MAY 27, 2022: FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS -- With a heavy heart, we learn the news that USS Hornet legend Albert Montella has died. He was 101.
Albert served as a gunner on the USS Hornet in the Seas outside Japan. He suffered minor hearing loss while serving his country but lived his life to the fullest. Albert will leave a void too large to fill.

(MAY 28, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS – With great sadness, D-Day WWII fighter pilot Jack Hallett Sr., from Leesburg, has died at 101.
Hallett spent the last few years of his life becoming a staple in the community by promoting aviation and working with young people at the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) in Leesburg.
Hallett was born on Nov. 17, 1920, and enlisted in the Army Air Corps on Dec. 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor. He served as a flight instructor and a P38 and P47 fighter pilot during WWII. He completed 104 missions, including D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge.
He was still flying planes at 100.

(MAY 28, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS – World War II veteran Harold Billow, 99, the last known survivor of a POW Malmedy Massacre during the Battle of the Bulge, has died.
Billow was attached to the Army's 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion when his unit surrendered. He was taken prisoner by Waffen SS soldiers as German forces launched an offensive in Belgium to change the war's tide in December 1944.
According to various accounts, the Germans opened fire on the unarmed prisoners in a field, killing more than 80 in what came to be known as the Malmedy Massacre.
"As soon as the machine gun started firing, I went face down in the snow," Billow recalls.
"I played dead as the Germans checked for survivors."
"Anybody that showed signs of life, they would point-blank shoot them in the head to finish them off," Billow said.
Billow said he stayed there for several hours before he and other survivors bolted. He made his way through hedgerows before reaching the safety of American lines.
After the war, he was called to testify at a war crimes trial in which 43 German soldiers were sentenced to death for the Malmedy Massacre. However, they were eventually released after investigators determined U.S. guards had coerced confessions.

(MAY 28, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS – World War II Veteran Eugene Dednam Dies Broke and Alone, But Dozens of Strangers Show Up to His Funeral.
Dozens turned out in Paramus to say farewell to 100-year-old Eugene Dednam — a comrade they never met but whom they won't soon forget.
Dednam drove supply trucks to the front lines during the push against Nazi Germany, part of the Red Ball Express. After returning home, he worked at Macy's in New York City. He never married or had children, and his funeral was delayed a month because he had no relatives left to claim him.
"Mr. Dedham was a person who pretty much stayed to himself. He was very reserved, reticent in that regard. He liked to do things independently," said neighbor DeShaun Hicks.
The Bergen County native lived in anonymity and was identified only by a thorough search by the medical examiner. The group of veterans made sure that the quiet man made a big impression in death — and won't be remembered as anonymous.
Proud veterans stood at the ready, their sacrifices honored along with Dednam's at a solemn service with all the honors due from a grateful county. Dednam was buried in the military uniform he proudly wore so many decades ago.
"He wouldn't talk too much about what happened, but he was proud to serve, very proud to serve," said Hicks.
"The world needed to see this, people need to see this, that people are coming together for one common cause, and that's to honor people living and who passed away."

(JUNE 20, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS -- World War II veteran and Rat of Tobruk Sydney George Kinsman dies. He was 100.
Sydney George Kinsman was among the 35,000 Allied soldiers, including 14,000 Australians, who held the Libyan port of Tobruk against the German Africa Corps in 1941, in a vital battle for the Allied forces.
His death in Alice Springs on Wednesday came about a month before what would have been his 101st birthday, and has sent the tight-knit community – where he was a beloved figure – into mourning.
Born in Adelaide in 1921, Mr Kinsman enlisted in the army in 1940, just two weeks after his 19th birthday, and entered the 2/48th Infantry Battalion.
He served with the unit in North Africa, fighting in both the Siege of Tobruk in Libya and the First Battle of El Alamein in Egypt.
Alice Springs RSL sub-branch president Chris Clarke said the eight-month-long Siege of Tobruk had been a stand-out battle for Australia's soldiers.
"[The Tobruk soldiers] were the first people ever to stop the German Africa Corp in North Africa — until that time, the Germans had moved through all of North Africa totally undefeated, with nobody able to even slow them down," he said.
"The Rats, as they became known, were formidable soldiers, and they earnt the respect of the enemy.
"Even [German Africa Corps commander] General Rommel paid praise to [their] fighting capability."
Captured by the Germans in 1942 during the First Battle of El Alamein, Mr Kinsman spent time in three different prisoner of war camps in Italy before he managed to escape with several other soldiers about a year later.
"Over several months he climbed the Alps and made his way over to Switzerland," Mr Clarke said.
"He was there for just on 12 months before the Allies caught up to where they were, close to the border, so they were able to cross back over and rejoin with the Allied forces, and go back to his old unit."
Mr Kinsman was repatriated to Australia in 1944 and discharged from the army the following the year.
He remained an active member of RSL Australia for many years, and was recently made a life member of the organisation.
Mr Kinsman previously told the ABC about the harsh conditions troops had faced during the Siege of Tobruk.
"It was pretty dusty in the desert, digging your trenches when you had to dig them, and it was rocky … so you couldn't go [too far] down," he said.
"Sometimes you had to be that deep in the trench, so you had to keep your head down all the time.
"You had your minefields, but you had your pass to go through them, [and] you had all your tripwires … and barbed wire … they were everywhere.
"There was no continuous trench system … It was never ever a continuous trench system like there were in World War I."

