Baker 3rd Class Dale Augerson is pictured with his new bride Betty Jane Boyle, in New York City Nov. 26, 1945. Photo provided
When the Japanese attacked the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941, Baker 3rd Class Dale Augerson had just put a batch of apple pies in the oven aboard the battleship USS West Virginia. The battleship was moored at “Battleship Row,” together with most of the fleet’s other capital ships. Read the rest of this entry »
George Burger (left) of Port Charlotte, Fla. wanted to be a Naval aviator, but ended up as a radar operator aboard a Super Constellation flying out of a base in Canada during the "Cold War." He's pictured with his buddy Don Fitzik shortly after they got out of boot camp at Great Lakes. Photo provided
George Burger of Rotonda, near Port Charlotte, Fla., was a radar operator aboard a four-engine Navy Super Constellation patrol plane flying out of Argentia Naval Air Station, Newfoundland in the mid 1950s during the “Cold War” searching for Soviet missiles and submarines as a member of Airborne Early Warning Squadron 13. Read the rest of this entry »
Ed Blissick of Port Charlotte, Fla. is pictured as a 19-year old Navy deep water diver assigned to diving school at Pier 88 in New York City in 1943. Photo provided
Just like Mr. Roberts, who served aboard the USS Reluctant, Seaman 1st Class Ed Blissick of Gardens of Gulf Cove near Port Charlotte, Fla. served on a similar attack transport, the USS Montague, AKA-98, during the final months of World War II. Read the rest of this entry »
2nd Lt. Ed Lukach of Port Charlotte, Fla. is pictured with his wings shortly after graduating from bombardier school in 1944. He flew 30 combat mission in 8th Air Force during World War II. Photo provided
Like a lot of other young men his age, Ed Lukach wanted to be a pilot when he signed up at 19 for the Army’s Aviation Cadet Program in 1942 near the start of World War II. Read the rest of this entry »
2nd Lt. Ochen of Venice, Fla. is pictured in his leather flight jacket a life time ago during World War II. Photo provided
This interview first appeared in the Charlotte Sun newspaper, Port Charlotte, Fla. on Sunday, March 5, 2006 and is republished with permission.
Learning to fly a Stearman PT-17 “Kaydet” fabric-covered, two-seat biplane at Carlstrom Field in Arcadia, Fla. in 1943 was a far cry from piloting a B-26 “Marauder” twin-engine attack bomber against a heavily fortified German bridge during the closing months of World War II. Read the rest of this entry »
Don Fowler of Rotonda, Fla. holds a Japanese Army rifle and a flag he got in Tokyo while serving aboard the carrier USS Bennington during World War II. Sun photo by Don Moore
Don Fowler was born in Arcadia in 1925.
“I was going to graduate from DeSoto County High School in 1943, but I joined the Navy to see the world that March,” Fowler, who lives in Rotonda, Fla. said more than six decades later. Read the rest of this entry »
Hager Blair pictured as a young Air Force recruit shortly after he joined the service during World War II. Photo provided
Hager Blair of Quails Run condominium in Englewood, Fla. was a Kentucky country boy who lied about his age and joined the Army at 16. After graduating from radio school, he volunteered for aerial gunnery school and ended up in 1942 taking gunnery training in Fort Myers, Fla. Read the rest of this entry »
Skip Libby is pictured in his Marine Corp graduation picture taken in 1963 after surviving Parris Island, S.C. boot camp. He was among the first Marines to be sent to Vietnam in 1965. Photo provided
Two days after graduating from high school in 1963 Skip Libby of La Casa mobile home park in North Port, Fla. joined the Marines and went to Parris Island, S.C. for basic training. Two years later he was sent to Vietnam as a member of the 3rd Marine Division, the first division of Marines in country. Read the rest of this entry »
Mike Goff of Punta Gorda, Fla. was a member of the "Banshees," B-Troop, 2nd Battalion of the 17th Cavalry, in Vietnam. Mel Gibson, on this poster, plays Lt. Col. Hal Moore in the new movie "We Were Soldiers," which opened at the Regal Cinemas in Port Charlotte this week-end. Sun photo by Michael McLoone
Warrant Officer Mike Goff never saw “The Valley of Death.” He wasn’t one of the 400 soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Division surrounded and attacked by 2,000 North Vietnam soldiers at the La Drang Valley in mid-November 1965. Read the rest of this entry »
Seaman 2/C John Wisse is pictured at 20 in his Navy dress uniform. Photo provided
It wasn’t the bombing of the carrier USS Franklin off the coast of Japan on March 19, 1945, or the attack by 31 Kamikazes on the four destroyers leading the Franklin’s task force off Okinawa on April 14, 1945, that John Wisse of Rotonda, Fla. considers his worst day in World War II. Read the rest of this entry »
Ray Walker of Punta Gorda, Fla. holds a "SECRET" Army document from World War II. It shows that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower knew the Germans were about to launch the "Battle of the Bulge", their biggest offensive on the Western Front. Sun photo by Don Moore
Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe in World War II, knew a couple of weeks ahead of time the Germans were planning the huge offensive that became known as the “Battle of the Bulge,” according to Raymond Walker of Punta Gorda, Fla. Read the rest of this entry »
For more than 50 years Ray Starsman of Punta Gorda, Fla. and his family served as career officers in the U.S. Army and Navy. Here his grandson, Raymond (center) graduates from Virginia Military Institute in 2010 a Army 2nd lieutenant. He is flanked by his father, Scott (a Navy Commander, left) and grandfather, Ray (an Army colonel). Father and grandfather pinned the new lieutenant's bars on his shoulders. Photo provided
