Author: WW2: The Big One

Since 1992, my work as a newspaper reporter has included writing stories about World War II veterans. Those veterans are mostly gone, now, but their stories are too good to die with them. This is my way of honoring those veterans of the world's biggest conflict.

Working on planes that ended the war

Fat Man, Little Boy and the Graci brothers *** New Orleans natives got a close look at the atomic bombs that ended WWII

Twins  Ben and Joe Graci, originally of New Orleans, hold a photo they are in that was autographed by pilot Paul Tibbets. They served on the Pacific island of Tinian, from which the airplanes took off that dropped both atomic bombs of Japan. (Photo by Bill Feig, used by permission of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana)

By George Morris

In the months that twin brothers Joe and Ben Graci of New Orleans worked on the Pacific island of Tinian, Col. Paul Tibbets was just another pilot they knew and the “Enola Gay” was just another bomber that they and their comrades worked to keep flying in World War II.

That changed abruptly on Aug. 6, 1945.

When the B-29 Superfortress bomber flown by Tibbets dropped an atomic bomb code named “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan, it was just as big a surprise to the men on Tinian as it was to the rest of the world. They found out about it the next day.

“Everybody went wild,” Joe Graci said.

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Turning war’s worst into verse

Dale Carver... 12/08/99
To deal with his memories of World War II, Dale Carver wrote poetry about what he saw and felt, a form of self-therapy he turned into a book, “Before the Veterans Die.” (Photo by Travis Spradling, used by permission of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana)

By George Morris

For years, Dale Carver got depressed around Christmas. It wasn’t the typical holiday blues. It was much worse than that.

In 1944, Carver was a soldier with the U.S. Army’s 106th Infantry Division in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest when German troops began their last major offensive of World War II in Europe, the Battle of the Bulge.

There, he saw what war is: the grisly death of friends and innocents, cruelty, stupidity, cowardice, strong men breaking under the strain. As much as he wished otherwise, these sights and sounds and smells would not leave him even after the battles ended. Not even when the rest of his world was celebrating.

“I never had nightmares. I never woke up screaming,” Carver said. “I used to get depressed at Christmastime.”

His method of coping was neither to lie on a psychiatrist’s couch nor bury these images in his subconscious. Instead, Carver wrote poetry.

Carver let the horror of war spill out into verse. He had long loved poetry, memorizing it for the sheer joy of basking in aptly turned phrases. Now, it served a different purpose.

“I think it was therapy,” Carver said. “I think I would have gone crazy if I hadn’t. I’m not kidding.

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On the run behind German lines

Osce Jones                                   P-51 pilot Osce R. Jones poses beside his aircraft. (Photo provided by Carol Ann Jones Lizana)

By George Morris

Many veterans returned from World War II with stories to tell, and most relied only on their memory.

P-51 fighter pilot Osce R. Jones, had something more tangible — a diary.

Forced down over occupied France by antiaircraft fire the day after the D-Day invasion, Jones, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, spent a week trying to evade capture and work his way back to England. He got caught, but while the events were fresh on his mind in a POW camp, he wrote about his experiences in a tiny notebook. His wife, Thelma, kept the notebook after he died in 1994.

“He had to write real small, because they didn’t have much paper,” she said.

The small print told a big story.

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‘Who more than self their country loved’

peo LeonStandifer bf 040.jpg
Leon Standifer holds the French Legion of Honor media he was awarded on April 26, 2012, in New Orleans (Photo by Bill Feig, used by permission of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana)

By George Morris

The headstones are there by the thousands, row on row. Throughout Western Europe, American dead from two world wars are at rest, many near the epic battlefields where they lost their lives.

Fifty years after he lost his dear wartime comrade, Leon Standifer didn’t go to any of those. Rather, he showed up in a tiny town in a corner of France where little real action took place. But even there, men of courage stood up.

And, in the case of Dale Proctor, fell. Standifer couldn’t let that be forgotten.

So, far from the grand ceremonies that marked other half-century remembrances, Standifer came to a country road outside Redene, a small Brittany town, where about 60 persons gathered to celebrate their liberation from Nazi Germany. Most who attended had lived through the occupation. Few, however, knew the man they specifically honored that day.

Standifer did.

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A “Lucky Bastard”

Rex Shearer... 10/11/04
Rex Shearer, from Baton Rouge, was an engineer/top turret gunner on a B-17 crew during WWII and was awarded a “Lucky Bastards Club” certificate after surviving the required missions and being sent home. (Photo by Patrick Dennis, used by permission of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana)

By George Morris

Call a man a “lucky bastard” and you’re asking for a punch in the nose. But not from Rex Shearer.

When the B-17 named “Blythe Spirit” touched down at Rattlesden, England, in early February 1945, Shearer and the rest of the nine-man crew joined the elite ranks of those who completed all their bombing missions over Europe.

They called it the “Lucky Bastards Club.” The name was appropriate.

“We were fortunate,” said Shearer, a Kansas native and Baton Rouge resident since 1965.