(JUNE 28, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS — Last remaining survivor of British WWII warship that was sunk by German U-boat - who spent 16 hours in the water singing 'There'll Always Be An England' before he was plucked to safety - dies, aged 99
Reg Bishop was among 568 sailors who were rescued after HMS Hecla was sunk by German torpedoes in an attack near Morocco which killed 281 of their crewmates on November 11, 1942.
He slid down a rope off the ship and clung to a liferaft when 'out of the darkness' he heard a voice sing the patriotic tune popularised by Vera Lynn.
After 16 hours Mr Bishop and his crewmates were saved by HMS Venomous, whose crew lowered a scrambling net over the side of the ship.
After climbing on board they then offered him a cup of tea and a tot of rum.
The father-of-three - described as a 'tower of strength' by his family - lived nearly 80 more years before he died earlier this month at his home in Cawston, Norfolk.
He remained an active person well into his 90s Covid restrictions eventually slowing him down by stopping his regular visits to the Mecca Bingo hall in Norwich.
Mr Bishop recalled how he was asleep in his hammock when the 11,000 ton destroyer tender HMS Hecla was struck by the first of three torpedoes off the coast of Morocco in North Africa.
He quickly got dressed up and rushed to man one of the ship's in pitch black darkness.
Mr Bishop remembered: 'My pal, Herbert Barker, had been sleeping on the upper deck when we got hit.
Norfolk-born Mr Bishop worked on a poultry farm and in the building trade before enlisting in the Royal Navy in 1942.
He trained at HMS Ganges in Shotley, Suffolk, and then in Chatham, Kent, before joining HMS Hecla.
Mr Bishop later served on HMS Bonaventure, a midget submarine depot ship which sailed from Scotland to the southwest Pacific Ocean.

(June 29, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS - Woody Williams, America's last World War II Medal of Honor recipient, dies.
Williams, 98, received the medal for his heroism on Iwo Jima
Hershel "Woody" Williams, America's last surviving World War II veteran to have received a Medal of Honor, passed away surrounded by family on Wednesday morning.
Williams, was the last of the 473 American service members who received a Medal of Honor in WWII.
Williams spent his final days with family at a hospital in his home state of West Virginia. Family members called on Americans to pray for him on Tuesday.
"As he lives out his last days, we welcome and appreciate any additional prayers lifted up on behalf of Woody and his family," his family said in a statement on his condition at the time.
America's 63 living Medal of Honor recipients honored Williams in a statement:
"Friends and family of Woody Williams knew him as a West Virginia farmer’s son and the youngest of 11 children who dutifully supported his family after his father died," they wrote in a statement through the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.
“Fellow Marines knew him as the corporal who volunteered for a mission on Iwo Jima to clear a lane through enemy pillboxes that were destroying American tanks."
"Veterans in West Virginia knew him as their advocate through his work as a Veterans Service Representative.
Gold Star families knew Woody through his work raising money for scholarships and other programs through the Woody Williams Foundation," they continued.
“We, his fellow Medal of Honor Recipients, knew him as our friend and one of our heroes. We will miss him greatly."
Williams, a U.S. Marine, received his medal from President Harry Truman for heroism during the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.

(JULY 06, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS — It is with a heavy heart that we share the news that Bradford Freeman, the Last Surviving Member of WWII's Band of Brothers,’ Dies at 97
The Easy Company veteran parachuted into France on D-Day and fought in major European campaigns during the last year of the war.
Around midnight on June 6, 1944, paratrooper Bradford C. Freeman parachuted into Normandy, France, with an 18-pound mortar base plate strapped to his chest. Landing in a pasture filled with cows, he helped hide a fellow soldier who had broken his leg during the jump before meeting up with the rest of his mortar squad.
After this successful D-Day mission, Freeman and the other members of Easy Company—a unit in the Second Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division’s 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment—fought their way across Western Europe, playing a pivotal role in the Allied advance on Nazi Germany. Immortalized in Stephen E. Ambrose’s 1992 book Band of Brothers and a 2001 HBO miniseries of the same name, the men’s wartime heroics resonate more than 75 years after the global conflict’s end.
A 19-year-old private assigned to a mortar squad led by Donald Malarkey, one of the central figures of the “Band of Brothers” series, Freeman was involved in virtually “every major engagement in Europe during World War II,” said historian Rufus Ward in a 2020 statement from the Columbus Air Force Base, which honored the veteran with a challenge coin in May 2021. He dropped into the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during Operation Market Garden in September 1944 and was shot in the leg during the Siege of Bastogne that December.
“They said I got shot by a ‘Screaming Mimi,’” Freeman told Allen. “You could hear it was coming, but you can’t get out of the way. They said it was a little boy who did the shooting.”
Per his Lowndes Funeral Home and Crematory obituary, Freeman rejoined his unit in time for the final stages of the war’s European Theater, participating in the Allied occupations of Berchtesgaden (a town in Bavaria) and Austria. He opted to return home after V-E Day on May 8, 1945 but was delayed for two weeks by a Merchant Marine strike. Settling back into civilian life in Caledonia, Mississippi, he married Willie Louise Gurley—“a girl [he] used to play with when we were five years old”—as he told Allen, and worked as a mail carrier for 32 years.

