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Moms played big role supporting troops on home front during World War II
Every So often I receive an e-mail from a reader worth reprinting. This one from Jack Fournier of North Port fell into that category. It’s better than anything I could write. As a U.S. Navy World War...
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Pfc. Elmer Meyers captured by Germans at Battle of the Bulge
Two dog tags — one worn by an American soldier, the other by a German soldier — were found in a Luxembourg woods near the German border more than half a century after hostilities ended. The men who...
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Ed Lyman served as Acting General Secretary of Nuremberg War Crimes Commission
Ed Lyman who lives in the Jacaranda Trace Retirement Community in south Venice wore a dark blue uniform much like the kind worn by Naval officers during World War II. He even had an anchor patch on one...
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Iraqi Army helmet almost cost Sgt. Mike Herman his life durig Desert Storm
The old, white, steel Army helmet was chipped and battered. It didn’t look like much. But to former Army Staff Sgt. Mike Herman of Southwest Florida, the Iraqi helmet, taken as a war souvenir during...
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Pfc. Gordon Gade helped operate Nike missile site in Germany during Cold War
Gordon Gade of the Seminole Lakes subdivision, south of Punta Gorda, Fla. joined the U.S. Army shortly after graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1958 with a degree in business...
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USS Cowell helped rescue sailors from USS Indianapolis during WW II
What Gilbert Butson of Oak Forest condominiums Port Charlotte remembers most about the three years he served aboard the destroyer USS Cowell (DD-547) in the Pacific during World War II was the time his...
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Like millions of other servicemen Jack Reynolds didn’t fight at the front
Like millions of other servicemen in World War II, Jack Reynolds who lives in Grove City south of Englewood, Fla. on the way to Placida, never made it to the front lines and the fighting. He was a...
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Park Forest resident served almost four years in Seabees at close of WWII
Russ Kyper of the Park Forest subdivision in Englewood, Fla. joined the U.S. Navy on Aug. 13, 1945, the day before V-J (Victory over Japan) Day that ended World War II. He eventually transferred to the...
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After his brother became German POW, Glenn Meyers joined Merchant Marines
Glenn Meyers of North Port, Fla. decided to joint the war effort at the tail end of World War II when his older brother, Elmer, was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was a...
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He helped capture the U-505 – Jack McClinden was in hunter-killer pack
Jack McClinden was aboard the USS Jenks, one of the five destroyers in a hunter-killer pack that captured the German submarine U-505 off the African coast in June 1944. It was the first time a U.S....
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Don Miller of North Port became scared ‘Tunnel Rat’ in Vietnam during the war
Don Miller was a Vietnam “Tunnel Rat.” It had to be the worst job an American soldier could have in the Southeast Asian war. “I was a ‘Tunnel Rat’ three times. I got volunteered to be a rat because of...
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An All Souls Day Sgt. Francis Murphy will never forget
It was All Souls Day, Nov. 2, 1944, Francis Murphy remembers most about his 26 combat missions as tail gunner in a “Flying Fortress,” over Germany late in World War II. Sgt. Murphy was in the 486th...
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He made 4 combat jumps with 82nd Airborne – Sgt. Miale jumped in Sicily,...
Frank Miale made four combat jumps with the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II. He survived the war, came home and wrote a book called “Stragedy” about his war experiences. His unit arrived in...
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Col. Bob Carroll received ‘Silver Star’ fighting with 173rd Airborne Brigade...
Col. Bob Carroll never mentioned he was awarded a “Silver Star” in Vietnam “For Gallantry in Action.” The Manasota Key, Fla. resident also has an 8 X 10, black and white, framed photograph of President...
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The carrier USS Saratoga was Fred Paulsen’s ship in World War II
Fred Paulsen heard the 20 mm guns on the carrier USS Saratoga firing at will as she cruised off Iwo Jima on Feb. 21, 1945. That’s when he knew they were in trouble. “It was announced on the carrier’s...
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Viet Cong wrecked Vic Ciullo’s Christmas present while he served with the...
Vic Ciullo of Venice, Fla. was an amtrac driver in Vietnam with A-Company, 3rd Amphibious Tractor Battalion in 1966-67. His outfit was assigned to various Marine divisions in ‘Nam — the 4th, 5th, 7th...
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Capt. Stanley Ackerman led “Marauder” bombers on mission to destroy Po River...
The target: A major bridge over the Po River near Pavia in northern Italy used by the Germans in World War II to move men and equipment south to the front line. The mission: 50 B-26 “Marauder,”...
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John O’Sullivan was Vietnam War ‘ground pounder’ with 1st ID in ’65
John O’Sullivan is one of two full-time helicopter pilots who fly for the Charlotte County, Fla. Sheriff’s Office. He learned to fly after serving a tour in Vietnam in 1965 with the 1st Infantry...
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Sgt. Mike Hirsh says Vietnam was ‘useless war’
Former Sgt. Michael Hirsh of the Seminole Lakes subdivision, south of Punta Gorda, Fla. was in the first public information detachment of Army reporters since World War II who went to Vietnam. “I was a...
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Invasion of North Africa was Charles Murdock’s first military engagement in...
Water Tender 2nd Class Charles Murdock of Holiday Park in Englewood, Fla. was 21-years-old when he went aboard the light cruiser USS Philadelphia in February 1942, during the early months of World War...
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