Producing the manual for designing the International Space Station was the most important and satisfying job Col. Ray Starsman of Punta Gorda, Fla. ever had during a long and varied working career. Read the rest of this entry »
Col. Ray Starsman of Punta Gorda Isles is pictured in Vietnam in 1967 when he was a captain in command of Delta Battery, 1st Battalion, 5th Artillery, 1st Infantry Division. He was in charge of six, 105 millimeter Howitzers and the men who serviced the big guns. Photo provided
“I was a 27-year-old captain who commanded Delta Battery, 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery, 1st Division. That battery was the longest serving unit in the history of ‘The Big Red One.’ It went back to the Revolutionary War when its original commander was Alexander Hamilton,” the 72-year-old retired Punta Gorda, Fla. bird colonel said. “That was kinda cool.” Read the rest of this entry »
Capt. Herbert Thomas, Charles Bright's great-grandfather, was twice-wounded while leading a charge of Union forces at Mary's Heights, Va. during the American Civil War. Photo provided
When Charles Bright, a 90-year-old Port Charlotte, Fla. World War II veteran was a child, his great-aunt gave him a “Valor Certificate” written, signed and presented to Capt. Herbert Thomas, his great-grandfather, by his battalion commander, Col. Jacob G. Frick after the Civil War. Read the rest of this entry »
Jefferson Askew of Southport Square in Port Charlotte, Fla. is pictured when he was a chief petty officer in 1944. He served aboard the destroyer escort USS Amick (DE-168) during World War II. Photo provided
Jefferson Askew joined the Navy at age 23 in 1940, almost a year before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. By war’s end, he had made 38 trips across the Atlantic in a minuscule destroyer escort, the USS Amick, helping to protect 150-ship convoys making the hazardous voyage to Europe during World War II. Read the rest of this entry »
Otis Manchester of North Port, Fla. is pictured shortly after graduating from boot camp at Great Lakes shortly before the Korean War started. He was a skinny, 19-year-old fireman apprentice. Photo provided
Otis Manchester of North Port, Fla. always wanted to go to sea and see the world. His father had served in the U.S. Navy during World War I and he volunteer for the Navy a year before the start of the Korean War. Read the rest of this entry »
Cadet Ted Weatherhead of Englewood stands on the wing of a Fairchild PT-19A, two-seat trainer at an airfield near Uvalde,Texas, 70 miles west of San Antonio, where he took preliminary flight training in 1943 during World War II. It was the home town of John Nance Garner, IV. FDR's first vice president. Photo provided
Ted Weatherhead was a 21-year-old green 2nd lieutenant and co-pilot of a C-47, twin-engine, transport plane — a member of the 316th Troop Carrier Group, 44th Troop Carrier Wing, 9th Air Force — that dropped 19 fully-equipped 101st Airborne paratroopers behind enemy lines on D-Day hours before the June 6, 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy in World War II. Read the rest of this entry »
This was Robert Martin at 18 when he ws a member of Marine Dive Bomber Squadron 234, which fought in the Pacific during the Second World War. Photo provided
More than 60 years ago, former Sgt. Robert Martin of Englewood, Fla. was a back seat gunner in a Douglas Dauntless SBD single-engine dive bomber flying against Japanese fortifications on Bougainville in the New Georgia Islands in the Pacific during World War II. He was a member of Marine Dive Bomber Squadron 234. Read the rest of this entry »
Francis Currie served aboard the Canadian Destroyer Saguenay that took part in the search for the Battleship Bismark after the German ship sunk the English battle-cruiser HMS Hood. Photo provided
Francis Currie of Port Charlotte, Fla.was 15 years old when he joined “The Ladies From Hell,” the Canadian Blackwatch Regiment, in 1938 a year before England declared war on Germany beginning World War II. Read the rest of this entry »
Former Lt. j.g. Don Lumsden of Boca Royale, Englewood, Fla. is pictured off Borneo in the South Pacific during World War II. He was a "Frogman" returning from a reconnoiter of the Japanese-held island. Photo provided
At 90 Don Lumsden of Boca Royale subdivision in Englewood, Fla. has the distinction of being the oldest living “Frogman” in the United States of America. He learned about this honor a few days ago from Mike Howard, Director of the Seal Museum in Fort Pierce, Fla. Read the rest of this entry »
Twenty-year old 1st Lt. William Fowkes of Port Charlotte, Fla. stands beside his favorite airplane in all the world, "Billy's Filly," a P-38-L fighter he flew on 37 combat missions in the South Pacific during World War II. Photo provided by William Fowkes
“Billy’s Filly” is what he called her. She was the sleekest, most beautiful, best fighter plane there was in World War II, according to Col. William Fowkes of Punta Gorda, Fla., U.S. Air Force retired. Read the rest of this entry »
Second Lt. Al Zimmerman flew a P-51 Mustang fighter in the 355 Fighter Group in Europe during World War II.
A gorgeous but lethal P-51 Mustang fighter plane knifing its way through puffy white clouds seemed to fly off the wall at De Carter Brown’s Port Charlotte studio. Read the rest of this entry »
Capt. John Campbell is shown when he worked for the Marine Corps in the Philadelphia, Pa. area during the 1950s. He served 28 years in the Corps. Photo provided
John Campbell was gung-ho to join the Marine Corp. He quit high school in his sophomore year at 17 and became a “Leatherneck” in 1946. Read the rest of this entry »
Harry Allcroft of Port Charlotte, Fla. holds a Japanese caarbine and a samurai sword he "liberated" from some of the contraband found aboard the Japanese hospital ship Tachibana Maru. Sun photo by Don Moore
The Tachibana Maru was the only Japanese ship captured under sail by the U.S. Navy during World War II. Read the rest of this entry »
