What did a 6’2’’ St. Helena high school French teacher named Betsy Lull have to do with the five most important beaches in the world?

Ask Laurie Wood. On second thought, don’t. He won’t tell you. Sixty-five years ago he was sworn to secrecy “for life.” Laurie’s word is his bond.

You know Laurie as the dean of St. Helena Vineyard managers. “Kids” like Jim Barbour may plant 1100 vines per acre today—at 85 grand an acre--but he isn’t the only famous vineyard manager who learned how to do it under the auspices of Laurie. That was when the max was 454 vines per acre (8' x 12')—-and though old timers swore by St. George, all the hipsters were planting AXRI. Funny. Our latest phylloxera epidemic seems almost as long ago as when private enterprise built automobiles to the public’s specs—not the government’s. But I digress.

Many of you know Laurie as a water witcher--a douser by trade. The late Elwood Mee was a little more colorful with the feathers and baubles and Mark Mondavi hit a big one for Carmen Policy at Casa Piena, but Laurie is the one who consistently confounds geologists by letting two copper rods direct him to water where high falutin’ scientists swear none exists.

He drives the pointy headed intellectuals crazy by spraying in orange the exact spot where two underground streams cross. “Mumbo jumbo” the scientists decry. “There are no such things as underground streams”--then they jump out the way as Don Huckfeld’s drill bubbles up water where it “just can’t be.”

Laurie also manages the vineyards which grew the wine which Brad Webb and Jerry Luper made at Freemark Abbey which helped bust the back of the French in the Judgment of Paris back in ’76. Along with Chuck Carpy (a Korean War hero), Laurie was an original owner of Freemark Abbey. Is it any wonder Jim Pop thought he was in such hallowed company?

Well, it turns out Laurie visited Utah Beach—more precisely Cherbourg, on May 28th 1944. D Day minus eight. He and 6 other members of the 341st Army Engineers were smuggled in on a tug from South Hampton. They met up with Resistance fighters in order to understand what bridges were still intact over what rivers and canals--where major mine fields were--and the locations of German defensive positions.

“We didn’t cut our hair and were unshaven. We wore French clothes. We looked just like Frenchmen.”

Right.

Laurie was 22 and “thanks to good ‘ol St. Helena High,” his French was fluent.

Weren’t we all after three years of high school French?

Remember: Laurie and his pals were out of uniform and in enemy territory. Had they been caught, they would have been shot as spies—after a few fun and games had been played of which water boarding would have been the most pleasant.

They were to search for certain “trustworthy” individuals who would feed them, give them shelter and guide them to the mine fields, bridges, canals, rivers and fortifications they needed to inspect.

Laurie and his friends had cut their teeth building the Alcan Highway to Alaska. Bailey bridges were their forte—not espionage. After D day, they built these huge temporary “jig saw puzzles” over rivers and canals throughout France and Germany. They got caught up in the Battle of the Bulge and were on ships destined for Japan when Truman blessedly dropped the bomb to end the horror and save at least a million American lives and countless Japanese.

Laurie liked being an engineer. He still takes pride in those makeshift bridges which moved tanks and men across impassible rivers. He hardly thinks of himself as a hero. But Saturday, as you reflect upon what happened on Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah beaches some 65 years ago—give a little thought to Laurie and his band of brothers. Had not those seven boarded that tug at South Hampton, and risked being shot as traitors and spies, how man y more British, Americans and Canadians would have been killed in that fateful battle?

A Brit, Donald Bailey was knighted for inventing the Bailey Bridge. Not sure Laurie even got a thank you. He was a bridge builder—just doing his duty.

Yet, we have what we have today, because of what men like him did yesterday.

Laurie didn’t win the war. But how many lives did he save? At what risk? Just something to ponder—Saturday at the Wine Auction—-June 6th.