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‘When they shipped me home, I was training on the B-29 in California when the war ended. I was lucky a lot. Somebody was with me.’
‘Everybody was answering their call to duty. I wanted to go; you do it and that’s it. I made a lot of friends; I lost a lot of friends.’
‘I don’t know what to make of the world today. Wars are different. Today you drop a bomb from 8000 miles away. All the countries think different; always somebody wants to be a dictator. People are trying to divide us—there should be more unity in America.’
John also sent me newspaper clippings. ‘Vet Feels Guilty Because Buddies Died’, declares one. ‘I feel so guilty. They were buried in Germany the same day they were shot down.’
I asked John what his nickname was.
‘Mickey. I don’t know why, I was the youngest, like Mickey Mouse I guess,’ he chuckled.
I asked him if he knew who took his place on that fatal mission.
‘I don’t know. I wondered for a long time…nobody knows, and I’m not sure I’d want to know, now. It could have been anybody—lots of times a mechanic or somebody from the ground crew would jump in, if they were short somebody last minute. Oh yes, that happened quite a bit. They wanted to go, they wanted to fly. Kids are crazy, you know that… anyway, it’d break my heart to find out now.’
John Swarts at the World War II Memorial, Washington, DC.
Source: John Swarts.
Our time grew short. We said our goodbyes.
I get a little emotional. I’m almost 93; I hope to see them all again in Heaven.’
*
I copy the letter Clarence’s mother sent to John after the war. I fold it up and return to the grave of my youth, and leave it under a memorial pebble inscribed by my students:
We Will Never Forget
I turn and leave this cemetery to go back out into the world, having gone again to see a hometown boy from whose future ended on July 29th, 1944. And I take another memorial pebble the kids inscribed not so long ago for such an occasion:
We Remember
I taught my students to remember, and they remain genuinely grateful for it. John S. Swarts, SN 37619276, tail gunner on the B-17 #4238146, has another surprise coming in the mail soon, from the young people of this ‘Hometown, USA’, from the grave of his friend. Time marches on, but the ripples go forth.[33]
***
The Airmen featured in this book
Andy Doty: After the war Andy Doty married his high school sweetheart, Eleanor Baker, the daughter of the local druggist, and raised three girls, settling in Palo Alto, California, and retiring as Director of Community Affairs for Stanford University. You can read more about his World War II experiences in my first book at bit.ly/FathersSaw or by searching for his out of print 1995 memoir with the information provided in the ‘Source Notes’ in the back of this book.[13]
Richard ‘Dick’ Varney, Sr.: After the war, Dick Varney was employed at Imperial Color, later known at Ciba-Geigy. When he retired in 1976, he had worked himself up to the plant supervisor. He was active in his church and a local VFW post and also was an avid New York Yankees baseball fan. He also enjoyed talking politics. Dick passed away on April 24, 2008 at the age of 96.[14]
Richard G. Alagna: After the war, Richard completed law school and was admitted to the New York Bar Association in 1951. Active in community organizations, Richard also enjoys painting, photography and etching. He has won many awards and his works are in numerous private collections and galleries across the United States.[15]
Kenneth R. Carlson: Ken Carlson enjoyed a successful career in advertising and became a youth advocate after the war. He still speaks about his World War II experiences to inspire young people and is a strong supporter of his alma mater, the Collegiate School in New York City, the oldest school in the country.[16]
Earl M. Morrow: Earl Morrow was a career airline pilot for American Airlines. He retired to the family farm in Hartford, New York after his career, and was a sought after speaker in local schools and community events.[17]
Martin F. Bezon: After the war, Martin worked for the National Geological Survey in Alaska. After being called up for service in the Korean War, he resumed his former job at Republic Steel until the mines closed in 1971. He later worked for the Amerada Hess Corporation. Martin was very active in his local VFW, American Legion and his church. He enjoyed spending time on Lake Champlain, hunting and fishing in the Adirondacks and Vermont. He passed away at the age of 90 on April 16, 2012.[18]
Seymour ‘Sonny’ Segan: Sonny worked in New York’s menswear industry and opened a number of successful retail stores, first locally and then throughout the Northeast. In 1989, Sonny was named president of the Menswear Retailers of America. He was active in his temple and community organizations throughout ‘Hometown, USA’. He was also instrumental in helping many people in their recoveries through AA. He died on January 12, 2012, at the age of 91.[19]
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo Credit: Joan K. Lentini; May, 2017.