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Rocket man

Me_163BA German Messerschmitt Me 163B Komet rocket-propelled fighter at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio (Public domain photo)

By George Morris

In 1943, a month before his 16th birthday, Joachim “Joe” Hoehne was drafted into the German military. It was the fate of many boys his age in a country seeing World War II’s fortunes turning against it.

Unlike most of his contemporaries, though, Hoehne ended up on the cutting edge of aviation.

Hoehne, later a resident of Denham Springs, Louisiana, flew the Messerschmitt 163 Komet, a rocket plane introduced late in the war as the United States, Britain, Russia and France tightened the noose on Germany. Although it had little impact on the war’s outcome, it indicated where manned flight was heading.

Two years after the war, Chuck Yeager flew faster than the speed of sound in an X-1 rocket plane. Today, the vehicle’s most advanced descendent is the space shuttle.

All of that, of course, was more than Hoehne could have imagined at the time, even though he had grown up around aviation.

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17 days on a lifeboat in the Atlantic

Bob Talley... 12/16/98
Baton Rouge resident Bob Talley spent 17 days adrift on a life raft with several dozen other soldiers during WWII, and lived to tell the tale. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein, used by permission of The Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana)

By George Morris

Shortly after America’s entry into World War II, when German submarines were sinking American merchant vessels at a frightening rate in the Atlantic Ocean, Bob Talley was far from that action — and, he thought, about to get farther.

A U.S. Navy gunner, Talley was aboard a troop ship about to sail from San Francisco to Australia. But, an hour before it lifted anchor, Talley was ordered ashore. He stood on the pier and watched the ship leave.

“We were in San Francisco having a time,” Talley said. “We felt sorry for those fellows on the East Coast. Those subs were knocking them off one a week over there.

“All of a sudden, we woke up one morning and got orders to report to New York City.”

Those orders led Talley directly into the U-boat war in the Atlantic and to an ordeal that all mariners dread.

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Turning down a million-dollar wound

JamesCombs.adv
World War II Veteran James Combs shows off a photo of himself at age 24 Thursday at his home in Lafayette, Louisiana. (Photo by Bryan Tuck, used by permission of The Advocate, Baton Rouge)

By George Morris

For many soldiers in World War II, the best thing that could happen in combat was the “million-dollar wound” — one that didn’t maim for life, but sent them home.

Monroe Combs got his million-dollar wound shortly after D-Day, when artillery shrapnel struck one of his lungs. He was sent to a tent hospital on the Normandy coast.

“This captain said, ‘You got a chest penetration, so you’re home-bound,’” Combs said. “I said, ‘Really? I’m not going home. … I’m going to make that next jump.’ As I recall, I really took him back.”

By not cashing in, Combs would become part of one of the war’s most famous outfits.

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Currahee Military Museum

Toccoa Museum parachute                           The Currahee Military Museum pays tribute to those who trained there during World War II. (Photo by George Morris)

By George Morris

Toccoa, Georgia, is nearly as far off the beaten track today as it was when paratroopers trained at Camp Toccoa during World War II. Camp Toccoa is no more, but its spirit remains at the Currahee Military Museum and in the imposing presence of Currahee Mountain a few miles away.

The museum ($10 for adults; 160 N. Alexander St. in Toccoa) pays tribute to the soldiers who trained there — most famously Easy Company of the 101st Airborne’s 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, whose exploits were depicted in Stephen Ambrose’s book, “Band of Brothers,” and the HBO series based on it. The 501st PIR, 511th PIR and 517th Regimental Combat Team also trained there.

This museum is nothing on the order of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans or the Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas, but it has one interesting element that neither of those possess. And it didn’t even come from Camp Toccoa.

When the 506th PIR was shipped to England, some of its soldiers stayed in the town of Aldbourne. They were quartered in horse stables. Some years ago, when the owner of those stables was planning to tear them down, the Toccoa museum found out and bought six of them, which were taken apart and reconstructed inside the museum building. It depicts life the paratroopers experienced during that part of their training.

Toccoa Museum bunkStables where the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment were housed in Aldbourne, England, are part of the Currahee Military Museum display. (Photo by George Morris)

The museum has a variety of memorabilia, both from the camp and war souvenirs brought home by the paratroopers. It includes a wedding dress made from parachute silk for Glenn Bartlett’s English bride, Joan.

About five miles out of town, Currahee Mountain still dominates the landscape. The U.S. Forest Service maintains a gravel road that the paratroopers ran as part of their training. You can drive to the top for the view. Or, if you want to feel what they felt, you can run it. Three miles up. Three miles down.

Toccoa Currahee MountainThe view from near the top of Currahee Mountain. (Photo by George Morris)

 

A story for Flag Day

POW flagThis flag, on display in the National Museum of the Pacific War  in Fredericksburg, Texas, was made by prisoners of war held by the Japanese and is similar to one made by POWs held in Davao, Philippines, and Toyama, Japan, during World War II. (Photo by George Morris)

By George Morris

When people think of World War II, the famous flag-raising at Iwo Jima is one of the most memorable images. But there is another flag from that conflict, and a friend of mine, that you should know about.

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