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#4540058 - 10/09/20 12:13 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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It is with great sadness; we learn the news that decorated WWII veteran Harold E. McCabe has died. He was 95.

Born May 29, 1925, in Georgetown, he was the son of the late C. Russell and Agnes Donaway McCabe. He attended Georgetown High School and was one of the last surviving members of Coach George Keen’s Golden Knights football squads that went undefeated for nearly four straight seasons.
On May 28, 1943, he enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard. Following basic training in New York, where he was taught self-defense by boxing champ Jack Dempsey and saw Sinatra at the Paramount, he was sent to Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he joined members of the U.S. Marines amphibious forces preparing for action in the Pacific.

Following arrival at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December 1943, he was assigned to the Coast Guard-manned Attack Transport USS Leonard Wood. He was an active participant in the invasion of the Marshall Islands, Eniwetok, Kwajalein, Saipan, Palau and the Philippines. During this time, he was a member of an LCVP crew which landed troops on hotly contested beaches, sometimes under intense fire.
During the invasions of Leyte and Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines, he was assigned to an anti-aircraft battery which was responsible for protecting his ship from attacks by kamikaze suicide planes then menacing the American fleet.
Following the conclusion of the war he participated in the transfer of troops to Occupied Japan, and the return home of countless combat veterans, something he remembered as a joyful experience for all. Seaman First Class McCabe was discharged in March 1946.
Returning home, he soon began his 35-year career with Delaware (now Delmarva) Power and Light. During the early years of his employment he participated in the completion of the electrification of rural Sussex County, a source of delight for farm families who sometimes offered home-baked pies and the occasional chicken as a sign of appreciation.

On July 15, 1950, he married the love of his life, Louise E. Hurley of Milton, in the sanctuary of Goshen Methodist Church. The couple settled in Georgetown, where they lived for 37 years before building their retirement home near Milton.
He was a member of Franklin Lodge No. 12, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, Post 6984, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Delaware Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and the Georgetown Volunteer Fire Company.
In addition, he and Louise were members of Grace United Methodist Church and were among the founders of the Georgetown Historical Society and Sussex Pines Country Club. He was one of a long line of oral historians whose stories brought light to the past and was a firm believer in the importance of self-respect and treating others as one would wish to be treated. He never knew a stranger and kept his sense of humor to the end - a lesson for us all.

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#4540059 - 10/09/20 12:14 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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It is with great sadness; we learn the news that decorated WWII veteran Irwin N. Kingsbury, retired Baltimore City firefighter and World War II veteran, dies. He was 95.
Born in Baltimore and raised on Morling and Dellwood avenues in Hampden, he was on the Robert Poole School basketball team and left City College to join the Navy during World War II.
That he was only 17 years old was noted in a newspaper article about his class of recruits, who were sent to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Great Lakes, Illinois.
He also attended the Navy’s Signal and Radio School in Chicago and was assigned to the USS Florence Nightingale.
As a signalman, he made numerous crossings from East Coast ports to the British Isles and on to Africa and throughout the Mediterranean. He called at Oran in Algeria and was part of the invasions at Sicily and Marseilles, France. After the Allied invasion was successful, he was sent to the Pacific and took part in the Battle of Okinawa. The Florence Nightingale received four battle stars for World War II service.
“Before going in the Navy my father and his mother had been members of the Hampden United Methodist Church,” said his daughter, who lives in Ottawa, Ontario.
"But on one of his ocean crossings, his ship hit a violent storm. My father told the story that he met a priest and promised him that if they got out of the storm safe, he’d convert to Catholicism. "
His daughter also said, “So when my father returned to Hampden, his scandalized mother found him now a Catholic, going to bars and dancing.”
After leaving the military, Mr. Kingsbury joined the Baltimore City Fire Department and served at Engine Eight Number Ten Truck Company.

Attached Files Kingsbury.jpg
#4540060 - 10/09/20 12:15 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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Family and friends gathered on Saturday to give a final salute to World War II veteran Lloyd Thomas Bentley, one of the last members of what many call The Greatest Generation. He was 99.
Lloyd was an Officer, Pilot-Navigator attached to the Royal Air Force and a very proud veteran of World War II from August 1943 to August 1945. He took part in "Operation Overlord" and "A Bridge Too Far" at Arnhem, The Netherlands in 1944.
“We were a young family and Lloyd was our insurance agent,” Gary Surette recalled.
“Back then, insurance agents used to visit you at your home once a month to pick up the premiums. “So that’s how I first got to know him.”
They became friends and, after Surette earned his pilot’s license, he took Bentley and his young son, Roger, for a flight.
Once they were up, Surette invited Bentley to take the controls.
“I haven’t flown for years,” Mr. Bentley said.
After a bit of coaxing, he relented and soon was flying.
“I remember seeing the gleam in my father’s eyes and saw for myself the joy he got from flying,” Roger recalled.
Longtime friend Scott Clare spoke about the many trips Mr. Bentley took to Europe, including one last year to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
“Lloyd loved to speak with people,” recalled Clare, noting that list of people Bentley spoke to included world leaders, local mayors, students and journalists.
There were some common themes in his many media interviews.
He spoke about the size of the D-Day force and the young men from Sault Ste. Marie, who enlisted with him.
“There were a lot of us who all went into the Air Force and I think only a few of us – three or four — came back,” Bentley would say. “On the way back, we didn’t fly very high. We were only up a couple of thousand feet so I had a really good view of the invading force.
“The ships were so thick down below, I could have walked back on the ships if I had longer legs.”
Most of all, however, he lamented the incredible loss of life, especially the teenagers, including those who were German.
“They were taught to hate,” Bentley would say. “I never understood that. I never hated anyone.”
Lloyd worked for London Life as a chartered life underwriter until he retired in 1982; was a long-time member of the Royal Canadian Legion, Dunsdon Branch, #461.

