Dying for freedom isn't the worst that could happen. Being forgotten is.
(The War in the Air Book Two) "After the first mission Colonel Davis told us, 'From now on you are going to go with the bombers all the way through the mission to the target.' It didn't always work, but that was our mission - we kept the Germans off the bombers. At first they didn't want us, but toward the end, they started asking for us as an escort, because we protected them to and from the missions." (Tuskegee Airman, WWII)
How soon we forget. Or perhaps, we were never told. That is understandable, given what they saw.
[Someone in the PoW camp] said, "Look down there at the main gate!" and the American flag was flying! We went berserk, we just went berserk! We were looking at the goon tower and there's no goons there, there are Americans up there! And we saw the American flag, I mean - to this day I start to well up when I see the flag." (Former prisoner of war, WWII)
By the end of 2018, fewer than 400,000 WW II veterans will still be with us, out of the over 16 million who put on a uniform. But why is it that today, nobody seems to know these stories?
When [the French farmer] figured the Germans weren't looking for me, he took me in the house and put me in the bed... The next day they moved me to another place, because the people got nervous. They thought that the Germans knew I was there, so they hustled me out after dark to another place. I heard later that they executed that family because the Germans were pretty sure I had been there.
This book brings you the previously untold firsthand accounts of combat and brotherhood, of captivity and redemption, and the aftermath of a war that left no American community unscathed.
What you get out of the prisoner of war experience, it's amazing - I haven't seen this guy for 50 years [points to fellow former PoW] and politically, economically and everything else, we're like twins. They have tours - "do you want to go to the old prison camps", you know, that's hot stuff. [Sarcastically] I get out of Sing-Sing - after 15 years, do you think I'm going to go back and take a tour of the place? [Laughter] (B-17 PoW REUNION- PoW Friends and Crewmen)
As we forge ahead as a nation, we owe it to ourselves to become reacquainted with a generation that is fast leaving us, who asked for nothing but gave everything, to attune ourselves as Americans to a broader appreciation of what we stand for.
This book picks up where the previous War in the Air volume left off, in the air war over Europe. This collection includes portions previously published as A Tuskegee Airman Over Europe and B-17 Crew Prisoner of War Reunion.
©2017 Matthew Rozell (P)2019 Matthew Rozell