Matthew Rozell is an award-winning history teacher, author, speaker and blogger on the topic of the most cataclysmic events in the history of mankind-World War II and the Holocaust. Rozell has been featured as the ‘ABC World News Person of the Week’ and has had his work as a teacher filmed for the CBS Evening News, NBC Learn, the Israeli Broadcast Authority, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the New York State United Teachers. He writes on the power of teaching and the importance of the study of history at TeachingHistoryMatters.com, and you can ‘Like’ his Facebook author page at MatthewRozellBooks for updates.
Mr. Rozell is a sought-after speaker on World War II, the Holocaust, and history education, motivating and inspiring his audiences with the lessons of the past. Visit his website for availability/details.
About this Book/
Acknowledgements
*
A note on historiographical style and convention: to enhance accuracy, consistency, and readability, I corrected punctuation and spelling and sometimes even placenames, but only after extensive research. I did take the liberty of occasionally condensing the speaker’s voice, eliminating side tangents or incidental information not relevant to the matter at hand. Sometimes two or more interviews with the same person were combined for readability and narrative flow. All of the words of the subjects, however, are essentially their own.
Additionally, I chose to utilize footnotes and endnotes where I deemed them appropriate, directing readers who wish to learn more to my sources, notes, and side commentary. I hope that they do not detract from the flow of the narrative.
First, I wish to acknowledge the hundreds of students who passed through my classes and who forged the bonds with the World War II generation. I promised you this book someday, and now that many of you are yourselves parents, you can tell your children this book is for them. Who says young people are indifferent to the past? Here is evidence to the contrary.
The Hudson Falls Central School District and my former colleagues have my deep appreciation for supporting this endeavor and recognizing its significance throughout the years.
For helpful feedback and suggestions on the original manuscript I am indebted to my good friend and trusted critic, Alan Bush. Alan always offers solid advice, diving into the narrative as soon as it arrives in his inbox, saving me perhaps a good deal of anguish with his timely and trusted comments. Additionally, Sunny Buchman was one of my early champions and worked to arrange interviews with the folks at her retirement community, The Glen at Hiland Meadows. My wife Laura re-typed some of the 75 year old letters and reports. My friend Rob Miller traveled to my hometown to take some very special portraits of our veterans and participate in some of our events recognizing them. The Folklife Center at Crandall Public Library in Glens Falls helped with background information on the LOOK Magazine series that profiled the Glens Falls–North Country region as ‘Hometown, USA’ during the war. To my good friend and classmate Paul Dietrich, thanks for finally getting me on board to experience firsthand a deafening, lumbering B-17 flight up Lake George and back.
Naturally this work would not have been possible had it not been for the willingness of the veterans to share their stories for posterity. Andy Doty graciously allowed me to use excerpts from his well-written war autobiography. All of the veterans who were interviewed for this book had the foresight to complete release forms granting access to their stories, and for us to share the information with the New York State Military Museum’s Veterans Oral History Project, where copies of most of the interviews reside. Wayne Clark and Mike Russert of the NYSMMVOP were instrumental in cultivating this relationship with my classes over the years, and are responsible for some of the interviews in this book as well. Please see the ‘Source Notes’.
I would be remiss if I did not recall the profound influence of my late mother and father, Mary and Tony Rozell, both cutting edge educators and proud early supporters of my career. To my younger siblings Mary, Ned, Nora and Drew, all accomplished writers and authors, thank you for your encouragement as well. Final and deepest appreciations go to my wife Laura and our children, Emma, Ned, and Mary. Thank you for indulging the old man as he attempted to bring to life the stories he collected as a young one.
NOTES
* * *
[1] Fort Edward High School’s sports teams are still known as the “Flying Forts”, after the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber and the motors for the gun turrets built here.
[2] Assistant Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson had a hand in influencing the selection of the Glens Falls region by the magazine’s editors. Born in Glens Falls in 1891, Patterson allegedly helped to steer the magazine towards the North Country in promising the availability of color film, which at the time was scarce and prioritized for military use. You can read more about this remarkable public servant at bit.ly/rppatterson. Over 5000 photographs were taken by magazine photographers presenting Glens Falls as a model of the home front during World War II. You can see more at bit.ly/hometownusa.
[3] the RAF claimed 56 bombers-The number of RAF kills on September 15th 1940 is frequently cited as 185, but both sides were obviously prone to exaggeration; nevertheless, the punishment dealt the Luftwaffe that day stunned the German High Command. See Dodds, Laurence, ‘The Battle of Britain, as it happened on September 15, 1940’ The Telegraph, September 15, 2015.