Attached Files Bentley.jpg
#4540061 - 10/09/20 12:16 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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One of the last Veteran of the famed Band of Brothers, 506th Easy Company Dies, leaving two veterans left.
Bill Wingett, a long-time Salem resident and one of the last remaining members of the World War II "Band of Brothers," died early Thursday morning at an Oregon veterans' home in Lebanon. He was 98.
"He slipped into heaven very comfortably from old age," his nephew, Gregory Wingett, told the Statesman Journal.
In a 2019 interview before the 75th anniversary of D-Day, he reiterated that he was no more a hero than anyone else who put on a uniform, although he earned a Bronze Star and was wounded three times serving with arguably the most famous unit of World War II.
Bill was a machine gunner with Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne, which most Americans know as the Band of Brothers.
The unit was immortalized in Stephen Ambrose’s book and subsequent Emmy-winning television mini-series, and Salem once was home to three members. The others were Don Malarkey, who died in 2017, and Leo Boyle, who died in 1997.
The 506th was involved in some of the most brutal battles of the war and the legend of its soldiers commenced June 6, 1944, when they parachuted into Normandy, France, and helped clear the way for the beach landings.
Bill wasn't one to elaborate on the details of his service. He once described D-Day like this: "We got in an airplane in England, we jumped out of the #%&*$# thing in France, and the fight began. There's not much more to say about that."
His nephew said he appreciated how thoughtful and straightforward Bill was when answering questions about the war.
"He never tried to glorify anything," Gregory Wingett said.
Easy Company also fought during Operation Market Garden, the Battle of Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge. Bill received the Bronze Star for bravery in combat.
Although Bill told the Statesman he never had a close call, he was wounded three times. A Purple Heart with two oak leaf clusters was among 20 medals displayed in a custom frame on the wall of his apartment at the veterans' home.
After the war ended, Bill re-enlisted with the 82nd Airborne and served with his younger brother until 1948. Years later, he joined the Naval Reserve, retiring after 17 years as a petty officer first class.
Bill moved his wife, Peggy, and their family to Salem in the fall of 1961. He worked at a paper mill before opening his own woodworking shop, which he continued to operate into his early 90s. His wife died in 2010.

Attached Files Wingett.jpg
#4540062 - 10/09/20 12:16 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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True Legend: Ex SAS colonel and World War II SUPERHERO dies aged 100 after leading an attack against German SS troops and surviving POW camp.
John Waddy, who served in the military for 35 years, saw action at the Battle of Arnhem and was also wounded and taken prisoner by Nazi troops.
In later life, he was an adviser for the film A Bridge Too Far, which told the story of the bloody battles he lived through.
John was born in Taunton, Somerset, in June 1920 and served with the Somerset Light Infantry in India, when he joined up just before the start of World War Two. He then volunteered to join the Parachute Regiment and saw action in Italy in 1943. He was then part of the 1st Airborne Division with 4 Para when he fought at Arnhem during the latter stages of the war.
John was one of the few survivors in his battalion who fought and survived in the iconic battle. The hero was seriously wounded while leading an attack against German SS troops - and he had to have an operation on a billiard table. He spent the rest of the Second World War as a prisoner in a Nazi camp.
After the war, he saw action in Palestine and the Malayan emergency and was mentioned in dispatches. He went on to be a member of the SAS and was a military adviser.
His final military role was serving alongside the Americans as an observer in Vietnam, where he saw the value of using helicopters for troops' swift movement.
After returning to the UK, he recommended the technique to be used in the special forces.

Attached Files Waddy.jpg
#4540063 - 10/09/20 12:18 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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It is with great sadness to report that Pearl Harbor survivor and World War II veteran Mr. ALEXANDER HORANZY has died. He was 98.
Born April 22, 1922 while his family was on vacation in Poland. He grew up with six other siblings in the Manayunk section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he helped the family get through the Depression years by working as a golf caddy.
All 5 of the Horanzy boys would go on to enlist in the military during World War II. When he was 17, Horanzy enlisted in the Army on July 13, 1939, with his father's permission. He was sent to Fort Meade, Maryland, for basic training with the 66th Infantry (Light Tanks outfit).
During the six months he was there, he learned how to fire machine guns at aircraft. After serving about a year stateside, Private Horanzy requested to be shipped overseas, initially electing to go to the Philippines. Before the troopship arrived at Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina, the Philippines' quota was met, and he was destined for Hawaii.
He landed on Oahu on November 2, 1940, and was assigned to the 19th Infantry at Schofield Barracks (later to be recast as the 24th Infantry Division).
The 24th Infantry Division had just returned to Schofield Barracks on December 6, 1941, after about a week of field maneuvers on Oahu's northern end.Shortly after 7:50 a.m, he heard the sound of planes and machine guns jolted him awake - the Japanese were attacking.
No one expected the enemy to attack Pearl Harbor in broad daylight, but there was no mistaking it. Japanese planes were flying so low their red circle symbol, and even the pilots' heads could be seen from the ground. Over the next 20 months, his unit guarded the shores of Hawaii.
In September 1943, Horanzy and the 24th Division moved to Australia for intensive training in jungle fighting. Horanzy later fought in New Guinea, where the troops spent a lot of time in the swamps. Leeches, mosquitoes, and black flies were rampant there, and as a result, he contracted malaria.
He was honorably discharged on July 13, 1945. He continued to have bouts with the disease in the United States and had to collect disability until he was able to work.
In his later years, he traveled the World with The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation, speaking about his own war experiences during World War II.