(JULY 21, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS -- Muriel Engelman, front-line nurse in World War II, dies at 101
As American soldiers fought to stave off a German offensive in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium, Muriel Engelman and her fellow Army nurses worked in snow, ice and ankle-high mud, tending to wounded GIs during one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.
For more than two months, starting before the Battle of the Bulge commenced in December 1944 and continuing through the New Year, they faced a near-constant barrage of German attacks, with V-1 buzz bombs exploding every 15 minutes, day and night. Nazi planes strafed the field hospital, and the camp was hit three times by bombs even though its tents were painted with large red crosses.
“After a while, you learn to cope,” Mrs. Engelman recalled. Although she feared what the Germans might do to her if she was captured — she was one of only two Jewish nurses at the hospital, with an H for Hebrew imprinted on her dog tags — she adopted a realist attitude: “What will be, will be.”
When German infantry reached the outskirts of Liège, about 10 miles from the field hospital, Mrs. Engelman and her fellow nurses were told to pack their musette bags with first aid supplies and the warmest clothes they had, in case they were taken prisoner.
She found room for a few additional items: her liquor ration and cigarettes, which she planned to use for bartering, and the French perfume she had purchased in Paris a few months earlier. She didn’t want it to fall into German hands.
“We were scared,” she acknowledged in an recent interview. Her patients were frightened for her as well: One wounded GI made her a blackjack, “a 10-inch length of hosing stuffed with lead sinkers, and suspended from my wrist by a leather thong,” while another gave her a spring-assisted knife.
“If a German approaches,” he suggested, “plunge the blade into his belly, then turn it and run like hell.”
A dance-loving Connecticut native on the cusp of turning 24, Mrs. Engelman couldn’t imagine plunging a knife into anyone’s belly.
She survived the battle — the German advance was halted that January — and went on to write a wry memoir, “Mission Accomplished: Stop the Clock” (2008), that Kirkus praised as “a must-read for WWII history buffs and lovers of homespun storytelling.”
Its cover photo, taken on a frigid day during the Battle of the Bulge, showed Mrs. Engelman casually holding the blackjack, smiling at the camera with the knife bulging inside her coat pocket. After six weeks of bombings, she had deep hollows under her eyes.
Nearly 60,000 American nurses volunteered to serve in the Army during World War II, caring for soldiers at field hospitals and on trains, ships, and medical transport planes.
Mrs. Engelman insisted she was no different from any of them, even after being appointed to the French Legion of Honor in 2018 in recognition of her wartime service.
The second of three children, she was born Muriel Rose Phillips in Meriden, Conn., on Jan. 12, 1921. She was 11 when her father, a Lithuanian-born jeweler who owned a silver factory, died after being treated for scarlet fever. Her mother went to work to support the family, running a dress shop and later leading the local chapter of Hadassah, a Jewish women’s organization.

