Dick Ennis

95TH BOMB GROUP (H)

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

2005 REUNION, DAYTON, OHIO

(Interviewed by Janie McKnight) 

JM:  This is Janie McKnight from the 95th Bomb Group Legacy Committee.  This morning, we’re with Dick Ennis.  And also sitting in is Rick Mangan.  Dick, for the record, will you state your name, today’s date, and where we are?

DE:  Dick Ennis, Friday, September 30th in the year 2005, at the reunion in Dayton, Ohio.

JM:  And what were your dates of service with the Army Air Corps?

DE:  From 1944 until, with the Army Air Corps, until it became a separate branch of the service.  I stayed in and made a career out of it.  I was retired in 1969.

JM:  And what were your dates of service with the 95th Bomb Group?

DE:  From March of 1944 until September 1944.

JM:  And tell me your squadron, and your principal job for the 95th.

DE:  334th squadron, radio operator, gunner.  That was it, I guess.

JM:  How did you become inducted into the Army Air Corps and tell me about your training.

DE:  Well, I was drafted, sent to Camp Blanding, Florida, was assigned to Miami Beach to the Army Air Force for basic training.  From Miami Beach I went to Chicago, Illinois for radio school.  Like I said, I was in the service for six months before I lived in anything but a hotel.  But that’s not the best living.  As you can understand, because you’re on latrine duty every day, but you’ve got a private bath.  You have chandeliers you’ve got to shine.  You’ve got to hunt up vacuum cleaners to clean your room, and they’re not readily available.  So I would much rather live in the barracks.  We went to Scott Field, Illinois to finish our radio school after they closed Chicago up.  And I was there for six months, went to gunnery school in (___________?) Arizona.  From there we went to Avon Park, Florida where our crew was formed, where I first met our pilot and the rest of the crew.  Our crew was formed.  We had three months of overseas training and went overseas in the beginning of March ’44 on the Queen Elizabeth II from which I was stationed to the 95th. 

JM:  Tell me about how it was when you first got to England, those first few days on base.

DE:  It was quite a train ride.  We landed in Glasgow, or someplace in Scotland, and took the train down to the middle of England somewhere.  I don’t even remember the name of the town, base that we were stationed at.  From there we took a truck over to the 95th.  It was all new to me – first time I’d been overseas.  And I think two of the boys was from Alabama, and I know that was their first trip out of the state, probably, out of the south.  It was quite an interesting train trip down – all the people watching and waving and saying hello.  I don’t remember too much really about the first few days in the 95th.  I don’t remember who our squadron commander was in the beginning.  Is there anything else?
JM:  How about your first mission.  How was that?