Attached Files HORANZY.jpg
#4545589 - 11/20/20 02:11 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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It is with great sadness; we learn the news that Normandy (DDAY) veteran and SUPERSTAR Mr. Ray Pegram has died. He was 97.
Ray Pegram of Spindale was a native of Henderson County, and he was the son of the late Julius Faustus and Vista Merrell Pegram and husband to the late Madge Hardin Pegram.
Ray served as a radio operator on a Douglas C-47 military transport aircraft in the 9th Army Air Corps, 434 Trooper Carrier Group.
During World War II, Ray participated in the Normandy Landings, Operation Market Garden, and Operation Plunder.
Ray was a member of Spencer Baptist Church. He was a former member of the Spindale Rotary Club, the Rutherford County Club, and served as a deacon at Spencer Baptist Church.
In his twilight years, Ray spent his time traveling the World with The Greatest Generations Foundation, talking about his wartime experiences.
Our heart is with his daughter Jen Ballard, and the Pegram Family.

Attached Files pegram.jpg
#4545590 - 11/20/20 02:12 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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The beautiful and loving Randall Edwards, a World War II prison camp survivor remembered as inspiration. He was 103.
When Randall Edwards entered a Japanese prisoner camp during World War II, he expected his life to end soon.
Despite enduring torture and malnourishment during more than three years as a slave laborer in the Mukden Prison Camp in Japanese-held Manchuria, Edwards survived to be liberated by Allied forces in 1945.
Archival records indicate 1,420 Allied prisoners were held here, 1,193 of whom were liberated, and 224 of whom did not survive their captivity.[1] Prisoners at the camp included soldiers from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand.
Edwards was born on a ranch in Wyoming in 1917, when the United States was engaged in World War I. After graduating in 1935 from Ruskin High School in Ruskin, Nebraska, he enlisted in the Navy.
Early in World War II, he served as an Airman First Class radioman aboard the USS Canopus, a submarine tender stationed in the Philippines. When Army Maj. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, commander of Allied forces in the Philippines, surrendered to the Japanese in May 1942, Edwards joined some 1,200 Allied personnel taken to the prison camp in Manchuria.
Edwards described his experience for a Ledger reporter before his 100th birthday celebration in 2017. He and other POWs served as slave laborers for the Manchurian Tool Company, forced to work seven days a week in a factory that made bullets for the Japanese military.
Edwards said he and other American POWs engaged in sabotage to thwart the production, and his captors moved him to different positions as they noticed his faulty work. He said the Japanese guards also frequently struck him on the head, and he blamed his near-deafness late in life on those blows.
Conditions in the camp were horrific, with temperatures in the winter dropping to 50 below zero. Provided with minimal clothing, prisoners had to hike three miles to the factory, and Edwards said he was left with permanent nerve damage in his feet after they froze during the walks.
He said 169 prisoners died in the first winter, when the captors fed them nothing but small servings of cabbage soup. The POWs captured and ate mice, rats and wild dogs, Edwards said, and they managed to steal some items and exchange them for food.
He described swiping diamonds from a grinding wheel in the factory and selling them to a local Chinese resident for a ball of cheese.
Allied forces liberated the prisoners in August 1945. Edwards’ weight had dropped from 165 pounds to 98 pounds during his time in captivity. He recalled that American B-29 bombers dropped cases of food into the camp, and he found a gallon can of peaches and gorged on them until he vomited.
After returning home, Edwards re-enlisted in the Navy and was sent to Japan as part of the occupation force. Having attained the rank of Warrant Officer, he retired in 1955 and earned a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Florida.
Edwards worked for 24 years at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, and after his retirement he moved to Lakeland to be near his son, Dr. Randy Edwards, then an internist at Bond Clinic in Winter Haven and now retired. Edwards became a national service officer for the American Ex-Prisoners of War Organization and American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, helping thousands of veterans obtain benefits from the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

