How A High Schooler Helped Reunite Twins 74 Years After Their World War II Deaths
The Pieper twins were killed in the 1944 D-Day Normandy invasion. Last month, they were laid to rest together in a military cemetery in France — thanks to a Nebraska teen's school history project.
Sometimes a high school history project ends up making history. That's what happened when a 16-year-old Nebraska student decided to participate in the National History Day project in 2015.
Partly due to her research, the bodies of two American twin brothers, separated at death during World War II, were finally reunited.
On June 19, 2018 — 74 years to the day after they were killed off the coast of Normandy, France — Ludwig Julius Wilhelm "Louie" Pieper and Julius Heinrich Otto "Henry" Pieper were laid to rest side by side in the Normandy American Cemetery, high on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach.
The twins were born in Esmond, South Dakota, and grew up in Creston, Neb. They enlisted in the
