re: Today is the 81st anniversary of D-Day

My great uncle was a B-17 pilot in the 8th and my grandfather flew F6F Hellcats off the USS Hancock. My grandfather died when I was still young so my great uncle for all intents and purposes is my de-facto grandfather. He never enjoyed talking much about the war but I managed to pester him a few times. One of those times he told me about a mission to Bremen where they got hammered by flak and fighters. He managed to fly their ship home with 2 engines out, no flaps and so many holes in his tail that he had no idea how it stayed on. One of his engines had caught fire so badly that he was just about to hit the bailout alarm when it finally went out. He credits God and the B-17 for saving his life. After he passed I found out why he didn't like talking about the war from my great aunt, his wife. His best friend on his crew was his navigator and one of those missions he was killed by a near direct flak burst in the nose of the B-17 while his bombardier was badly wounded. He told her several times over his life that he felt responsible for his friend’s death. He carried that with him all his life but he would never let anyone see it. Always smiling, playing jokes, teaching bible school for the kids and my lord was he one strong old man. We had arm wrestling competitions all the time when I was growing up and he would make me look foolish. I think it wasn't until I was about 17 or 18 that I finally beat him, by then he was in his early 80’s. Miss him every day. They truly were the best generation.

The trauma those guys went through is hard to even imagine. Like you said, very few like to talk about for that exact reason. At his funeral my great aunt was presented with his flag but later that day she brought me into their bedroom and gave me his flag and a asked me to get a box for her on the top of the closet. It contained a lot of his things from the military. She said that he would have wanted me to have it. One Christmas my fiancée at the time for one of my gifts had a few of his smaller things framed like his wings, his captain’s bars, patches and few others that I hung in my study at home.