Cpl. Robert Robb receives the Purple Heart from his platoon commander, Capt. Birney Adams, at a ceremony in Korea during the war. Photo provided
Cpl. Robert Robb was a sniper attached to Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Regiment, 1st Marine Division in Korea during the war. His unit took Hill 749, a volcanic mound known as the ‘Punchbowl,’ away from a regiment of North Koreans holding the high ground in mid-September 1951. Read the rest of this entry »
Marvin Aronow is pictured with his Purple Heart medal and the clip from his .30 caliber carbine pierced by an enemy bullet during a firefight to take a hill away from the enemy during the Korean War. Sun photo by Don Moore
The day after Thanksgiving, Nov. 26, 1951, Marvin Aronow from Bronx, N.Y. was drafted. He wound up in Korea as a member of I-Company, 31st Regiment, 7th Infantry Division.
“It wasn’t my idea to get drafted. When I got put in the Army I told them, ‘My teeth were bad.’ They said, ‘Here’s a rifle. You don’t have to bite the enemy with your teeth.’ Then I said, ‘I’ve got bad eyes.’ They replied, ‘We’re gonna put you up real close to the enemy.’
“They did.” Read the rest of this entry »
This was Abraham Coleman as a 17 year old recruit who signed up and eventually went to war some 60 years ago. He grew up in Punta Gorda, Fla. Photo provided
Former Cpl. Abraham Coleman joined the U.S. Army in 1947 at 17, “just to get the hell away from Punta Gorda.” He wanted to find a better life with more opportunities for a young black man than living in a small Southern town. Read the rest of this entry »
Nick Melone of Port Charlotte, Fla. holds a Japanese battle flag he captured as a Marine while fighting during the Battle of Saipan in the closing months of World War II. Sun photo by Don Moore
Nick Melone of Port Charlotte, Fla. sat in a big gray cushy chair, a tether running from his nose to a nearby oxygen bottle. He reached for a folded flag stuffed in the top of a blue plastic storage tub of World War II memorabilia. The 89-year-old Marine sergeant shook the folds out of the white cotton flag with a bright red sun in the center - it was a Japanese battle flag signed by members of the enemy soldier’s unit. Read the rest of this entry »
Mark Vanderveer of Holiday Park in Englewood, Fla. holds a piece of German shrapnel surgeons took out of his back after he was injured in the Battle of the Hürtgen Forrest during World War II. Sun photo by Don Moore
Mark Vanderveer only fought in one major battle during World War II, but it was a doosie. He served as a PFC in E-Company, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Division of the 1st Army during the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest fought along the Belgium-German border.
Lt. Comdr. Barton Creed was shot down over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in an A-7 fighter-bomber like the one pictured. He survived the ejection from the jet plane and was last heard from by the unsuccessful rescue party that tried to pluck him from the Laos jungle. Art courtesy of Lou Drendel/Aviation-Art.net
The cheap, cerise-colored, aluminum bracelet on her right arm was battered and worn. Every day for the past 25 years, Vera Creed of Port Charlotte, Fla. has had it on.
Escaping German soldiers plod along a road heading west in their escape from the advancing Russian army at the end of World War II. Photo provided
Pete Self of Englewood was a rifleman in H-Company, 143rd Regiment of the 36 Infantry Division when he first came ashore at Naples, Italy on Sept. 9, 1943 during World War II.
Sgt. Joe Quick, an Errol Flynn look-alike, is pictured before he shipped overseas at the start of the Korean War in June 1950.
Joe Quick is one of “The Chosin Few”.
He’s one of the members of the 7th Regiment, 1st Marine Division that led the way up and back from the Chosin Reservoir during the early months of the Korean War. For nearly eight long weeks, Quick and 20,000 other U.S. Marines braved overwhelming enemy odds in sub-zero weather fighting day and night, often completely surrounded by Chinese and North Korean forces. Read the rest of this entry »
Sgt. John Beck at 24 when he served as the commander of a tank destroyer in the 3rd Army during World War II.
It was the day after Christmas 1944 when the 704th Tank Battalion, 4th Armored Division of Gen. George S. Patton’s 3rd Army broke through the German lines at Bastogne to rescue the 101st Airborne Division, dug in and holding back the enemy onslaught at the Battle of the Bulge.
Former Sgt. John Beck Jr. of Punta Gorda Isles, Fla. and the other four soldiers in his tank destroyer were in the thick of it. Read the rest of this entry »
Pfc. Hector Cafferata of Venice, Fla. is pictured with the Medal of Honor. He will tell you he was no hero; he was just saving his backside when he killed over 100 enemy soldiers in the battle for “Fox Hill” during the early months of the Korean War.
Pvt. Hector Cafferata was a 20-year-old green Marine replacement. He joined Fox Company’s 2nd Platoon a few days before the first wave of Chinese troops attacked his listening post at the Toktong Pass during the early months of the Korean War that cold November night half a century ago . Read the rest of this entry »
Sgt. Mike Sovan was the commander of a Sherman tank. He served with the 15th Tank Battalion, 6th Armored Division in Patton’s 3rd Army during World War II. He lost four tanks to German 88s, received three Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars, and a Bronze Star with a “V” for Valor among his many commendations.
Sgt. Mike Sovan, a Sherman tank commander, and his men had just crossed the Nied River in France during World War II as part of Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army when their third tank was shot out from under them.
Pvt. Harry Glixon carries a German Luger pistol in his shoulder holster. He planned to sell the pistol to a buddy. Photo provided.
Harry Glixon couldn’t believe his ears when he answered the phone at his Sarasota, Fla. home one day in June 2001.
He wasn’t expecting to become a war hero after 57 years. The old soldier had been a member of a 55-man combat patrol from the 94th Infantry Division captured by the Germans near Lorient, France in the fall of 1944. He and his prisoner of war buddies were eventually part of the only POW exchange involving healthy prisoners made in the European Theater during World War II.
Glixon was about to play a role as one of a dozen veterans to participate in a tribute to A. Gerow Hodges, the young International Red Cross worker who conducted the exchange almost six decades ago. Read the rest of this entry »
Then 19-year-old Harold Tayler, far left kneeling in the front row, is pictured on Guadalcanal with a bunch of his buddies in Company C, 1st Battalion, 29th Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division.
Okinawa was the end of the line in the Pacific for the Japanese Imperial Army.
The island invasion included 548,000 Allied forces and 1,200 ships. The initial assault force totaled 182,000 men – 75,000 more than landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, a year earlier. They were facing 100,000 entrenched Japanese. Read the rest of this entry »
Gini Westfall of Port Charlotte, Fla. fingers her Gold Star Mother’s pin on her collar as she stares at her son’s name on “The Moving Wall” that came to Fort Myers, Fla. Her 21-year-old son, Bronson, was killed in Vietnam in June 1967. Photo by Chris Crook
She emerged slowly from the car with cane in hand and walked hunched over along a serpentine concrete path. At its end was The Wall. Read the rest of this entry »
Chuck Walsh, a former Green Beret staff sergeant in Vietnam, who now lives in Bellagio subdivision in Venice, Fla., served in the 5th Special Forces unit in 1962 looks at a VFW magazine with his picture on the cover. The cover story is about a dozen old soldiers returning to the country as a group in 2005. Photo by Don Moore
When Staff Sgt.Chuck Walsh’s Green Beret unit jumped into Dak Pek, in the highlands of South Vietnam in 1962 to fight alongside the Montagnards, the indigenous people, they were trail blazers.