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#4545591 - 11/20/20 02:13 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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It is with a heavy heart; we announce the passing of Paratrooper MR. GEORGE V. JACKSON, JR., proud Member of the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion, 101st Airborne Division. He was 97.
Born in Audubon, New Jersey, November 15, 1923, George V. Jackson Jr was drafted into the United States Army shortly after this mother died.
He was assigned to the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion, an organic engineer unit that supported the 101st Airborne Division during its operations in World War II.
After extensive training in the United States, Jackson and the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion deployed to England on September 5, 1943, from Pier 90, North River, New York. The Ship 294 (HMS Samaria) landed at Liverpool, England, and the Battalion moved by train to Basildon Park, near Reading, Berkshire.
Under the command of Lt Col John Pappas, the Battalion's training focused on physical conditioning (including long and short marches), firing of weapons, glider loading, glider flights, unit, and division tactical exercises.
Jackson and the Battalion jumped into Operation Market Garden and fought with the Screaming Eagles in Bastogne's heroic stand, where Jackson was wounded.
For its outstanding accomplishments at Normandy and Bastogne, the Battalion was twice awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its contribution to the European War's success. The Battalion also received the French Croix de Guerre (with Palm), the Netherlands Orange Lanyard, and the Belgian Fourragere.
The US. Army deactivated the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion on November 30, 1945.
After the war, Jackson returned home on the liberty ship into New York City. His unit was transferred to Fort Dix for military discharge and then went out on the town for three straight days and nights with the brothers he served within Europe. That would be the last time Jackson saw them.
Jackson had a few odd jobs working down at the docks in New Jersey, but then before buying his first gas station and service center, his dad told him that that would be a job he could do the rest of his life. Over the next 50 years, Jackson would own several Gulf Oil Gas stations across the east-coast before moving to Pennsylvania to retire.

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#4545592 - 11/20/20 02:14 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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Memories of World War II from the gorgeous Marian Sebring, a U.S. Army nurse who served in Normandy, has died. Marian Sebring was 99.
It was Marian Sebring’s friend from nursing school who had the idea. The pair had almost completed their studies in Pennsylvania when Marian’s friend learned they could sign up for a one-year hitch as nurses in the U.S. Army.
“So, we signed up for one year,” Marian said. “And then what happened was the United States entered the war. They said, ‘Sorry, you can’t get out.’ So, I was in for the duration.”
In November, the French government thanked Marian for what she did during World War II, bestowing the Légion d’Honneur on her in gratitude for her contribution to the liberation of France. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, a ceremony planned for March had to be scrubbed. The medal and accompanying diploma were sent to Marian by mail.
“We are forever grateful to the men and women who fought for our freedom and to whom we owe it today,” the award letter says.
Among those men and women was Marian. (And her friend? “She deserted me,” Marian said. “She went and got married in the States. My mother didn’t like that.”)
Before joining the Army, the farthest Marian had been from her Oil City, Pa., home was Ohio. After enlisting, it was off to Georgia for training, then by ship to Scotland, and then more training in the English village of Wotton-under-Edge.
On D plus 10 — 10 days after Allied forces landed in France — a 22-year-old Marian and her comrades boarded a landing craft headed for Omaha Beach.
“We’d trained for all that time in England,” Marian told me in August when she spoke to me by phone from her home at Goodwin House in Alexandria, Va. “We were looking forward to going, until we hit the beach. Then you wished you were somewhere else.”
Because of the tide, the landing craft Marian and her fellow nurses were on could only pull in so far, meaning they had to wade the rest of the way.
“I’m tall,” she said. “I could go by myself, pretty much. Some of the small girls, the water was up to their heads.”
U.S. Marines helped them ashore. No sooner were they on the beach than they were told they had to get off the beach. The Germans were expected to bomb that afternoon.
The medical staff set up on a bluff overlooking the beach. That patch of ground would later be turned into the Normandy American Cemetery, the final resting place of nearly 10,000 Americans.
For the rest of the war, Marian and the 45th Evacuation Hospital pushed through France and Belgium, past hedgerows that gave the landscape an alien appearance to the Pennsylvania native.
Marian specialized in orthopedics at first, treating soldiers who had lost limbs. Later she worked with brain injuries. During the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans bombed the yard outside the school building in which her hospital was set up.
“We evacuated who we could, and then we took the rest to the basement of the school building,” Marian said.
That was when Marian was most frightened, not for herself, but for her patients. She crawled in the darkened basement on her hands and knees, distributing medicine from a basket she held clamped in her mouth.
“Most of them were awake,” Marian said later. “It was deadly silent. I knew they were afraid. I just kept moving, patting them on the leg or arm as I went by.”
Marian returned to the United States in November 1945, an Army captain. She married another veteran: Michael Phillip Elcano, an artillery officer who had landed in Normandy 20 days after she had. Together they raised five children. Michael, career Army, died in 2007.
On Oct. 4, 2020, Capt. Marian Rebecca Sebring Elcano — Army nurse, Legion of Honor recipient — died of congestive heart disease. She was 99. She’d been able to see some of her family two days earlier, when they sat together in the sun.
“It meant a lot to her, that part of her life,” her daughter Mary Elcano said of the time Marian spent in the war. “I think it was one of the most significant molding experiences of her personality. It’s sort of like my dad used to say: If they’re not shooting at us, it’s not that bad.”

