Humble.
If you wanted one word to describe them, I’d pick humble.
“I was just doing my job.”
“It wasn’t anything special. Others did more.”
“Someone had to do it, I happened to be there.”
“The real heroes never came home.”
Time and time again, they use these words.
Several weeks ago, I wrote about how the generation that won World War II is leaving us.
They’re mostly in their 80s now and, nationwide, we’re losing more than a thousand a day. Four million are still alive, though, and many are now willing to talk about that war.
I met several of them.
Julian Meyer lives in Edmonds. If you saw him on the street, you’d never know he was once a bombardier in the 8th Air Force or that he flew 25 missions over Europe. You’d never know that some of his missions were among the toughest of the war – the Messerschmitt factories at Regensberg, the poison gas plants in Ludwigshaven, the sub pens at Bremen harbor.
Recently, I sat down with him and his diaries and just listened.
“They were all 7- to 10-hour missions with temperatures down to minus-52 degrees. It was so cold inside the plane that the coffee in our thermos bottles froze. It was so cold that the relief tubes froze solid. We used condoms when we had to go. Later, we just added them to the bomb load over Germany.”
He pointed to a faded duty roster.
“I flew with Jimmy Stewart while we were in training. He was intense. Always wanted to get it right. Good pilot, though.”
He told me that Clark Gable once joined his crew on a mission over Germany. He stopped for a minute, laughed at the memory, and then said: “He was always Clark Gable.”
Paging through his diaries, I came across his decorations. Among them was the Distinguished Flying Cross – the second highest medal awarded by the Army Air Force for valor.
“Just doing my job,” was his explanation.
I noticed a scar on his arm and was told that he’d been wounded by flak over Germany.
“I refused the Purple Heart because I was still alive. Others weren’t.”
He mentioned that, once, the wing fell off of his B-17 when they landed. It had been damaged during the mission but, apparently, the “lift” it produced held everything together. When they landed, the lift disappeared and the wing let go.
He told about the time the bombs jammed over the target and how he and another crew member went back to free them. While working on them (basically, kicking them), they suddenly let go and he and his friend ended up leaning against each other over an open bomb bay – 30,000 feet above Germany.
There were others.
Gene Halsey of Woodinville was an infantryman in the 7th Army. When he was drafted, they found that he was blind in one eye. Refusing to accept a 4F classification, he talked himself into the Army but his service record had “Limited Service” stamped on it. “Somehow,” he said with a smile, “that label got crossed out and I became a machine gunner.”
He fought from Marseilles, France, to Innsbruck, Austria.
“The winter of 1944 was the coldest I’ve ever been in my life. We didn’t have proper foot gear and a lot of guys ended up with trench foot or frostbite.”
He spoke of how he’d spent many miserable days and nights in a foxhole with his friend, Tony Hillerman – the now famous author.
Fear and mind-numbing fatigue were constant but what kept him going was the desire to never let his friends down. If you were to believe him, the Bronze Star he was awarded was for “not turning tail and running when the shooting started.”
Rafael LaMarca lives in Everett. When the Philippines fell, he went into the hills and fought in the resistance movement. The story of his unit is told in the book, “We Remained,” written by R.W. Volkman.
John Waltz, also of Everett, was in the first wave that went ashore on Iwo Jima. In that special corner of hell, he saw more than 2,000 comrades become casualties on the first day of battle. Almost 7,000 of his fellow marines died before the island was secure. John Waltz rejoined those comrades a little over a month ago.
Dr. Dan Parker, a historian at Truett College in Georgia, has this to say about the veterans of World War II:
“We historians wax grandly and philosophically about trends and epochs, about statesmen and wars, about grand schemes and mighty empires. But what is truly interesting and relevant about history for most of us are ‘stories.’ Stories of life, stories of hope, stories of triumph and tragedy, stories of death. Every person is a living library and we can learn so much if we would only ask and if we would only listen.”
We’ve nearly lost the meaning of Memorial Day, what with sales and long weekends and picnics. We’re a short-attention-span people. Seattle canceled its parade several years ago and schools don’t explain it in any great detail any more.
Still, the men and women who served in World War II did extraordinary things. They walked the world like giants.
It’s time to ask.
It’s time to hear their stories.
And it’s time to thank them – and every other veteran – for all they’ve done.
We owe them that much and more.
Larry Simoneaux is a freelance writer living in Edmonds. Comments can be sent to: larrysim@att.net.
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