A very poignant video - thanks very much for posting it, Chip. I wish that every American would watch it, and then maybe they could begin to understand what these people went through to protect our freedom. Like the WW2 P-51 pilot was to the neighbor boy in this video, two such men had a profound influence on me, even though rarely a word was said about their experiences.
The first was my Dad, who was an aerial gunner in the PBY, TBM (and TBF), and the PB4Y. He saw combat in the Pacific and was on Okinawa when both atomic bombs were dropped. He never talked about his experiences unless asked - and then he'd answer only the specific question and would not volunteer anything more. Only after his death in 1990 did my Mom and I discover what he went through. In his Navy locker we found photos of destruction, suffering, & death. We found a lengthy hand-written document titled simply "Memoir", written on the troop ship that took him across the Pacific. When my Mom read of the hardships and danger he survived even on the troop ship, she cried. She had no idea of what he'd gone through and wondered why he never told her. I knew that he couldn't, because he simply didn't want her to know. I was sad that he'd hidden these things away and that I didn't know about them - I wish I'd had the chance to talk to him about it all. But the best I ever got was climbing through surplus PBY's in Casa Grande together, with my Dad telling anecdotes about flying in the Catalina.
The other man was my uncle (my Mom's brother), a B-24 pilot who flew his combat missions out of North Africa and Italy. He was shot down over Austria and was a POW for a year. Everyone in the family knew it was pointless to even bring up the subject of his combat, because he simply would not talk about it. It was more than 45 years after his shoot-down when I decided to give him a B-24 pilot's manual for Christmas, and I bought a second one to study myself. It was convenient for me to stop in and see him nearly every day, but for a long time he said nothing about the manual and I thought perhaps I shouldn't have given it to him. Then one day he casually began talking about difficulties they had shifting the turbo superchargers between low and high blower settings - it was as if he was picking up an interrupted conversation. This led to many more conversations, most of them were technically oriented about flying the B-24 or it's systems. But this technical talk led to him explaining in great detail the damage the flack did to his B-24 on his final flight. Then he explained how he bailed out, and then about being taken prisoner..., and then about whatever else he could remember until the day he was liberated. To my knowledge, he never talked to anyone else about these things. The only explanation for choosing me to hear all this was perhaps he thought that my military flying (and the fact that I had friends who'd become POWs in VietNam) might allow me to at least begin to understand and appreciate what he'd been through. It was a privilege to hear him tell these stories before he passed away.
My uncle left me all of his military items at his death, but he'd never shown them to me while alive. Included were even his official post-liberation debriefing describing the shoot-down, an accident report from a previous crash in North Africa, and most importantly, the secret diary he kept in his boot while he was a POW. In the diary I found much of what we'd talked about before his death and more. The most memorable diary entries are the very first one, and then another one nearly a year later when they raised American flag in the prison camp:
May 24, 1944 - Last mission - was caused to leave ship. Flack caused no. 1 & 3 to cut out, also had runaway prop. Jump was made south of Graz, Austria at about 10:10 in the morning. (This was the very definition of understatement, considering the details he added to his diary in the next few days as he recalled them.)
April 29, 1945 (10:00) This morning two 51's started off a nice show. Then the show outside camp opened up and the ground battle is still going on yet. 47's and 51's are going in on targets all around. Just now (11:05) they started with a few 75's or 105's, can't tell which. It's about 12:25 now and most all of the firing has stopped. The American flag was just raised over Mooseberg (13:00, approx.). That is the best thing these old eyes have rested on in many a day! (20:00) All afternoon GI's and jeeps have been in camp. Don't know if I will be able to go to sleep tonight or not! The big babies have opened up on a bridge on the other side of Mooseberg.
(Referring of course to P-47 Thunderbolts, P-51 Mustangs, and 75mm & 105mm howitzers - the "big babies"!)
So, my hat is permanently "off" not only to these two men, but to the many thousands of their comrades in arms who sacrificed so much for us. :cheers