Attached Files sebring.jpg
#4545593 - 11/20/20 02:15 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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It is with great sadness; we learn the news that World War II SUPERHERO, Mr. Jim Feezel, who drove a tank through the gate of Dachau Concentration camp, has died. He was 95.
In a video interview project by Gary Cosby Jr. with The Decatur Daily in 2015, on the 70th anniversary of World War II, Feezel recalled the moment his commanding officer told him to break through a gate at a Nazi camp.
The Dachau camp system grew to include nearly 100 sub-camps located throughout southern Germany and Austria. U.S. forces liberated the main camp on April 29, 1945. It is not clear which gate Feezel may have driven through. Still, the 12th Armored Division is recognized as a liberating unit of the Kaufering concentration camps near the Landsberg Prison, sub-camps of the Dachau concentration camp, on April 27, 1945. Kaufering was the largest Dachau sub-camp and the one with the worst conditions.
"We were facing the front gate at Dachau prison," Feezel said. "He said, 'Jim, put the tank through that gate.' So, I have the dubious honor of doing that. And, immediately glancing over at the bodies stacked like cordwood, this young 19-year-old just about lost it."
Feezel, a technical sergeant for the 23rd tank battalion of the 12th Armored Division, drove a Sherman tank.
An emaciated inmate approached his tank after he drove into the camp, he said. "Looked like a skeleton was walking towards me," Feezel said. "He was finally too exhausted, and he just sat down."
Feezel emphasized that he was one of many soldiers who played a role in the defeat of Nazi Germany.
"I often reckon with the very fact that I was such a small pebble in a large stream of thousands and thousands of men who went to fight this war," he said.
Dachau survivor Bob Sawada was born in Poland and witnessed his parents' death, killed by Nazi soldiers. He was sent to a series of work camps and eventually to Dachau, the oldest and longest-running Nazi concentration camp.
"I think God sent you," Sawada said to Feezel in the televised reunion. "God sent you."
Feezel wondered if Sawada may have been the man who staggered towards his tank. "You know, I thought about the possibility that he could have been that man that tried to walk to my tank and didn't have enough energy to get there," Feezel said.
There were 30,000 prisoners freed from the main camp, from among the more than 200,000 sent to Dachau during Hitler's reign of terror, tens of thousands of whom died at Dachau.
Six million Jews and millions of other political prisoners were killed in the Nazi concentration camps that were founded after Dachau.
"Thank God, I'm here talking to my liberator," Sawada said in his meeting with Feezel.
"Well, I am proud of that fact, you know," Feezel said. "Proud that I lived through it also to be able to come home and tell a few people what little bit we did." Photo by Jeff Rease.

Attached Files feezel.jpg
#4545594 - 11/20/20 02:16 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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Its with great sadness; we learn the news that World War II veteran Howard Webb has died. He was 99.
A survivor of five years fighting against the Nazis, World War II veteran Howard Webb is being remembered as a loving husband and father who taught his son to always stand up against his adversaries.
Webb, most recently living in Belle River, voluntarily enlisted in the Canadian infantry, along with his brother Vain, at the beginning of World War II.
The regiment landed in Italy on 19 December 1943 as a unit of the 5th Armoured Brigade, 5th Canadian Armoured Division. It was renamed as the "5th Armoured Regiment (8th Princess Louise's (New Brunswick) Hussars, CAC, CASF", on 15 October 1943. The regiment landed in Italy on 19 December 1943 at Naples and saw action soon and frequently thereafter.
The regiment fought in the Liri Valley, the Melfa Crossing, Ceprano, The Gothic Line, Missano Ridge, Coriano, the Lamone River Crossing, and Coventello where it distinguished itself.
It moved to North-West Europe on 17 February 1945 as part of Operation Goldflake. The Hussars sailed from Italy to Southern France, and then moved by rail to Northwest Europe. After refitting the tanks, the regiment went into action in the Netherlands, breaking through to Putten in mid-April.
The regiment then moved north for the final actions of the war at the Delfzijl Pocket where 3,000 German soldiers surrendered to the regiment. It was renamed as the "5th Armoured Regiment (8th Princess Louise's (New Brunswick) Hussars, RCAC, CASF", on 2 August 1945.
On 26 January 1946, the regiment arrived in Halifax and the next day reached Sussex, New Brunswick where it was demobilized. The overseas regiment disbanded on 15 February 1946.
Wounded in Italy, but not seriously enough to go home, he then fought for Holland’s liberation.
Webb was awarded commendations and medals for his actions, including the Italy Star, France Star and German Star, according to his daughter Sharron Hamilton.
Born and raised in Sault Ste. Marie, Webb spent most of his adult life in the Toronto area where he worked driving streetcars, subways trains and buses for the Toronto Transit Commission. He retired in 1981.
He was married for 72 years to his sweetheart Muriel, who died in 2014.
They had met at a dance hall in Toronto and were wed at her family’s farmhouse in Brampton before he boarded the Queen Elizabeth ocean liner and sailed off to war in Europe.
The pair spent winters in Clearwater, Fla., until Muriel’s health problems forced them to sell their home away from home.
When Muriel died, Webb was so depressed he refused to go into their shared bedroom, choosing to sleep on a futon in the sunroom instead.
Shortly after, he began exhibiting signs of dementia and depression and began falling so his kids placed him in long-term care in Mississauga, moving him to Seasons Belle River several years ago so that he was closer to his family. He died Friday in hospital after a bout of pneumonia.