DE:  Terrible.  Didn’t know what to expect.  On my first mission I did not know that they gave me the job of putting out the tin foil for the flak.  And I didn’t know what it was for – my first mission.  So, when they told me when the flak came out to push it out the hole in this radio room, which I started to do, until the flak really hit us hard one time and almost upset the aircraft.  Then I really dished it out.  I learned real quick how fast you’re supposed to put that stuff out.  As fast as you can, not like I was doing, one little package at a time.  That was on the first mission.  And you always – it was kind of scary, I guess.  I think everybody was scared.  We had one fella in the 95th - I don’t remember his name – that said he was no good to his crew.  He had to quit flying.  They said, you know, you’ll have to be reassigned, and you’ll be busted because your rank was given to you for flying.  He said, “I realize that.”  And they busted him back to private to wait reassignment.  In the meantime they put him in the combat crew mess, serving the combat crew.  I thought that was kind of bad.  They should have put him in consolidated mess.  However, no one ever said anything to him.  Everybody really appreciated the fact that he had enough guts to quit.  It took a lot more guts to quit, I think, than it did to go on.  So I really respected the man, and I think everybody else did too.  Because if he wasn’t any good to the crew, why it was time to get out.  He said he just fell apart.  I can understand his feelings.  I’d like to tell you a little bit about my most memorable experience with the 95th.  The crew was playing blackjack.  Our pilot said, “I’m going to get a shower.”  So he said, “Stay and play one more hand.”  We said okay.  And he was standing right beside of my chair.  He stood up.  Someone from outside fired their 45 and it came through our Quonset hut and hit the pilot in the ankle.  So he was in the hospital, and we weren’t flying – waiting around and here came D-Day and all these missions.  We didn’t get to fly.  So one day our squadron commander called us in and he said “I want you guys to do me a favor if you will.”  He said “I have a pilot that needs one more mission and he can go home.  And he said, “You’re a complete crew, except for your pilot.  Would you be willing to fly a mission so this man can complete his missions and go home?”  So we talked it over and said yes, we would, providing they didn’t count it, because we don’t want our pilot to wind up like this pilot, without a crew and having one mission to go.  So he said he thought that could be arranged.  He said “I’ll give you a milk run.”  Needless to say, that milk run turned out to be the last mission that we would ever fly.  That was the one we went down on in Belgium.  Our pilot was killed, Danny Mangan.  Our engineer was killed, Albert Huff.  We had three POW’s – Henry Schultz, Herb Kahn, and Blount, navigator for the day.  And he was a new navigator.  He took Al Lopez’s place – Al was on vacation in London and we couldn’t get ahold of him.  So we had a navigator that time flying with us for the first time also, and his name was Blount.  I landed in a beet field.  Oh, on the way down, I want to tell you about something.  I parachuted out.  I just recently seen this movie where the Luftwaffe had machine gunned a man in a parachute.  And as I was coming down, two fighter planes came out of nowhere.  I don’t know where they came from.  We weren’t under fighter attack.  But there was two fighter planes came out of nowhere and started circling me.  And the first thing that flashed through my mind was, my God, they’re going to shoot me.  But they didn’t.  They didn’t fire a shot.  The only thing they were doing, I think, was radioing my position to the ground.  Of course shortly after I hit on the ground, the German army was there.  And when I landed, the whole town of Denderhoutem, Belgium was out there seeing.  Denderhoutem was a very small village at that time.  And it was a little farm village.  One man could speak English.  He said, “Are you an English friend?”  I said, “I’m an American friend.”  And he turned around and told the rest of the crowd that I was American, and from then on I was like a Hollywood star.  People was all over me.  Just a few minutes after that the army from the Germans showed up, and they towed me in a wheat field.  I landed in a sugar beet field; there was a big wheat field right beside of it.  They towed me in that wheat field; I layed on top of my parachute.  And this guy dove in with me, this man that could speak English.  And he layed there and was laughing.  So I finally asked him what was so funny.  He said these Belgium’s were telling these Germans to get out.  They were trampling down their beets – to get out – to get out of the field.  And they left.  They’re like our army.  They didn’t care too much.  And anyway, they’d already caught, I guess, a couple of the members of the crew. And they thought that would be enough to satisfy, I guess, the Gestapo.  So I went over and spent – this was about quarter to nine at night – it was still daylight though.  I went over with this man then, and he told me he was the youngest officer in the Belgium army to be discharged.  Of course they were under occupation, so the Belgium army was no longer in existence.  And I stayed there with him.  And he was smoking his pipe, and I’d left my cigarettes onboard the plane and boy did I want a cigarette bad.  But no way you could get one.  He was smoking his pipe and we were talking.  He asked me about the skyscrapers in New York, and all this stuff.  He really was interested in New York City.  Then about two or three o’clock in the morning, somebody came over and picked us up, and we went into a little woods area there.  And they had a fire built.  And they walked into town.  Then they boarded me up in what looked like a little livery stable.  Turned out it was a blacksmith shop.  And they boarded me up and put some hay in there and I went to sleep.  About, oh it must have been around noon, they woke me up and there was a young girl there, 19 years old.  I guess she was 21.  Well she had to be older than that.  She was 23, because I was 21.  I think she’s two years older than I am.  I didn’t know her name at the time.  She had two bicycles – one for me, and hers.  I was in civilian clothes, so the blacksmith gave me his shirt and pants, a pair of his shirt and pants.  But he was over six foot five, and me, I’m not quite five foot six – or a little over five foot six.   So the legs were way down below my shoe tops.  They had these bicycle guards that you put on your pants, on your legs.  So I scooped them things up.  On the cobblestone street you had to stop every block and fix them back up again – they’d shake down loose.  The underground was – I don’t know how they ever got that thing started.  We got to the town of __________________.  And we were bicycling down the street, and all at once this girl stopped and she said “We’re coming up to a bridge, and they’re checking ID’s at the bridge.”  How she knew that I have no idea, unless someone whistled to her – whistling a song down the street, which was a signal.  I have no idea how she knew it.  