Heros among us

[M.T. Pockets]

Like many folks on this board I'm from a small town, about 1,000 people. All my life I've known a man who has lived among us, a great guy. He liked to hunt & fish, and would organize trips for his brothers and friends, he was self employed as a carpenter and could straighten any barn that was already tipped over. He was the Fire Chief for years and an all around good guy.

He died this morning.

What a lot of people didn't know was that he was a navigator on a bomber during WWII. He flew over 20 missions before he and crew had to bail out over occupied France. He hid in a cellar while the SS troops were searching the house upstairs. The French underground got him back to England and his flying days were through. Shortly before that his crew was chosen to be the lead bomber across the English Channel on D-Day because the weather was bad and they had the most experienced and best navigator available - him. He had an 8th grade education with a knack for navigation. I only heard him talk about it once, he talked of how the weather just broke and they got to France just as the sun was breaking the horizon, flying over the ships below to knock out the big guns on the shore. He downplayed it, saying there were a lot of others with tougher missions. Navigating the first bomber over Normandy on D-Day is no small responsibility either.

If I live to be an old man one thing that I will be proud of is that I knew heros from WWII personally, and heard them tell their stories. I've introduced my kids to those that I can so that they might be able to tell others in 75 years that ther personally met these men too.

Thanks to all you veterans from all wars, and those veterans from peace time too - there wouldn't have been peace if you hadn't been there to protect it. Special thanks to those currently serving.

[Nulle]

It is hard to lose these great people and with the Holidays it seems even worse for some reason.

[multibeard]

I under stand where you are comming from. There are more heros out there than we will ever know about from the wars gone by. Most just do not talk about what went on.

If you look in the obituarys there are fewer and fewer obits for WWII vets as we are losing these heros all to fast.

On Dec 7th I picked up a Pearl survivors breakfast tab at the resturant knowing that with him being 85 it might be the last chance I might be able too.

The neet part is if you get the right angle you can see the bottom of the holster sticking out from under the vest he always wears.
85 and carrying. I feel that he has earned the right.

[Critch]

I constantly tell my kids what heroes these guys and quite a few women were during WWII and other wars. My kids remember the old man who lived next door to us, but sadly he had alztheimers so they don;t remember him and I having our long conversations about the War. Jim was a waist gunner in B-24's on the Ploesti raid. He told me many times that he still relived every moment of that raid, but he would do it again. He told me about seeing an ME-109 come under the bomber in front of him and shoot it down, then the bomber next to them got the 109.

My late brother-in-law was a waist and upper turret gunner on a B-17 in England. He was also a personal hero to me, he taught me to shoot, hunt, and fish, and frankly a lot of work ethic. He said the most helpless feeling he ever has was watching the Fortresses around him go down from German fighters and flak. I remember he also told me that flak was very accurate depending on which German unit was doing the shooting.

My sixth grade teacher in Memphis was a WAC nurse in North Africa and Italy. She came under fire many times while tending to the wounded. Mrs Bodenheimer, she was one of the best teachers I ever had.

In college I got to interview some surviviors of the Chosin Reservoir, what great guys. To a man, they were more worried about their buddies than themselves.

There were many more, the guy across the street from us who lost his legs from a German fighter's cannon, and many more. We are losing these folsk way too fast.