Attached Files webb.jpg
#4545595 - 11/20/20 02:17 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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It is with great sadness; we learn the news that World War II veteran Mr. WILLIAM REED the last surviving member of London’s 1st Hussars armor regiment that stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day in 1944 died this week. He was 97.
William Reed, a gunner on the tank that became known as the Holy Roller.
Reed was originally from Quebec but lived in a number of communities in Canada, including London, and the United States. He passed away in Bremerton, Washington.
His nephew, Brian Reed, of North Delta, B.C., often visited with uncle but he said the veteran rarely talked about his combat role.
However, Reed said on one occasion Bill revealed how he helped clear Juno Beach of Germans while at the gun turret of the tank.
Reed said the Germans were behind a wall, but his uncle could see their heads and shoulders above it and was "purposely shooting at the wall" instead of directly at the enemy.
"I guess, he didn't want to kill anybody at that time," he said, preferring to scare them away.
Reed said his uncle more often told light-hearted stories, such as when he and a few of his regimental buddies when on a fishing trip while on a day off in Normandy. They didn't have any fishing gear, so they used hand grenades to stir up the water in their search for fish.
Reed said they actually caught a few despite the explosions in the water.
But, the story goes, they became were so enthused about their endeavor that at one point they almost overlooked the fact that one of the grenades had blown out the bottom of their small boat. Fortunately, they were fairly close to shore when it happened, and no one was hurt.
After the war, William Reed moved to California and in the 1950s took a job as a carpenter with the Disney Corporation and helped build Disneyland.
"He went from the angriest place on earth to the happiest place on Earth, I guess," said his nephew.
And the younger Reed said be benefited greatly from his uncle's employment with Disney and the corporate discounts he could share with his relatives.
"Our family must have gone down there 20 times for family vacations. I've actually been to three of the Disneyland’s because of him."
Reed said his uncle was aware that the tank which saw him and his comrades through the war was falling into disrepair and was supportive of efforts to preserve it as a memorial in London's Victoria Park.

Attached Files reed.jpg
#4545596 - 11/20/20 02:18 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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Its is with great sadness; we learnt he news that Pearl Harbor survivor, Mr. Harry Guilliams has died. He was 101.
Nearly 79 years ago, on Dec. 7, 1941, Guilliams was a 22-year-old U.S. Army sergeant stationed in Hawaii when he watched Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbor in the attack that hurled the United States into World War II.
Guilliams was a Roanoker who joined the Marines in 1936 at the age of 17 because he couldn’t find a job during the Great Depression. He switched to the Army a year later.
Four years later, Guilliams was stationed at the air base formerly called Hickam Field, the Army’s primary airfield just across the harbor from the Navy’s “Battleship Row,” the main target of the Japanese attack. On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Guilliams was training new recruits for the 864th Anti-Aircraft Automatic Weapons Battalion when he saw numerous planes flying toward the harbor.
“All at once, here come a bunch of airplanes flying in formation, flying low,” he said. “A couple of us were looking at ’em. Back then, we didn’t know one plane or another. Somebody said they were Navy planes. I said, ‘If they’re Navy planes they’re on their way to Pearl Harbor.’ Well, they were on their way to Pearl Harbor, all right.”
Within minutes, Guilliams heard the explosions and saw pillars of black smoke rising from the harbor. Before he realized that an attack was really happening, Japanese planes flew toward Hickam Field and began strafing soldiers. Guilliams said he narrowly avoided being shot by Japanese bullets.
“A Japanese plane came at us, but its inside guns had run out of ammunition,” Guilliams said. “It passed right over us with only the outside guns firing. Shells were popping off the runway.”
Guilliams and other soldiers began firing with their rifles.
“We fired at them, and one plane began smoking,” he said. “It made a circle and hit a building.”
Guilliams eventually served with artillery and automatic weapons battalions in the Pacific Theater during the war and was part of the invasion of Saipan in 1944. After the war, he joined the Army Reserves and was called to duty in Korea. He earned a Bronze Star (for acts of bravery or merit) and a Purple Heart (for being wounded in action) during both World War II and the Korean War.
After his years in the military, Guilliams returned to Roanoke and worked for Appalachian Power. On the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, Guilliams was among Pearl Harbor survivors to receive a commemorative medal from Congress.
He was a leader in local veterans organizations, including serving many years as post commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1264 in Roanoke. He conducted military rites at scores of veterans funerals for more than 20 years, once telling the newspaper that he had buried more than 1,000 veterans.

Attached Files gulliams.jpg
#4545597 - 11/20/20 02:18 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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Less than a week before Veterans Day, we are saying farewell to one of its last World War II veterans and a well-loved member of the community. _Elmo Baird, of Twillingate, passed away yesterday at the age of 100.
_Elmo Bartlett Baird was just 19 years old at the dawn of World War II and was on the first ship to sail from St. John’s to Liverpool to work in the United Kingdom with the Newfoundland Forestry Unit.
While fond of his work, he decided to contribute more to the war effort and left forestry to enlist with the Royal Air Force. His service brought him to Southeast Asia, to the Middle East, North Africa, and eventually through Italy to Yugoslavia.
Baird served for six years before returning home to Newfoundland and married Eleanor Gillett in 1947. They moved to Gander to start a family, raising five children. Baird spent years working with immigration at Gander International Airport.
After 50 years in the Central Newfoundland town, he and his wife followed his daughter to the capital city in 1996.