But she said, “I’m going up and talk to them.  When I’m talking to them, you go on across the bridge.  If they yell or fire in the air or anything, don’t look back, don’t speed up.  Just keep right on going.  I’ll tell them I know you and you can’t talk and you can’t hear or anything.”  In other words, she said I was deaf and dumb.  But she said “I’ll tell them I know you and you can’t talk and you can’t hear or anything.  It’ll be alright.”  So I says okay.  So she went up on the bridge and I went up and I got across that bridge and I waited.  She came across.  She was laughing.  I said “What’s so funny?”  She said, “I asked if there was any news of the parachutist last night.  And they said yes, they had three, and they would catch the rest of them before dark that night.”  She said, “Just then, you went right by them.”  I thought that was kind of funny.  So we went to a farmhouse, and I stayed in this farmhouse.  There was a boy about six years old, and a girl in high school, an old Dutchman farmer and his wife.  They had a maid, I understand her parents were in a concentration camp in Germany, and she was staying with them for upkeep was working for them.  No one spoke English in that family except the daughter who was in high school.  They had a bunch of Perry Mason books – Earl Stanley Gardner Perry Mason books in English – that I was reading.  The children, one day I was reading a book, and the daughter said “You must go in the other room.  There’s a German patrol come in. Mom always gives them tea and toast.  They’d think something was wrong if she didn’t do it now.”  So she says, “It’ll be okay.”  She said “Come in the other room.”  So I went in the dining room adjoining the living room, shut the door.  And when they came up, came in, and were laughing.  She went out and got them some tea and toast and they had their tea and toast in the living room when I was sitting in the dining room.  Finally they left.  Two days later – a few days later – I don’t know whether it was two – my waist gunner came in.  He had injured his foot.  So he came in on a horse and buggy wagon.  So we were together for a couple of days there at this farmhouse.  And I left there and they took me to a town of ____________________ where I stayed in a church by myself for about 36 hours.  And my waist gunner showed up again, and I spent the one night with him.  The next morning I left and went to a town of _______________________.  Every place I’d go I would be dropped off at a park.  And they would say wait here.  And then somebody would come on a bicycle and say let’s go.  Get on the bicycle and go with someone and they dropped you off at another part, and they’d say wait here.  So if they were caught, they couldn’t say anything.  The only they could tell them was where they had picked you up or where they dropped you off.  That’s all they knew.  They didn’t know what happened from then on.  So they couldn’t talk if they wanted to.  Anyway, when we got to this town of __________________ there was a Canadian there.  His name was Joe Moeller.  He had went down shortly before we did.  He was on a night mission in _____________Germany, flying Lancaster’s.  I meant to say something about Phillips, my waist gunner that joined me at that house.  Before our mission, we were in London, and Phillips run out of money, and I loaned him a five-pound note, which was equal to $20 at that time.  And when Phillips walked in the house and saw me sitting there, he said, “My God, I’m going to have to pay you that twenty bucks yet.”  The first words he said to me (chuckling).  But we were good friends.  But anyway, we got to the Lambesc, this Canadian was there.  He looked at me and I looked at him, and I thought, are they pulling something here?  It seemed to me that everything went into place – everything was happening just like so, you know – clockwork.  I thought maybe this is all put up.  Maybe they’re trying to find out something.  This could be Germans.  I said maybe I’ll check this Canadian out.  This Canadian was beginning to have the same thoughts.  He said I looked kind of German to him, after a while.  But anyway, he asked me, he said, “You know that radio program, “Little Orphan Annie?”  I says yeah.  He said, “I can’t think of her dog’s name.”  He said, “Do you remember what her dog’s name was?”  I said, “Yeah, I remember Sandy.”  I said, “Do you know what Sandy says?”  Anyone at all knew that Sandy said “Arf!”  Arf was always in the song when the program started – “Arf says Sandy.”  He said, “Yeah, Arf.”  So from then on we knew we was okay.  But anyway, we were in this town.  And Phillips came and joined us two days later.  This man and his wife –at that time he had a daughter that was 13 years old.  She used to carry messages on her bicycle for the underground.  And had a son that was about two or three years old.  One night about two o’clock in the morning he came up and he said “We have got to get out of here.”  He said, “Come on, get dressed.  Hurry!”  He said “The Gestapo’s in town, searching homes.  So they had caught the policeman who’d brought us to Lambesc and he had told them where he’d dropped us off at Lambesc.  But that’s the only thing he could tell them.  They cut off his hand, but he still couldn’t tell them anything except Lambesc, so they were searching every house in town, seeing if we were there.  So we got dressed.  They took us over to a brick wall, about eight feet high.  And they had a ladder up against it, and they says, “Over, over!”  So I was the first one.  I climbed that ladder and jumped down.  And when I looked up, there was a nun standing there.  Scared me to death.  Because at three o’clock in the morning, you climb up a brick wall, you don’t know what’s on the other side.  You jump over.  The first thing you see is a nun in her habit – the white and the black.  It scared me for a minute until I realize that this was a nun.  And everybody, the other two, when they came over, I could tell they were scared too for the first time.  We were in this convent then.  There were some children there going to school.  We were there for about three or four days before the school was out and the children left.  From then on, we stayed in this convent.  We had it pretty nice there.  They had a little garden that they kept, and we worked in the garden.  They kept us busy painting, and giving us stuff that they had the little children doing – painting over other paintings and stuff.  We would play cards with them.  The nuns loved to play Hearts.  We used to cheat them, but we finally decided no more English talking while we was playing cards.  And then we watched the grand retreat of the Germans coming through town.  And the Mother Superior said, “That’s not the same bunch that came through here four or five years ago.”   One afternoon we were sitting there watching through the knot hole in the gate there – had a big wooden gate with a bell on it.  It was locked – you could only open it from the inside.  The Germans was camping in the woods across the street from this convent.  An officer came over.  So we rushed in the convent and went upstairs and looked – was peeping out the window.  This German officer rang the bell, and Mother Superior went and opened the door.  