My generation grew up
watching, being entertained by and laughing with so many of these fine people.
Never really knowing what they contributed to the war effort.
Like millions of Americans during WWI & WWII, there was a job that needed
doing and they didn't question it,
just went and did it.
Those that came home returned to their now new normal life and carried on
and
very few ever saying what they did or saw.
They took it as their "responsibility" and their "duty" to the Country to
protect and preserve our freedoms.
American way of life not just for themselves, but for all future generations to
come.
As a member of that “Finest" generation, I'm forever humbly in their debt.
Here are only a few of these silent heroic Heroes that are slowly being forgotten
Do You Remember These Men?
Page #20
Arthur Franz enlisted into the Army Air Forces During World
War II.
Franz served as a B-24
Liberator navigator in
the United
States Army Air Forces.
He was shot down over Romania and incarcerated in a POW
camp, from which he escaped.
Fredric March (born
Ernest Frederick
McIntyre Bickel) enlisted
in the
United States Army in1917
during World
War I as
an artillery lieutenant.
Dick Van Dyke (born
Richard Wayne Van Dyke)
intending to join the United
States Army Air Forces
for pilot training during World
War II. Denied enlistment
several times for being underweight,
he was eventually accepted for service as a radio
announcer before
transferring to the Special
Services.
Jack
Lord spent the first year of the United States' involvement in World War II with
the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, building bridges in Persia.
He returned to the Merchant Marine as an Able Seaman before enrolling in the
deck officer course at Fort Trumbull.
Tim McCoy
was a soldier in the United
States Army during
World War I and again in World
War II in Europe,
rising to the rank of colonel with
the Army
Air Corps and Army
Air Forces.
He also served the state of Wyoming as
its adjutant
general between
the wars with the brevet rank of brigadier
general.
At 28, he was one of the youngest brigadier generals in the history of the U.S.
Army.
Tom Poston
(born Thomas Gordon Poston) enlisted the United
States Army Air Forces in
1941-1945.
Accepted to officer candidate school and then graduating from flight training,
Poston served as a pilot in the European
Theater in World
War II; his aircraft dropped
paratroopers for the Normandy
invasion.
He won medals for his courage under fire the
Air Medal for his D-Day service,
also won 2 more Oak Leaf Medals resulting in a
“Oak Leaf Cluster” of Medals
and rose to the rank of
captain.
George
Peppard Jr. enlisted in the Marines at the age of 17 July
8, 1946, and rose to the rank of corporal in
the 10th
Marines,
He almost lost his right middle finger in the breach block of a 105 mm Howitzer,
leaving the Corps
at the end of his period of enlistment in January 1948.
Milton "Gummo" Marx in 1917 joined
the U.S.
Army during World
War I,
was an American vaudeville performer and theatrical agent.
He was the second youngest of the five Marx Brothers.
A years before his brothers (Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo) began their film
career.
Leif Erickson enlisted in the Navy during World War II (Served
1941-1945) Erickson was shot down twice in the Pacific,
and was twice wounded. He was one of the combat photographers to cover the
surrender of the Japanese
on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor at the end of WWII.
Leslie
Howard, & 16 others died June 1, 1943, on a flight
from Lisbon to London.
Their aircraft was shot down by a German Junker over Bay of Biscay.
Howard had been engaged in secret war work & the Germans believed Winston
Churchill, who had been in Algiers,
might also be on board over the Bay
of Biscay.
Ronald Dee "Ron" White served in the United
States Navy.
According to his own account, White joined the service at age 17 and served on
the auxiliary rescue
and salvage ship USS Conserver near
the end of the Vietnam
War.
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