my uncle b 17 belly gunner --gone west

[Ron Coleman]

An aquantance of mine sent me this. I thought some of you may enjoy it as well.



'Shifty' from Chuck Yeager:


We're hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services.
I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell "Shifty" Powers.


Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy
Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st
Airborne Infantry. If you've seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the
History Channel , you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10
episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them.


I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn't
know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having
trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was
at the right gate, and noticed the "Screaming Eagle," the symbol of
the 101st Airborne, on his hat.
Making conversation, I asked him if he'd been in the 101st Airborne
or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the
101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served,
and how many jumps he made.
Quietly and humbly, he said "Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so,
and was in until sometime in 1945 .. . .. " at which point my heart
skipped.

At that point, again, very humbly, he said "I made the 5 training
jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know
where Normandy is?" At this point my heart stopped.

I told him "yes, I know exactly where Normandy is, and I know what
D-Day was." At that point he said "I also made a second jump into
Holland , into Arnhem ." I was standing with a genuine war hero . . ..
and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of
D-Day.
I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France, and he said
"Yes. And it's real sad because, these days, so few of the guys are
left, and those that are, lots of them can't make the trip." My heart
was in my throat and I didn't know what to say.

I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in
Coach while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to
get him and said that I wanted to switch seats.. When Shifty came
forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have
it, that I'd take his in coach.

He said, "No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are
still some who remember what we did and who still care is enough to
make an old man very happy." His eyes were filling up as he said it.
And mine are brimming up now as I write this.

Shifty died on June 17, 2009 after fighting cancer.


There was no parade.
No big event in Staples Center .
No wall-to-wall back-to-back 24x7 news coverage.
No weeping fans on television.
And that's not right.

Let's give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet way.
Please, forward this email to everyone you know. Especially to the veterans.
Rest in peace, Shifty.

Chuck Yeager, Maj Gen [ret]

[flyguy]

Re: my uncle b 17 belly gunner --gone west

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://media.tricities.com/tricities/img-story/images/uploads/ShiftyPowers.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www2.tricities.com/tri/news/local/article/band_of_brothers_hero_darrell_swifty_powers_dies/25556/&h=300&w=209&sz=20&tbnid=jCJOQ9t73B_EBM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=81&prev=/images%3Fq%3DDarrell%2B%2522Shifty%2522%2BPowers.&usg=__E9KqqsHv3mRLwmtrQek7w4hRKGU=&ei=YYNiS7HLMZHgsQPGqrmdAw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=5&ct=image&ved=0CBoQ9QEwBA

DC

[Forrest Barber]

Re: my uncle b 17 belly gunner --gone west

I am sitting here with a retired Air Force plain old Sgt. with tears in our eyes. He was in WWII , Korea and state side during Nam .... here are many of these stories and they never make the papers. thanks

[Chet Peek]

Re: my uncle b 17 belly gunner --gone west

Yes, it is sad when the old soldiers pass on, but that's just life. Most of us that survived led happy fulfilled lives so don't grieve for us when we're gone. We would ask, though, that you remember WW II was the last war we won, and we didnt try Hitler's gang in some NYC Federal Court with some ACLU lawyer defending them.

Chet Peek

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: my uncle b 17 belly gunner --gone west

Do not grieve our passing so much as celebrate our lives and legacies.

Grieving ends and life goes on. What the greatest generation did will go on forever, if we fight to preserve it.
We ALL need to fight to become the new greatest generations. Each generation needs to take inspiration from the last (sometimes you need to skip one) and provide inspiration to the next (again, some may need skipping).
Are we all doing our part?
Hank

[Ron Coleman]

Re: my uncle b 17 belly gunner --gone west

I don't know about Forrest (we were born on the same day) but I always felt guilty because I was born too late to get into WWII. Maybe that why I enlisted during the Korean thing. At any rate I admired my uncle Bud. He was just a little older than I and a lot shorter. He had thin light colored hair and a walk and talk that kept the local high school girls giddy. The same girls that stunned me. When he left for the AirForce he was a cocky teenager who was going to be a fighter pilot. I remember him in his uniform, walking down the street with his arms around his twin sister and my mother on the way to the car. He had a secretive little smile as he told them ornery little jokes. That smile stayed with him until the day that he died.
I thought at the time that I should have been going with him.
He was too short to be a pilot, so they made him a bellly gunner in a B-17.
He did his 50 missions flying out of England. I guess he upped for more.
When he got back he joked about the "adventures" that he had. It was years later that I realized that he was selective about his stories. Fear, tragedy, and death were never part of his narratives. His two favorite stories were about bailing out over France and being rescued by the French underground. He always claimed that the second time that he was shot down he was saved by a French woman who suddenly became quite beautiful. He decided at that moment that he couldn't leave her. He told me that after a couple of weeks the military sent someone in after him. Like so many of his generation he became an accomplished and entertaining story teller.

He told me the last time that I talked to him that "there is a God Dammed hawk bothering my chickens and I am going to blow the hell out that Hawk with both barrels of my 12 gauge shot gun!".

He probably did to.

[mulwyk]

Re: my uncle b 17 belly gunner --gone west

Interesting story, Ron.

My dad was a little guy, 5'4" maybe, and he was a belly gunner, like your uncle, but in a B-24.

My dad never talked about his war experience, never, his whole life. Except once when I was 17 and he was real, real drunk. Then he told me a hair raising story that involved the pilots face blown off by flack, co-pilot unable to control the plane orders bailout and several crewmembers do, but my dad can't find his parachute and thus returns to England in the bomber with the co-pilot and dead pilot.

It must have been terrifying.

Why did dad tell me that story after being silent all those years? I think it was because HE was 17 when it happened.

[Larry Lyons]

Re: my uncle b 17 belly gunner --gone west

I have two uncles that were Marines, both on Iwo Jima, Tinian, etc. Both still alive; and only once, ever talked about anything other then good times, and that was as I was leaving for the Navy in 67! And both get airsick in small planes.....go figure.
Larry

[Bird]

Re: my uncle b 17 belly gunner --gone west

I had a uncle last name Jacot who died during training outside Ft Laurdale, Fl he was a tail gunner, I noticed some 15 or so years back that after some fires in the everglades that some pieces of a B-17 had been recovered including 50 cal guns, makes you wonder