He saluted her.  He stood there and she went back in and came out.  She had a big kettle.  She gave it to him.  He saluted her again and talked to her and walked across the street.  She told us that he had come in and wanted to know if she had a big pan or something he could cook some soup with his men.  He said, “The Americans are close, ma’am.  They’ll be awful good to you when they get here.”  He brought the pan back, nice and clean.  And evidently the Americans were closer than he thought, because about one o’clock in the morning, they woke us up.  They were moving out of that – and they woke us up making so much racket getting ready to pull out from that woods across the street.  So we got up and was looking out the window and saw them leave.  That was on a Saturday.  Sunday morning, the priest came and he had new clothes for us. Everybody had a new suit.  He said, “Today we’re going to church.”  So we went to Catholic Church.  He said, “The Americans are close - they’re very close.  If fact, we have a couple of Americans with us today.”  Well, everybody knew who they were because the town was real small.  And here was three people no one knew.  So they knew who the Americans were.  And he said, “And a Canadian.”  So they knew who the three were.  So afterward, everybody wanted us to come to their house and have something to eat and have a glass of wine.  That wine is pretty stout, so it wasn’t too long before the priest couldn’t handle anymore.  That ended our visitation (chuckling).  But then the next day, we stayed at _____________ house again that night.  The next day we went to a farmhouse.  They were going to have a big chicken dinner for us – fried chicken and bacon pies.  And that was going to be quite a treat, because we hadn’t had anything like that in a long time.  And all at once there come a bunch of Fords and Mercury’s in this farmhouse.  And the Belgium _______________ jumped out.  And they come in and they was talking and yelling and back and forth.  So finally grabbed us and we got in his car – didn’t know what was going on.  Phillips says, “What’s going on?”  I said, “I don’t know, unless some American shot somebody and they’re going to take us out and shoot us now.”  So they took us back into town.  We got back into town.  There was an American tank, a jeep, two trucks, and a 2nd Lieutenant sitting on top of this tank.  He said, “Where have you guys been?  We’ve been here for a half hour waiting on you.”  I said, “Where have you guys been?  We’ve been here for three months waiting on you.” (Laughter)  So intelligence evidently knew where we were because they said they were sent to pick us up.  They were just advance patrol and was sent up there to pick us up. So intelligence knew all the time where we were, I guess.  We went out – the Lieutenant said “Have you ever been to a town that hasn’t been liberated yet?”  I said “Of course not.”  He said, “Well we’ll go back a different way than we came then.  Go through towns that haven’t seen any Americans yet.”  Well you talk about something you’ll never forget.  That was it.  You go into town, and boy these people come out, and they was throwing wine bottles, roses, and flowers and everything up on this tank for the American soldiers.  We got into this one town, and the jeep went on ahead.  There must have been some stragglers.  Germans opened fire – thought they would capture that jeep – faster transportation back to Germany.  And the tanks commander said – there were a bunch of Frenchmen on this tank  - he________________________?  He was riding on top of the tank.  Accepted most of the wine.  I said “He’s __________________.  You guys go in this house here.”  He said, “You’ll be safe in there.”  So we went in.  It was a doctor’s home.  And so this tank went out.  And every time here was this spraying the rounds, it was machine guns pushes anytime.  Every time he opened up a volley of machine gun fire, this doctor whose house we were at, said “Boy, Americans are great fighters,” and pour us all some more wine.  It was good wine, too.  So we were sitting there having a drink of wine while the Americans were out doing our fighting for us.  (Chuckle)  That was quite an experience.  I took a prisoner truck into Paris, France.  I got to ride in the front seat.  As we went through the towns, everybody would throw stones at the prisoners, and throw them at me too, because I was in civilian clothes and they thought I was a collaborator – a French collaborator that was under arrest because I was in civilian clothes.  And I had a few rocks thrown at me also.  We got into Paris, and they flew us to New York, or into London.  I went into the Eighth Air Force headquarters.  The colonel asked who I was and where I was from, and my outfit.  And I told him I was from the 334th squadron of the 95thBomb Group.  He said “Who’s your commanding officer?”  and I told him Major Abbott.  He said “Major Abbott?”  I said, “That’s correct.”  He said, “I’ll call him.  You’ll have to identify him.”  I saluted and the colonel wouldn’t return my salute.  He said “You’ll be under guard until you’re properly recognized.  Don’t try to leave the MP.  Anytime you go anyplace in London, tell the MP in case you get separated.  Your cooperation would be greatly appreciated.”  I said okay.  They put me up in a hotel, and they assigned a MP with me.  And it was a couple of days later I walked in the colonel’s – I had to report in there every day – and a couple of days later I walked in.  My commanding officer was sitting there.  He said, “Major, do you know this gentleman?”  And he said, “I never saw him before in my life.”  And my heart sank.  And I thought, here I am a man without a country.  And then he jumped up and said, “Welcome back, Sarge.”  He threw his arms around me and said, “Welcome back, Sarge.”  Then they cut orders.  No dates on the orders.  I could go back to Group and get my partial pay.  They said they’re not going to pay me too much.  They wouldn’t pay me everything.  They’d give me a partial pay because they figured I was going to come back to London.  I wouldn’t leave until it was all gone.  So they’ll only give me part of it.  None of the orders were dated.  They said “You can go up to Group, stay as long as you want, come back.  But the sooner you get back, the sooner you get home.”  So I went back up to Group, got my partial pay.   Went out and told our engineer’s girlfriend that he was engaged to what had happened to Al, at the pub.  Saw my original pilot.  Al came back to London.  They sent us to New York.  At New York, they put us up in a hotel.  We had to go to Mitchell Field every day for questioning.  And they asked us the same questions day in and day out that they asked in London; that they asked us in Paris; that they asked us in – everything was the same.  One day I finally had enough.  I said, “How much more do you guys want to question us?  You ask the same questions every day.  We give you the same answers every day.”  I said, “I want to get home.”  They said okay.  And that was it.  Otherwise we’d probably still be up there answering questions. (Laughter) But I did get home in time to help deliver my son.  And I guess that’s about it.  