* I have no idea why the forum turns the mans first name into a ridiculous "Smilie"


I have tried to change it, but it keeps reverting. Let me see about it.




Attached Files baird.jpg
Last edited by CyBerkut; 11/21/20 04:16 PM. Reason: Added _ as a work-around
#4545598 - 11/20/20 02:19 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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It is with great sadness; we learn the news that Pearl Harbor survivor Mr. Clarence Lux has died. He was 99.
Clarence Lux, who was a fireman first class on the USS Tennessee during the attack on Pearl Harbor, died Aug. 24, just three months short of his 100th birthday.
Born Nov. 16, 1920, Lux grew up in Kansas. He had just turned 21 years old and was serving on the USS Tennessee on Dec. 7, 1941, when the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service attacked the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu.
The Tennessee was hit by two bombs; five people were killed. Docked nearby was the USS Arizona, which was hit by four bombs and exploded; 1,177 people died, some of them men Lux knew.
Lux’s battle station during the attack was at two steam-driven fire and bilge pumps in the after-pump room.
“After we’d been down there just a short time, I heard explosions and felt them,” he told Hi-Desert Star reporter Jimmy Biggerstaff in 2007.
Smoke began to come through the ventilators, so they were shut off.
“It gets pretty hot and miserable when the ventilators aren’t running,” he said. “I was too dumb to be afraid and didn’t really know what was happening.”
The Tennessee was trapped between disabled battleships and concrete mooring quays, so her engines were started, and the churning of the ship’s four propellers kept the burning oil on the water’s surface from reaching the ship.
“By the time we were excused from General Quarters it was dusk,” he said.
“I made my way topside to view the incredible scene. The West Virginia was sunk, water flowing over her quarter deck. Oklahoma had rolled over. Arizona sunk and really blown up. I saw many bloated bodies floating around.”
The next morning Lux watched as sailors’ bodies were taken out of the water and put in shore boats, thankful that he had not been ordered to carry out that task.
Damaged but not destroyed, the Tennessee returned to Bremerton, Washington, to be rebuilt.
It was during this time that Lux married Lucia Conver, a nursing student he’d met while visiting his sister in Los Angeles. “Mom was in nursing school. She and her sister went up to Bremerton and they got married,” Sia said.
Lux returned to the service and Lucia had to change nursing schools because the one she was attending didn’t allow married students.
Lux continued to serve on the Tennessee’s power room through the war, until he was discharged from the Navy as a chief petty officer in 1946 and went to work firing boilers for the Veterans Administration hospital in west Los Angeles. He and Lucia had two daughters, Sia and Pamela.

Attached Files lux.jpg
#4545599 - 11/20/20 02:20 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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It is with great sadness; we learn the passing of World War II “SUPERSTAR” and USMC veteran Mr. Enrico “Rico” Cinquini. He was 96.
At only 18 years old, a young Cinquini decided to enlist in the Marines, telling his parents in Italian he wanted to serve his country. But his battle-hardened father, who had served in World War I, looked over his son and said, “È morto.” Meaning simply “he’s dead,” Cinquini’s mother broke into tears, but he was determined to return despite the coming hardships.
While fighting in Peleliu, Cinquini was a runner to Col. Lewis “Chesty” Puller, who was a highly decorated legend of a Marine.
“I fought in the same foxhole with that guy there,” said Cinquini of Puller.
Cinquini recalled Peleliu as a tough place where a lot of men were lost, but also where he met a famous individual. In all the madness while the Marines were under fire, a man called out, asking if anyone was from San Francisco.
“And I’m thinking, ‘What kind of a nut is this?’” Cinquini said, but he and his friend replied, and the man jumped into the ditch with them. “He said, ‘Oh, you guys are getting killed! I got to get out of here.’ But first, he took our names and photo.”
As it turned out, the photographer was none other than The Chronicle’s Joe Rosenthal, whose iconic ‘Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima’ photo is still regarded as one of the most significant and recognizable images of war. The photo of Cinquini and his comrade later appeared in The Chronicle. Years later, Cinquini would call Rosenthal, not expecting him to remember that day in the ditch, but he had. Rosenthal dug up the negative and had a signed copy sent to Cinquini, where it sits in his office to this day.
Cinquini went on to recall the time a Japanese fighter plane – one they thought was circling to strafe them – landed on an American-occupied airfield, only to realize his mistake after exiting his aircraft.
Another time, he and his comrades underwent friendly fire from U.S. Navy fighters that, in turn, mistook them for Japanese. He fondly remembered the indigenous people of New Guinea, who helped them build huts. But one especially notable experience was meeting his pet parrot.
While the Marines were under fire at Cape Gloucester, a parrot fell from a palm tree and bit Cinquini when he picked it up. At first, he wanted to kill the bird, but a friend convinced him to spare it, and they stuffed it in his backpack.
From then on, the bird became a Marine mascot, always perching on Cinquini’s shoulder and whistling a familiar tune when called. Named Beat ‘em, he was even given a Marine record book with his photo and footprint.
When the war was finally over, Cinquini married his sweetheart and pen pal Rose in 1947 and went on to raise a family and become a vital part of his Oakley community.
Yet, three-fourths of a century later, the experiences still consume a significant portion of his memories, and it’s mainly other veterans with war experience who can offer him solace when he needs to talk.
“You carry these stories with you, but the worst part is when you see your friends die,” he said. “When I saw death for the first time, I threw up. As time went on, I could sit next to a corpse covered in maggots and eat a can of meat and beans. You see death so many times, you get used to it, and they ingrained it in us: kill or be killed. When I got home, I didn’t have no feelings.”
Cinquini said it took about six or seven months after his return to get his emotions back, and he knew he could feel again when he broke into tears one day.