(July 26, 2022) – FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS: Legendary Aerospace engineer and World War II veteran Bernard Benedict James, falsely labeled a mutineer dies at 101.
Bernard Benedict James sat his young children down in the family living room decades ago in their La Mirada home, where he’d written a set of math equations on a blackboard.
The Harvard-educated aerospace engineer was working for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the time and wanted to give his 10 children an impromptu lecture on mathematics.
But before the math lessons, and before James worked on two missions that sent astronauts into space, the World War II veteran spent two years in prison after hastily being convicted of mutiny and insubordination, a Black soldier who dared question a white superior officer.
James and his family worked tirelessly over the ensuing decades to clear his name, but he did not live long enough to see a full correction to his service record. James died in his sleep July 18 at the La Mirada home where he once tutored his children. He was 101.
James should have been part of the U.S. forces that invaded the beaches of Normandy, France, for D-day in June 1944. Instead, he sat in an English prison after a hasty Army court-martial.
He had spoken up on behalf of another soldier who had fallen in the verbal crosshairs of a white commanding officer, one who often shouted racist remarks at the men in the segregated 641st Ordnance Company. For his loyalty, James was told to “remove his stripes,” according to court transcripts. Several other men turned theirs in as well in protest.
Two months later, military police officers with submachine guns swarmed the camp and arrested James and 17 other soldiers, all of them Black.
James was sentenced to 18 years in prison but was unceremoniously released two years later without a formal apology after his family began a letter-writing campaign to bring attention to his case.
“I didn’t know that people were thinking of me,” James said earlier this year. “My sister and family and even my future wife, Florence, were all working on my behalf, our behalf. It was a lesson for sure. I would think about all of that for years and years later.”
After he was released from prison, James returned to his Army service and was honorably discharged in 1947, but his record maintained he was AWOL for 704 days — even though that time was spent in prison.
The U.S. Army provided James a partial correction to his military record after The Times wrote about him on his last birthday. David said his father wanted to appeal the Army’s decision; he wanted a full correction to his record explaining he was falsely imprisoned. California Assembly member Cristina Garcia introduced a joint resolution in March seeking a full presidential exoneration of James’ record.
While the Army acknowledged that James did not desert his post while serving in the military, nobody ever called to apologize, he told The Times in April.
“I’m not holding my breath,” James said at the time.
Bernard Benedict James was born Feb. 7, 1921, in St. Louis and spent his formative years in Chicago. His mother’s Creole family came to the United States from Haiti; his father was half-Black and a quarter Cherokee.
James attended the Illinois Institute of Technology and Wilson Junior College in Chicago and worked as a junior engineer draftsman. But in 1943, in the thick of World War II, the Army drafted James, who served as a technician in the European Theater.
After leaving the Army, James went back to school, first at the University of Michigan and later at Harvard University. He married Florence, a white journalist he met through the Friendship House, a faith-based organization that advocated for civil rights in Chicago.
James would go on to an illustrious career in the aerospace industry — including designing the capsules that carried astronauts on the Apollo and Mercury space missions.
After his work landed the family in Southern California, they often took their two station wagons on fishing trips to Mexico when the kids were little. During those road trips, Josefa said, her father occasionally let her drive, and the two would launch into meaningful conversation. In such a large family, she relished that one-on-one time.

(JULY 27, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS — With great sadness, we learn about the passing of the legendary World War II Paratrooper and Ambassador of The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation, Mr. Richard Rohleder. He was 97.
Born in Kansas in 1924, Rohleder was drafted into the United States Army in 1943. After basic training Rohleder was assigned to Headquarters Battery, 320th Glider Field Artillery Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division as a replacement soldier.
On September 18, 1944, his unit landed by glider in the vicinity of Groesbeck, Holland to provide fire support to 2nd Battalion, 505th PIR, during its successful effort to establish the first bridgehead across the Waal River at Nijmegen. For its action in MARKET GARDEN, the 320th was awarded the Military Order of William.
During this "Ardenne Winter Offensive” Rohleder and the 320th were part of a successful effort to hlt the German thrust and fired more than 18,900 rounds. It was for the success of their effort that the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division were awarded the Fourragere 1940 by the King of Belgium.
The final sweep of the 82nd Airborne through Germany and across the Rhine River near Cologne began on 1 April 1945. Once the Ruhr Pocket was cleared the Rohleder and the 320th together with other units of the 82nd Airborne Division moved to the vicinity of Blekede and the Elbe River with the mission of forcing a crossing of the river and driving east to contact units of the Russian Army.
The battalion moved forward into Ludwigslust, Germany where it contacted Russian forces and began occupation duties on 1 May 1945.
During its combat action in World War II, the 320th Glider Field Artillery Battalion expended more than 68,562 rounds of ammunition. One hundred seventy-one tons of ammunition fired by the Battalion delivered 2,468, 200 pounds of high explosive projectiles upon the enemy.
In 2008, Richard Robleder made his first return to Europe with The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation and regularly returned to partake in commemorations in Normandy, Holland, and the Ardennes as Ambassador of the Foundation.
On behalf of TGGF and it's members, we salute you, Richard Rohleder for your dedication and service to our freedom. RIP, mate.

(JULY 29, 2022): FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS -- It’s with great sadness we learn the passing of legendary Mr William Dean Whitaker, a decorated World War II and Prisoner of War veteran. He was 97.
In 1943, Whitaker enlisted as a bombardier and trained at the Las Vegas with a couple of his best friends joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, which was later dissolved with the creation of the Air Force after high school.
They had decided that they liked its uniforms and fight song, “Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder,”
Whitaker earned the Purple Heart for injuries he suffered during his first mission. Later in the war, he and a team of eight soldiers had to jump out of a burning plane. Half of them were taken prisoners.
It took more than 50 years for Whitaker to learn, through a letter, that the four others had been shot and buried.
“It’s always been on my mind, whether they got out of the plane, if they survived the jump, or what happened to them once they landed,” Whitaker told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in a 1995 story.
“It’s like they died yesterday. When I got that letter, I went through it all over, realizing I’m alive and they’re not. Going through some of the simple things in life you wonder, ‘Well gee, why am I here and they’re not?’ ”
After the war, Whitaker returned to California and held jobs in firefighting, education and architecture before he moved to Las Vegas upon retirement.
On behalf of The Greatest Generations Foundation and its members, we salute Mr. Whitaker for his dedication and service to our freedom. Rest in peace.

