiss who later moved there, not war veterans.
Today about half the names of residents living there are German names. Not surprised if that included Armstrong's mother. The new immigrants, who were mostly farmers, immediately sought to become as American as possible and within two generations had stopped speaking German at all, unlike today's Mexicans.
After the moon landing, Armstrong became a recluse. He had a friend in Wapakoneta. When he visited, the friend would keep the garage door open and close it immediately after Neal drove in. "Wapak" kept inviting him back to town on the anniversary of the moon landing but he never even answered their invitations.
The two biggest heroes of that area, in my opinion, were Catecehassa (Black Hoof) and Bob Stultz. Black Hoof was principal chief of the Shawnee Nation and made the peace with the whites after fighting them in battles going back to the French and Indian War. He was 105 when he died.
Bob Stultz flew P47s out of East Anglia for the 56th Fighter Group. "Cave Tonitrum"--beware the Thunderbolt. On August 17, 1943, a very dark day, when 60 B17 crews died horrible deaths over Europe, Stultz saved two of them, killing two Bf110s. But he forgot to "check 6" until, too late, he saw the FW109. He managed to parachute. A Belgian woman from the town of Tongeren, named Mme. Lys de Lyon, found the body. There was blood on the parachute. Some say that Germans machine gunned him as he hung in the shrouds but I doubt this. Hid victor, you see, was Hauptmann Johannes Naumann, who had 35 kills. In 2000 a very old man, a former B17 pilot from America, visited Tongeren. Someone pressed an old gold watch into his hand.
The watch had belonged to an American Air Hero!
I was named in honor of Bob Stultz. I do not forget that. Maybe that's why I have no truck with Jane Fonda or the NFL bums who disrespect our country.