JM:  You said three months.  Was it three months from the time that you went down until the time that you got…

DE:  Yes.  We went down on June 23rd 1944.  And it was on Labor Day – Monday would have been Labor Day – September, when we were liberated.  But I didn’t get back to the states until October.  And I didn’t get back to _____________________ until the end of October.  My son was born the 4th of November and I’d only been home two days.  From September to November was all intelligence in Paris and New York and London.  

JM:  About how many people do you think you were handed off to along the way, from Belgium to London?

DE:  Oh, goodness.  In the underground?  Well, let’s see.  There was the original bunch at Denderhoutem; then Simone was a young girl.  She took me to the house where there was a Dutchman and his wife.  Oh at least 15 probably.  One thing.  I was stationed in Germany in 1965.  My wife and I went back to Long Beach, Belgium and looked up the couple where we stayed.  They lived in the house right next to the house we lived in, where we stayed.  He called all the people in Belgium that had anything to do with my escape, my evasion.  I met a countess there.  I didn’t know her before.  She was ostracized by her country because she worked for the German government during the war.  They didn’t realize it, but she was the one who put the stamp and the German seal on your identification card from the Germans.  As anyone knows, when you flew a mission, you were given your escape kit.  The first thing when you got in the Group was they took you down to the base lab and took your picture in civilian clothes.  Just a head shot.  You put on a civilian suit and a tie, and they took your pic – that was in your escape kit with money and maps and stuff.  And you always carried that.  And you give that to the Underground and they made you up an identification – German identification card.  And used this picture.  Well mine – I still have mine.  