(AUG 09, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS --- With heavy heart, we learn the passing of World War II Normandy veteran, Mr. Joseph C. Fitzsimmons. He was 100.
Joseph C. Fitzsimmons, 100 years old and three weeks from his 101st birthday, of Latham, died on August 8, 2022, at Kingsway Arms Nursing Center surrounded by his loving family.
A 1940 graduate of Vincentian Institute, Fitzsimmons worked at the Watervliet Arsenal until he volunteered for the Army in 1942. He became a Technical Sergeant, Flight Engineer and Crew Chief on C-47s during World War II carrying paratroops and towing glider infantry in Europe with the 437th Airborne Troop Carrier Command.
Fitzsimmons was awarded the Air Medal with 4 Oak leaf clusters for participation in airborne invasions in Normandy on D-Day, southern France, Holland, the Rhine River crossing and for re-supply by dropping para-packs to the surrounded 101st Airborne Division during the Battle of the Bulge.
Fitzsimmons was discharged in September 1945. The GI bill enabled Joe to graduate from Siena College in 1948. A degree in business led to employment at Albany Savings Bank, retiring after 36 years in 1984 as Vice President and Corporate Secretary. Fitzsimmons was survived by his wife of 71 years, Ruth Anne.

AUG 26, 2022: FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS -- One of the last female pilots of the Second World War has died.
Jaye Edwards is back among the blue skies.
Born Stella Joyce Petersen in October 1918, she grew up in Kent as the third daughter of an Australian trader. An adventurous character, Jaye learned to fly and received her civilian pilot's license in September 1939, the day after Britain declared war on Germany.
In July 1943, she joined the Air Transport Auxiliary, an organization set up at the start of the war to ferry new, repaired, and damaged military aircraft between factories and active service squadrons and airfields.
Humorously referred to as ‘Ancient and Tattered Airmen’ as age, fitness, gender, and disabilities were ignored, the ATA also had more than 160 female pilots, known as the ‘attagirl.’
In her ATA role, Jaye spent plenty of time in Hatfield, ferrying aircraft such as the Tiger Moth from the de Havilland factory to training and military bases around the UK.
She would also fly bombers and the famous Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane fighters. Still, the work was dangerous, with her injuries including a lost tooth when she hit a tree and crashed during a landing attempt.
Following the D-Day landings in June 1944, Jaye and her fellow ATA pilots were tasked with flying aircraft over the English Channel to and from frontline bases in France.
Following the conclusion of the Second World War, the ATA was disbanded, and Jaye moved to Australia and then Canada, where she met and married an electrician and former lumberjack, Bill Edwards. Together they had a son named Neil.
Jaye’s brother, Richard Petersen, remained in the UK, working at the de Havilland factory in Hatfield until 1961. His son, John, would later marry Margaret Eames-Petersen, who would become Mayor of Hatfield.
Jaye’s family joined her in British Columbia, Vancouver, to celebrate her 100th birthday, which included a message from astronaut Chris Hadfield. She was also part of the 75th-anniversary celebration of the ATA in 2020, with the service and those who flew as part of it now being recognized for their efforts during the Second World War.

(AUG 26, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS – With a heavy heart, we learn the news that the legendary Eugene Gutierrez, a member of the Devil’s Brigade, an elite American Canadian commando unit in World War II, has died. He was 100.
Born on September 14, 1921, Eugene Gutierrez graduated in 1941 from Harlingen High School and enlisted straight into the United States Army, becoming the first Hispanic to be part of the First Special Service Forces.
Within a few months, Gutierrez and his unit, who trained in Montana, went on to become one of the deadliest commando units in World War II, Nicknamed the Devil’s Brigade for their aggressive tactics and practice of wearing black boot polish on their faces, the unit excelled during nighttime raids against the Germans Italian campaign.
We were trained for six months at the end of the training; we were due to go to Norway in the winter of 1942 to destroy the heavy water plant in Norway. Germany was taking heavy water for their atomic bomb experiments at that time,” Gutierrez said.
The FSSF was made up of 900 American and 900 Canadian volunteers who assembled in Helena, Mont., to answer the call for men of the highest physical prowess to fight in an unknown unit at an undisclosed location for an unspecified operation. The men were trained in commando tactics, including mountain climbing, skiing, demolition, amphibious training, and hand-to-hand combat, using the historic V42 knife for close-quarters fighting.
By the time the war ended, the brigade had captured more than 30,000 prisoners and received five U.S. campaign stars and eight Canadian battle honors.
After the war, Gutierrez returned to Texas, marrying his wife Penny in 1951; the two are still married after 66 years. Gutierrez went into teaching and retired as a school principal in 1990.
In 2004, Eugene Gutierrez made his first return to European battlefields with The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation, he was one of eight “Black Devils “to return to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Eugene Gutierrez is an American hero and outstanding citizen with a long history of commitment and an unyielding dedication to The Greatest Generations Foundation.
In recognition of his bravery, he received a congressional medal of honor for his service to our country as a soldier.
RIP Eugene Gutierrez.

