Bronze Star Medal Awarded to WWII Glider Pilot

On August 10th Maj. Robert Swenson received a Bronze Star Medal for his participation in a unique combat team in WWII. This was an all officer, all glider pilot combat team made up of 288 men who augmented the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment during the Varsity Operation (the last major operation of WWII) Major Swenson gave a presentation about the preperation, glider flight, action in landing in LZ-S, and his actions as a member of the combat team at a convention in Seattle WA prior to his receiving this long overdue award. Today Erik Lacitis published on the front page of the Seattle Times the story of Maj. Robert Swenson and this unusual Glider combat team: 435th Provisional Glider Pilot Company. The 288 men, who were not trained as infantry, repelled the Germans, not once but three times. There are only a few men left of the 288 men. Mr. Lacitis's story is also online at
'Flying coffin' glider pilot from WWII gets overdue Bronze Star
The award was given by Major General Kenneth Dahl, Deputy Commanding General I Corps, Joint Base Lewis McChord along with an impressive Joint Army Air Force Color Guard and the I Corps Jazz Ensemble.


Patricia Overman
Representative of the
National WWII Glider Pilots Association

 

Congratulations to him

 

Skipper,
I will forward your congratulations on to Major Swenson.

Pepee

Patricia Overman
Representative of the
National WWII Glider Pilots Association

 

Lou, I will as well give your regards and you are right, unfortunately my father and my mother passed away before I found out about the award. My father was in the 4th platoon 5th squad of the 435th. I was interviewing Bob to get more information about the situation on the ground when I discovered he did not have his BSM. He showed me his Air Medal for flying into Wesel but he did not bring out his BS. He did not believe me when I told him he had been awarded the medal. I see your father also received the BS and fought in Italy. Those were hard won campaigns. Is your father still living and do you have his history written down?

Patricia

 

Please offer Maj. Swenson my congratulations as well, Patricia. Thank you for sharing his story on the Forum. We hold our WWII veterans in very high regard and are always thrilled to see them receive the recognition that they deserve, even belatedly.

 

TD_Tommy 776 I sent off your wonderful congrats. Would you mind telling me about Glenn and Norman Halvorson? Were they brothers?
Patricia

 

Thank you for asking, Patricia. Yes, they were brothers. In fact, they were my great uncles. Norman (or Bud) served in the MTO/ETO. Glenn served in the PTO and was KIA on Luzon, hence the gold star next to his name. There are links below their respective service banners to the posts that I did for them some time ago.

 

TD_Tommy 776,
You gave a nice tribute to your great Uncles. It was Major General Kenneth Dahl, Deputy Commanding General I Corps, from Joint Base Ft. Lewis Mcchord who presented Maj. Swenson with his Medal. It was Ft. Lewis who first took up my request. Also Bob Swenson's parents had two stars (silver) in their window during the war. Bob pointed the stars our to me and said that at least none were gold. I did not understand and he said that the gold meant a son had died.

Patricia

 

Excellent...Pass on the regards and thanks from the UK side of pond too...

 

My old tank commander, "Busty" Thomas, was awarded a Bronze star before I joined my regiment the 4th Queen's Own Hussars.

I asked the help of other ww2talk.com forum members to trace his award and they certainly came up trumps !

http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/20427-7340821-wo-ii-ssm-william-thomas-bronze-star-4th-queens-own-hussars-rac/

Ron

 

It is no secret that I spend most of my internet time on ww2talk.com

I've just posted an item there to do with the new big C on my avatar
http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/49257-a-foot-in-both-camps/

Ron

 

Patricia,

Thank you for posting this. Please send along my congratulations and regards to Mr. Swenson as well. I'm a lifetime associate member of the 325th Glider Infantry Association and assistant editor of their newsletter, The Tow Line. The service given by the glider pilots and glider infantry are quite often overlooked and forgotten.

 

Thank you, Patricia and everybody.
Over the years I have had the oportunity to meet WWII vets at the annual reunions of The Society of the Fifth Division, US Army. (I was in the 5th in Vietnam).
I consider it an honor to have known them, sadly their ranks are growing thin.
dajabro and patricia do you have links to your organizations you could post? I keep a collection of these in my "favorites" list and read them often.
Thanks!

 

Big_Al,

My organization is the National WW II Glider Pilots Association Inc.
http://www.ww2gp.org

Patricia

 

I noticed that the link in the original post no longer works. I found the story on the Seattle Times website, so here is the new link:

'Flying coffin' glider pilot from WWII gets overdue Bronze Star

 

TD-Tommy776,

Thanks for repairing the link! Steve Wright who wrote "The Last Drop" (excellent book about the Varsity Operation with very valuable charts in the end) posted the Times article on the British Glider Pilots Regiment Facebook page and before the link he wrote:

1. This is a frontpage story (not aware of Glider Pilots having that privilege in the UK)
2. It's one of the most accurate I've ever read (why do so many UK reports get all the facts in a twist?)