RM:  Weren’t you Philippe?
DE:  No, Andre, Andre something.  I was born in Petit _______________.  I was a student.  I still have it, and it’s still got the German stamp and seal on it.  Which, that was what the countess done.  So we had quite a party that night at their place.  Then in the year 2000 – 2002, yeah, because it was after September 11th.  2002 I got a phone call one night from a man in Belgium – Denderhoutem.  He said that they were building a memorial to our crew, and wanted to know what my story was and if I could possibly come over and take part in the celebration, he said, and the dedication of the monument.  So my wife and I did.  We flew over commercial air to Brussels.  He met us, took us to his house.  Excellent fellow.  Wonderful fellow.  He had a big World War II museum in his attic – everything imaginable in that thing.  He had invited Marian Blandy, who was our pilot’s oldest sister.  She was there with her daughter – Marian Blandy and her daughter, Mary Lou was there.  They were staying in a hotel.  We stayed with Dirk, who was responsible for everything.  They had the dedication.  They had King Albert the II send a representative over.  The embassy had the air attaché – Colonel _____________ was there.  They had USAFE color guard there.  They had a flyover of F-16’s with the missing man formation.  All the mayors and dignitaries was there.  They had a big luncheon after the dedication.  There was nothing but the dignitaries, and there was 80 people at the luncheon, not counting the people that was there at the sight.  The young girl that helped me for the first time was there.  I got to see her.  Her name was – I found out her name was Simone – I can’t pronounce her last – Ginkens.  Simone Ginkens.  They call her the little girl.  She’s referred to in the (Escape & Evasion Report?) as the little girl.  We have some documents too – underground documents that refers to the little girl.  She helped 33 Allied airmen escape.  She was there.  Philippe, who was the little boy about two years old was there.  The first house I stayed at when I left Denderhoutem where Simone had taken me. He was there.  Oh, it was quite a celebration.  Then in 2004, I got another call.  They were moving the monument because they put up a great big Japanese sign advertising automobiles right by our memorial there was a big garage there.  They started selling Japanese cars and they put a big Japanese – so they were moving our memorial on June the 23rd, which was the anniversary date.  And they were moving it down where the plane actually crashed – it was only about 50 yards where the monument was located.  They were moving it down to sort of that field.  It’s along the side of the road.  So I went back over for that. My wife didn’t go, but I went back over.  And that’s where I met Rick Mangan.  He was a paratrooper.  He paratrooped in because, in place of his uncle who was killed.  We don’t know all the particulars yet on his death.  We hear some conflicting stories.  But Rick parachuted out of the plane that day.  It was another big celebration.  And that was just last year – 2004, June.  I met Rose Marie and John Clue – the two people from the ____________ family that I didn’t get to see when I was there in ‘65 because they were married and they didn’t live in the town of Lambese anymore.  But they had contacted them, and they were there.  So that was the first time I’d seen Rose Marie since 1944 to the year 2004, which was 60 years.  She was 13 then.  She was decorated by the Belgium government too, for her work in the underground, and had built a grotto in her town.  Plus given her all kind of medals I guess.

JM:  Rick, was your uncle on his crew?
RM:  Yes

DE:  He was the pilot that we were flying with.  He was on his last mission.  

JM:  And his name was?
RM/DE:  Dan Mangan.

DE: Danny Mangan.  M-a-n-g-a-n.  He was killed – last mission.  His mother, Danny’s mother, wrote poetry.  And she’d write, every time it seemed like she received a letter from Danny, she’d write a poem.  Especially overseas.  And I’ve got a copy of all her poems.  They’re really something.  Marian read a poem she’d written called “The Last Mission” at the memorial service.  It’s a beautiful poem.  And it was taken from a letter that Danny had written his mother about his last, going up for his last mission, naturally before he died.  He said “Here are the particulars, Mom.  You write the story.”  I’ve got all of his – I should bring them up.  Maybe tomorrow night I’ll bring some of them up.  I’ve got a copy.  I’ve got several copies of hers.  Beautiful.  She was quite talented.  

RM:  Her book was called Silver Wings.  It was published in 1946.

JM:  And you’ve got a copy here?
DE:  Oh yes...  I’ve got a copy.

JM:  I would love to see that.

DE:  I’ll bring it up.  I’ll bring it up tomorrow morning.  We’ll be there tomorrow night too at the – you got one with you?  Good.

JM:  Before we close off, is there anything else that you would like to add?

DE:  No, not that I can think of.  I wouldn’t take a million dollars for my experiences.  I wouldn’t do it again for three million. (chuckle)

JM:  Well thank you so much for taking the time today to do this history and thank you especially all you did for us during World War II.

DE:  Thank you.