(AUG 30, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS – With a heavy heart, we learn of Pearl Harbor survivor Heinz Bachman's passing. He was 100.
Bachchan was born in Mulhausen, Germany. He was 3 when he arrived at Ellis Island with his mother in 1924.
He joined the Army in 1939 at Fort Dix, NJ, stationed at Hickam Field, Hawaii's main Army airfield and bomber base. Unlike many Americans, he was wide awake on December 7, 1941. An early riser who never misses breakfast, Bachchan said he was on the job description when the first Japanese planes shattered the calm tropical morning.
Bachchan became a US citizen in 1934 when his father was born but did not have proof of citizenship. This became an issue almost 90 years later when he attempted to renew his driver’s license. The problem prompted a visit to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services office, where he took the oath and was sworn in as a US citizen in 2021.

(SEP 07, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS -- Sisters, survivors of the Holocaust, die within days of each other in Birmingham, Alabama
Ruth Scheuer Siegler and Ilsa Scheuer Nathan were as close as sisters could be. Not only did they and their families spend much of their lives together in Birmingham, they were also inextricably connected by a childhood experience that no one should have ever had to endure, as Jewish survivors of the Nazi death camps.
Last month, on Aug. 23, Ilse died at the age of 98. On Sept. 3, Ruth passed away at age 95. Their deaths bring ever closer the day when the last Holocaust survivors living in Alabama are gone.
Despite their passing, Ilse’s and Ruth’s story of survival as orphans and survivors of the Holocaust – both of their parents and their brother perished in the camps – will live on and continue to be told, thanks to the work of the nonprofit Alabama Holocaust Education Center. Both sisters were involved in the work of the center and its mission to educate Alabamians about the history and lessons of the Holocaust.
Despite their passing, Ilse’s and Ruth’s story of survival as orphans and survivors of the Holocaust – both of their parents and their brother perished in the camps – will live on and continue to be told, thanks to the work of the nonprofit Alabama Holocaust Education Center. Both sisters were involved in the work of the center and its mission to educate Alabamians about the history and lessons of the Holocaust.
“They were together through their entire life’s journey,” said Ann M. Mollengarden, education director at the center. When Ilse and her husband moved to the Birmingham area, Ruth and her family followed, Mollengarden said. For decades, the sisters “lived literally two blocks from each other” until Ruth, later in life, moved into a local independent living facility.
“They held a special bond, before, during and after the Holocaust. Every day they talked,” Mollengarden said.
Learn more about these remarkable sisters in the article below, shared courtesy of the center, which will hold its annual fundraiser Sept. 18 at Birmingham’s Red Mountain Theatre.
Ilse was 9 and Ruth was 6 when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933. Over the next 12 years, the sisters would lose their family and their youth.
Born in Germany, the Scheuer sisters spent their formative years in relative peace and comfort until November 1938, when the events of Kristallnacht resulted in their father, Jakob, escaping to Bilthoven, Holland, to avoid arrest. He joined Ilse’s and Ruth’s brother, Ernst, who was in school and living there already.
In late August 1939, Ilse, Ruth and their mother, Helene, joined Jakob and Ernst in Holland. The family planned to obtain visas for passage to England and then the United States. Before they had the chance to leave, World War II began, and the borders were closed. They were trapped. Germany invaded Holland in May 1940, and Jakob was sent to Westerbork, a refugee/transit camp. Two years later, the family voluntarily reported to Westerbork rather than be deported. They were all given jobs at the camp.
