25 Jan 2021 Garand Picture of the Day - Todays picture is from "At The Front"

[Mark in Rochester]

"Sgt. Jimmy Rischarson (Hodges FL) talks to his driver Pvt. Joe Honig (Baltimore, MD), near their snow covered M-10 Tanker Destroyer. Both are members of Co. C, 629th TD Battalion. Infantrymen of the 331st Inf. Rgt., 83rd ID, warm themselves over a fire nearby. Belgium, 20 January 1945."
Signal Corps Photo


Funny Story

Escape to War


One evening in the early 2000's, I went to dinner with my great uncle, Lewis Chick, who had been a B26 bomber pilot with the 9th Air Force. (I forgot his squadron number). That night we discussed his time in the War in more detail than at any other.

He'd been in law school, got bored, and enlisted in 1940, and wound up as a flight instructor for the then new B26 bombers.

As to the "widow maker" moniker often applied to the B26, he was his usual blunt, no BS self. "If you go too slow, you'll stall. It's first day of flight school stuff. The guys who crashed were being meatheads and not paying attention. Simple as that. They were terrific planes."

Lewis didn't go to the ETO until August, 1944. He flew all of his combat missions within a month- almost exclusively bombing rail yards and roads, usually 3 missions per day. They'd take off at daybreak, return, land, eat a sandwich and chug a glass of milk as they walked to the next bomber that was fueled and armed, and repeat this again late in the afternoon. He never saw the Luftwaffe, very little flak, and the only "injury" in his crew was his co-pilot's boot getting a piece of shrapnel stuck in the sole.

He explained that he'd have gone over sooner, but he had to kick, scream and pull countless strings to be released for combat duty as he had become one of the most senior flight instructors for the B26. After completing his missions, he volunteered to stay on and train new crews in England.

Out of curiosity, I asked why he opted to go to War- I g\figured the last person who would give me a canned answer was Lewis. I didn't bargain for what was about to happen.

"Simple, my wife was pregnant and I hate kids. I wanted to get the hell out of there before the diapers and all that nonsense started up."

Unfortunately for him, my aunt Joyce, his wife, was sitting across the table. The expression about shooting daggers out of one's eyes doesn't even begin to properly describe the look she was giving him. She'd been boiling from the moment he mentioned going to all sorts of trouble to get overseas. Apparently he'd always maintained that he'd had no choice in the matter.

She attempted to remain civil, but finally lost her composure and when he explained why he pushed to escape to the War. Her tirade would have made Jerry Springer cringe. No longer was this a feeble octogenarian, but rather a furious, stressed out, heavily pregnant 20 something, who has just discovered that her new husband had bailed on her, under false pretenses, to go party in Europe. I was tempted to make a cheesy crack about getting that Flak he'd missed out on, but decided not to risk a fork in my head.

Now- we weren't at Golden Corral or a Burger Doodle. This was the dining room of their country club, which had a fairly formal atmosphere- and, despite the uproar, I couldn't detect even the faintest hint of smirk on any of the staff. The best part was the head waiter; with a skill that could only have come from decades of experience, he silently weaved through the ongoing dogfight to deliver fresh martinis for both combatants- which may have prevented things from getting deadly. (I never saw my aunt anywhere near that ****ed off.)

The last time I saw Lewis was a few years later in 2008. He'd had minor surgery but wasn't healing well. We had lunch, as I got ready to leave I told him I'd see him in a week or two.
"No, I won't be here. I'm done."
Three days later he was gone.

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