2014 HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS MAGAZINE LINCOLN DAILY NEWS.com November 26, 2014 9
In February
1943, just
after the start
of his second
semester, the
Lincolnite
was called
to report for
training. This
young man’s
life path would be inextricably altered in
this moment. He would leave college,
home, friends and family - to serve his
country.
In his first year of service, the soldier was
still state-side and able to take leave and be
home for Christmas 1943. “That was a big
deal for a kid that had been in the military
some months.”
Holidays at home were relatives coming
to his house. He remembers his mother
“cooking, and cooking, and cooking,” all
the traditional foods. Christmas was also
attending Christmas midnight mass, which
he loved, at the Episcopal Church.
As the holidays approached in 1944, he
was on an Army
Air Corps base
in Wilmington,
North Carolina.
“That was kind
of a quiet one. I
remember that
being a pretty
bleak year
because we were on stand-by waiting to see
where we were going to go from there.”
Germany occupied much of France up-to
late August, 1944 when the French 2nd
Armored Division and the U.S. 4th Infantry
Division pushed the Germans back out of
Paris. By the middle of September 1944,
Western Allied Army groups had liberated
southern France.
Just after Christmas 1944, the soldier was
sent to Orly Airfield, a French held air
base just outside Paris. The field had been
commandeered by the Allied forces as the
Germans were pushed back during the
previous year.
Continued
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