Every Tuesday morning, 1,000 people were sent out by train to the unknown, but with jobs, the family was safe. In January 1944, Ernst was arrested for not removing his cap in the presence of a German officer. He was slated for transport; the family decided to stay together. Jakob’s Iron Cross medal from World War I allowed them to be taken to Theresienstadt transit camp in what was then Czechoslovakia.
One month later, the Scheuers were transported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz II (Birkenau), an extermination camp. Selected for work, the girls and their mother were forced to undress and turn in all personal belongings. They were given striped clothing, a bowl and consecutive numbered tattoos. During a later SS selection, the girls were separated from their mother, never seeing her again. (The SS originated as the elite guard of the Nazi Party. Later SS units were fanatical soldiers and concentration camp guards.)
It was in Birkenau that the Scheuers last saw their father, after he managed to slip them the address of a cousin in the U.S. and to poignantly bless them. Ernst was also sent to work, but later died at a camp in Germany, days before liberation.
The girls worked carrying bricks from one end of the compound to the other for hours at a time. Ilse sewed gun covers and uniforms. Working close to the crematory ovens, they saw mountains of shoes. For the first time, they realized that their fellow prisoners were being killed and cremated.
In July 1944, Ilse and Ruth were sent to the concentration camp of Stutthof in Poland, where they were forced to sleep outside. By midsummer, they were transported to Praust, Poland, to clear runways for German planes. During the freezing winter, the girls were given a blanket, which was used resourcefully to sew slacks for warmth.
In February 1945, with Russian troops advancing, 800 girls were taken on a four-week death march toward the Baltic Sea, where presumably they were to be drowned. Only 50 survived that march; the others died en route.
With the Russian Army approaching, the girls were abandoned by their captors. Weak, ill and with nowhere to go, they were left on the side of a road to die. They walked through fields to the first farmhouse they found, but to their dismay, SS troops answered the door and took them in. The next morning, abandoned in the house to die, the sisters contemplated suicide. They were kept alive by the hope that family members may have survived. The girls connected with a liberating soldier on the street and were taken to Russian headquarters.
They were transported to a hospital in Putzig, Poland, where Ruth would recover from typhus, typhoid and an infection resulting from an earlier beating by an SS woman. Both girls began to heal and gain weight. They were transferred to a Russian hospital in Krakow, Poland, but ran away, becoming stowaways on a coal train heading for Prague. They found the Dutch Army in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, and were directed to Bamberg, Germany, to get proper documentation to return to their home in Holland. The number on their arm served as their train ticket.
Upon returning to Utrecht in Holland, the girls were able to locate their mother’s brother and younger sister, who had both survived by hiding. It was here that the girls reestablished their lives. Remembering their father’s wish to have them move to the United States, the sisters contacted family members in Omaha, Nebraska, and Brooklyn, New York. In July 1946, they arrived in Mobile, Alabama, and traveled to Omaha. A few weeks later, they accepted a cousin’s invitation to move to Brooklyn. They settled there, working in a glove factory and learning English at night school and by watching movies.
Both girls met and married German-born Jews in 1949. Ilse married Walter Nathan and they had two children and five grandchildren. Ruth married Walter Siegler and they had three children and seven grandchildren. In 1960, Ruth and Walter moved to Birmingham to be closer to Ilse, who had moved there with her husband in 1949. Both women were subsequently widowed.
Ilse and Ruth were so close in the camps, that to avoid confusion, friends would call them each Ilse-Ruth. Sisters and best friends, they remained close until their deaths.