Attached Files Cinquini.jpg
#4545600 - 11/20/20 02:21 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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It is with great sadness; we learn the news that D-Day and Dunkirk veteran Mr. Jim Pass who was awarded France’s top military honor has died. He was 102.
Jim Pass, originally from Castleford, West Yorks, cheated death at Dunkirk in 1940 and played a vital role when the Allies stormed Normandy in 1944.
He was dispatch rider in the Royal Army Service Corps in the early stages of the war, delivering messages between military lines.
In 1940, he survived seven days on the beaches of Dunkirk before finally getting onboard a paddle steamer, which was then hit by a bomb.
Hundreds of British soldiers below decks died, but Jim escaped the wreckage and was rescued by a naval destroyer.
On D-Day he drove an amphibious vehicle carrying ammunition to Sword Beach, where 30,000 Allied troops made it ashore and nearly 700 British soldiers died.
On D-Day in 1944 Jim drove a DUKW amphibious vehicle bringing ammunition onshore to Sword Beach.
After the landings he was tasked with landing his glider in Holland and fought with his comrades across to Germany.
He passed by the recently-liberated Belsen concentration camp.
When he returned to Britain, Jim married his girlfriend Molly Dunn.
Following Molly's death in the 1980s, Jim married Rita.

Attached Files pass.jpg
#4545601 - 11/20/20 02:22 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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It is with great sadness; we announce the passing of Normandy Combat Medic and TGGF Ambassador Mr. ROBERT POWELL, United States Army, 2nd Infantry Division, 23rd Infantry Regiment. He served in all five major campaigns, including Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Central European Pocket in Germany. He was 96.
Short Biography: Born in Spokane, Washington, in 1924, Mr. Robert Powell enlisted into the United States Military in 1943 as a combat medic. With the onset of World War II, Powell and the Division moved to Ireland and Wales in October 1943, as part of the build-up for Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion. There, they spent ten months undergoing extensive training.
On 7 June 1944, D-Day + 1, the Division landed on Omaha Beach. Attacking across the Aure River, the Division liberated Trévières, 10 June 1944, and proceeded to assault and secure Hill 192, the key enemy strongpoint on the St. Lô and Bayeux road. With the hill taken on 11 July 1944, the Division went on the defensive until 26 July 1944. Exploiting the St. Lo break-through, the 2nd Division advanced across the Vire to take Tinchebray on 15 August 1944. After the fierce, 39-day battle, the 2nd Division, fighting in the streets and alleyways, finally took their objective as Brest's vital port city on 18 September 1944.
The Division took a brief rest 19–26 September before moving to defensive positions at St. Vith, Belgium on 29 September 1944. The Division entered Germany on 3 October 1944 and was ordered, on 11 December 1944, to attack and seize the Roer River dams. In mid-December, the German Ardennes offensive forced the Division to withdraw to defensive positions near Elsenborn Ridge, where the German drive was halted. In February 1945, the Division attacked, recapturing lost ground, and seized Gemund, 4 March. Reaching the Rhine on 9 March, the Division advanced south to take Breisig, 10–11 March, and guard the Remagen bridge, 12–20 March.
The Division crossed the Rhine on 21 March and advanced to Hadamar and Limburg an der Lahn, relieving elements of the 9th Armored Division, 28 March. Advancing rapidly in the wake of the 9th Armored, the 2nd Infantry Division crossed the Weser at Veckerhagen, 6–7 April, captured Göttingen 8 April, established a bridgehead across the Saale, 14 April, seizing Merseburg on 15 April.
On 18 April, the Division took Leipzig, mopped up in the area, and established an outpost on the Mulde River; elements which had crossed the river were withdrawn 24 April. Relieved on the Mulde, the 2nd moved 200 miles, 1–3 May, to positions along the German-Czech border near Schönsee and Waldmünchen, where 2 ID relieved the 97th and 99th ID's. The Division crossed over to Czechoslovakia on 4 May 1945 and attacked in the general direction of Pilsen, attacking that city on VE Day.
After spending 303 days in combat, Powell and the 2nd Infantry Division suffered over 3,031 killed in action and 12,785 wounded.
In 2014, Robert Powell made his first return to Normandy, France with The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation. It was an emotional return with visits to the village of Trévières, Hill 192, and the American Cemetery.
On behalf of a grateful nation, we salute you, Mr. Robert Powell, for your dedication and service to your country.

Attached Files powell.jpg
#4545606 - 11/20/20 03:54 PM Re: The Passing of The Greatest Generation. [Re: F4UDash4]  
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RIP to every brave men and women who served in World War 2 who are no longer with us. Over 16 million men and women served during the war: less than 325,575 of them are still living and they are leaving us at the rate of 296 each day.

(VA, September 2020) https://www.nationalww2museum.org/w...e%20process,II%20are%20alive%20in%202020


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