World War II veterans' stories linger after they're gone...

Northeast Ohio's World War II veterans' stories linger after they're gone | cleveland.com

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Northeast Ohio's World War II veterans' stories linger after they're gone

Published: Sunday, January 16, 2011, 5:40 AM

By Brian Albrecht






Photo courtesy of Jan MarsalekDespite this severe damage to its tail from antiaircraft fire, the "Patty Kaye IV," co-piloted by James Voelker of Cleveland, made it back to base after a raid over Germany during World War II.
The stories of many World War II veterans will continue to be told long after they're gone.
Because among the souvenirs of history that they left behind were documents, diaries, clippings, faded photos, service records, a lingering memory or other glimpses into a generation's shared experience.
They lived to tell the story, and did so in their own ways. And for that, they will not be forgotten.
Part II: The miracle Marauder, reluctant hero and two POWs.


The flight that defied the odds

"The whole damned tail's gone," shouted the tail gunner of the B-26 Marauder "Patty Kaye IV" just after a flak blast shook the bomber during a mission over Germany in 1945.
2nd Lt. James Voelker, of Cleveland, co-piloting the plane, couldn't believe his ears so he went to the back of the aircraft to see for himself. One look was all it took. The entire right side of the tail assembly had been blown away, and what remained of the tail was essentially shredded metal flying in formation.
The same blast had knocked out the bomber's right engine. As the crippled plane limped back to the 397th Bombardment Group's base in France, its second and only remaining engine sputtered, died, then caught again.
The 14-ton bomber hit the runway with both engines dead, and rolled to a stop as the plane that never should have made it back -- but did.
Years later, Jan Marsalek, of Rocky River, has a newspaper story and photos of the damaged "Patty Kaye IV" that were published not long after that memorable flight. She also has a letter that her father, James Voelker, wrote to her mother the day following that mission.
In it, he said military censorship kept him from mentioning any specifics, but noted: "I sure have some stories to tell when I get home.
"As for me, well, I'm OK and not nervous. Things just happen and so we take them as they come," he added. "Don't worry about me as I look after myself. I plan on living to a ripe old age."
Voelker died in 1978 at age 58.

View full sizeCourtesy, Joseph WolletJoseph Wollet, holding mortar round, is shown during training he would later describe as: "They taught you how to survive. Taught you how to kill."
A reluctant hero

Joseph Wollet was never one to talk about his experiences during the war.
His son, Joe Wollet, of Strongsville, said his father even turned down the chance to have President Harry Truman pin the Silver Star on the Army infantryman for heroism during the Battle of the Bulge.
"By that time he had had enough of war and wanted nothing to do with any reminders of it," the younger Wollet said.
But his father did sit down for an interview with his grandson in 1999, and provided a brief accounting of his service career; tracing the progress of his unit through the mud of France and heavy snow of the Belgium Ardennes forest.
He also mentioned being on patrol on Christmas, 1944, when "we ran across an artillery position. And after reconnoitering the area, this other soldier and I, we annihilated this artillery outfit."
That's it. But there was much more.
For details, his son had to turn to his father's Silver Star citation: "Moving quickly toward the town the patrol encountered in succession, three machine gun nests, numerous outposts and a well concealed 88mm gun emplacement and efficiently liquidated all of them. Rounding a bend in the road, Pvt. Wollet and his comrades surprised a column of enemy troops and directed a withering fire which killed and wounded many and sent the remainder into a disorganized flight. The patrol then entered the town and destroyed a force of fanatical SS troopers and approximately 35 vehicles which were parked outside of SS headquarters."
His son recalled that right up to his father's death this past October, the combat vet dismissed any notion of heroism, "saying it was the guys who died who were the real heroes. To him, he just had a job to do and did it."

View full sizeCourtesy, Thomas CavanaughPaul Cavanaugh was an Army chaplain who wrote an unpublished manuscript about his experiences as a POW captured during the Battle of the Bulge.
A hell of a priest"

Army chaplain Fr. Paul Cavanaugh spent several months in a POW camp in Germany after being captured during the Battle of the Bulge. After the war he wrote a book about his experiences that was never published, but the manuscript is still cherished by his niece, Jane Cavanaugh, of Wickliffe.
Excerpts include his story about the initial search of prisoners as they entered the camp:
"Assigned to a place at the counter, I said, 'I am a Catholic priest, Priester, Katholich.' A few eyebrows raised and a group of Germans gathered round. I withdrew from my pockets the winter volume of the breviary, a small ritual, my stole, and triple oil stocks. The breviary and the ritual were passed from one to the other German and all nodded assent that they were evidence of Catholic priesthood . . .
"I felt the last pocket in my pants and slowly pulled out the contents in one handful -- three dollars and 40 cents, a rosary and a pair of dice. They all gazed at the little pile in silence and amazement. Then the sergeant picked up the dice. 'You are a hell of a priest,' he said in English and walked away."
Cavanaugh also wrote about starvation during captivity: "By slow stages gnawing hunger and gastric pains subsided and hunger became more of a mental obsession in regard to food. The eons of time between soups became more and more a mental fantasy of good food. No matter what the subject of discussion, unless we were weary, it turned into talk about food . . . Sitting in a circle around a fire each man in turn would order an imaginary dinner from an imaginary kitchen."
Cavanaugh, a native of Euclid who taught Latin at John Carroll University, died in 1975.
View full sizeCourtesy of Garson familyRalph Garson, of Cleveland, was the navigator on a bomber shot down by fighters while on a mission over Germany in 1944.

Pieces of the past

There are memories of the times when Ralph Garson, of Cleveland, talked about his experiences as a B-17 navigator who was shot down over Germany in 1944 and spent the remainder of the war as a POW.
For a paper trail of this history, his daughter, Bunny Garson Braverman, of Pepper Pike, has collected photos, official records (including casualty and missing air crew reports), a newspaper clipping and a letter from the son of a man who spent time imprisoned with her father.
From these resources she assembled a portrait of a man whose wife, Mary, gave birth to a son the day the Cleveland aviator left for duty overseas.
That son, Brian Garson, of Bratenahl, said his father talked a little about the captivity and forced marches across Germany that whittled his weight to little more than 100 pounds. But true to a common tendency of that generation, "they kept most of the things to themselves," he added. "They were just glad to be alive."
His sister has learned that their father's plane was shot down by a German fighter, and he was among seven of the nine-man crew who survived to be captured.
A letter from the son of one crew member who spent time with her father in the POW camp told her how Allied prisoners would taunt the guards. "Deutschland soon kaput!" they'd tell their captors, risking a beating.
"Dad remembers your father being, like him, a small man," the letter added. "The small men did better than the big men with the reduced rations."
Every bit of information adds to the portrait of her father at war, and "the pride I have for my father's actions during World War II is an area of great passion for me," she said. "He truly was a member of the Greatest Generation."
Ralph Garson died in 1988.