(SEP 11, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS — One of the LAST USO Performers of World War II Dies.
Marsha Hunt, a Hollywood actress who played all-American girlfriends, wives, and mothers during the wartime 1940s and saw her career wither after protesting the House Un-American Activities Committee’s witch hunt into communist activity in the film industry, died Sept. 7 at her home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. She was 104
According to her family, in addition to her screen work, Ms. Hunt became known for her volunteer activities, raising morale and funds for the Allied war effort in World War II. She embarked on a USO tour of Canada and Alaska, sold war bonds, and became captain of a team of hostesses at the Hollywood Canteen, which catered to service members on leave.
Marcia Virginia Hunt was born in Chicago on Oct. 17, 1917, to an insurance company executive and a voice teacher. She grew up in New York, where she developed an interest in acting in grade school. After graduating at 16 from the Horace Mann High School for Girls, she became a John Powers model to subsidize her drama classes.

(SEPT 08, 2022) FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS -- A PRINCESS AT WAR: Queen Elizabeth II has died peacefully at Balmoral. Queen Elizabeth II was 96.
During the Second World War, life changed dramatically for the people of Britain, including the Royal Family.
On September 13, 1940, shortly after the start of Germany’s bombing campaign on the towns and cities of Britain, five high explosive bombs were dropped on Buckingham Palace.
The Royal Chapel, inner quadrangle, and Palace gates were hit, and several workers were injured. Rather than flee the city under attack, King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, remained at Buckingham Palace in solidarity with those living through the Blitz.
This was a highly symbolic decision and received much attention in the press. The royal couple visited areas of London devastated by air raids, speaking to residents and members of the local emergency services.
The Queen took a keen interest in what was being done to help people who had lost their homes. After Buckingham Palace was bombed, she is reported to have said: 'I am glad we have been bombed. Now we can look the East End in the eye.'
Princess Elizabeth was 13 years old when the war broke out on September 3, 1939. Like many children living in London, Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret were evacuated to avoid the dangers of bombing raids. They were sent to Windsor Castle, approximately 20 miles outside of London.
The young princesses were two of over three million people—mainly children—who left cities for the safety of small towns and the countryside during the war. The government’s Children’s Overseas Reception Board evacuated over 2,600 children to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States.
On October 13, 1940, in response to this mass movement of people, Princess Elizabeth gave her first address from the drawing room of Windsor Castle as part of the BBC’s Children’s Hour to boost public morale. She spoke directly to the children who had been separated from their families as part of the evacuation scheme.
“Thousands of you in this country have had to leave your homes and be separated from your fathers and mothers. My sister Margaret Rose and I feel so much for you, as we know from experience what it means to be away from those you love most of all.
To you living in new surroundings, we send a message of true sympathy, and at the same time, we would like to thank the kind people who have welcomed you to their homes in the country.”
Public responses to this broadcast varied. Interviewers from the social research project Mass Observation took to the streets to ask people what they thought to gauge the reaction of the British public. Out of 57 people surveyed, 38 had heard the broadcast. More than 20 people positively commented how “charming,” “sweet,” “beautiful,” or “lovely” Princess Elizabeth sounded, but also that she spoke “very clearly,” was “wonderful,” and “did very well.”
Most people assumed that the speech had been written for her and suggested it was “propaganda” or “a way to ‘keep the population quiet.’” However, several newspapers positively reported the speech and included a photograph of the two princesses at the microphone.
Princess Elizabeth championed more aspects of wartime life and resilience as the war progressed. In 1943, she was photographed tending her allotments at Windsor Castle as part of the government’s “Dig for Victory” campaign, in which people were urged to use gardens and every spare piece of land to grow vegetables to help combat food shortages.
Before the Second World War, Britain had relied on food imports from across the world, but when the war started, shipping was threatened by enemy submarines and warships. This resulted in food shortages and led to the rationing of foods such as meat, butter, cheese, eggs, and sugar.
Princess Elizabeth undertook her first inspection of a military regiment during a parade at Windsor Castle on the morning of her sixteenth birthday. She had been given the honorary colonel of the Grenadier Guards, symbolizing her military involvement in the war effort. When Princess Elizabeth turned 18 in 1944, she insisted upon joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women’s branch of the British Army.
For several years during the war, Britain had conscripted women to join the war effort. Unmarried women under 30 had to join the armed forces or work on the land or in industry. King George ensured his daughter was not given a particular rank in the Army. She started as a second subaltern in the ATS and was later promoted to Junior Commander, the equivalent of Captain.
Princess Elizabeth began her training as a mechanic in March 1945. She undertook a driving and vehicle maintenance course at Aldershot, qualifying on April 14. Newspapers at the time dubbed her “Princess Auto Mechanic.”
A wide range of jobs is available to female soldiers in the ATS: cooks, telephonists, drivers, postal workers, searchlight operators, and ammunition inspectors. Some women were part of anti-aircraft units, although they were not allowed to fire their guns. The jobs were dangerous; during the war, 335 ATS women were killed and many more injured. By June 1945, around 200,000 members of the ATS from across the British Empire served on the home front and in many overseas theaters of war.
While Princess Elizabeth spent most of her days at the training facility, it was close enough to Windsor Castle that the princess would return there each evening rather than sleep at the camp with her fellow ATS members.
The King, Queen, and Princess Margaret visited Princess Elizabeth at the Mechanical Transport Training Section in Camberley, Surrey, and watched her learn about engine maintenance. When describing the visit to LIFE Magazine, the Princess commented, “I never knew there was quite so much preparation [for a royal visit] ...I’ll know another time.”
On May 8, 1945, the war in Europe ended. In London, thousands of people took to the streets to celebrate, flooding Trafalgar Square and the Mall leading up to Buckingham Palace, where the King and Queen greeted them from the balcony.
As the light began to fade and the celebrations continued into the night, Princess Elizabeth, dressed in her ATS uniform, slipped into the crowds with her sister to enjoy the festivities. In 1985, the now Queen spoke to the BBC about how she tried to avoid being spotted, “I remember we were terrified of being recognized, so I pulled my uniform cap well down over my eyes.” She described the “lines of unknown people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, and all of us were swept along by tides of happiness and relief.” There are reports that the princesses joined a conga dance through the Ritz Hotel as they celebrated with the crowds. “I think it was one of the most memorable nights of my life,” she recalled.
Before his passing, Queen Elizabeth served as colonel-in-chief of 16 British Army regiments and corps and many Commonwealth units. As a member of the ATS, she was the first female of the Royal family to be an active duty member of the British Armed Forces.
The Queen is also the last surviving head of state to have served during the Second World War. In her later years, she is often pictured behind the wheel and has been known to diagnose and repair faulty engines, just as she was taught during her wartime service in the ATS.
RIP Queen Elizabeth (1926-2022)

Wow, what a man Eugene Gutierrez was!

RIP