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Hello all,

We are loosing veterans of the World War II age all to fast. On January 3rd,2008 my grandmothers cousin (not sure on the relationship) died.
I used to set for as long as I could keep him in one place to talk to.

He told of his training days in Kingman, Az and of the people killed during his time there. He was a B-17 belly gunner. He flew 23 missions with 381st Bomb Group where on April 13th, 1944 his plane was shot down over Schweinfurt, Germany. He was captured and spent 13 months in Stalag 17.

I don't have enough space here to tell you all about the tales that he told, quite frankly I would have to really search my memory for all of them. He was 85 years old and still drove!

He still carried his P.O.W. card in his wallet and some other documentation as well. He was a very nice man and a great person to know. Well liked by anyone who ever met him.

I will miss him a lot.

I do still have an uncle still with us, I plan to talk to him more often as he was on Henderson Field, Guadalcanal from August 1943 on and was on the USS Bunkerhill when it was hit by a Kamikaze. He knew Joe Voss, he was his commander. So dont take it for granted that these men and women will be around forever, I certainly wont.

Salute Lewis! you will be dearly missed.

...a man from the "greatest generation"...

Thanks for the story Senyu and perhaps you may want to start writing those stories down.

You might want to look here for assistance

www.loc.gov/vets/

Piney

Very true. My grandfather on my Mothers side is still kicking at 91 (92 in 2 weeks) and he still drives, much to our dismay He served on the USS Flint and I have talked to him about his service but would like to get some of his stories recorded on audio since my memory is probably worse than his. Fortunately he is still around but my Grandfather on my Fathers side past away back in 1987 and I never got the chance to hear his stories. He also served in the Navy during WWII.

Unfortunately they can go even younger so don't take their age for granted. I've attended about 4 reunions with my Father for the Unit he served with in Vietnam and in that time about three of their members have passed on, at least one of which I was fortunate enough to meet and talk with at 2 reunions. The webmaster for their site is doing a good job of getting their stories in print and up on their site.

Thanks for the link Piney, I never knew about that.

Thanks for all the comments and I will work on writing down what he told me as well as my uncle who is still here. Maybe even share them one story at a time.

Thanks

wise wise wise, no regrets...
Piney I have a packet for my uncle

Lt Henry "Hank" Rosine

Here a local college had three WWII vets teach a class on WWII history and one of them passed during a class break...

Alive in our memories..
slow