Of course, many did not make it back. The group's honor roll lists 187 men killed or missing in action. They remain forever on the minds of those who did.
The first 40th veteran that my family encountered at a recent reunion was Louis Lemos of Carmichael, Calif., a son of immigrants from the Azores, a short man with an ever-present smile. Within a few minutes, he said to my dad, "You know, what I've never been able to figure out is how I got home without a scratch." My dad, Paul W. Hunter of Parsons, Kan., shared the same sentiment.
I had the honor of spending time with about 20 members of the 40th Bomb Group Association and their families at the group's 28th annual reunion, in Portland, Ore., concluding last weekend. Several thousand men served in the 40th from April 1941 until its deactivation in October 1946. At earlier reunions, more than 150 veterans gathered. But all who served in the group are in their 80s now, some in their 90s, and the numbers still well enough to travel have dwindled.
In their 20s, they didn't know whether they would survive the day. Yet they've lived 60-plus years more. Maybe that's why they joke often and laugh easily. Memories flowed, haunting and heroic. There was:
- Dec. 14, 1944, the most tragic day in the 40th's history, when a mixed load of bombs of differing weights exploded under a formation of 11 planes over Rangoon, Burma. Seventeen men were killed and 29 captured, spending 5months as prisoners of war. G.M. "Bud" Etherington of Birmingham, Ala., recalled eating rice every day. People have asked him how he can even look at rice. "I like rice; I could just never get enough of it," he said. He remembers a cocky pilot arriving at the camp only to lose hope and die within three weeks. Another man, bones broken, brought in on a bloody gurney, survived to be freed.
- Jan. 14, 1945, when fragmentation bombs exploded during unloading at the Chakulia, India, air base, setting off a series of explosions and fires. The group's beloved chaplain, Father Bartholomew Adler, led one man away from danger. Richard Moore of Fort Worth, Texas, told of watching Adler say a prayer over the injured man, and then, assisted by another man, drive a Jeep back toward the flames and pull two more men to safety. All told, nine were killed and 21 wounded.
- March 2, 1945, a run to bomb docks in Singapore, which my dad, a flight engineer, calls his most memorable mission. After the bombing, a lone Japanese fighter attacked. Radioman George Hipple was hit in the face, and two engines lost power. The crew dumped weight and made it to an emergency base on Akyab Island. Hipple lost sight in an eye, but lived until age 50.
The storytellers insist they're not heroes; the real heroes are friends who didn't come home. I beg to differ.
In a way, though, their sacrifice wasn't extraordinary. More than 16 million men and women served in the armed forces in World War II. If you'd take time to ask, you'd hear similar stories from many of them. Today, just 3 million survive, less than 20 percent.
Those numbers figured into another mission for the men gathered in Portland. A dissolution committee was appointed at the 2006 reunion to consider the group's future.
At the memorial service Sunday morning, John Mikulich of Davison, Mich., read 22 names of 40th veterans known to have died in the past year - outnumbering those who attended the reunion. As Mikulich, who headed the dissolution committee, said, it was time for realism.
The board of directors decided to make a reunion next year in St. Louis the association's last. Its archives, memorabilia and money from a scholarship fund will be donated to the New England Air Museum, which has restored and displays a B-29 Superfortress, the plane the 40th helped test and flew.
So, their hair even whiter, canes at their sides, they will gather one last time next year, to toast their departed colleagues, share their stories and complete a final mission together.
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR CAROL HUNTER can be reached at (515) 284-8020 or chunter@dmreg.com.
Source Des Moines Register