Hindsight from The New Gun Week February 10, 1999
World War II Hero Remembered
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
Last Saturday I attended a memorial service for a friend and client of some 30 years. Normally, I wouldn't use such a personal event as a springboard for a column, but the service put me in mind of several other things.
It came at a time when the movie "Saving Private Ryan" has not only been big at the box office but has earned also kinds of awards, including the Golden Globe award for Best Picture of the Year. Various television shows in recent months have also focused on the history of World War II, perhaps the last conflict involving Americans where citizen soldiers were accorded almost universal respect from the rest of the citizenry-a conflict that has also been described as "our last popular war."
It also came at a time when Tom Brokaw's book, The Greatest Generation, is winning huge sales and critical appraise as well as stirring up commentaries by columnists and others in the media.
I was a few years to young to make that war and had to wait just a few years for the next one, but I was old enough to be aware of what was going on, of attitudes and rationing, and the cost to our society.
I had one brother who volunteered for the Marine Corps fighting his way across the Pacific in just about every invasion from Tarawa to Iwo Jima, and another who was unhappy that he could not be on active duty because of physical problems, but who limped into and out of defense plants where they were building munitions and bombsights with the tools he designed.
Everyone Involved
World War II was a war in which more than 12 million American men and women were called into service. Almost every family had relatives in uniform, and the people at home were exposed to rationing, shortages, difficulty in travel, and the fact that they could not buy many of the goods they wanted-even if they had money they earned working overtime in a defense plant-because almost all production was geared toward defeat of the Fascist war machine.
Certain food items were rationed and so was gasoline for a car that was often many years old. The different climate of that age, and the different attitude of the American people, is something which movies, television and books can tell you about, but which you are unlikely to understand or appreciate if you were born years after that war.
The man whose life and passing we memorialized last Saturday was representative of an age and an American attitude which we may never experience again.
He had enlisted in the Army Air Corps near the beginning of the war after graduation from a small Midwestern college. He was trained in the US and sent to England as a pilot in a squadron of B-17 "Flying Fortresses." Thinking back, I realize that we must have had spinmeisters back in the 1940s, too. What person in their right mind who has every flown in an airplane who have the chutzpah to call any airplane, no matter how many guns were mounted in it, a "fortress." The truth is, those planes were very crude compared to today's military aircraft, and a primary bomber, such as the B-17 was, usually not much bigger than our modern "commuter" aircraft. If you get a chance the next time there's an air show in your neighborhood with some WWII vintage planes, go take a look. You'd be surprised. I had a brother-in-law who was a tail gunner on one of them.
Last Mission
I don't intend to use the name of the recently deceased friend for a good reason which will soon become apparent.
But at this point I should tell you that he flew 25 bombing missions over Europe during 1943 and early 1944, bringing back his plane and crews on the first 24.
On his 25th and last mission, he was flying back to England from a bombing run in Germany, when his plane was shot down by ground and fighter aircraft fire. They crashed in Belgium and before being pried from the plane, the craft was raked by machinegun fire-perhaps to ensure that it could not fire from any of its guns at the ground troops advancing.
Everyone on the plane's crew who survived the fight in the air, the crash landing and the fire on the ground was wounded and taken prisoner. They further served their country as prisoners of war for a little over another year. Needless to say, they were finally set free by advancing American armor, and I like to think that my late neighbor from across the street, who was a tank commander under Gen. George S. Patton, might have been involved in liberating the POW camp.
But that doesn't matter because it was other Americans, all of whom had made extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of their country and the principles for which it stands. Some of the draftees may have whined and tried to get out of doing their duty. That was true in World War II as it was during Korea, Vietnam, and maybe even Desert Storm. But they went when called, and as Stephen Spielberg said as he accepted an award for "Saving Private Ryan," they "saved the world from fascism and even worse holocaust."
Many of these people served for two, three, four and some even five years without getting home. Kids their wives were expecting when they went into service were in kindergarten when they came home. That's a lot of years out of their lives.
Civilian Hero, Too
The bomber pilot we were remembering was prepared to go to the Pacific Theater after he was released from the POW camp, but he never got there. Instead, he came back to the states and trained other pilots and ferried planes until he was discharged in 1946.
That's when he displayed another memorable American trait. He became a hero of a different kind. He married, raised a family, started an automobile dealership, and ended up founding a company that still exists and provides employment for over 85 people. He also was active in youth sports, as a coach, youth football league founder, and with the United Way. While he had photos in his office of himself and his wartime bomber crew beside their B-17, he didn't often talk about his war experiences, and never except in response to a question.
One of his sons served on a Navy warship during the Vietnam conflict. Another served in the Army Desert Storm and other smaller operations.
The Vietnam vet was the oldest of the children and he recalled during the memorial service his pride in his late father's World War II heroics. He noted that his father had experiences that he could only share with his comrades in arms, just as the son could share his Vietnam experiences only with people who had been there, too. He noted that we each do what we must do as citizens, and that his father had been a model for himself, his brothers and sister.
None of the children mentioned the .45 caliber pistol their father owned in New York state without paperwork. It wasn't his own service pistol, but his father's from an even earlier war. He considered it a military souvenir, but also a symbol of the American right to keep and bear arms. He and I talked guns many times, and he supported my efforts to fight attempts by the anti-gunners to take away the right to keep and bear arms which we believed was part of the heritage we preserved by service in the American armed forces during time of war.
Perhaps I thought most about my friend and his heroics and his living example of the American dream when the men of the American Legion post to which he belonged marked his passing with a speech about comradeship in arms, with the presentation of the folded flag to the oldest son, and with the recorded firing of a three-gun volley and the playing of taps in the room behind the one where the service was held.
Even though the sound of gun fire had been previously announced, many in the suburban church hall jumped at the sound. To me, it marked more than the passing of one American hero, but of a generation. And it provided a reminder of how we won our freedom in the first war as Americans.
The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.net
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