[4] We saw an army of World War I veterans march on Washington- the so-called ‘Bonus Army’ of 17,000 veterans which arrived in DC at the height of the Depression to demand early payment of WWI certificates. On July 28, 1932, President Hoover ordered his Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur to clear the gathering; supporting roles in clearing the marchers were played by then Majors George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower. At least two people were killed and over a thousand injured; the ‘Bonus Army’ was dispersed with their demands rejected, and it became a public relations nightmare for Hoover, one more notch that would lead to his re-election bid disaster the following November.
[5] KP duty-‘kitchen police’ or ‘kitchen patrol’, enlisted men performing menial kitchen tasks under supervision, like peeling potatoes, washing dishes, etc.
[6] a bridgehead across the Rhine- On March 7, 1945, the 9th Armored Division found the only intact bridge remaining across the Rhine River at Remagen, which the Germans had neglected to destroy. For ten days American troops poured over the bridge into the German heartland before the damaged Ludendorf Bridge finally collapsed. Miller, Donald L. The Story of World War II. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. 496.
[7] ‘612’-Military Occupational Specialty (MOS): MOS: 612 Armorer/Gunner
[8] pinks- ‘Officers Pinks’ so-called for the pinkish hue of the stripe on their American uniform khakis.
[9] Eddie Rickenbacker- Medal of Honor recipient and America’s top fighter ace in World War I with 26 kills, 1890-1973.
[10] elephantiasis- symptom where parts of a person's body swell to massive proportions.
[11] celestial navigation- ancient science of finding one’s way by the sun, moon, stars, and planets and the visible horizon, using a sextant to measure the angular distance between two visible objects to establish a ‘fix’ on a location.
[12] ‘Myrtle the Fertile Turtle’- Mr. Carlson came up with the name—‘the reason I did it was that people were talking about wives or girlfriends, but our pilot was Joe and he didn’t have a girl or a wife and he wasn’t interested in doing that. So I said ‘let’s give it a girl’s name’. The B-24 is a very slow lumbering thing, like a turtle, so I said ‘let’s call it Myrtle the Turtle’. The fertile part came from the plane’s ability to carry the biggest bomb load of any of the four-engine bombers.’
[13] if you completed 25 missions-the required number of missions for bomber crewmen went up to 30 missions in the spring of 1944, and then to 35 missions after D-Day in the summer of 1944.
[14] ‘America First’- Founded by Charles Lindbergh and others in 1940, the America First Committee opposed any U.S. involvement in World War II, and drew the ire of the FDR, who was portrayed as pushing the US into the European war. After Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh recanted his stance.
[15] lazy eights- changing combinations of climbing and descending turns at varying airspeeds used to develop and demonstrate the pilot's mastery of the airplane
[16] Tyndall Field-on the Gulf Coast of Florida, it opened as a gunnery range and school in 1941.
[17] three boys who were killed from my crew- Radio Operator: Charles Lindquist, Ball turret gunner: Bob Koerner, Tail gunner: Joe Salerno. Source: American Air Museum in Britain, www.americanairmuseum.com/aircraft/11772. Mr. Morrow states that Salerno was on a waist gun at the time of this last mission.
[18] Jerry Silverman-I met Mr. Silverman, the lead navigator for this raid, when he came up to visit with Earl’s bombardier Sam Lisica and Earl in 2001. Their B-17 PoW reunion
is a main focus of the sequel to this book.
[19] Colonel Gabreski- Francis Stanley "Gabby" Gabreski, January 28, 1919 – January 31, 2002. He was the top U.S. Army Air Forces fighter ace over Europe in World War II, with 28 kills before surviving an accident that made him a PoW. He was also one of seven pilots who went on to ‘ace’ status in Korea as well.
[20] crashed on takeoff at O’Hare Airport, killing everyone on board- On May 25, 1979, American Airlines Flight 191 from Chicago to Los Angeles crashed moments after takeoff, killing all 271 on board and 2 persons on the ground. It remains the deadliest aviation accident in U.S. history.
[21] He might have pulled it out of there-In researching this incident, one of the worst aviation disasters in U.S. history, the author discovered that the lead federal investigator at the Chicago crash site was none other than Elwood P. Driver, a former Tuskegee Airman who flew with Clarence Dart, who is profiled in the sequel to this book. Mr. Dart and Mr. Driver appear together in a wartime photograph there; after the war, Mr. Dart and Mr. Morrow were great friends. “Tuskegee Airman Heads Chicago Crash Site Probe”, Jet Magazine, June 17, 1979.