Recently I met a retired teacher who now teaches World War II veterans about World War II. He told me the war was so huge that most veterans only knew it through their own experiences, or the archetypal information. They don't like watching the movies.
Dick Miller was a pilot of a B-26 bomber over Germany. His older brother, Jack, was on the Bataan Death March in the Philippines and spent the entire war as a POW. They didn't talk much about it until we asked.
This month was the 65th anniversary of the end of war in Europe. I could fill this entire edition of the newspaper with war stories collected with the help of Kingsley and Elk Rapids students. The hard part was paring my column to three poems. There will be more here over the months.
On Memorial Day weekend, Interlochen Public Radio will be interspersing its regular programming with Elders Project poems. High school students from Kingsley and Elk Rapids will be reading their own works and mine. Check it out.
The first two poems are about Dick Miller, 86, of Elk Rapids. The last one is about Betty Bowden, of Kingsley, who turns 89 today.
B-26 Pilot Over Germany
It wasn't too bad,
except people shot at you.
On our very first flight over
we went on sort of daydreaming.
We weren't even near our target.
All at once …right in front of us
a plane completely …it didn't go into flames,
it exploded.
It must have been a direct hit.
After that
we were a little more careful.
Another time
we were on our way home
all relaxed.
Our navigator got too close to a bridge.
All at once
it sounded like
somebody was pounding
on the plane
with a baseball bat.
What the heck!
I made a dive and got out of there
in a hurry.
Back at the base
we found twenty-seven holes
in our plane.
The radio operator had a piece of flak
touch his cheek,
just enough to draw blood.
The tail gunner had a piece
go through his insulated suit.
It came out farther down
and never touched him.
Think how close that was.
We were lucky.
— By Cody Matteson, Elk Rapids High School
Loose in London
Crews took turns
going on what we called "Flack Leave."
In the summer guys would go
down to the French Riviera.
They gave our crew a month off in England
in early spring.
For two weeks we had a hotel
on the west side on the coast.
Three officers and three enlisted men,
we had rooms and food,
beer and booze
and could do anything we wanted.
Then they turned us loose in London
for two weeks.
I was twenty one,
and girls were pretty back then too.
We were in Piccadilly Circus,
a theater and amusement area
on the main square in West London
when we heard the news.
The war ended in Europe
on May 8, 1945.
People went crazy.
Right about that time
we were supposed to go back
and finish our missions.
We all drank
and did things that were normal
I shouldn't talk about.
My memories are a little vague.
After a few more days
we went back to our squadron
but we didn't have to go bombing anymore.
That was the idea
that took getting used to.
I flew twenty-eight missions.
— By Terry Wooten
Willie
After Phil was wounded
in North Africa
and came back from overseas,
he was sent to Utah
to guard German and Italian
prisoners of war.
I went there on a train to join him,
and worked at the same depot
teaching prisoners
how to mend uniforms
with sewing machines.
I taught them military correspondence,
typing and filing.
One of these prisoners
was Willie Joseph.
He was fifteen years old.
One day the guard
knocked on the class door,
and wanted to speak
to Willie Joseph.
Both his parents had been killed
in the last battle
in Germany.
He came back into the class
crying.
I felt bad
and hugged him. (Almost cries)
It's hard to explain.
— By Terry Wooten
Poet Bard Terry Wooten has been performing and conducting writing workshops in schools for 27 years. He is the creator of Stone Circle. Learn more about him at www.terry-wooten.com.
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